It's another spanking new Monday, a man in tight unyielding jeans and up-to-the-minute colorful T-shirts with his sure smile for a second look, walks into the classroom. He takes his place in the last bench, but all eyes went back towards him. Out of somewhere comes, ' Stayi'n alive'Stayi'n alive' bringing everyone (almost) to tap their foot to the evergreen hits of the 70s by the Bee Gees. Someone in the front row amusingly asks, 'Is there going to be any celebration'whose birthday?' and he too began shaking his head approvingly. Some girls were not pleased! 

By now our hero had stood up, putting his ringed-fingers into his equally tight front pouch (his pocket). Finally, out came the brand new Nokia handset which had been all the while been rendering the foot tapping number. Looks around and place his set to his ear.

'Hi, darling' You're taking me out this Saturday night, don't say no,' came from the other end before he could say 'Hi'. It was enticing enough to hear even if he had put the volume down. All ears opened up to catch every word of the appealing conversation.

'Some other time, dar' he clogged, 'I'll label (call) you later' he somehow manage to complete. Some girls in the front rows were somehow relaxed.

How she can expect me to take her out when I just spent my whole monthly allowance on this brand-new handset, his expression tells it all. How cruel that 'baby' is! Forces down some fingers on the buttons, looks around the classroom, which by now was watching in unreserved silence. Put back his handset at the same sweat he has taken out.

Mobility and portability, new networks emerged, handsets became more sophisticated, mobile applications offering increasing functionality and new kind of content besides SMS (Scoundrel Message Service), MMS (Mums Massage Service) etc, can be delivered through score of networks as more bandwidth becomes available. Should this 'baby' be blamed for unceasing 'disturbance' of our 'hero' or should we take technology to task. It has been (oops she has been) 'mobing him' for the last few weeks.

How much is too much when it comes to mobile usage? The increase of mobile market is a blessing for manufactures and service providers; market has been lucrative but how much time this technology takes away our hero's precious time and his pocket money. It must be measurable. How much has it contributed to our social and mental contentment is a question to which we are not near the answer. 

Long gone are the days when a man could just bark from his window to call his neighbor next door. Now, we can imagine if that is done today. It is better to take 'safer' means unless you want to be 'impolite'.

Today mobile phones have become an 'integral' part of many. It has become some sort of traffic light that stops you at every junction, eventually stopping you not to reach your 'office' according to the planned route you had in mind. Mobbing you, mobbing me is the best we can do. The delight is that we have learnt to live with it. We have become more tolerant and appreciative of others 'freedom of speech' and of course willingness to spend.

Once again I could feel my cells responding involuntarily to, ' Tu wahan, Mein Yahan'', our hero's version of ' Stayi'n Alive' , coming from my handset and had to keep down the pen to attend to my calling! So, you and I sing, 'you're there and I'm here' and tapped our little feet to 'Agar tum na hote''when it comes to the usage of mobile phones.