Yesteryears of cell phone!

The young readers, the apple generation would read this and think that I am simply crazy but I distinctly remember the days of 1997-98 when I was a kid… nay a boy… ok ok I was a teenager… alright I was in my late teens… fine I was nineteen! Now that you know my vintage let me share with you my memories from the year 1998 when cell phones in India were a newly introduced commodity. They also looked, felt, functioned and weighed quite differently from what they do now.

Few people owned these cell phones back then; if you did… then you were the boss of the town. So those who had cell phones in mid 1990s would mercilessly flaunt it to every man and his dog that happened to be with them in a room, in a lift, at a market place or simply happened to cross their way at any near or far distance. These suave gentlemen carried their cellphones with them wherever they went, with the grace of a Pharaoh and the SWAG of a Hollywood superstar. They often called these mobile phones as “Cellll phones” just like a popular car company calls one of its premium brands- a “Caaar”.

Ironically, in those days the Cell phone itself was the size of a clay brick, weighed enough to double as a rubber dumbbell since it came only in three sizes of large, jumbo and bloody huge! The cell phone would cost you a fortune yet could store only 20 numbers, its battery drained out completely in about an hour’s time, it couldn’t slip into your pant pockets either, it needed a case to be carried in, the case itself was so big that it could be used to carry snacks for the lunch break, just like a cello tiffin box. These cell phones could even hammer a loose nail or two with ease and were a deadly projectile when in the hands of an angry missus (second only to the dreaded rolling pin!). The phone also came with a two feet long telescope antenna and worst of all it didn’t take any pictures (leave alone an 18 megapixel camera there was not even a VGA, all the selfie people out there, are you listening!) in fact the cell phones could do just one thing-make phone calls, yet I thought it was simply the coolest gadget I’d ever set my eyes on.

And wait a minute, when it rang… yeah! When it rang, it was an absolute beauty that controlled the attention of everyone who stood in its audible space.

So when it rang! the suave gentlemen with an extra swagger would just flip open the mouthpiece of the Cell phone and say an extra perfect “Helleeow!” in the tone of a tycoon, they would then loudly exclaim for the benefit of all the bystanders, who were by now already captivated, “Yes! I am talking from my ‘cellll phone’; tell me Mr Doesn’t matter who you are?”

I also remember the best part of the cell phone was its mouthpiece that could be flipped open and shut in style so when you were done with your phone conversation you could just flip the mouthpiece back into its slot and hang up like a boss!