Mobile Fixation

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Whichever corner of the world you go, you will see someone walk on the road, his ear glued to a tiny instrument which 'connects' people. The world today is abuzz with human gossip. In a picnic scene you will notice men and women busy with their phones. In the legislature or even class rooms people watch forbidden things. The internet makes the world a superstring of valuable connectivity. In the malls, corridors, pavements, cars and buses and even on bikes and bicycles one hand and one ear are in the close conspiracy of personal whispers. In the parks or lonely places lovers laugh, cry and sulk over the mobile phone. Businessmen, rickshaw pullers, even housewives and five year olds play with the phone to keep the game of life alive. No student of T.S.Eliot will ever nod with the line- My people, humble people, I can connect nothing with nothing. No, the poet was wrong. Today the mobile phone can save lives, avoid wars, feed old immobile people and grow your business. Now that India is moving fast towards the digital mode, the Prime Minister advises the poor villagers to do e-banking, money transfers and almost everything that a person needs with the mobile phone.

The internet has now the entire knowledge sphere at its command. If you are a researcher, the cut and paste job has been made easier. If you are a genuine lover of knowledge, this tiny universe of a phone can give you all the knowledge you need without the physical toil of sitting for hours in a library. The modern world does not care for depth or width- information is all. You need headlines, a few snatches of a masterpiece, see a painting of  a Van Gogh and you become an authority. The lecture you deliver to a learned audience is on the wall, you need not practise standing before a large mirror like Bill Clinton, you need not take notes or mug up things. You just look at your mobile and dole out all the wisdom your audience needs. You can ask for all goods and services by touching the screen as if you are holding Alladdin’s lamp which grants all your wishes, legitimate, illegitimate even banal. You can send messages which you alone can decipher, you can buy and sell Gods’ creation without moving from your chair. You can live alone away from your loved ones. You will never be bored or hungry, the changing seasons, time's mutation will never disturb you. With the mobile in your hand your personal universe is in your grip.

But is it really so? Don’t you feel that the world is more than a few data, equations, pictures and information? Your reality becomes virtual, your imagination is an offshoot of biochemical algorithms. Your view of the world is data- centric. And you too are a datum for others.

Yes, the mobile phone is a dear friend in an emergency. When you need transport, service, help, especially that of a doctor or to inform a friend of impending disaster the mobile comes as a god-send. But beyond that it is a obsessive toy which makes you a child who constantly lives in  wonder not like Alice but like a lost child who finds solace from a non – welcoming reality.

I know people who after charging the phone pray let not anything go wrong with the phone; let not the networks fail. The mobile phone is a boon to the modern man. No argument. But it is not the be all and end all of life. The children today, particularly the school kids, have stopped reading books. The museum or art gallery does not hold any attraction for them. The teacher is also expendable-Google sir will give us lessons. It has made the young persons self immersed; they have no time for anything. Social media absorbs their intelligence; their creativity is confined to a few wisecracks.

Make the mobile your friend, not your lover, not your soulmate.Listen to your own authentic voice instead of listening to or reading the voices of others. Be yourself, not a mirrored image.