Phony tales - Part 1

We are in a generation where having a phone has become a necessity rather than a luxury and some brands have capitalized on this mentality to make a status symbol out of a phone (I-phone). My history with different brands and types of phones are so vast that you might find your own story within them. And yes, this is part 1 because , apparently, i own a PhD in owning phones.

I got my first phone, an LG phone, with an mp3 player and a radio. This was back in 2008 when the smartphone hadn’t invaded the Indian market. At that time, I believed this phone to be a gold mine as it had USB transfer and a headset connector. And all this for 2.5k. A good bargain but yet not as good as the other costlier counterparts.

I started using it and for the first time started sharing my personal mobile no. But the happiness was short lived. The phone was a regular feature in my hands even at home chatting with it and even sleeping with it sometimes. It was also a constant in my fingers while watching sports and whenever my favorite team would lose, my phone would take the brunt and sadly the IPL was going on and my favorite team was losing every single match. My phone used to get thrown around the entire month-and-a-half the tournament was on. Finally, it couldn’t take it anymore and it broke. The motherboard was broken and the repairing cost was 3k. Yes, the repairing cost was more than the cost of the phone itself. 

So, I did what any sensible south indian would do. I waited for my dad to let me to buy a new phone. This wait lasted for 3 months and in that time, I understood ‘How to handle my phone!’ The next phone I was bestowed with by my parents was a Nokia 2600. It was a similar phone to the LG one with similar features. Again, this phone costed the same 2.5k. The world was slowly adapting to apps and internet and I was still stuck with a colour phone having an mp3 player and a USB transfer facility. I somehow managed to use this phone for my daily routine and the music player did help a lot. But, as luck would have it, even this phone was doomed.

I was on my way with a few of my friends to a beach and in my excitement I dropped the phone in the water. The phone came out all drenched and grainy and I knew at that time that I had screwed my phone again. It just took another 2 weeks for the phone to show its true colours and finally, it became unusable.

I had to wait a month for my next phone which was, Samsung Guru Qwerty worth 5.5k. This phone was everything I wanted at that time, it was shiny, it was huge and it was something everyone had. The one flaw in this phone was the fact that I couldn’t transfer any apps into the phone. I had to buy them from the samsung store which made the phone an instant flop as suddenly the whole country was getting used to apps like whatsapp and I had to wait for samsung to manufacture its own messaging app.

I loved this phone a lot and I made sure to use it carefully. But, fate somewhat didn’t want me to have the same phone for a long time. It intervened and during my last examination during my 3rd year engineering days, I lost it. I had kept the phone inside my bag before the exam which was a rule of the college and I had to keep the bag outside the class. So, this time,too, I did the same thing. Except this time, when I came out, I had no bag and thereby no phone. I had lost my entire belongings and my phone during my exams. I went home extremely disappointed and dejected. I couldn’t believe my ill-luck. 

I told my story to my parents and like always I got blamed for the incident. They scolded me for my reckless behavior and they said that I should never be given a phone again. Somehow, they calmed down after a month and bought me a new phone. But that phone will be lost (stolen/buried/put on fire) next time, stay tuned for the next part of my phony tales.