OWNER’S PRIDE
The recent survey has revealed that two out of three persons living in a city have sugar problem and the remaining one person has mobile problem. For sugar problem there is Swami Ramdev and his yoga, tablets and insulin. In case of a mobile problem the guy has to tackle all by himself.
You could see the guy performing various acrobatic feats with funny handset to keep the conversation going. The handset swings from ear to the mouth while talking and in the next minute swings back to the ear while listening and keeps swinging back and forth. You feel pity for the guy and his handset. You even doubt God’s wisdom in locating the ear so far away from the mouth.
These folks, let me tell you, are under the ‘Life-time incoming free’ plan and are trying to push the outgoing through incoming route. The other possibility is that the guy does not know which side is the microphone and which side is the receiver and who is the receiver. There is no pride in being associated with such a person or the handset.
There is another tribe who believe that louder one talks greater is the value for money. When they talk at VT you can hear them at Nariman point. Neither a handset nor a transmission tower is really necessary to carry their voice. These are probably the first timers into the mobile world and cannot control their pride and excitement of talking while walking.
Actually it is Onida which first began the business of selling pride with the slogan ‘neighbor’s envy owner’s pride’. At that time I did buy Onida and brought it home with a great pride. I kept the door open so that people will drop in and envy my set. Nothing happened. No body took a note of it. I turned the volume to the full. Neighbors were not pleased. Venkatachalam told me to tone down the volume, Shetti asked me to shut the door and Menon told me show some maturity and not act childishly. In sharp contrast the maid servant, dhobi, kachrawali, bhajiwala all of them appreciated and envied my set. They brought along their relatives to see game shows, films and Ekta Kapoor’s serials and even got bold enough to operate the remote. I finally got rid of Onida TV and swallowed my pride.
Recently I saw Nokia’s ‘Garv Se Bolo Hello’ Nokia and decided to buy the handset and restore some of my lost pride. The ad appealed to me because it was a triple delight. Sharukh with a Nokia handset and Airtel card looked like a remake of Amar Akbar Anthony.
I stood with my mobile on the main road and proudly tapped my chest with the right arm in Sharukh khan style and said hello. A crowd gathered around me and asked whether I had a stroke.
Perhaps this is not the way to express the pride, I thought. May be if I would have worn a striped pink shirt like Sharukh and tapped my chest, the people would not have confused my show of pride with a heart stroke. But then the price of an Arrow or a Van Heusen pink striped shirt itself can cause a heart attack and leave one with no chance to say hello.
I went through the user manual. It was silent on the entire ‘Garv se Bolo hello’ issue.
I called up Nokia help line and said hello. The guy at other end screamed “Hello, who the hell are you? And put the phone down. I got the answer.
