Oh! Colombo

Amazing is the invention called the telephone. A luxury in the past, now almost a toy, carried around by most people in the hand like a clutch. Cordless phones, hand phones, smart phones have now replaced the telephone instrument that was located in an easily accessible place in the home with a long flex that would allow for conversations to be carried on while performing other domestic tasks.  These new instruments are available in different shapes and sizes and are packed with applications that it doubles up as a travelling office.  People are now contactable even from air crafts. The world certainly has become a smaller place due to this little instrument called the telephone.

Life also has certainly become easy with this instrument as one can now travel around without being stuck inside an office and conduct a conference call; email people located in distant destinations etc.  So much so, that one does wonder how we all carried on without this the improvement of the telephone.  However,  we did carry on our lives in the past and were not so dependant on the telephone.

I feel life was more relaxed then.  We are now contactable at any time and in a way have no privacy as someone is constantly bothering you. Recently an individual was trying to contact me on my mobile phone and as I was very busy whipping up some pudding and had all types of machinery working I did not hear the phone ring. A little later I heard the my land phone ring.  I generally do not answer this phone since I rarely give out the number to anyone and the land phone is purely for my convenience to contact Bala the Jeeves in my home who generally answers it. On this day, however, I answered the phone to be greeted by a screeching woman questioning me as to why I do not answer my phone.

My instant reaction combined with my trigger temper was to tell her that it was not her flicking business and then when I glanced at my hand phone I noticed that there was a missed call by this woman. I was quite livid but as I recognized she was employed by a person I knew I went on to listen to her request.

It is quite a common factor that many feel that a hand phone has to be answered by its second ring.   If the phone is switched your phone off, they wonder why? Do not answer it, they wonder why? And till they reach you they keep on trying.  We certainly are not obliged to provide explanations to what we do  with our phones, especially when we are paying our own bills. If you were an employee and answerable to some person I can understand the perseverance but this line of questioning is simply not acceptable and downright rude in my opinion when it is a personal number.

Gossip is spread faster than lightning over a mobile phone when somebody stumbles upon secret meetings and rendezvous in restaurants and resorts; worse still are those camera phones where you can zoom in and take pictures and forward them around the town.  At get-togethers most people seem to be spending time hanging on the phone or forwarding messages or getting on to Facebook and being completely anti-social.   

Quite honestly, I feel that this invention of the modern telephone, though convenient at most times, turns out to be an absolute nuisance and annoyance. Sadly, it is an instrument that has come to stay.