phone-y state of being!

we dont just change phones - we change lifestyles. that is our considered conclusion after last week. our berry was consigned to wherever defunct berries are consigned - something to do with the motherboard. given our acute sense of nono-technology we did not dwell much on the fate and scouted around for options as we were virtually cut off and faced a sense of loss!


at first, like adam, we decided to take a byte out of apple and try what sounded like a self-centered phone. didnt  work - this sandy outpost of civilisation is out of jobs and out of steve's product. quite a vexed situation. since we are marginally crack-berried, we cast our net further and looked for similar touchy-feely phones with mail facilities. chanced upon something called htc wildfire. quite an antithesis to our rather andropausal outlook on life en ce moment. and, like with a new bride, we are slowly unravelling its mysteries. the first thing we realised is that we are all thumbs when it comes to touch-sensitive situations [which no doubt explains our current singularity]. we generally go hell for leather when it comes to the touch and here it dont work that way! gentle,easy, feathery finger movements! however we are an adept learner and shall prevail!


so out went the berry, 3 chargers [master, office and car], 2 cd sets and what look like 14 instruction manuals [opened nary a one] and in came in a wildfire, 3 chargers [master, office and car], no cd sets and 2 flimsies in arabic, which reading right to left, makes as much sense to us as reading it left to right. so we have to unravel the delights of this instrument rather like peeling a banana.


and oh, this thing has whats called an android whatchacallit. developed by those who help seek. and we quite like its tagline. reflects our style...

the tyranny of separation

the title is not our own - pinched it from somewhere! however the thoughts herein expressed are entirely our own!

the phrase triggered off a rush of memories - we suddenly realised that separation had been an integral part of our life since we were a wee lad of 8 summers. when younger sibling [younger by 4 months] went off to parts north [for the benefit of non-indian readers as and when they stumble across this wee gem of prose: we make no distinction between cousins, blood brothers, siblings twice removed and so on].

passing through teenage periods of 'wishing to be separated from divers irritants' we went through a greater pang of separation in the early 90s when yet another sibling [practically our twin soul] heeded horace greeley's advice and proceeded west [where he has remained since, causing little alarm and anxiety]. this prompted us to proceed nor'west in 1992, at which point we realised that separation could occur in familial, culinary and societal ties. those were the days before emails, twits, fbook, blogs and other means of bridging distances and we suffered! however this also made  us value relationships more, and even manuscribed epistles became a welcome break from the tyrant [since we are nostalgia personified, we have still retained many of the letters and photos received]. we still go through pangs when we look back and realised that we missed out on the growth years of a certain quartet - thank god for photos at least!

over the 18 years thereafter, we have jetted in and out of the native and have always felt a twinge of lachrymosity on leaving people [even for a short while]. sometimes places too. but thanks to mr. berners-lee and other web-acolytes down the years, we have been able to digitally bridge the distances. of course certain distances will never be bridged and we allow ourself a rare flash of anger at certain people, just, going...

we have hardened ourself over the years and do not let most people affect us thusly any more. however in recent weeks we have realised that certain people are part of our fabric with or without digital or analog means. which has led us to the epiphany of the day - separation can be overcome if the desire to remain linked is sustained.

and to some people who have been part of the fabric for well nigh a quarter of a century, we raise our hat in salute for taking the trouble!

i-time: the travails of trying to byte the apple

alas and alack! we are facing a crisis of rather disturbing proportions - our beloved berry is about to give up. battery life exhausted, no replacement battery available and we are beside our [considerable] selves!


of late we have been warily eyeing the various products from a certain apple orchard. not for any particular against-the-tide reason, but more out of a nod to our latent geekiness! and in light of the berry grave situation that we are facing we have turned our attenton to the i-phone. given our usually precarious fiscal condition, the current offer from leading telecom operator in this here outpost made our native soul go pitter patter - free instrument on signing up for an annual package. seemed like a no-brainer!


so off we went in search of the promised instrument - only to draw a blank at all the 4 places we hared to in the quest! 2 did not sell the instrument as they were rather virginal and preferred their own folk. the other 2 did not have 'em!! come back saturday was i told, rather gruffly by exasperated looking flat-faced salesmen. would have thumped them if we did not come from more refined stock than them!


so on a quiet thursday afternoon in dobuy, the question is will i-phone or wont i-phone [like the cat i' the adage]...

the evolution of humans

first came the human being
then came the human bing - the human who knows everything
and now we see the human bling - the human who shows everything

dobuy is the spiritual home of the last-mentioned and we had occasion recently to observe the latest specimen in action. mainly of the female persuasion but a few of the other sex too. and 'twas fascinating to see how bling could cover diverse product categories - nails to clothes to mobile phones to sports to books to authors... plenty of hand waving and twirling to draw the bling-lines!


given our rather blunt nature and take on currently lived life, we were amused and also a touch annoyed at such fripperie. but we let live, for while there may be larger issues worthy of communal discussion, existential dilemmas occur to even the feather-headed. may their tribe shine on!

and people complain when i speak in french...