Phone-y matters!

I have got a phone and it works. It has email, it has facebook.Go deeper, and it even has blogger .And a reasonably good music function with radio. And not to forget the games too (so what if it is only “Snakes “, I love and play that only! ).So basically, it has everything that a low expectation customer like me needs in a phone .Its added advantage is that it has a KEYPAD and not some high-sensitivity-low-responsibility touch interface. So, it types what I want it to type and it does not take hours to do that!Oh and it does what it is basically supposed to do – make and take voice calls !

Now that sounds like a cool phone to me………if I leave aside the minor, or major, depending on how one views it, gripe around its cosmetic beauty. The thing is that the phone in consideration happens to have completed 4 years in my possession and it is quite natural now that it has a broken body which is held together with a …errrr.....well…with a matching elastic band. A couple of keys have started showing signs of falling off too but I must say they were all sturdy till a few months back and really, it functions as expected. Even if the keys fall off, I know what lies where and I CAN make it work.

BUT, people complain …though I refute….that my phone has called them up in the middle of the night and then called them up again at intervals of 5-10 minutes and then again and again, on its own! Now, who would believe that? Which hi-tech phone is capable of doing that? If mine can, there must be something great about it, right? Apart from the fact that if I leave it unlocked at times, the keypad acts on its own and does a bit of jugglery as described above!

Add to this, the ever present peer pressure. I have sensible and intelligent and rich and tech savvy people around me who are definitely not as much in love with simple but usable devices like my phone. Friends have come up with statements like “ Gift one to yourself on your birthday “ or “ Let us all collect money and get you a Reliance Common Man Phone “ or “ These days, they have good EMI options on phones as well “ . Some have even gone to the extent of disowning me in public places if I am flashing my phone in hand .I have been given subtle hints like “ Keep it in your bag or else, you might drop it somewhere and then you would have to depart with it (Its  a sturdy Nokia , I tell them ! )“  as well as more direct threats like “ If you are going to be seen with this phone, we are not going to be seen with you”. I must have given innumerable excuses to people in response to their earnest requests to me to change my “crappy “phone.

A year or two have gone by with me living amongst these threats and in general, feeling torn between my friends and my phone or if I do more soul searching, between my lowly worldly self and my highly esteemed inner self .After all, in this era of I-phones and Samsung Galaxies, I am not supposed to be content with a Nokia godforsaken long-forgotten version! And then there are these technology crazy companies that are out to outdo each others in establishing their smartphone supremacy and robbing poor people of their money in the name of providing them advanced technology. Advanced, it may be .But, crazy, it definitely is!

So anyways, considering that I am a mere mortal, the last two years have seen me vacillate though not give in. Some of the advantages of a new “swanky “phone have been dawning on me for quite some time now. I have also, on many occasions where it misbehaved, felt like throwing my phone in the next available drain pipe and get a new one that very moment .The balance has definitely tipped more in favour of paying my phone a timely tribute while it is still alive in my hands and letting it make a dignified exit before it gives up on me in a sudden and unpleasant manner!

But, I guess what they say about there being a right “destined” time for every thing, is so true! I must have done 100 hours of research on the internet to figure out a right phone for me and for quite some time now, even sure of which ones are worthy of replacing my prized possession. But it is not helping. I have many times gone out with the sole intention of buying a new phone and then once I am out there, promptly forgotten about it or got disinterested after looking at a couple of them. I am still with the same battered and shattered N-73 that I bought in Shanghai in the year of 2008 and that I loved a lot for some reasons that I explained above and some that I did not or rather can not but they very much exist. I cannot put into words what they are...all I know is that ridiculous as it may sound, something is definitely there that is preventing me from departing with my phone. A jinxed phone situation? A time warp? A foolish emotion? A stubbornness against people? Or plain old laziness ? I don’t know. But what I do know is that its time for change. And what I am scared of is that change is not something that is my forte!!!