My old man in black with megapixel eye

It’s quite strange the way we human beings feel the sense of ‘absence’. It takes us a shorter time to acknowledge the ‘absence’ of something rather than it’s ‘presence’. Like my phone, for instance. A month ago, I lost it. Well, not exactly lost it. It was stolen from my bag in a crowded elevator. I haven’t yet been able to reconcile with the fact that instead of my beloved old phone, I have been compelled to use a trashy piece of black plastic with an abhorring white screen. My old one, a Nokia N73 Music edition (The champion among all the N- Series phones so far which is sadly about to be phased out) was just one and a half years old. But he had the heart of an adult: warm, loving, responding well to my impetuous and unpredictable behaviour. One minute the music player, the other second, photo editing and right then checking my mail, he has seen it all. Even though, in recent times, I had troubled him quite a bit by downloading random ‘themes’ and giving him a new look every single day, he never complained by slowing down his response mechanism. My old one was a bundle of vitality.

He might have been a very regular looking phone but he had an awesome stamina and his expandable 2GB never seemed to get exhausted as I loaded him with song after song after song. And during lonely drives around the city, when I felt like shutting out the mundane noise, out came the headset and I rocked away to a different world. I was complimented several times about my ‘playlists’ and the ease with which I can 'shuffle' through them. And everytime I could feel the black metal body grow warm and hard! He knew!

I have taken some of my best self-portraits with his 3.2 mp camera and Carl- Zeiss optics. And in places where carrying a camera would set you back by one extra bag, my old man was a handy one. Just a swish of the lens cover and my guy was ready for ‘capture’. Needless to mention, he was my constant travel companion. Whether up in the Hills of North Bengal of at the beach in Goa, my world was just a ‘select’ away. Ready access to my mail made my life so much easier especially when you realise an important message has to be sent to the Boss while you are tying up your bikini, ready to hit the surf in Goa. All it took was some deft finger movements and voila! You are ready to...surf! Once when I forgot the chords of a Jack Johnson number, my Google application salvaged me from what could have been an embarrassing situation in front of my guitarist friend!

When I had him, I hardly noticed him. Today when I have to go on a longish journey, I miss him ever so more. Dearest phone, I wish you were here. You had seen me through some of the toughest times in my life. (Yes, a year and a half ago, I was going through a rough patch). And I can never thank you enough. You never ‘died out’ on me, never ‘hung’ up on me. I only hope, wherever you are, in whosever’s hands you are, may you enjoy the same vitality as you did while we were still together.