Why cell phones are an open and shut case

I have a confession to make -- I am yet to see an American using a non-clamshell cell phone. Blackberries are open-faced, so are the other PDA-phones. But give me an American with a non-clamshell phone and I will give you a secular VHP.

Indeed, why do Americans use only clamshell phones? I have thought long and hard about this, and come up with this seemingly naive theory, but in my opinion one that has a Sherlock Holmesian logic behind it. For most Americans a conversation is never open-ended -- there is closure (no pun intended on that one) in every thing that they do. Phone conversations is one such aspect.

Clamshell phones are, therefore, symbolic of what they feel about talking with others. Let me elaborate. I have heard several people in Mumbai say this on the phone -- "I am not yet decided, let me get back to you on that one." Result? The conversations are open-ended, are rife with suspicion and self-doubt and could create a thriller-like tension with the person on the other side. Americans on the other hand complete their conversations. The phone is a symbol of how the conversations go -- they are an open and shut case.

I find two advantages in this. One, the person on the other side knows exactly what you feel and therefore the coversation is transparent, and two, decisions are much faster, thus supporting commerce, the lifeblood of any self-respecting global city. Like Mumbai.

I am not suggesting, by any stretch of imagination, that we should all shift to clamshell phones to revive the city. But my guess is that those people who do make decisions fast, and close their conversations, also close their cell phones once they are done. And I don't think that is a bad thing at all.

The magic of culture

My wife and I, along with our friends here, managed to catch Krissh at a rundown theatre at Allen Street in Arlington. It was rundown because, in relatively upper middle class area of Virginia, here was a cinema hall that had really bad seats, the sound system was pathetic, the air-conditioning had no temp controls, the toilets were inaccessible (women had to stand in a queue ADJACENT to the men's loo), the seats had no Coke mug holders, even the popcorn 'tub' was really bad plastic paper. Fame and PVR multiplexes have made us spoilt brats.

And yes, the desis were just that -- desis.

The pop corn was strewn around, and they left Coke mugs at their seats when they left the theatre. Phones kept ringing, and they were laughing at all the wrong things. I don't mean to be a upper class white here, but surely Indian Americans should have been better behaved? I remember when I was a kid and satellite TV was science fiction we read in the Re 1 Russian books available at the local bookstore run by an out-of-work Gujarati, my parents usually took me Topiwala theatre in Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai, now best known along with Malad for malls and multiplexes. That theatre - and the audience - was better than this, and that was in late '70s and early-to-mid '80s until the VCR came and destroyed our nation's collective family values.

Perhaps the Loehmann's Theatre in Arlington was what we all deserved. Yet, there we were -- uncomplaining, almost fatal in our beliefs and, most importantly, loving every moment of the movie experience. Apart from our weekly chats with parents back home, for most desis the movies are our only connect with India (Sony and Zee shows are too unrealistic to even talk of them). It is what binds them to, pardon the melodramatic expression here, their motherland.

Anyway, once we were out, the discussion predictably veered to the movie. Everybody recollected their favourite moment. I, too, recollected mine. It was not in the movie; it was about a just-out-of-her-teens Indian girl who was, talking on her cellphone seemingly to her boyfriend immediately after it. Here is what she said, in a genuine American accent so my guess was she has spent most of her life here and that she is more American than Indian.

"It was a great movie, reminded me of Spider-Man. Can we hang out tonight?
.... (pause for boyfriend's sentence)
"You know, my sister loved it. She was sobbing during some scenes. And she clapped at the end of it. I mean it was really a great movie."

Her reaction kind of summed up the evening -- the magic of the movies was alive, no matter what seats we sit on, or whether there is a long queue to relieve yourself.

The city with short buildings

A couple of days after I landed in Washington, DC, I met someone for a Thai lunch at Pennsylvania Avenue (2200, not 1600). It was a good meeting -- he has been here for 20 years, and is now quite an authority on tips on how to live here.

He did not give me any, except he asked me what I felt about the US. I told him the truth -- I didn't know. It was too early to pass judgment on a country which my boss had told me was the "most advanced civilisation on earth, depite George W Bush." In between he told me that Washington, DC, did not have any skyscrapers because a law dictated that no building be taller than the US Capitol, the building that houses the Congress, or the US parliament. Wow!

Coming from Mumbai, which may soon see a civil war over parking rights, this place was heaven. It was quiet, no skyscrapers so the architecture retained a certain charm, people greeted each other on the streets and in the hallways, the buses and trains ran on time, they were airconditioned, and life looked so organised (organized?).

So, truth be told, I am starting to blog about my life in DC a month after I landed here. Not because I was lazy (ok, who am I kidding? I was lazy), but because I feel I know the city better than when I met the management guy who was a managing director of some division at a big consultancy.

I am enjoying my life here -- the excitement of learning new things, the magic of voicemail, the ups, the downs, the stories I am filing, the works. Now on, you may want to share that life and my thoughts on everything, including the short buildings.