In the beginning, man created the plain old landline with its usual tring-tring noise
& people were happy that they could communicate long distance without travelling.
No one cared about missed calls or tried to take a 2nd call when already on the line
with someone, like some people I know do.
Then cellphones came into the world with customisable music-only ring-tones. After
that mobile manufacturers let you actually set songs of your choice (music + lyrics)
as ring-tones, which mainly served the purpose of irritating everyone around you,
more than letting you know of an incoming call.
But man (or woman) is never satisfied and thus arose the need for ring-back tunes or
hello-tunes, which is what someone who calls your phone gets to hear. And hey, if it is
a song I like, I don't have any issues with the same. For eg. a friend, who occasionally
drops in at this blog has the lovely single "Every breath you take and every move you
make" from "Police" as his ring-back tune. So on the rare occassions that I call him, it
is a pleasure to listen to that lovely song.
But some hello-tunes can be plain irritating, especially if you have to go through it many
times a day. At work, there are 2 people whom I have to call atleast 4-5 times a day. One
of them is our lab engineer and he comes across as a very devotional guy - ash/vibhuti on
the forehead etc - and it is no surprise that his ring-back tone is a Hindu devotional hymn
which starts off as "Om namo...". But then it is his phone &his choice and anyway, I need
to call him only if there is something screwed up in the lab.
The other colleague is someone I have to call up more regularly because she is part of 2
projects I lead. Since the thin line between workdays and weekends has merged, I have
to endure her ring tone on weekends also. She also has set a devotional hymn (Sashti-e
nokka Saravana ...) as her ring-back tone.
Initially, it felt good to listen to it, but then over time it gets to you when you hear the
whole song 4-5 times a day. More so because sometimes she takes a long time to answer
calls and you have to go through the whole song.
Again its her phone and her choice of ring-back tune. But that song always reminds me
of a beautiful song (Padhinettu vayadhu, ila vatta manadhu, yengudhu pai poda) from
the Tamil movie Suriyan, which is set to the music of her hello-tune. Not only are the
lyrics / music awesome, but actress Roja enacted the dance sequence so senuously that
it remains a favourite of mine, even though that movie came out a decade or more ago.
I so wish my colleague would set this movie-song as her hello-tone and then I would
maybe even dial her phone just like that only to listen to that awesome song. Since that
is not going to happen, maybe I should set it as my ring-tone so that I get to hear it,
everytime someone calls me.
P.S. : I just viewed the Suriyan song on YouTube here. And man, Roja is just amazing.
The last 15 seconds of the video go to prove that size-zero is trash, when it comes to
feminine beauty.
No comments:
Post a Comment