Me and my mobile

Had arranged for a small get together at home. Invited close relatives and friends. Sisters and brothers from both sides arrived early to help me with the arrangements.  We decided to prepare food by ourselves to give it a homely touch. Being the lady of the house hosting the party, my presence and advice was sought by every woman who was happily sharing the work.

“Viji, where is kolappodi and kaavi?” my sister asked.

“Amma, can we place the diyas over there?” – daughter-in-law.

“Akka, how much milk is to be boiled to make curd?”—sister-in-law.

“I doubt if the vegetables chopped will be sufficient.” another s-i-l.

I was rotating my head in all directions to reply to them when my brother’s mobile rang.  After attending it he said he had to immediately leave for his place on an urgent office work and left.

 As usual the other men folk were busy discussing politics –local, national and international unmindful of the happy chaos going on in and around the kitchen. (Not that they all are not familiar with house hold chore. In fact almost all of them help with their spouses in kitchen at home. But that is different no? What will happen to their male ego if they are seen in the kitchen by others? Won’t they think of me as henpecked? )

Soon a mobile rang and we all realised that my brother had forgotten to take his mobile while leaving urgently. I knew it was indispensable to his work and started thinking of ways to send it to him. I tried to find if he had any other mobile with him so I could tell him that he had left this one here. I was not familiar with the touch screen in his brand new gadget. I tried to contact in his land line from some other phone. As usual I could not locate my mobile especially in such a busy day. I got one from someone. It was also fancy looking and unfamiliar to me. If I touched the screen for the keys some funny message appeared. Soon everything disappeared from the screen. Tens of chores awaited my immediate attention and I could not afford more time to these tech monsters and decided to call my tech savvy son. He grasped the problem and started to fix it. Out of curiosity I watched him. The tricky gadget eluded him also which satisfied my ego to some extent. He touched the buttons and got some funny messages too. Somehow my own mobile had become touch screen and stopped working. No working mobile had my brother’s land line or other number stored. There seemed to be no way to contact him.

Ring....  Ring....  Ring....  Ring....  

I panicked realising guests had started arriving. My hands automatically searched for my good old simple Nokia under my pillow, found it and switched off the snooze. And what a sigh of relief I let out when I saw the normal key buttons intact in my mobile.