KV Network

The world of ‘hello’

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K S S Pillai
When I saw a full-page advertisement for a smartphone in a leading newspaper recently, I could not help comparing the present situation with that prevailed a few years ago.
Mobile phones were unheard of. The only telephone service provider was the Post and Telegraph department of the government of India. If you had a dream of getting a landline telephone connection and displaying the large telephone instrument with a rotary dial in your living room, you had to wait for years to realise it. You could, of course, jump the queue and get an early connection if you deposited an amount of 15000 rupees, a princely sum of amount, along with your application.
To make a telephone call, the common folk had to go to the post office, which not only did the normal postal business but also provided telegraphic and telephone services. Talking to someone in another city was a nightmare. You had to book a ‘trunk call’, and wait to be connected, which usually took a long time. Once the connection was made, the parties had to speak so loudly that people used to say in a lighter vein that they could hear each other even without the telephone.
Then came the decentralisation of the service. Private parties were allowed to operate telephone booths that could provide local and long-distance telephone calls. The charges varied according to the time of the call. The maximum was charged during the office hours, and the minimum between 11.00 pm and 06.00 am.
It was years later that mobile phones made their appearance. They were so expensive that they had become a status symbol, affordable only by the rich and the powerful.
The consumer’s lucky star started shining when private players were allowed to provide telephone services. The cut-throat competition set in motion a tariff war and call charges plummeted. Incoming calls were made free, and the customer was charged uniformly irrespective of the time of the call. That also rang the death-knell of private telephone booths. The price of the instrument went down, bringing it within the reach of even the poor.
The original objective of a mobile phone, making and receiving calls, was pushed back. Umpteen other facilities available in the instrument forced many like photo studios, publishers of dictionaries and encyclopedias, and manufacturers of wristwatches and alarm clocks, to down their shutters. Even newspapers had their revenue slashed as people had access to their e-papers, often free of charge, on their mobile phones.
Now we have become so dependent on this tiny instrument that life has become unimaginable without it. It is needed for attending online classes, downloading various Apps, or booking rail and air tickets. Internet connection on mobile phones has made information on anything or anybody a click away.
Without repeating the OTPs sent to your mobile phone, you can’t withdraw money from ATMs or do online banking. Since the trend is to avoid using paper, you are required to download everything from driving licence, vehicle registration, or certificates on your mobile phone and show them to the authorities on demand.
The instant transmission of text messages and emails has made letter writing obsolete. One guy who must be laughing all the way home in the evening must be the postman, whose work, to a large extent, has been taken over by the mobile phone.
The widespread use of mobile phones, resulting in drastic change in the lifestyle, has sociologists worried stiff. Sometimes I feel guilty and embarrassed when I visit a home and find everyone glued to phones even while talking to me. Parents complain that their children no more go out to play as their phones have become their playfield.
All the ills of mobile phones, however, fade into insignificance when I see a deaf and dumb girl engrossed in a ‘talk’ with her friend on a video call, keeping the phone propped up against a pillow before her, leaving her hands free to ‘converse’ by gestures.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to The Kashmir Vision, his articles and short stories have appeared in various national and international publications)


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