In December 2005 I was in Delhi to visit my sister. My nephew picked me up at the railway station. With him was his 6 year old son. As we were driving in my nephew’s car his cell phone rang. His wife was on the line. With one hand on the steering wheel, head cocked to one side, holding the phone between his cheek and shoulder, my nephew shifted gears with his free hand as we approached a traffic light. His voice was cool as he assured his wife of my safe arrival. With his hands and feet engaged and mind occupied, I was wondering, what would happen if his son tried to draw his attention now? Was it even possible for my nephew to be distracted anymore from driving? I assumed that the ring on the cell phone must be too much to ignore for a cell phone user like my nephew in spite of all the physical discomfort and risks in a busy traffic. All of a sudden, the bigger picture of a changing India with the advent of cell phones became apparent to me.

In the hot summer of Delhi in the early seventies, I had to walk several blocks on weekends to make a phone call to my sister or a friend from a public telephone at a post office. Privately owned telephones were few and costly to maintain. In a lucky household that had a telephone, family members had to be judicious about the time spent in making phone calls. Cell phones or mobile phones as referred to in India have revolutionized the scenario. They have suddenly opened a floodgate of conversation, making it possible for Indians to talk as much as they wish. Cell phone has given the Indians that immense opportunity to talk which they missed on regular phones. The phone conversations, which were confined within the four walls, now have spilled on to pavements, roads, shopping malls or any other conceivable public place. Availability of an affordable and easy means of communication has created unprecedented demand for cell phones in India. All their activities now seem to revolve around this small gadget.

What happened in India with the advent of cell phone has pretty much occurred in other third world countries as well. In recent years the numbers of small and large businesses have increased significantly in the third world, thanks to globalization. More business means the need for more communication. The cell phone provides that opportunity across the borders of nations. Today, state of the art cell phones can perform multiple functions, which required a number of separate components before. Facsimiles, emails, photography, GPS navigation, MP3 players- all can be performed with the cell phone. It appears that a small business can be run effectively by means of this hand held small gadget alone. Women in remote Bangladesh villages started their business adventures first with the purchase of cell phones through the Grameen Banks.

Among developing countries China and India have the most number of users of cell phones. Some of the following statistics about cell phones use in India are staggering.
• 140 million phone services in 2006 up from 85 million in 2005.
• Growth of 2700% between 2000 and 2005: cell phone use is supposed to triple in a few years.

Cell phones helped narrowing the social gap between the poor and the rich in India. For example, I was traveling by train from Calcutta to Jamshedpur, where my in-laws’ live. I was in an A.C chair car comfortably seated. A wedding party of approximately 20 came on board along with their servant. No sooner did the train leave the railway station than the host of the party got up and asked the servant to help distribute food to his guests. The servant opened his wares, arranged the food in plates and passed them one by one to the host who graciously offered them to his guests. As the operation continued on smoothly, a cell phone suddenly buzzed playing a popular Bollywood tune. The servant reached in his pocket and brought out his cell. While he was conversing, the guests who had not yet been served looked on with a fixed gaze until the servant finished talking. When the conversation finally stopped not a word of reprimand came from the host to the servant for ignoring his order or indulging in something very personal in front of his eyes, – a fact which was unthinkable a few years back. The cell phone gave the servant the respect, which he deserved and which was denied to him in earlier years.

Cell phones have also made average life easier in Indian cities. The list is endless. Upon my arrival, my sister ordered uncooked fish from a vendor by phone. In all probability, the man was selling fish somewhere in a crowded market place with a cell phone ready in his lap. My sister instructed him on how she wanted the fish to be sliced and packed to be picked up later by her husband. In cities like Calcutta where there is an acute shortage of public parking, sometimes the owners leave their cars in the possession of their drivers. The drivers circle around the blocks or wait at a convenient place while the owners attend to their businesses. When the errands are over, the owners call the drivers on their cell phones for pick up. Kids in middle and high schools use cell phones for their various errands including keeping in touch with their moms to keep them from worrying. It is hard to find a kid alone on the street these days not glued to his or her cell.

I will conclude my writing by narrating a unique incident I witnessed during my last few days in India that increased my faith in the use of cell phones. I was returning to Calcutta by the Rajdhani Express from Delhi. I was occupying a lower berth of a two- tier A.C coach. My co-traveler was a young lady with two children. All of them had cell phones, which they used incessantly until supper. After supper the children climbed to the top berths while their mother made herself comfortable in the lower berth. It was a cold night. After ten, the lights were dimmed, the curtains drawn and everybody pulled the blanket up to his/her chin, ready to sleep. I was tired and fell asleep immediately with the rocking motion of the train. Some faint voice woke me up in the middle of the night. I looked up to my watch. It was 2:00 AM. I was surprised and annoyed by the intrusion to my sleep. It took me a while to find out the source. It was the young lady at the neighboring berth. There was a muffled sob followed by some angry protests, long silence and finally a gleeful voice. How long this continued, I do not remember. I was wondering who she might be talking to at this odd hour with so much of emotion. Then I realized it must be her husband with whom she was trying to patch up some affair. What could be a better time than the middle of the night when the rest of the world was asleep to make up the differences between a husband and wife! The cell phone gave a romantic opportunity to a couple separated by hundreds of miles of train distance. I fell into deep slumber feeling happy for the young wife whose husband must be waiting at the Howrah station tomorrow with flowers greeting her.

In many ways the life in India has been changed by the cell phone. It has transformed the social fabric. The ease in communication between people of different social strata has brought them closer. It has made small businesses more productive as the efficiency in communication has improved. Talking to families and friends living in far away lands had never been as easy as now because of the cell phone. However, the availability of an easy and affordable means of communication also requires some restraint and consideration. As in the case of my nephew, though he was reassuring his wife of my safe arrival, I would have been far more comfortable if he had waited until we got out of the busy traffic.

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