The Ring!

I was startled by the sound of the rooster, sharp and loud; made me wonder what time of the day it was. I checked my watch – 2.30 p.m. and then I quickly pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t in the middle of a lovely dream. I raised my head from the book I was making notes with and looked around me to see if it was only I who heard the loud cock-a-doodle-doo. Thankfully, I wasn’t! Others around seemed to wonder where the sound came from, too, and we were quick enough to notice a person fumbling with his phone. As he looked up he saw me staring at him and I politely pointed towards the ‘Silence Please’ sign – it was a library, after all. He smiled sheepishly, tucking his phone away in his pocket. Suddenly, the library wore a different atmosphere. There were whispers regarding the distracting sound for a few minutes, before everyone settled down to what they were engaged with, prior to all this sudden excitement that we were awakened into!

I continued to be distracted. And wondered why we have ring tones that attract the attention of not just us – a baby’s laughter (a loving mom?), a Hindi film song (a Bollywood buff?), a harsh, sporadic sound (a lazy person?)…

I guess the choice of a ring tone was a reflection of the personality of the owner of the phone. So instead of continuing to make notes on anthropology, I began scribbling names of friends, the ring tones of their phones and the kind of personalities I knew them to be! This could well be defined as the height of being unemployed. But I found the exercise to be pretty interesting. And then I came down to my own choice of a ring tone for my phones – the tanpura drone. The nice thing about it is that I barely ever hear it, given that I am listening to classical music and the sound of my ring tone just blends into what I am listening to. (It comes in handy as an excuse when I don’t feel like talking).

The chain of thought lead me to the song ‘telephone dhun mein hasne waali’ – the one whose laughter is like the ring of the telephone? I giggled out loud enough to attract some attention and apologised profusely.

I drove back home still thinking of ring-tones and tuned into this song from my phone:

Lobo, ‘Rings’