I used to walk a km from my hostel to Avenue Road along with my friends, every alternate day after tasteless mess dinner to call my home and apprise my mom the regular stuffs at a tiny yellow-coloured call-booth. After the call, we never missed to sip a cup of tea at a small shop owned by one good-looking aunty, whom all my group of girlfriend-starved friends stared and go over top imagining everything they would. Even I fell to their trap, not that I was sadhu before ! Anyways back to where I was, if you are confused whether this crazy guy used to walk so long to call home or see that aunt, that too in Silicon City of India. Well, the answer can be YES to both, but my mother’s order to call her every other day overshadowed any damn reason. Although the motives were many, I used to go there only to call my parents and siblings located 650 Kms away from Bangalore by dropping never-ending stream of one rupee coins in the yellow-box and the reason was I didn’t possess the gadget called Mobile Phone or Cell Phone! Even I could not even imagine gadget like Tata DOCOMO OneTouch Net Phone back then .
I used to visit home once every three months. Although I never used to insist my parents to buy one cellphone fore me, but they could sense my urgency to grab one, especially when some mama buys new phone and along my cousins, we go awe with it and in no time, test every single feature [can’t help, born to be engineers].
It was December winter of 2006 and I happened to visit my family during preparation holidays of my third semester exam. The atmosphere at home, my irritating bro and sis and constant pampering of my mom by serving dishes of my choice made me forget that I had come home to prepare for my third semester exam with loads of books in my bag. After a week stay, I boarded Udhyan Express – Departure Time, 8.10 pm, Wadi, Seat No. 21 AC 3 tier. I always preferred traveling in Sleeper compartment, but my dad insisted me to book this time in AC.From my past experiences, I knew AC coaches were filled with boring travelers who were on their own for whole 24 hours. Get a life, guys!
To my dad's guideline, I said to myself -Why not? It was free for me then, because I was still a proud dependent of an Indian Railway Servant, not anymore as I slog now to have a title called Software Engineer. Although I reluctantly agreed, I opted AC 3 tier rather than my dad’s initial guideline to book my seat only in 2A. I boarded my train in time with two heavy bags, piercing through people standing at the door to get my seat. Someone had already occupied my seat, and since the passenger was quite elder, I decided to sit at the side berths out of due respect to his age. I saw a girl occupying the lower side berth and obviously, she had booked. She had wrapped herself in a shawl covering her from neck to toe, wearing spectacles and cursing me from within as I trespassed her seat for which she was owner for next 12 hours. After seeing each other’s face for next half hour, I decided to start the conversation with her.I noticed she was reading some fat novel. I asked which book she was reading! She said something and I didn’t give a damn about that. I recall the author was Danielle Steele, and that was the first time, I was hearing this name. And later I found out that she was an ardent fan of this romantic novelist. We were lost in continuous chat and stopped until some old uncle reminded us that it was 11.30 pm and asked us to switch off the single light which helped us to gaze into each other's eyes. I still prefer an Upper berth in trains and it was same that day too.Reason: I love sleep and can’t tolerate if someone wakes me up early, especially in train. I believe many people who are fond of sleep and travelled in trains agree with me. But that night was different. Although we exchanged goodbye-and-it-nice-meeting-u pleasantries, nothing much had progressed and I didn’t want it to end here. I just wanted to wake up early let whatever happens. I had no gadget to give alarm, but I had up my mind to talk with her again next morning.
Next day, I checked my watch immediately when I woke up. Without any alarm or anyone waking me up, I got up on my own for first time in train at 6.30 am and I was relieved. I didn’t want her to see myself as a very desperate guy. So I behaved normally and went to do my daily chorus. We still had good two hours left and it was Hindupur I believe. I bought two cups of tea for both of us and continued our chat. Bangalore Cannt came, and she had to get down. I used to get down usually at Majestic, but this time, responded to the situation. I got some weird sense of feeling that something good was going to happen; and without thinking twice, I just got down and helped her with luggage. For those, who are thinking it’s just out of JAB-WE-MET, in fact, we both were pleasantly surprised and astonished later to see how similar it was to our life. Please note: this happened in Dec ’06, way before JWM released.
To my surprise; she shared her phone no. even without asking. I knew it made no sense asking number from her, when I myself didn’t possess one. But I knew “mera number aayega” but when, I was not sure! She insisted to give a miscall. To avoid getting trapped, I told her my cell is switched off and I kept it deep under my luggage. She later figured out that I lied then :) To my bad luck, I didn’t kept a pen to note down her no. Neither did she had. I promised her I will call back her once I reach hostel and just recited her no. on the way back. The moment I reached hostel, I messaged her using my friend’s mobile. This continued until I consumed those 100 sms of my friend, and it was getting really weird because he was one big flirt with girls , and he wanted those free sms badly. I decided to buy a sim. May be I am the first person on earth to buy a SIM before buying a handset. But yes, I did ! I used to remove his sim and chat with this girl until we really decided to meet again. It was exam time so I postponed the meeting and stopped chatting for a while. I went to home for 3 week long vacation after exams.To my surprise, my father gifted one nice cool phone to me. And there began the journey! I had my first-ever mobile phone before my first-ever date!
Today I own the phone in the image above after changing so many phones en-route, still I can never forget the journey to my first phone ! :)
