I just woke up with the rays of
bright sun falling on my face through the window. “Ah! It’s already 6:30am. Another
day of boring routine work” my mind spoke. Got refreshed, had the western style
breakfast i.e., bread and jam. In a hurry packed up my office stuff, locked my
main door and made sure that it was properly locked. I need to walk a kilometer
daily to catch the bus. Had a speed walk so that I can reach the bus stop on
time. Thank God! I was on time. Waiting for a bus is a boring job. To
compensate it, I would keep myself busy with the mobile daily.
Today when I slipped my hand in to
the handbag, I realized that I had forgot to bring my mobile. I had no time to
go back and pick it up. “It’s ok for one day. Hope everything goes fine.” – are
the words my heart felt. Within few minutes the bus arrived. Generally it’s
hard to get a seat in morning hours, I was lucky enough to get one today. When
I saw an old woman who was standing beside me, recollecting my parent’s saying
– “Help others and respect elders”, offered my seat to her. I could see the
mixed feeling of surprise along with the thankfulness in her eyes. I didn’t
know whether I should feel proud or kick myself because I need to literally
stand for one and hour to reach my office. Standing in a crowded bus with no
mobile, a horrible start of the day.
In the mean time, my ears found
something interesting. There was a conversation going on between a mom and her
son. Although it was general stuff, there was a question asked by the mom – “Do
you like me or your teacher more?” I was curious to hear the answer from the
kid. He immediately replied – “ I like you more mom.” Then the next obvious
question from her was, “Why me? Even I too punish, when something wrong was
done by you.” He just paused for a second and replied her, “Even though you punish
me, I know that you have love towards me but it’s not the case with my
teacher.” Not only she but also me was surprised to listen such an answer from
a six-year-old boy.
The sudden break of the bus made me
realize that my stop has arrived. I need to walk a little from our office main
gate to my respective building. On my way, my heart felt it was totally a
different path I was taking. I could see the blossom of fresh flowers on which
the tiny butterflies are enjoying themselves while dancing around the flowers.
Rabbits jumping here & there, birds chirping from the trees, cold breeze
hitting my face and a drizzle on the top made me feel like I am in a heaven. Physically
it may be the same path I was taking everyday but today the way my eyes and
heart seeing now was completely different. I miss all these small beautiful
things everyday due my mobile addiction.
I entered my office with a fresh
mind and exchanged the good morning wishes with my colleagues. Due to my stupid
habit of checking the time in my mobile drove me crazy in the first half of the
day. Spent the morning session by checking e-mails and finishing off my daily
tasks. By God’s grace there was a meeting in the afternoon and thought this
would be helping me to come out of the disease - Nomophobia (Stressed caused
due to No Mobile Phone)
Ten more minutes left for the
meeting to start. When I entered the meeting room, the things turned out to be
totally different. There were almost eight guys, none speaking to each other.
Everyone was busy with their respective so called Smartphones either chatting
or checking their FB feeds. Now a day, people are more interested in watching
the virtual faces in Facebook rather than the real faces in front of them. They
love to socialize in Whatsapp for hours but no time to ask the person sitting
next to them – “What’s up dude!” First
time in my career, I have listened to the speaker for a complete span of two
hours without getting distracted by my mobile phone notifications.
Almost an hour to finish off the
office hours, the tea boy brought a cup of my favorite tea. It was slightly
raining outside which I could see through my cabin’s window. Sipping in to my cup,
I remembered my school days. When it rains, we used to tear papers from our
school notebooks to prepare boats and have competition among ourselves. Those
were the most funny and happiest days, which would never come back. No mobiles,
no tabs, no play stations but still enjoyed our childhood utmost.
Suddenly the huge sound of the
building fire alarm pulled me back from my childhood memories. Following our Safety
officer instructions, I also started running towards the ‘EXIT’ stairs along
with my colleagues. But in hurry, I slipped one step and had fallen down,
rolling on the stairs. When I opened my eyes, I have realized that, in reality
I have fallen off from my bed and it was the alarm tone ringing from my mobile
which I have set it last night. Oh! Shit! All this was a dream. I couldn’t
believe this. However, there is no other way. Got up, refreshed myself and
started my journey towards the bus stop but with my ‘Mobile’ in my hand…
Happy to say that my first article was published in our Company Newsletter for this month...
