I have been to hell and back. The only consolation is that I am among the lucky few who have lived to tell the tale. I had lost orientation of time and space. I was in a haze, never sure of facts or figures. I often forgot birthdays and anniversaries and had stopped exchanging pleasantries. Like an outcast I avoided social gatherings and sites. Sharing memories and memorabilia was too much work and it seemed ages since I had told the world what was on my mind. Worse still, I had stopped indulging in the basic human activity of sharing, liking and forwarding.

When acquaintances commented that I have not been myself lately, I nodded gravely. My phone had developed a snag and though the company had promised much prompter service it took them three days to replace it. For seventy two hours I was at the mercy of a very old device and my own ‘devices’ which are equally outdated. Among other things my interim phone lacked smartness. It took time for dumb me to get used to a dumber phone. The first few hours were spent in establishing that what doesn’t respond to touch won’t respond to a push or shove. I nearly cracked the screen in an effort to open a mail by tapping it with increasing frustration and force.

Since I was expecting to get back my technically advanced model sooner I had not cared to copy my contacts onto the temporary recruit. I noticed artificial intelligence had proliferated around me at the cost of my own. Where as earlier I could rattle off dozens of phone numbers from memory, now I only knew my husband’s apart from my own. Stuck in various situations I would call him for the necessary information. Let me just say that though I have great faith in his potential to be many things, a chirpy, helpful telephone operator is not one of them!

The minuscule alphanumeric keyboard was too cumbersome to dial numbers, messaging seemed even more far fetched . Frustration gripped me as I peered at the miniature screen with my failing eyesight. Typing was slow and tedious without predictive text and inbuilt spell-check. I sadly realised that years of enthusiastic assistance by my phone had put me out of practice. I was no longer the spelling bee I used to be.

I sorely missed the search engines. Having these ready reckoners on my phone has made them an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient part of my life. I like to google before I doodle or babble. But now robbed of this facility I was condemned to silence.

Sans GPS I was a lost babe in the woods, or more accurately, concrete jungle. I realised that the city had changed and I had stopped noticing landmarks ever since I had come to rely on the eye in the sky. Instead of orienting myself in the traditional way I follow directions given in a thick American accent. I am never sure I have reached my destination till my phone says so.

I haven’t yet started counting the little things I missed , the music, the pictures, the games, the pedometer, the camera and the news updates. All seemingly insignificant but together they make my life complete.

Thankfully the nightmare is over but a thought keeps me awake. As phones have been getting smarter have I been getting dumber? Without it I was utterly and bitterly lost. My plight reminded me of those childhood fables in which the monster’s ‘ being’ resides outside his body. So has my phone become the centre of my being? And more importantly, have I unwittingly given a small inanimate gadget the power to take the I out of me?

(published as a middle piece in the Tribune on 8/10/2015)