Smoking & Browsing

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Somerset Maugham said (I think in 'Summing Up'): "Those who don't talk should smoke".

Satyajit Ray's heroes (like Uttam Kumar in 'Nayak') were inveterate smokers. He was asked why so? Ray replied (I think in 'Our Films; Their Films'): "Mine are not action heroes; so I didn't know what to do with their hands".

Since by nature I prefer listening (and thinking ;-)) to speaking, I used to silently smoke in Tea Joints like the Harry's or the Faculty Hostel's lounges, sitting alone.

Now that I quit smoking long back, I had a problem in Hyderabad what to do with my hands waiting for Tea in the Dhabhas here.

The problem got solved when an year ago, my son installed Internet on my mobile phone.

Instead of smoking I browse the Web on my mobile sitting alone in Tea Stalls.

The addiction is unbelievable. Yesterday, my mobile stopped accessing the Net any which way; and my son is away in the Netherlands. I had to take an auto paying Rs. 100=00 to visit the Airtel main office in Begumpet. The problem was sorted out for free in 5 minutes: 'Remove the SIM card, wait a minute, and reinsert. Whoosh, Abracadebra!'.

I thanked the youthful ma'am who served me out of turn in view of my Senior Citizenship, and returned to my Tea Joint.

Within minutes I got this message on my mobile:

"Please let us know if you are satisfied with our service by Shaheen Sultana, by answering 'yes' or 'no' on our toll free number 567"

Wow!