With the cheap airlines you do not have a designated seat so the line up in the boarding lounge of an airport gets to be a bit like the scene at the good old railway station where people wait at the edge of the platform with their dozens of bags hung on every limb, babies squeezed under the armpit to jump in through the windows when the train pulls in. Only difference is that they also have a metal object jammed between their shoulder and ear. Everybody is telling the air around them their itinerary, giving minute to minute update of their situation to the some very concerned listener on the other end. You get into the aircraft, the aisles are packed with luggage, people are trying to block seats while throwing and pushing their oversized bag into the overhead luggage bin but the cell phone jammed between the ear and shoulder never slips. I suppose these instruments come with some kind of super sticking surface as they never seem to fall off.

The call to switch off the cell phones before take off only provokes a mad scramble to talk faster and louder. I was sitting next to a gentleman who exhibited wealth (requisite pot belly), public school education (speaking English with Hindi grammar and metaphors) and status (pushy and demanding). Even after the 2^nd call to switch off over the public address system he continued to loudly proclaim to the person on other end of the cell phone the size of the deal he was making, the turnover he expected and so on, evidently the conversation on the phone was for the benefit of the co-passengers to realize how successful he was. As the flight steward kept requesting him to switch off, he turned away from her to continue shouting into the phone. I listened to him with fascination as no part of his conversation on the phone was so dire and urgent that it required this last minute frenzy.

The rest of the incident got ugly as it only could with the Mr. Important Business man insulting the flight attendant and her getting more worked up about the security of the aircraft due to electronic interference. At the end of the 2 hour flight when we landed and were taxing to the airport the plane filled up with croaking, ringing, singing, jingling, gurgling and there was even an electronic baby wailing noise when the announcement over the public address system was requesting the passengers to wait till they are in the airport to switch on their phones. The range of ringing tones and body language of the folks in the flight made me realise that this was “the noise of the arrived”, “noise of the country with a booming economy”.

In the last 10 years since the coming of the cell phone in this country, it has become an epidemic that has changed for ever how we do things. You asked over for dinner but instead of the usual before dinner conversations that used to be like a coming attraction of the family scandals, gossip about colleagues / celebrities and such to be fleshed out over dinner, you learn speak in Morse code between all the cell phones that keep chirping for attention. You have to master the art of jumping in, between calls to keep your side of the conversation going. At the table you have to watch that you do not dribble the dal while serving on the cell phones resting between the cutleries next each plate. You have to figure when you should go on with your sentence to the person who asked you a question but is now having an animated exchange on the phone or pretend that you also have to take a call on your phone. I must confess here that I have once dribbled salad dressing on to an instrument that was ringing at my elbow when its owner was on his other phone and when I looked up I saw the hostess was watching me.

At the restaurants; the table next to you on any day will have half a dozen post-adolescent youth yelling into his / her sleek daddies’ gift to let the rest of the room know how exciting their lives are. I have seen tables where friends sit around shoving food into their mouths while going on the phone during the entire evening and then at the end of the meal slap each other on the back show how much fun that was and they should do it again. Around large tables with grandma and babies, at least three quarters of them are usually shouting status reports of what they are doing exactly that minute to some very interested person on the other end or are busy text messaging.

Giggling clutches of women sit around tables’ text messaging and then sharing the response with each other….a bit like note passing in the 6^th grade only these women look like they have been trousseau shopping for their daughters. Once in a restaurant with some friends I could not keep up with stress of conversations between calls, I broke down and requested a switch off time while we were waiting for the drinks, the look on their faces told me that this will be the last time I am going to be spending an evening with them.

But one of the worst intrusions that this deadly tool of communication has done is take away the pleasure of watching a movie. You go to these souped up multiplexes with your popcorn and drinks to sit back and be bathed by the rich mix of drama, violence, love, comedy, music and clearly stated plots, the cell phones start to ring when you are just being given the reason for the hero’s poverty status. The hushed but carrying whispers start to speak into these instruments of the devil giving a blow by blow account what they did on that day, are doing and will be doing. Some even start to recount what is going on the screen with all the dialogues and plot being explained and critiqued. Try hissing at these voices and you will be asked to leave for creating a disturbance to other movie goers.

In meetings, you cannot keep to the agenda or listen to a coherent presentation as the important folks on the table will not switch off. And the important ones have more than one cell phone - yes, the higher up you are in the evolutionary ladder the more instruments you got to have. The poor flunkeys in the offices are permanently traumatised and anxious beings who have to deliver his / her spiel between the calls. At the end of these meeting no one really knows if each agenda point has been only aired or dealt with as it is not clear when the verbal noise in the room is directed to persons present and when it is meant for this permanent wire dangling in front of peoples’ nose.

The incident that really took all my forbearance was after we had lowered a dear friend into the ground and the earth had been put back. As we were standing around dazed we hear the ringing. Every one pats their pockets or digs their bags and then they all look at each other. The ringing was from the ground and the wife starts sobbing. She had not checked the pocket of the jacket that the friend was buried in and now he had to keep taking calls till the battery dies out.