'Dedication'.. #lovefornokia

Much has been said of India’s rise in the last twenty years, and if there is one success story that cannot be denied, it is the mobile revolution in India. Our one true success story.

And while the Congress keeps attributing it to Rajiv Gandhi’s Computer or TV revolution, the true champion was this Finnish company that made phones that Indians could relate to.

Personally, I got into the game very early. I was doing wonderful, in a atlas made cycle attending Physics, chemistry & Maths Tutions that time.

It was 2004, When I finally got my first cell phone. The phone was a Nokia 3310. There were however games like Snake, Bounce on the phone and once I learnt of the magic number (*#06# & *#0000#), there was no stopping me. I looked into my phone every few seconds, typing messages, deleting them and typing them again.

Its 2013 now. Microsoft takeover Nokia. It was difficult to digest, being a lifelong Nokia fan boy.

As Nokia is sold, it is not difficult to understand why the brand was such a rage in India. Like Bata, the other brand that is surprisingly not Indian, it serve the Indian customer’s needs. Sturdy, long lasting, cheap. It could run for days in a country when power was not a daily commodity. It provided communication and safety, and in the worst case scenario, you could throw the phone pointing enemy’s head, and be guaranteed of a bleeding!

And now, once you buy a smartphone, it is a never-ending spiral. There is no peace of mind. Just when you work out the best phone in your budget, there will be this new phone that does everything your phone does, and masturbates you when you’re bored. A never-ending spiral that goes on and on, on and on.

And today, when the world is flooded with phones that can do everything under the sun, and some over the moon, I am reminded of the days…..

When the first thing you saw on your phone were those two hands connecting to each other. And the next hour would be spent in deciding the ringtone. When a little blinking snake was my companion in times of boredom.

When missed calls became the communication code of a generation. When the only thing you needed on your phone to look cool was that sticker at the back, which glowed when there was a call coming.

To the time when I would wait for the sticker to glow, to send a flash message. To set my favourite song, reinterpreted in monophonic tones, as my ringtone. The secret indulgence of setting a separate ringtone for my girlfriend, so that I would know when it was her calling.

To the time when the words ‘incoming’ and ‘outgoing’ made a world of difference. Running to a shop, buying a small card, scratching it eagerly, squinting into it, dialing a number, and smiling.

To the times of college, and first loves.

It has been a long, eventful journey, my friend.

You have been taken over by a company that is not really known for its aesthetics, but reaches out to the most number of people in the world. Much like you did, at one time.

I now wish I could turn the time around and go back to you again. My life at present is not bad at all. But then there is something…

      Something that makes me want to run back in time. But no matter how hard I wish to go back in time, the truth is that I can’t do so.

I don’t really know if I am going to use you again. But when I look at the ‘Low Battery’ message on my phone, I think of you longingly.

You were a good friend.

          

On Becoming 'Twenty Five'!!

Gifts and girls, what else one wants in life? Sadly, no more girls for me but I am sure gifts still make me happy. They’ll sure make me saying ‘Keep Walking’.

If true words are not spoken, I guess this is what getting old means. You start talking to yourself, comparing your life with the debit & credit statement coloumn marked in any bank passbook.

I am going to be 25 though (As she said, make your 25th Remembrable), but I already feel like that comparing these days to those days!

Yes birthdays are a bitch precisely because of this disconnect between what “should be” and “what is” between 4u.johny & Birthday Boy_@_25.

Genre: Fiction :-)

4u.johny: First of all sir congratulations on becoming ‘Twenty Five’. Yeah you are 25* now, Some may say that congratulating you for this is like congratulating Twelve o’clock for coming after Eleven o’clock, or congratulating an Apple broken from its stem for dropping to the ground or congratulating ‘Mr. Nandlal’s’ son for taking over ‘Nandlal and Sons’.

On becoming ‘Twent Five’, Your Friends, Colleagues, Relatives would definitely congratulate you on this occasion. But, here I am on your 25th to quote you not ‘being human’ but “being negative, asking Sir, what is your weakness?” No Sir, I am asking “What is your strength?” As a matter of fact, I am desperately looking for it, on your so called 25th.

Also, I read your Post, the Post that you delivered on the blog exactly a year ago…err…It was resembling more lika a chintan shivir of any national party.

And so I ask, what did you do even after attaining an age of ‘Twenty Five’? I could not find you anywhere infront of your mother, because on occasion of Posting ‘On becoming a Husband’, you are still stucked at Posting ‘On Becoming 25’. Nowhere did I find you expressing your opinion infront of your family being an elder son. Never did I see you taking responsibility both in home and business, the hallmark, what people say of an elder son. This may be just something I missed the very heart of problem, No ‘Honda City’ till now?

Your situation sir Reminds me of a great 90s song here, “Kya cheez ho tum khud tumhe maloom nahi hai”

Sir…..??

Sir….??

He sighed and leaned back on his chair....

Birthday Boy_@_25: If you had met me Five or Ten years ago, I wouldn’t blame you for predicting that I would be now ‘only 25’, not  very well off. But here I am, sitting in front of this space that I own.

I don’t have much wisdom in me, in spite of my age. But one thing I did learn. That there is something wrong about the way we are brought up. I don’t mean my generation in particular. I mean human beings in general.

We are pushed too far, too fast, So much that a person hasn’t yet lived out a quarter of his life, and he already has an idea about ‘Success, failure, necessity, marriage, children and other odds.

Why don’t we take it slow?

It will take you some time to learn about yourself, see who you truly are. The problem is that even before you know much about yourself, you are trapped. You have chosen what you want to do, and your father has selected what you have to do, and you are stuck.

Sometime in my early 20s, I came to the realization that most of my most critical life decisions had never truly been taken after considered deliberation, at least nothing remotely resembling the ‘should I this or should I that’ decision paralysis. I studied engineering, not because I particularly wanted to or felt it was a good fit for my career, but because that’s what ‘all the good boys do’. When it came time to do a Job or Masters, I again went with the flow. All my smart friends had taken the same decision and well, all of them couldn’t be wrong. I never gave a second’s thought.

Now, on approaching 25th the pressure to listen to my parents had slowly been increasing for me, situation like 10 dot balls in a T20 match. What started out as odd conversations with my mother like “So-and-so got married, they were also of your age”. But then I have come to realize through bitter experience, that it is better to duck some bouncers than to try to hook them.

I did not regret some of the decisions taken without thought, And so I am determined not to repeat this mistake of mindlessly checking off a box in a checklist when the next big space in the road comes.

It’s age after all. I am not twenty four any more you know.

4u.johny: Are you sir not being too simplistic? Which is when I realized that this simplicity is actually your complexity.

If I have said more than I am supposed to say, kindly forgive me. Blame it on my age. Or my lack of it. Whatever works.

So congratulations again, dear sir!! Congratulations for just being you.

Birthday Boy_@_25: I know this is ‘Just another day’. And most important thing about this another day is the realization of how little everything really matters.

Things however have changed now. Now, I am supposed to dismiss a birthday wish with a shy “thank you” as if any kind of attention sounds embarrassing for a twenty five year old bakchod boy like me.

Birthday Boy_@_25 wears a hat and blows a whistle for a kind attention and dedication of words from Mr. Rahul Kunal, Anuj Mehrotra & Alok Gupta.

But Alok Sir, you cannot compare Sir RJ with Sir JC.