Friday 2 September 2016

Hemantha Kalam - 38 'Virtually' Dead - Really 'Alive'

Well, I am one of those who do not hesitate in taking pride of being a technical noob and saying so! This belligerence emanates probably from the reason that I am born and brought up in times of almost ‘nil-technology’ (well, so to say in today’s parlance) and was happier. Most importantly, I survived to write this now.

So I was one of those who have been very reluctant to have a hand phone (call it cellular or mobile phone too, if you wish) and am always looking for an opportunity to get rid of one; soon as I hang up my boots for good and done for!

I have been quite happy with the simple instruments that I have been using but my first daughter, who is a sort of a gadget freak, felt that I do not possess an instrument befitting my professional stature (whatever it is). So there was this one time when I had to reluctantly go in for quite an advanced model (for that time) of Nokia, shelling out a small fortune and after using it for over 6 years it died naturally. By the time it died, I did not know functions other than storing my contact details, making and receiving calls, sending and receiving Short Messaging Texts (SMS) and filing them in folders and an occasional clicking of a photograph. I was given to understand that that machine had some infinite functions, but till the end of its life, I was as ignorant of them as I was - before having it.

Then I got my Nokia Asha 200 model and I was quite happy with it. But soon all hell broke loose in the form of ‘Apps’ – an app for this and an app for that. Still I was untouched by them. But then as I do consultancy work for my daily bread, I needed to work with my client, represented by a very young gentleman who swears by technology – even in his deepest slumber. He was virtually nagging me to go in for a more advanced system! Apart from interacting officially, this interaction became a part of our daily communications.

And when it came to hiring cabs through aggregators the rules of the game changed. Slowly one after the other, the cab aggregators stopped taking in calls for requesting cabs and started asking to download the apps and hire the cabs. Now my poor Nokia Asha 200 was not apparently meant for those myriad useless apps and so it did not support any or hardly any apps.

Every month there were times when I needed to hire a cab and I had to depend on somebody, mostly my wife, who is technologically more advanced and sophisticated than me, for booking my cabs for me. Though she always obliged me for this chore, without a protest, apparently it was becoming more and more of an inconvenience for her. So she and my daughters conspired and got me an Android phone! The purchase was ‘on-line’ - again using technology!

One fine afternoon, the ‘damned’ thing was delivered to me and I changed my sim into it and first thing my wife made me do is downloading the apps for the cab aggregators and the ‘WhatsApp’!

My wife’s circle is larger than mine and many of them are in ‘phoren’ countries or visit ‘phoren’ countries from India, as they have a son there or a daughter here and so on. Most of these people inevitably land up in the US of A, as many Indians seem to have made the US of A, an ultimate and must attainable destination in their life. I do not know what is in store for me as I am having children of marriage age and it is anybody’s guess where they will land up!

Well, coming back to the point, since the time difference could be as much as 10.30 hours between India and the west coast of US of A, some of these visiting characters will wake up in the morning and after having a sumptuous breakfast and sending their children to offices, would hardly have any work. They fill their time by systematically forwarding the ‘sermons’ and general gossip on ‘WhatsApp’ as if it is a vow and must be fulfilled on the pain of some deprivation. Now the problem is that the receiving time in India would be bedtime, due to the time difference. There have been any number of times I felt like telling all those characters to ‘shut up’ the ‘WhatsApp’ as it disturbed my sleep and the worst thing was the alert sound of a message. The signature sound of the ‘WhatsApp’ alert can really be irritating; to say the least. How I loathe that sound, bah!

If you are connected to some groups and members of each group are connected to members in other groups, the network shortens and the same message is forwarded some 6-8 times within a few minutes, among all groups – and many a time you will be receiving the same message or ‘share’ or ‘forward’ from so many groups that you are connected to or a member in.

On one hand it drains your battery cell and you need to keep on charging the system and on the other hand you need to constantly remove the received messages to free storage space. And then the answer came in the form of power banks which was another expense.

And what are you getting, for all this trouble taken? You are getting messages which you hardly have any use for, and in any case, most of them are ‘sermons’ which nobody follows but expects the others to believe that they do follow. Wastage of time, wastage of electricity and wastage of money! The only thing I enjoy are some good photographs and jokes through these ‘shares’ and ‘forwards’ and once in a way, some worthwhile information / news – Period!

Coming back to my mobile, it worked well for some time and then I had to upgrade to a 4 G micro-SIM! The moment I put it in, the mobile phone spewed it out and refused to read the SIM card. I took the system to a couple of service centres and nobody could diagnose the problem. Having bought the system ‘on-line’ and being a ‘technical noob’ I could not find an authorised centre. I also had lost the purchase invoice for the same.

Over a period of time, I got fed up and started using it only in my house where it got connected to the Wi-Fi internet, even without a SIM and thought that’s fine! But my dear wife could not allow good money to go waste and after skimming on the internet, latched on to the call centre and traced out three authorised centres in our city. One centre told me clearly that they will look only after the warranty period is completed and the service will cost money. In the other place, it took me a couple of days’ efforts even to connect on the phone and finally when I landed up at the service centre physically, they demanded the invoice which I did not have. However, one guy in the centre was pally and gave me the toll free number of the ‘On-line’ service provider and also added that till the time I provide the invoice my phone will not be attended to.

I was very skeptical in making the toll free call as I have been continuously bitten by the useless and faceless service many of the bankers offer in our country. But surprisingly this faceless girl was of immense help and sent me a copy of the invoice literally in less than a minute over my e-mail which I had forwarded to the service centre.

The service centre took a couple of more days to diagnose and finally declared that the “mother” (board) of my mobile is dead and they needed at least a fortnight to get the mother (board) replaced.

Let me tell you something. That fortnight had been heavenly for me.

When I got my mobile back after service, I was forced to again install several apps including ‘WhatsApp’ more for professional reasons and I noted that within about half an hour of installation, some 155 MB stuff has been downloaded comprising of some 3,000 messages from about 8 active groups (needless to emphasise that almost 90 MB of it has been sheer repetition). It took me some 3 days to go through the messages and to delete them – the pictures, the sermons and many useless videos.

And let me assure you that less than 0.5% of that stuff was relevant and there were hardly any business related information for all the trouble taken.

But worst – not a single inquiry, not a single wonderment as to why I was suddenly off the air! For all that mattered, I was ‘virtually’ dead for all the connections I had! Yes, there were a couple of murmurs, later when I resurfaced, that I was missed; but it was just that low key!

So ladies and gentlemen, for those 15 days maybe I was dead ‘virtually’ but I was so ‘alive’ really - in a true sense! No sermons, no useless sharing and sheer bliss!

I know I am day dreaming that people of my country will use mobile phones only for emergencies, as they were intended for – but, like hell, I can only dream!          

Well, folks, what do you think? Please, do let me know! Yes, I am still on ‘WhatsApp’ for whatever it is worth!

Till then, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea).

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy
Chennai, India


22 comments:

  1. Agreed. I think pre-digital life was much easier. Telephones were used for making telephone calls, period.

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    Replies
    1. The more and more technology is intended to make our lives comfortable, the more and more complicated we are making for ourselves by abusing technology!

      Thank you so much for your time, indulgence and response Mr. Cohn! I always appreciate the fact that you always respond to my blogs! A privilege for me!

      Thank you again!

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  2. So true Hemanth and nicely written. I think I have felt the same too.. only person to admonish me most of the time was my very tech son. Well.. one thing I am happy about the mobile is to connect with my son so many miles away. Otherwise it is a bother I agree...

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    1. Thank you so much for always promptly responding Savithri!

      Thank you for your kind indulgence, time and response! Much appreciated but most importantly much obliged!

      Thank you, indeed! :-)

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  3. Whatsapp user timings: Time slot for most of the youngsters is 10.30 PM to Mid-night.
    Most of the office goers send the reply immediately, especially during office hours.
    Oh ! My God !! How the people, especially, the youngsters are wasting not only their time but also others !!! Wasting the time is a Luxury. Even God can not save us.
    Ramanathan Thenappan

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    1. Ha ha ha....... Mr. Ramanathan Thenappan!

      All these years, we had that great time drainer called Cricket! Now we have Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and I do not know what else?

      And we want Mr. Modi to boost economy in just a couple of years! :-)

      Thank you so much for your kind indulgence, time and response!

      Much appreciated and obliged!

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  4. Hi Heath. Nice to read ur blog on Mobile nightmare. WhatsApp is quite useful but being misused. It is terrible to receive msgs and calls in the midnights.
    I am presently with my son at USA and will be back in India by mid Oct. RM Nair

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    1. Exactly Mr. Nair.

      All my grouse is that the mobile phone itself is so useful for emergencies! But again though I had sponsored mobile phones to all my family members, except for my first daughter, the mobile is never picked by others especially when in an emergency! And all the more reason for me to become livid! :-)

      Please do kindly keep in touch whenever you feel like! I do not want to disturb you but I always would be delighted to keep in touch!

      Thank you for your time, indulgence and thoughts!

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  5. Replies
    1. Thank you so kindly for your kind indulgence, time and encouragement!

      Much appreciated and much more obliged!

      Would have been nice, if I could know who you are Madam / Sir..... :-)

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  6. Replies
    1. Thank you so kindly for your kind indulgence, time and encouragement!

      Much appreciated and much more obliged!

      Would have been nice, if I could know who you are Madam / Sir..... :-)

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  7. Mr. Hemantha,

    You have to start using Uber. I used it every day in Bangalore. It works spotlessly and it saves a lot of hassle and money :-)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! I do!

      But there is also a flip side!

      There have been quite few instances when the drivers, most of them new to Chennai, cannot find the pick up place and cannot read the GPS (technology) yet properly who arrived late by 30-40 minutes. In such circumstances, whether I cancel or the drivers cancel I need to pay a penalty of Rs.50 just under a US dollar! Then I have to plead with Uber that it is not my fault to get a refund! :-) Is this not a hassle? :-)

      Well, I am just arguing with you but yes, I agree with you, Uber has changed the cab business in India too and is much more cheaper, as of now! I hear that Uber has lost some US $ 1.2 billion in the first half of 2016 so we need to wait and see whether they can sustain!

      But then, this is all aside. :-)

      What is in, is that you had invested your valuable time and indulged in reading my blog! Many, many thanks for that dear Chris (Mr.) Much appreciated and much obliged, indeed!

      Thank you so much!

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. We never had the problem with the cab driver not being able to find us in Bangalore. We used the hotel service one time. It cost 10 times more, and we were taken to the wrong part of town. I guess no system is perfect.

      By the way, you need to enable the 'sleep mode' so the phone don't make any noise during night time!

      Delete
    4. OK Chris (Mr.)!

      I surrender! :-) :-) :-)

      I hope you are 'that' Chris whom I know for over five years! :-)

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha
      (Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy)

      Delete
  8. In whatsapp settings we can turn off notifications.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you!

      As I had mentioned in my 'column' I am technical noob and only slowly am I trying to come to grips with the functions! :-)

      Thank you so much for your kind indulgence, time and response! :-) Much appreciated and much obliged!

      Best wishes and regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  9. Nice one Hematha,
    I liked it. I am a tech freak and do enjoy controlling the gadgets that I use. Yes! I agree that the whole mobile smart phone experience can be painful but so is any two-edged sword.

    I like a buffer when it comes to calls, my wife was the best for that, but the voice mail box made that possible even before smartphones.

    My darling grandchildren live in Canada. My grandson, is getting ready for University this year and my pretty granddaughter is close behind. They are 17 going on 18 and 15 respectively. If I did not have WhatsApp, it would cost me a fortune to see and talk to them. And Skype to do it live.
    My youngest brother has been living in Texas for the past 3 decades and my mother is ailing at 88. WhatsApp brings us all as together as needed.

    Gmail on my phone is delight, as most of my unnecessary mails, can be deleted before I even sit at my beloved Mac Desktop which is armed to the teeth with Photoshop and various others applications.

    Being a scripture reader, that is the first thing I do in the mornings and getting my Bible offline at a finger touch is a super blessing. I can read whatever inspires at that point of time.

    I for one lead a life of a retired country gentleman. I rarely venture out of my gate. Pay all bills online and see very few people in real life anymore, But I do not miss out on any part of my previous activities, except the personal contact of a multitude of friends not because of any gadget but due to problems in health. For me, the smart phone, tablet and computer are necessities.

    By the way, I recently concluded a complete first step in a business transaction on WhatsApp without having to leave my chair. It was a blessing as it can now carry so many other file formats too. So its usefulness cannot be denied.

    However, all these gadgets are under our control, how they Tweet, squeak or ring is up to us. Everyone can be modified. And to learn how to do it, find the youngest member of the family with one, they will do it fastest.

    Yes, I love the old days and enjoy the sound of birdsong in my large yard and old home, but I am also within reach instantly if needed. I use two phone numbers and one only for emergencies. It’s known only by a few important people and that is never turned off.

    Finally, as compact cameras hit the dust compared to quality of good cell phones, even us photographers have to take a look seriously at convergence even if we do not like it, it will be the only way soon. My daughters send me stunning photos taken on their iPhones and I sigh. 48 years after I made my first print in a darkroom, it is very different.

    And last but not least, last year in Decembers flood the only way we were rescued by dinghy was because my daughter sent out a distress signal on her phone to FaceBook. Friends saw it and made it to my home.

    The times, they are a changing—Bob Dylan.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Dear Doctor,

      Wow! You made my 'Column' though I call it Kalam with intended pun, realy worthwhile!

      I respect your thoughts, time and thank you for your kindness in indulging and writing back!

      Much appreciated and much obliged, most importantly!

      Thank you so much, indeed! :-)

      Best wishes and warm regards
      Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

      Delete
  10. Thank you Hemantha,
    Your post was nice and crisp, mine a jumble of thoughts and emotion. However, it takes all kinds to make a blog post work and I wish you all the best.
    I may be a little long in the tooth and must admit a bit senile...(some people think so!), but I try not to miss your posts. This time, I seem to have added a side show. You must pardon me for that. All the best. Keep them coming.

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