for those who might have been trying to call me

Last evening around eight pm, I am sitting in my front room and being interviewed for a radio program. I notice my phone ringing from faraway, but I decide to deal with it later. Or at least, I think I can hear the phone ringing.

Finally, the interview ends and I go looking for my phone. I can't find my phone anywhere. I ask my flatmate to call my phone and it's unreachable. I begin to get worried. I suddenly realise that the last time I actually rememeber handling the phone was three hours ago in the Metro. I could have lost it. I decide to be philosophical about this (second phone lost in three months) and not get hysterical. Phones get lost. But there is still that mysterious ringing to be accounted for.

I decide to go take a leak.


Now,
I often leave my phone in the loo.
Which is a symptom of either being too attached to my phone, or too much in love with the loo, or both.
I am also very absent minded.

(You can see what's coming, can't you?)

As I poise to let loose, I see the phone shining wetly in the depths of the toilet bowl.

The ringing phone I had left unanswered was also simultaneously vibrating, and it had shaken itself off the top of the flush and fallen into the bowl.....

The event flashed in my head with total clarity, and it was so funny that i was laughing even as i shoved my hand into the loo to (rather belatedly) rescue the phone.

later, after i have dismanted the phone and left it out to dry, I am chatting with a friend online

MvA: a pakistani friend of mine was playing with his phone last week and dropped it in a glass of water. It didn't work afterwards...

AVT: but i think my story counts as a classic

9:08 PM MvA: It does for sure!

you can write your column on it

try to relate it to some history

AVT: i don't thik so

it's not classic enough!!!!

9:09 PM MvA: oh, okay... but try to use the symbolism of it then

AVT: vibrating mobiles falling into toilets...?

MvA: how symbolic is that...

AVT: the city flushing down attempts at communication and reaching out

And it would make the beginnings of a great story. A twenty first century epic of anomie, love and loss.

A lover urgently calls a beloved. The unanswered phone vibrates with passion and desire.
It is doomed to fall into the toilet and be flushed away, the unwanted flotsam of an uncaring city.

It could be quite the story.

MvA: oh, yes that's a nice link

tres magnificent

9:10 PM see, what lost telephones can do

AVT: inspire creativity? too high a price to pay don't you think?

9:11 PM MvA: i think so