Reading this article about the fast disappearing landline phone and what it means to share as a family rang a familiar bell. My maternal grandfather's claim to fame in his humble Kolkata neighborhood was that he was the first to acquire a phone in the early 50s. Though most of us who heard the stories of his "greatness", were born well past a time where having a landline phone could confer such incredible social status.
The stories we heard were pretty hysterical. The ring of the phone was so loud and the living quarters so tight that an incoming call was heard three doors away as was the conversation that followed. Grandpa spoke loud to begin with but his decibel level went up in proportion to the caller's geographical distance from him.
Some peeved neighbors accused him of being a braggart and showing off his possession of a phone to those less fortunate. Notwithstanding, the phone served as the contact number for just about every neighbor in reasonable radius. It was not unusual to send one of the kids running to let a person know that their relative would be calling in ten minutes and they need to run like the wind to "attend the phone".
In time, his kids started to get calls on this phone and there was a space between two sets of wooden doors that served as a private booth for their conversations. As a child, I remember hiding in that very space as I had seen my uncles doing even though no one was calling me. I just talked out loud from my hiding place to mimic adults in a phone conversation. The kids in the family who came along after me, seemed to have missed out on this fun activity - by then the trusty old phone had extensions and people did not have to come out into the living room to talk. I can appreciate landline nostalgia.
The stories we heard were pretty hysterical. The ring of the phone was so loud and the living quarters so tight that an incoming call was heard three doors away as was the conversation that followed. Grandpa spoke loud to begin with but his decibel level went up in proportion to the caller's geographical distance from him.
Some peeved neighbors accused him of being a braggart and showing off his possession of a phone to those less fortunate. Notwithstanding, the phone served as the contact number for just about every neighbor in reasonable radius. It was not unusual to send one of the kids running to let a person know that their relative would be calling in ten minutes and they need to run like the wind to "attend the phone".
In time, his kids started to get calls on this phone and there was a space between two sets of wooden doors that served as a private booth for their conversations. As a child, I remember hiding in that very space as I had seen my uncles doing even though no one was calling me. I just talked out loud from my hiding place to mimic adults in a phone conversation. The kids in the family who came along after me, seemed to have missed out on this fun activity - by then the trusty old phone had extensions and people did not have to come out into the living room to talk. I can appreciate landline nostalgia.
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