I was running haphazardly towards the platform that cloudy Wednesday morning, I wasn’t late but it’s more of a habitual hurry at the metro station that we dash down the stairs. Despite knowing the fact that if we miss this one we’ll obviously make it to the next one.
As I walked towards the women’s coach section of the platform I suddenly remembered that I had to call one of my friends. I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans and immediately felt the hollow space. I searched my other pocket and my bag, only to realize that my treasured white box was at home, resting in the cool covert of my study. It felt so bad.
You see, phones, especially our modern, high-tech android phones are angels that keep us going throughout our metro rides, some extremely boring college lectures, free time in canteens and every single free minute in our day. Now what would I do on the platform alone? As I had mentioned, it was a cloudy day and now I found my purpose in watching the clouds on that very platform . And for the first time in weeks, I noticed that the sky was amazingly beautiful. The wind had a strange essence, it was cool and wild.
I got into the women’s coach and grabbed a seat. Usually at this triumphant moment I would take out my phone and while away my half an hour journey happily watching some offline videos on YouTube. That day I observed people and realized that girls of my age have strangely similar outfits. I observed that there were many women who needed the seat I was sitting on and out of courtesy they couldn’t ask for it. Though my bag was heavy, I gave way to an aged woman. When I reached my destination it was raining cats and dogs. I had no umbrella and had to rush to find myself an e-rick. I reached my college and was there before time for my lecture. Usually this bonus time was eaten up by my WhatsApp chats which contained little information and lots of useless messages.
But that day I stood at the famous Eco-balcony of my college, like a romantic, aesthetic soul admiring the rain. My political science lectures seemed exceptionally boring and dry, but not after that morning, my attention was not diverted and I realized, Fitzjames Stephen had worked extremely hard on writing about the necessities of good governance.
And then there was an hour’s break between my lectures and it felt that it was my dreadful fate to be deprived of my phone that day. That day I had no options but to take a round around my rain soaked college campus while it was still raining, as the library was still not open. It is the best thing I have done in my college ours until now. I met two weirdoes of my college’s theatre society and I had a terrific hour discussing the Sanskrit play Kadambari with them. And as it turned out, it was due to extremely heavy rain and the consequent traffic jam that my professors couldn’t make it to the college and the classes got cancelled.
I travelled with one of classmates on the way back home and it was the first time that we had spoken to each other in detail and I came to know that our homes were really near to each other’s. I reached home and my mother was freaked out as she had been unable to contact me and all her motherly worries had suddenly grown in magnitude. I went to my study, but this time I was in no hurry to grab my phone. An hour or so later, I picked up my phone and checked all the WhatsApp chats and that I had missed 8 calls only to imbibe that none of them were actually urgent .
Had I carried my phone I would have replied to all the messages immediately and taken all the calls. But then I would have missed an opal like sky with a fair sprinkling of clouds, the mesmerizing sight from the eco balcony, the intellectual talk about Kadambari and a chat with my classmate.
There is total agreement to the fact that we require our phones for better connection, for keeping in touch with our dear ones, for entertainment and infotainment, for our share of day to day jokes and for socializing. But we have turned luxuries like connecting apps and apps like YouTube and snap chat into necessities. We tend to forget that life had been equally fun and probably more peaceful 4 or 5 years back when these things had not come into popular and extensive use. Since that eventful Wednesday I make it a point to leave my phone at home once in a week. Some people take this as a chance to have a good laugh, but believe me, this step towards de addiction and reducing my phone time has not only given me more free time, but also a strange peace of mind. This is what a day without my phone did to me.
You can try this at home and that too without any guidance.
