Like anybody’s phone my phone too has many contacts. We save them. Saving phone numbers in contacts does not mean all of them are important. Many numbers are business / essential facilities related. And there are many more numbers in our contact list of which we do not even know why we had saved them. We have forgotten about them completely. They remain as an enigma. We use the numbers from our contact list only when required.
There are however, few phone numbers and we use them regularly. At the most, the maximum number of contacts that we may use regularly will be around 50-60 in number. Even this number too on the higher side, but there is no harm in assuming the numbers on a higher side. These contact numbers will invariably be of father, mother, brother, sister and so on. You may include few close friends too in the circle of 50-60 contacts. I must state that these contacts are a life time work!
Recently I changed my mobile phone. Hence, I was reviewing my contact list. To my dismay, I realized that my contact list is slowly shrinking! With time, it is logical to assume that the contact list too must grow as I get to know many people, may develop new friendships and relationships. In my review I found that this is not the case. It is exactly the opposite is happening. My contact list is shrinking.
My contact list is shrinking because the people in my contact list are exiting one by one, slowly but regularly from this world. They are leaving to the never returning shore and their times and memory will stay with us forever. In the last 6 years over 15 people from my contact list have exited this world. I do not use their numbers anymore. At the same time, I do not have the courage to delete their numbers from my contact list. Probably, I can never have that courage in life.
The phone and their mobile number are so personal to the people that I often wonder what will happen to their phone number and the instrument after the owners exit. My father’s phone is lying there in the father’s house untouched. I keep charging it from time to time. Why do I keep charging it? My father is not going to comeback from the never returning shore ever. But this very act gives me emotional satisfaction. That satisfaction is indescribable. At the same time, we are trying to keep his Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) alive as long as possible. The phone (instrument) became a memento of his memory. It has become sacred.
With these dwindling contact numbers, you can easily imagine my disturbed psychological state. Anyone in my place would express a similar view. All my friends, relations and close aides are saying ‘Sayonara’ silently; they were bidding an unsaid goodbye. I am aware that saying the final ‘Sayonara’ is not related to age. This fact has brought me to the ground reality. These days I look at every communication tool with distrust and terror, because I do not know what news it may bring. Who is exiting next?
I know and know it well; my phone number too will become extinct sooner or later. I would rather want it later than sooner. As I fall silent, my phone will fall silent. I do not think anyone in the world would care to keep the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) alive! And once my mobile falls silent, it will remain silent without the possibility of charging. My phone will stay dead forever. Contact list is fully erased.
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
