One of those days when your loved one leaves you. She slipped into the Goan waters on the beach of Vagator on a bright sunny day. I couldn’t see the brightness on the face as i picked her up from the water. The bright light had vanished. I patted her on the back a couple of times hoping to get that bright light flashing again, but in vain. I thought ‘She’ll be okay. Just a little water has entered, and she’ll be fine if dried in the sun for some time.’ I thought i’ll resurrect her. I was confident of this.
I returned to Bangalore with her, and tried to resurrect her. A day after we returned from Goa, she responded well. The bright white light was back, but flickered a little. I was sure she’ll recover soon. But, i was proved wrong. I realized the water had entered little too much for her comfort and had shorted the motherboard. My cellphone was dead!
I found it funny and weird when people had their cellphone in the list of things they can’t live without. I always felt i could manage without the agony of missing a cellphone since i bought my first phone about 6 years back when it was a fancy, and something i wished to have. Even then, neither was i addicted to my cellphone nor was i totally detached. Cellphones, the very gadget which was an expensive toy of the rich and show-offs soon became a ‘necessity’. Oh, you ought to have a cellphone. How can you live without that!?
I wanted to live without a cellphone, just for kicks, but didn’t get the chance until my working cellphone got conked. And the substitute cellphone had to be given back. I did live without a cellphone for a little more than 3 weeks beyond which i couldn’t as i succumbed to the pressure from my mom, and the one who threatened to work in a cafe to buy me a phone. :)
The three weeks don’t make a huge difference when you have your landline at home and desk phone at work. Unfortunately, the desk phone at work stopped working around the same time. In these three weeks, i managed to go for a treat with few friends at a distance more than 10kms from my home. I also managed to go, with few colleagues at work, to Nandi hills to watch sunrise atop the hills. Leaving home at 4 am on a Sunday morning and without cellphone to contact people was not much of problem. I also did most of my routine work. It worked out fine. I missed my desk phone more, as i had to walk more to talk to team mates about work, than cellphone.
Finally i bought a very low-end, minimal featured handset Samsung C160. I simply didn’t like any of the phones in the market. Either they are bulky or they don’t have any significant improvements other than the higher megapixel or more flash memory. The exception being GPS, which has caught my eye for now. This too is very primitive, and didn’t excite me enough to buy a set with this.
Anyway, with this experience i realized i can live a non-materialistic life. Things i haven’t tried living without are quite a few. On top of the list is a vehicle, the maximum i have lived without that is about 2 weeks way back in 2002. Next is a computer without net connection, the maximum without this being one week. I know i can live without these things more than the achieved maximum, but haven’t got such an ‘opportunity’ yet. Now, temme what are the things you can live without?
Rest in peace, My Nokia 7610.