Monthly Archives: July 2006

The Mobile Story: I Lost Samsung, I Bought LG

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I consider myself a positive thinking and optimistic person. That is why I am starting this write up by proudly (okay, not that proudly, just normally) declaring that I have a brand new cell phone. It’s LG, a switch from Samsung that I used for almost four years. Friends congratulated me as soon as they hear about my new phone but the euphoria would soon disappear as they got my explanation about buying the talking machine. “You used to have Samsung, haina?” a friend asked. “Yes, I used to,” I replied, “and I lost that last night.” Lost? How come? Where? Why? I don’t know why I lost it but it is certain that the phone is no more with me. I don’t know how I lost it but I have vague idea about the location where I might have lost the thing. I am telling here the story because, by now, I am nearly tired of repeating it to different persons. But let me admit it right here and right now that never before I enjoyed like this time telling stories- bad or good- that are related to me and my activities. Please be seated comfortably on that chair because I am afraid the story is going to be pretty much long.

Dinesh Wagle with new LG mobile set

I am, according to a columnist in a Nepali newspaper, seen “fiddling with the damn” new cell phone that I bought three days ago. This LG set has a digital camera, MP3 player, FM radio, voice recorder. Plus, I can also make calls and talk with other people. Pic by “coffee freak’s counterpart”)

Once upon a time…No, I am not starting like this. I am directly entering into the story. On the day, night actually, of 25 July 28, 2006 (Tuesday) at around 9:45 PM, on my way to home, I SMSed (send text message) the headline for the story based on the interview of British Ambassador Andrew Hall to Ananta Wagle (no personal relation), the desk in charge of the last page (Arts and Style) of Kantipur. Not receiving the delivery report in 5 minutes, I called him and made sure that the headline was received. That SMS and that call to Ananta Wagle turned out to be the last ones from my Samsung. Climax revealed? Wait, the plot are always interesting than climax in reality shows! (Did I write that? Honestly I have no idea what I am trying to say by writing what I wrote in previous sentence. Confused? Look, plots are always confusing.)

After about 10 minutes, I got off the vehicle, entered inside home, ate dal bhat as usual and turned on the TV. CNN was giving live (and recorded reports) of Middle East (okay, West Asia) conflict and I really wanted to follow the development for some reasons. Hum, the reason is that if you don’t have any idea about the conflict, channels like BBC World and CNN, magazines like Time and Newsweek and papers (which I read on the web) like New York Times and the Washington Post become redundant to you and I don’t want to let that happen.

So I was tuning in to CNN and I woke up in the middle of the night to see that the channel was still broadcasting reports from Israel and Lebanon. I don’t wear watch and I am completely dependent on phone for time. I looked for the set here and there, under the pillow and inside the quilt, on the desk, over the table and near the computer. No, phone was nowhere. I wanted to apply the same tactic now that I often apply whenever I can’t find the phone: dial the number from home phone. I did that and no ring tone came this time from corner of the room. Instead, I heard a surprising message which was enough for me to conclude that the phone was no more in my house: “The mobile that you are dialing has been switched off.”

Waw that was quite an experience! I had never heard such message while dialing my own number, that too in the middle of the night. Why would I switch off the phone? CNN was still talking about the conflict and what was I doing? What would you do, by the way, when you suddenly realize in the middle of the night that you cell phone, however old it was but with full of important contact numbers and SMS messages, is lost? Would you go to bed and still have a sound sleep? I didn’t because I had a reason to stay awake other than the shock of loosing the mobile: I hadn’t read that day’s editions of Hindustan Times and the Times of India. I started turning pages. That was a nice way of preparing yourself for the sleep 2 A.M.

Dinesh Wagle with old Samsung mobile set

In this photo taken a few weeks ago, I am seen talking (pretending) on my Samsung phone. I lost it three days ago and bought a new one. Pic by Email Wagle

Woke up at 7 and the first thing that I did was try dialing my own number. Oh..ho..the phone is working but do my utter surprise the line was cut off by the person on the receiving end. It’s now confirmed that the phone had fallen into the hands of a person (feels like the person is he but don’t want to be basied on the basis of gender) who doesn’t want to return the thing. Okay, I thought, what can I do other than calling the office of Nepal Telecom and telling them to close down my SIM connection? Meanwhile I also called Buddhi, the driver, and asked him if he saw the phone. No, he didn’t. My guess is that the cell must have fallen on the street while I got off the vehicle.

I contact NT to notify them about the lost. It took me almost 20 minutes to know from them that I physically have to appear in front of them with photocopy of my citizenship certificate. Waw, I was a smart. I had already carried citizenship certificate with me and I went to the Jawalakhel office of NT because I had subscribed the connection from there. I paid Rs. 565 to cancel the old and get new SIM card. I saw many other people who had gone there with similar problems. Seeing them queuing up for the new SIM card, my reportorial instinct started functioning and I started interviewing some of the folks. The story appeared in Saturday’s edition of Kantipur. As they say in journalism, what is bad for the world is good for the newsroom or bad news is good news, I was happy to be able to exploit my own problem and create a story out of that.

So I bought a new SIM card and headed for New Road to buy a phone set. I took out money from ATM in Harihar Bhavawan. It feels so good to see money dropping out from a machine after you enter the card and type some unusual numbers. It feels great to have money that is readily available at your wish. Wish I had more on that machine!

I went to New Road and went to the same shopping complex where I went with Sudheer Sharma nearly three years ago to buy the Samsung set. There weren’t many choices in the first shop and went up a floor. There I was offered a “brand new model and cool Nokia that just arrived in the market.” I wasn’t much interested in cool model but I wanted something better than the one that I was using before. “This is one from LG,” said the sales boy. “With this you can take photos, play MP3 music, and tune in to FM stations, record voice.” I think he forget to say something like this: Oh..yea, you can have conversations with other people if you want! LG set had one year guarantee and that was available for Rs. 10,500. Having a camera phone wasn’t my priority as I carry a digital camera (my famous Caonon digi cam, don’t you remember?) all the time with me but to have FM in the phone was necessary. A very cool friend of mine had suggested me to have a FM tuner mobile so that I can keep track of songs and news from the stations.

With the new mobile phone, I am being exposed to the latest trends (well, not so latest still definitely latest compared to my previous experience) in the cellular world. I am already enjoying more features in the new phone though it will take quite some time for me to gather all those phone numbers that I lost along with the Samsung set. I feel that I should have bought a set month ago. Actually I was planning to do that. I was thinking of giving the old set to my brother who said that he would apply for a SIM card as soon as NT opens its pre-paid subscription. Now, I have to buy a new one for him.

Other than talking over the phone, I think, I will be using the FM radio facility the most. Just like now: I am tuned in to 103 FM that is to say BBC World Service that is talking something about Israel and Hezbollah. Its 11 PM and I don’t think I will tune in to CNN today.

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One Hundred Years Of Solitude

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Wagle with one hundred years of solitude

I was trying to fix my hair but Email was quick enough to capture the moment. This photo later reminded me of another photo taken nearly a decade in hostel by Ujjwal in which I am seen fixing hair in the same manner. That was part of photo session in the hostel. (One Wagle telling the other: Hero huna khojeko hola ni!!)

Wagle Monologue

This evening at around 10:30 PM while reading today’s issues of the Times of India and the Hindustan Times 30 minutes after arriving home from office, I suddenly realized one thing: that I read a lot and write a lot but both reading and writing are limited to newspapers. I read a lot of texts in newspapers and I write a lot of texts for newspapers. What about books man? After all reading books makes a man wise and I definitely want to be wise, if not wiser. Actually, by the time I got enlightenment, I had already finished reading both of the newspapers. I quickly threw a glance at my bookshelf and found Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude underneath the television set. “Oh…” I told myself, “I should read this book.”

I occasionally buy books but I hardly read them. I had bought this book months ago and, to be honest, I had taken this book in the US when I visited that country in April. When I saw a young girl, in tight half pants and a small (I don’t know how to describe that), let me say, jumper in-flight to Detroit from Tokyo reading something, I pulled out this book from my handbag and started turning pages. Before turning the seventh page, I think, arrogant airhostess of the North West Airlines started serving juices. Of course, drinking was more crucial than the story of one crazy Jose Arcadio Buendia as I would be flying continuously for about 13 lazy hours. Then I had to take a nap, and then had to eat, and then go on dreaming again and then there it was: Detroit.

Wagle with one hundred years in solitude

So today I decided to read the book from the beginning because I had forgotten the details and specifics in those initial pages. As I reached the 10th page and the clock approached 12 midnight, something from inside me started telling me that I should wake up, open up the computer, and start writing something while listening to the music (and I am listening to The Bee Gees’s Stayin’ Alive). As I was opening the computer, the same force also told me that I should photograph myself holding the book. What a nice idea. (I am pretty good at photographing myself!) As I was trying to do just that, my brother Email popped into the room and he was like ‘what the hell is going on here pal?’ I know he was tired of studying textbooks and was wandering here and there inside the house. When I handed him the camera without uttering word (but flashing a smile) he said, “It seems like I am here on time.” Yes, he was. Take some snaps brother!

[This whole blogging thing has become an addiction to me in the last two years and recently I am trying to drastically reduce the time I devote to blogging and focus myself in other works. I am being successful in some sense but sometime, like today, like now, I can't resist the temptation of blogging. As I said, it's been addiction and I am sure it takes time to get rid of any addiction.]

Okay, so my determination of reading this book to the last page is what I would like to declare here now. What a time man! Its midnight and some one had said a few days ago that if you wish anything good at this time, you will succeed. I know there will be very little time for me to read books especially in the next few days as I have to several stories for my newspaper and its Saturday supplement. But I have decided to do this.

Wagle with one hundred years in solitude
This one is the self portrait! Don’t know where I am exactly looking at.

I had an incident with Marquez. Several months ago, I had translated a story from the Economist for ‘Kala ra Shailee’ (Arts and Style), the last page of Kantipur, newspaper where I work. It was about his book “Memories of My Melancholy Whores” and while translating the story I used the writer’s middle name (Garcia) all the time in the article. A few days later, Kantipur published a critique on language used in Nepali newspapers including Kantipur. Though there was no byline in the translated piece, the translator (I knew who that was!) was thrashed by the critic for not being able to know the real name that referes to the Spanish novelist. “To say Garcia’s this and that is like saying Prasad’s ‘Muna Madan’ instead of Devkota’s ‘Muna Mandan’,” he had written. [Do we say William's 'Hamlet' instead of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'?] He had suggested that I should have written Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude’, not what I had written: Garcia’s! “Okay,” I had told myself and to one of my friends in office. “At least I learned a new thing today.” (Marquez mero bau pani ta hoina ni. And Khairez also do the same mistake while writing Nepali names.)

[Okay, my psycho monologue is finished. Its already 12:24 and I just discovered that my wireless dialup is not functioning. It gets connected but data is not being transferred. Weird. So I will be posting this text and those photos tomorrow- oh...it's already 'tomorrow' (Thursday July 13)- later today.]

Happiest Person And The Best Thing In The World

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Why I am Happy?

Wagle Monologue (A psycho blog)

I don’t know why but I am happy and satisfied these days. For example, today I am supper happy. It’s not because I had to write only one story, that too barely five-hundred-words long, for my paper. I was happy even yesterday when I had to write a 26-hundred-words story. It’s not because I have been promoted recently and I don’t really give much attention to rumors that they are increasing salary in the office. It’s not because I have won a lottery. (Oh.. buying tickets hoping to become lakhpati or SMSing at crappy numbers isn’t my preferred way of wasting money. That I do by riding cabs in Kathmandu.) It might be because, I think (and guess), I wasn’t really unhappy in the last several weeks to be precise.

I can say with a great deal of accuracy that I was the happiest person a few days ago when finished a story for Koshilee, the Saturday supplement of Kantipur, about the night life of Kathmandu. For me, writing story (yes, I am talking about news story dear) is a painful process. It’s an art, a craft that needs so much careful consideration that every line and words should be put one after another the way they should be put. There is no any definition of writing a good story but then there is no specific method of creating a piece of art too. Words are like bricks. They need to be placed the way bricks are put while building a house. Writing story is like building a house. And on the mental level, it’s slightly more than that. Its equivalent to that of labor process a woman goes through while giving birth to her child. Oh… what a process that, being a male, I have to go through every day and night. I feel proud while undergoing that process and I get strange pleasure while penning a story. I wish I could split myself into two Dineshes and see the Dinesh in action from a quiet corner. Man! That must be a fun. One Dinesh watching the other who is going through the labor pain!

Okay, I was talking about being very happy while finishing a story a few days ago. You see so many things, meet so many people, listen so many things and you have to bring all of them in a one-thousand-word story that too in such a way that a reader will not even think about diverting his eyes from the lines. That’s a tough challenge. For that you need to have a craftsmanship. I don’t claim to have that in the best form but I try to act like having one while doing stories. You have to do that man for you are the one who is writing what you are writing.

Hurricanes (no less than Katrina in intensity) go inside my mind while I think about the lines, headline and even lead and ending lines of the story that I will be writing about in the next few hours. If I have to do that in the same day, I do that while in tempos or buses while returning from a program or interviewing people. In other cases, I do that while I am about to doze off in the middle of the night. I can recount so many instances when I have risen up suddenly from my bed, grabbed the diary and noted down lines for the story. Okay, I have started about lecturing on how to write a story when I just wanted to say is that I was very happy a few days ago when I finished writing a story. The happiness had nothing to do with the subject of the story but the way I presented it.

So I searched on the internet to find out “the best thing in the world” and ended up on a page from Poem of the Week page. Here is the poem:

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

WHAT’S the best thing in the world ?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world ?
— Something out of it, I think.

Ha..ha.. Waw.. “something out of it, I think”. What a line! But I don’t know why I Googled for the best thing when I really meant to look for the happiest thing (man) in the world (Moon and Mars included if there is anyone out there!).

I reached on a Yahoo! Answers page where people had discussed on the question weeks ago. There are quite a few answers but I think I liked this one, by Iconic, the most:

“Hapiness is a state of mind and relative to our own thoughts, emotions and desires. The happiest person in the world could be you.”

I also agreed with Toothfetish: “[T]he one who can think positive in all situations. smn who is able to be happy from the things he got. [Someone] who doesn’t think about income, success, popular needs of people etc.”

Shabang says, “[T]he ultimate optimist.”

I have no doubt that I am a super optimistic person!