Among the civilised

"SUPPOSE you were left alone to live on a desert island, and you were allowed to take just one luxury with you, what would you choose?" "I would take a telephone," he said, "and I would push the wire into the sand, and my greatest pleasure would be to sit and look at it, and to think it will never ring, and I shall never have to answer it."

Well, this exchange was between an interviewer and an actor in a radio talk aired decades ago and mentioned in an essay by the South African-born British writer William Plomer, known for his dislike for mechanical things. The essay "On not answering the telephone" happened to be a lesson in English prose during my higher secondary school days.

Justifying his aversion to the phone, Plomer said: "Why don't I have a telephone? Not because I pretend to be wise or pose as unusual. Because I think it is a pest and a time-waster. It may create unnecessary suspense and anxiety, as when you wait for an expected call that doesn't come; or irritating delay, as when you keep ringing a number that is always engaged."

He elucidated further: "As for speaking in a public telephone box, that seems to me really horrible. You would not use it unless you were in a hurry, and because you are in a hurry you will find other people waiting before you. When you do get into the box, you are half asphyxiated by stale, unventilated air, flavoured with cheap face-powder and chain-smoking; and by the time you have begun your conversation your back is chilled by the cold looks of somebody who is fidgeting to take your place."

Well, things were so different ages ago when this essay was written. Today's mobile telephony and the ubiquitous handphone sets were then still gestating in the womb of time. And now, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of telephone, and William Plomer will be turning in their graves, for telephone has brought about an information revolution and it is no more a pest. Public telephone booths and landline connections are no more in vogue these days and are being phased out. These days people just can't imagine life without cell phones.

Mechanical things and modern gadgetry do not excite me. Probably, Plomer's essay in school influenced me. For, I acquired my first handset much, much later when most in my circle of friends had had it for years. I'm still using the handset, with Roman and Arabic keys, which I bought in Dubai more than four years' back. And my use of it is limited to talking and sending in an occasional SMS. When it comes to anything mechanical, I'm the anti-thesis of the tech-savvy , gadget-loving person who takes to these things as a duckling which takes to water without batting an eyelid.

I joined journalism when the lino press composing and the smudged galley proofs were on the verge of extinction. The typewriters gave way to computer terminals. My baptism in editing began at the old-fashioned curvy desk, the altar of journalism, which had the chief-sub at its pivot and we tyros sat on the other side, surrounding him like satellites.

The thrill of subbing on hard copy and giving a headline was something different. Sometimes an overbearing senior would frown and fling the edited copy back at us if he found something amiss. There used to be admonitions on tight copy-subbing. "Cut the flab out; cut it to the bone; say the maximum in minimum words," used to be some of the common refrains. Numerous pages from the headline pad, scribbled and crumbled, would land in the bin, before arriving at a reasonably good headline. Unfortunately, journalism is not what it used to be. The emphasis is more on churning out news pages than on subbing, rewriting and page lay-out in this fast-paced age.

I reluctantly fell in line and probably was the last to learn to lay the page on the computer. There were disgruntled murmurs from page paste-up men, who felt we were stepping on their toes. With dismay, we watched the gradual laying off of proof readers, composers and paste-up men. The vigilant readers always rectified our slips, but sometimes ended up creating sweet bloomers. August gathering was changed to September gathering by a novice, who thought that it was now the month of September as August had already passed. And the German writer Gunter Grass, once, became Guntur Grass, for Guntur is an Indian town. The friendly paste-up guys sometimes proved a hard nut to crack. Some were notorious for jumbling the bromide and pasting wrong headlines and captions. The city engagement column once went under obituary folio, creating a furore.

During my long years on the Indian Express in my hometown Hyderabad, I saw colleagues acquiring vehicles. But I never felt like going for one as I somehow liked to take public transport, despite the inconveniences. "If only you could buy a vehicle, you would save so much of time by not waiting stupidly at the bus-stops," friends would remark. Moving with people isn't time wasting. There's always something to know and learn. Well, I know nothing of time-management and while in hurry I hail a cab.

I used to be among the few, who stayed back at the office after the night shift, to take the first bus home in the wee hours.

And before that there used to be the mandatory tea, mostly in Irani cafes. In the stillness of the murky dawn, we used to be the first customers in the nearly deserted cafes, sipping the hot and sugary tea, while an occasional passing truck shattered the morning calm. One café had this practice of pouring the first cup of tea from its kitchen on the road, before being served to anyone. Probably, it began its business with one for the road or it could have been a humble libation to Mother Earth.

When I was leaving Dubai for Brunei, a senior colleague advised me to learn driving and acquire a driving licence. "Persons without a driving licence are considered uncivilised in that part of the world where you're about to go," he had exclaimed! Well, maybe in a way, I'm an uncivilised among the civilised or maybe a reluctant-adapter. I take public transport and don't feel embarrassed about it.

Sometimes I take a cab or cadge friends for a ride, but I love to walk and walk unlike Forrest Gump, who ran and ran. The Brunei Times