Mobile phone manners
Those of us who recall the pre-mobile phone days will remember that it was quite something to have a telephone at home. People who did not would approach their neighbours if they needed to make calls. Some people would put their phones in boxes with secure locks on them. Nowadays anybody can have a mobile phone. But the self-important feeling of having a phone still remains. We are so much conscious of our phones and pay so much attention to them that it makes us forget simple manners and our respect for others. We see important people at important meetings stop or disturb the proceedings by answering calls on their mobile phones. With heads lowered they whisper unimportant things while keeping others waiting. While an important speech is being delivered, some among the audience will respond to their interfering ring tones. Even on the stage while an individual is delivering a speech, another sitting on the dais will answer his or her phone in full view of the audience. I wonder why it does not occur to such people that it is impolite and disturbing to do so. Even worse is when an important artiste is giving a recital and one can hear someone in the audience telling the cook at home to put some raisins in the sweets. But what eventually made me write this letter is an incident that beats every other. After performing wedding rituals a quazi raised his hands to pray for the new couple and so did everybody else. He started in the usual way and just as he was in the middle of the fifth or sixth sentence, asking God to shower his blessings on the couple, his phone rang and he stopped praying. He took his mobile out of his pocket, looked at it and answered the call. The others did not know whether to drop their hands or keep them in the praying mode. The quazi finished the call, apparently informing someone that he was on his way and started the prayer all over again. I do not know how God must felt about it, but I was dumbfounded. The mobile phone is an instrument which is there to serve us and not dictate our lives, or for us to make a social nuisance of ourselves.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments