Look who’s talking!
Ashwini Bhatnagar

The other day, I was with a friend and he said emphatically that the little gadget in his hand had revolutionised his life. "It provides me with so much of space," he said, displaying the object of his transformation. Of course, it was nothing but a cellphone and the only way I had looked at it so far was with some irritation as it occupied space in my shirt pocket or in the pocket of my pants. I had never thought that it was capable of providing space! In fact, it often interfered with my vacant and pensive moods when like a sudden shrill volcanic movement it would jump to life and the very first question that one had to answer from whosoever was at the other end was the most stupid and intrusive, "Where are you?" Now even if I knew where I was, why on earth would I want to answer it scores of times during a day? And even if I did, did it matter as long as the calling party has had its say? So, I am not wrong when I say that the gadget instead of providing space is, in fact, gobbling up space, both seen and unseen.

"No, you don't understand," the friend said, "It is not about physical space only. Nor is it about answering inane questions. Probably some of the people that you know haven't been fully cell-trained and therefore they may be asking you all this. All the people I know just say, 'Do you have a minute?' and only if I say 'yes' they get talking. So, it's not like this at all. Have you ever thought that this little thing helps you to keep connected all the time? It makes you communicate with all the people all the time from all the places. If ever there was a bonding agent; this is the one!" He triumphantly flashed the keypad light at me.

"He's right actually," his wife added, smiling the sales smile, "You can now be here with us and yet be across to many people. You can be reached and you can reach everybody. Isn't it the perfect way to bond? And look at the privacy it offers!" I wanted to say something but just then her cellphone rang and she decided to take the call in her bedroom. I turned my attention to my friend who offered me a weak apologetic smile. I thought I would wave it away with a no-problem-it happens-my friend wave but before I could lift my hand his phone rang too. "Give me a minute. Sorry, yaar," he said and disappeared towards the terrace. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number at random. Our talktime was on, but communication had ceased.

I remembered the time when television had first come into our lives. We stopped talking to our neighbours and instead concentrated on the set. The family, which used to be spread all over town, each member with his own group of friends, suddenly came together. The whole brood would sit in the living room and watch the goings-on in fictitious lives. Physically, all were present but they were not bonded together. Instead, they bonded with the soap opera's characters through the pie in the sky. And even if there was conversation among family members, it concerned people who did not exist. In the end, we lost our neighbours without winning over our family.

The cellphone is another step in busting the intimacy which is thought to exist in the nuclear set-up. The spouses are more wired up with what's happening in distant homes than between themselves. Friends, who had all the time in the world for you, are clueless about you even when you are sitting in front of them as they spend their time chatting up with people whom they haven't cared to meet for ages. Yes, the phone connects. We no longer think of people either with concern or with a sense of fondness and let the taste of the thought linger. We call them up and quash the feeling immediately. The privacy of the thought is slaughtered by the chatter on active talktime.

Of course, I am not saying that the cellphone doesn't serve any good purpose. It is a vital instrument in the exchange of information. You can call up at will to enquire about people's well-being or even comfort your distressed child while driving back home. Your wife can also call you up and ask you to pick up rosogullas from her favourite Bengali sweet shop while driving back home and save you a trip. It, therefore, has its practical uses which cannot be discounted by even its worst critics. But I, for one, would rather do another trip after dinner with my wife to the rosogulla shop and enjoy its flavour in the privacy of our car rather than bring them home and have her gulp them down even as she is exchanging notes with God knows who on her cellphone!

One way of communicating is through talking. It is said to be the most reliable and direct method of expressing oneself. Most of the time, with some major exceptions, you can express yourself by opening your mouth. But verbalisation can also lead to miscommunication. In other words, you can be saying something and meaning something else, or you are meaning what you mean to but the other person is not understanding it. So, for the communication to be full-bodied it has to be backed by non-verbal gestures too. They lend style and substance to the words as well as sincerity or the lack of it. Unfortunately, the airwaves have not succeeded till now to carry the import of non-verbal gestures to phone chatterers. Perhaps, it is because of the lack of body to conversations that the sounds on cellphones sound so hollow. It comes and goes and many times you have to stretch yourself to just catch the words. The feeling behind them has already been scorched to dust by the static on the line.

But words are important. All you want to do these days is to put some words in somebody's ear and then say that you are connected. Personal meetings and silent conversations are downmarket stuff. Who wants to meet when you can talk anyway? A good, relaxing long drive is meaningless without a cellphone and conversation with at least 20 people. It cheers you up because you could bond with so many people without the hassles of being with them. It lends that aura of power to you that you can be crowded even when alone. The power of choice to clutch on to anybody at will redeems the soul of most cellphone users. It is like having serial affairs without the mess associated with them.

Cellphones have taken us away from people near us and brought distant people close. They have provided privacy without intimacy and made intimacy public. It has become a reflex with me now that the moment the phone rings I move away from the people I am sitting with. They suddenly become demons invading my privacy and I run away from them in order to protect myself. It is just not only me. I have seen people walking their lawns, terraces, parks and what else have you in order to be away from their intimate ones so that they can enjoy privacy with the calling party. Perhaps, the autonomy of the individual is being expressed through the use of the cellphone. Or, all along we have been feeling claustrophobic with the people around us and the cell device provides the perfect excuse to escape it. Whichever of the two it is, it is definitely neurotic. There may be a third or a fourth reason too but I am not interested in it. All I know is that the urge to be alone is triggered by the ringtone much like the conditioned dog who starts salivating the moment the food gong is sounded.

But you know you can't know too many people in a way that you can talk to them from the heart. So, if you are reaching out to several people in order to stay connected, I suspect that you would be different selves with different people. In other words, you would have to put on many facades in order to jell with them. Psychologists say that you can be different people for a while and not lose the core of your personality. But to be different to different people most of the time as you chat up or reach out requires some doing. After a time, it may, I fear, become a compulsive disorder. After all, you cannot switch from being this and that to being yourself again and yet retain your sanity. Somewhere along the way, you will become several persons who are bonding with several persons who themselves are several persons, all thanks to this harmless gadget.

This may be taken by most of you to be some sort of a worst- possible-case scenario and if something like this happens, it will happen to the neighbour and not you. But as we all know, the neighbours ceased to exist a long time ago. In this age and time, it is I, me, myself and my cellphone only. There isn't any space for anybody else. And if some space has been created it is because of the cell which has plucked it out for us from thin air, literally. We can now bond without feeling the threads that bind us, talk without meaning anything and reach out without touching. It is a uniquely liberating experience. I can share lots about it with you but just give me a minute, my cell is ringing. I'll get back to you later.