Mobile Phones and why?

I am sure you have one..dont we all. The little tiny thing that blinks and stares back at us, that we constantly check we are carrying when we leave for work. The tiny metal box that we whip out at the smallest sound or vibration. We take it out at parties, we show it off to friends, we keep in clean and safe, make sure its charged and insured, make sure its safe to use it when driving, use it to take pictures, listen to music, as a PDA, as a diary, a notebook and in my case as amusement when I am bored.
yes the mobile phone is a part of our lives..and we cant live without one..and i know..yawn yawn, its an old story.
But what I am keen to know is if we ARE slaves to this little ringing bleeping baby that we carry. I know of people who would never part with theirs, it follows them to the bathroom, it keeps them on the email network by being 'available on blackberry'. I also know of people who die to get a new phone, even if the one they own is perfectly fine, and then there is the whole thing about the features it has. I guess my mom is old..and her criteria for a phone is, should ring, and I should be able to see the screen clearly. Hmm! Guess she will be happy with Nokia, Nokia across the world develops products to needs specific to the place. In India, at one time Nokia was contemplating developing a dust proof, water proof variety, which they hoped a truck could drive over without damage.
A recent BBC program showed Sanjeev Bhasker traveling across India, he met a kabari waala (a person who collects old newspapers, bottles, scrap from the house and pays you for it), well this man had two mobile phones. Sanjeev needless to say felt quite upped. It was amazing.
Yes technology has moved, and yes I should not say much as I have a flashy blackberry, but no what I am talking is the ability of the mobile phone to work as a demanding baby, ringing and needing picking up and checking. Also the ability of the phone to act as an indicator of where you are, when, and talking to who, for how long. There is something to be said about a complete lack of privacy. In UK people don't give their mobile numbers, its personal and makes you available at all times to other people. I know of people who put their phones on silent to avoid being disturbed, but then I also know of someone who killed the punch line of a high drama, thriller time film, by naming the culprit of the who-dun-it loudly as he repeated what his friend told him on the phone.
Its bugging. A demanding phone, followed by a loud conversation in a confined space. I really don't want to hear about people's personal lives..and that is the irritating bit, lack of privacy as well as the lack of ability to sit in silence! Thank heavens for mobile phone free train compartments :)where you can cheerily boot out anyone who says 'HHHIIIIIYYYAAAA' on a phone.

Of text books and such like

Just remembered days long gone by...of the School Report Day. Whence the family would proceed to school to pick up the Report for the year for the children.
The freshly filled in page, with the statement 'progress to next class'.
And then off we went to the book shop across the road, to buy new books and new pens, pencils, ink pots and also compasses, protractors and dividers...and the lot. There used to a Camel Geometry box, which was a popular thing in school. This used to be expensive then, these days it is about Rs 65.00. We used to also buy rolls of brown cover paper to cover the various notebooks and also labels to put on top for identification in a class of 30-35 students.
The shopping list ended with buying new bright white school shirts with the School Monogram on them. And then it was off home to start to process of covering new books.
There were notebooks with lines for writing, note books with blank pages on one side for science, geography and history. There were squared notebooks for maths and a book known as Mental Maths, which I used to hate. There was also a sheaf of blank physical and geographical maps of India and later on the world for the geography class. I used to wait to reach a higher class where I would be asked to buy 'registers' which are letter size lined notebooks. The older children also seemed to carry a lot less books. I think watching parents spend money on all this was not something I noticed, it was more the ownership of something shiny and new that I liked at this point. It made me look after my things. Something I dont think I see anymore.

My father would sit and cover all my books and then fill in the labels neatly with my name, surname, class, section, and the subject. As I grew older I was handed down text books that my doodle loving older sister used before me. She had a strange fondness for daisies and so I would have spiraling floral decoration in my margins. I would also have squares coloured in and random notes, which were squeezed tightly into the space just above the text on the books. The back pages of these books were absolutely covered with writing and flowers. Being the good girl that she was my sister did not vandalize her books by using them as bats for cricket or as a paper source for throwing around in class. She did not particularly like chewing paper so all pages were intact. Its just the daisies that did my head in!! My poor younger brother left school to join a different one in a different city so he needed brand new books. I think I was the only one with recycled books in the family. It would have been great to see what he would have made of my weakness for Paisley patterns :)