What is in common with the rich, the middle class and the poor? You don't need to put your thinking hat on to crack this one. They all are proud owners of mobile phones which triggers the cellular revolution in India. It is hard today to find a person who doesn't uses mobile, i think virtually no one exist satisfying that criteria. And that is a fantastic thing... You see in 1994 we had zero telephones (commercial) and do you know the number that stands at 2010.. It is a whopping 600 million as per February 2010. That is simply unprecedented growth.. We speak about technology reaching the masses, and cellular technology is one which have certainly reached out to the larger section of people.. And behind all this revolution, the key people in frame were some engineer folks who were burning their midnight oil(still can't get enough of this  usage , even when such lamps are done and dusted) to make this technology affordable as well as simple.. This is one fact that makes me happy and will bring a smile to the face of my engineering friends.


At First there was the Tring Tring

                                                                   Well who can forgot this black beauty? And it produced the most beautiful sound which human ear ever heard until rock music came and spoiled everything. People waited patiently to hear the "tring tring" sound which took them to new levels of excitement which they never experienced.  Some who were fed up of patiently waiting for a call which never happened took the receiver in hand and made imaginary phone calls -- all to impress the guests at home who suddenly thinks you are the coolest guy in the world. Some even started  initiatives for social networking by dialling some random number to make new friends, but was often given sharp replies which lead to the coining of the usage " Sorry Wrong Number".

                                                                         My personal favorite memory regarding telephone landlines is how we used to fool others,  there was a number.. still exists which is 161 .. once you dial that number , you receive a call back from exchange. Many times i used to dial 161 and hang the phone, then somebody will come rushing in to take that urgent call and comes to realize that it was a prank. You just have to see their face after taking the call.. But don't try this when your parents are angry, consequences will be severe. But this  remained the #1 harmless prank you can do on an April Fool day until the obvious happened--> Caller ID's.When Mohanlal very famously said "My number is 2233", he must have thought  very little about the chap that actually owned that number. His telephone landline would have been flooded with calls from Mohanlal Fans. For that guy caller id might have turned to a blessing in disguise.

                                                                        Did you know that in the early  part of this decade if you needed a telephone connection, you needed atleast recommendation from MLA or MP. And not just that there was the painful long wait too. Recently i saw a bunch of guys selling tata indicom walky in a truck, 1000 rupees a piece.. Certainly our lives have changed from those old days .......... and change is good too.

Living life wire free
















                                                                       The new millennium brought new hopes and made carefree people. The only problem that was bugging those carefree people were wires. So a bunch of engineering folks again took a challenge and made a wirefree world. And cellular phones were born... As simple as that.

The first mobile phones i ever saw were fat ugly things which remembers me of boxes which we used to carry to school . In addition it had the strangest thing we had thought in our mind-- An antenna , as if it was extra terrestrial or something. Much of the people who actually bought this expensive gadget realized after their first use that the thing they are holding is virtually of no use.. Those guys didn't know back then that mobiles need range to operate.. At first they tried to catch the signal from terrace, coconut trees etc but later quitted the endevour.. But still the rest of the people other than the owner were charmed at the mobile phone.. The new set of ring tones were soothing to their ears, the keypads give them a new dimension of thought comparing even with typewritters and the mobile games gave them nirvana which they never experienced before.
So basically the guy who owned that fat soap bar became the talk of the town and he cursed the range gods day after day..

(to be continued)

PS: I have a habit of  giving "to be continued" and never bother to continue that post.. But this time things will be different

That's all Folks
With love
Krishna Sangeeth K.S