Landline Phones and Friendship

“Hi Subramani, how are you. Bala said you are working in Infosys. How is your work going on? How are your parents and how is your little sister?” – Bala’s dad went on asking questions. It has been long since I had spoken to him. By the way, Bala was my best friend in school.

I started thinking when the last time was, I spoke to Bala’s dad and mum. I couldn’t recall correctly. However I used to speak to either of his parents, whenever I called him to discuss about some thing during our school days. Mostly his mother would pick the phone, and the phone would be handed over to Bala, only after she has spoken to me for some time. By this way, I came to know of his parents, and he also came to know of mine.

Our contact ceased over time, as we both went to college. It’s not that I stopped calling Bala; I still used to call him regularly to chat over variety of topics. Only thing, it’s not only the topics we discussed changed but also the phone we used. We no longer used landlines to talk to each other, we were using our mobiles, and of course our parents never attended call in our mobiles.

Meanwhile, few days ago, I tried calling Bala on his mobile to convey my birthday wishes to him. I was not able to reach him, in spite of making repeated attempts. It felt really bad that I couldn’t wish my friend on his birthday. I was left wondering what to do. It was then I remembered I had his land line number too. And it led to the conversation that I explained in the first paragraph.

After I put down the phone that day, suddenly I felt the urge to search how many of my friend’s land line number’s are stored in my mobile. First I began with my friends in office; those who became my friends either by the virtue of being my project mates or training batch mates. I would have met them first at a point of time, when mobiles were very well and truly integrated into our daily lives.

Unsurprisingly I didn’t have land line numbers of even one of them. And the same way I didn’t know much about any of their parents personally, other than the information’s they themselves have shared with me. Next I started checking for my school friends. I had the landline numbers of each and every one of them. And I have also spoken to the parents of all of them. I know each of them well, and they know about me too.

Now I moved to college friends. It posed a peculiar situation. It had people in both the categories. I had the landline numbers of guys like Siva who became my friends before they had brought their mobiles. And hence I have spoken many times to his mother whenever I called him. On the other hand, there were guys like Sudhagar, who had his mobile when I first came to know about him. As a result in spite of being his close buddy for close to five years now, I’m yet to speak to any of his parents directly, and also every thing I know about his parents were only through what he has shared with me.

Thinking further along the line, I was reminded of this. Even my Dad has few very close friends from his college days/ early office days. Still few years ago, they used to call him on our land line. If I pick up the phone, they used to talk to me for a considerable period of time, enquiring about my studies, future plans and all those stuff. Now thinking back for the past three years, I had rarely spoken to any of my Dad’s friends. I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that we forced our Dad to buy a mobile for himself, three years ago.


I began to wonder how much mobiles have changed our way of communication. No I’m not against mobiles. They help us to communicate to our friends wherever they are, be it in office, crowded bus, or in restaurant with their girl friend. But then don’t they also make sure we communicate only with them? In days of landline whether we liked it or not, we were forced to communicate with our friend’ parents also, and we began to get to know them. Now has the mobile, filtered those additional communications?

“In Western Countries, marriage is between two individuals. Whereas in Eastern countries, it is between two families.”- goes the famous saying. I may sound Old- Fashioned, and traditionalist, but I actually believe even friendship is complete in countries like India, only when they are between families and not individuals; but is not the mobiles changing our friendship to more individualistic levels?

I’m not saying this trend is right or wrong; but these are just honest reflections that went through my mind on the day I could convey my birthday wishes to my friend only because I had his land line number…..