A life without mobile phones...

Sometimes I feel life was much more easy with no gadgets around us, especially the mobile phone. A coin has 2 sides and similarly everything has good and bad. Mobile is letting us into misery most of the times. What happened to those carefree days where we would engage in real time conversations with friends. When I had to talk to my friend, I had to walk down to her home. Similarly, when someone gone out had not returned home on time, there was patience and hope. I used to cling on to the window or balcony to check if my dad was coming. As a kid, I had no worry if he was late by 10 mins. I now think what would have been running through my mom's or grandma'd mind not seeing dad on time, they never showed it out except under extreme conditions. Fast forward to today's life, I feel so tensed if I dont see S home by the normal time. My mind thinks of various possibilities. Some dark thoughts surround me. Within a minute, I would take up my phone and start ringing him. Sometimes there is this dilemma - what if he is on road? what if he is risking his life trying to attend my call? what if he thinks I am in an emergency? The thoughts of calling him take a second place. Again in a minute, I would grow restless and make a call. If he attends (and even scolds me) I am happy. When the call waits, I know he has not yet started from office. When he doesn't attend the call, I make myself believe that he is on his way and try again after half an hour. But what if he is not reachable? Those dark thoughts attack me, this time with twice the intensity. Its really a pain to sit through this. If this is the case with someone I see everyday, I cant say how I feel about my parents, sister and in-laws. When my dad has not come home on time, I call my mom every 5 minutes asking if he has reached. When my sister couldn't contact us for the entire day from her office due to some signal problem on a day, I was literally crying praying God she should be safe. Distance plus mobile phones make the problem only bigger. 

There is another problem too. Some people doesn't have the time sense when it comes to calls. Getting random calls after 9 or 10PM has become ordinary now. The other day, S got a call at 10.45Pm to discuss something official. Now these calls doesn't end in less than half an hour.  Some friends call us after 9. I would never pick up a call at this time. I have politely told some of them too. Its the family time I get. Thats the only fruitful time I can spend with S before going to sleep. But as usual, some dont understand! I get reminded of an incident happened 2 weeks back. There was a call from an unknown number to one of the mobiles. I simply didn't pick up the call. (Anonymous + Night time). The next minute, I got it on another mobile. This time, I could see who was calling me (her number was saved). I chose not to pick it up. S got furious of this act of mine. He said I am showing attitude and I am being arrogant. I said, its OK.. Thats what I am but refused to pick the call.  Within 5 minutes, I had 7 missed calls from her. I felt there must have been some urgency and picked up the call for the 8th time. It was such a non-sense talk at 10Pm in the night. The most useless call I had ever had. She was playing the blame game with me and showing her anger on me for something I am totally unrelated to. After a tiring day of work, if I have to hear something stupid from some unwanted person, I would better not have a phone at all. If this is not enough for me to rant, she went ahead to post some rubbish on my FB wall meanwhile trying to make several calls to me. Totally useless. I have no choice but to ignore these kind of ppl. 

Of course, without a phone I would never be able to reach out to my parents, sister, in-laws and my dear friends. Its like 2 sides of the coin as I said earlier. I am seeing that when its advantageous to have a phone, using it wisely will only bring happiness.