My SLC examination was just over; which is now known
as SEE examination. As every typical Nepali parent would do, they fulfil the
demands of their children after this examination as there is some relief for
the child on the part of study and all that chores. More specifically, the
trend is now permanently established regarding buying new smartphones for
children upon completion of class 10 and I was also not apart from that. As the students complete their Secondary Level Examination,
it’s generally considered that they are matured enough to have their own phone.
As they have some time apart from studying, their priorities also change. Similar was the case for me. Upon completion of Secondary Level Examination, I began to help my father in the business. That
left me with lot of leisure time which of course I didn’t utilized the most as
I should have.
My first mobile phone was Samsung Galaxy GTS5302. It
was still an old model back in 2016. Actually, my mother used that phone earlier.
Since she got a new one, I began to use her old mobile phone.
It looked like this. Despite being an old model, I
was fascinated as I had my own phone. I didn’t had a sim card for a while so I
used my phone to just play games and listen to music which perfectly utilized
my leisure time while at home and at shop.
You won’t believe that the first sim card I took was
NTC Post-paid. My father had big plans for me. He wanted me to involve in
business activities which I denied. Although I helped my father as much as I
could, I was notorious guy back then and ran from the shop more often. That sim
card just piled up the due amount as I used mobile data excessively. At that
time, we didn’t have a wireless connection so mobile data was the only option.
The post-paid sim became too expensive for me and I returned to pre-paid sim
card eventually.
It felt good as I was able to connect with my
friends more often as it was not necessary to ask my mom’s mobile phone. I
joined twitter back in 2014 with my mom’s mobile and my tweets were infrequent.
Having my own smartphone gave me chance to express anything I thought. Although,
I am not that fond of video conferencing, my grandmother could communicate with
her nephews and other relatives who were in Australia, USA and other abroad
countries with the help of my phone. My first phone didn’t had front camera as
well so it was not possible to click selfies neither the back camera was too
good. At those times, the thing I missed out the lot was photos and videos.
After a long debate with my parents, they finally
agreed to provide me phone that had better specializations and features. I
often argued with my parents that I was not able to use much of the
applications as RAM and Internal memory were too low. My second phone was Samsung
Galaxy Note 3. I was filled with joy and happiness at that time. I quickly
unboxed the mobile phone and began to explore it.
The first thing I did on mobile phone was connecting
it to the Wi-Fi as we just had a new Internet connection. After that I logged
into my Facebook, twitter and Google accounts. The new mobile had the features
that my old mobile didn’t. I was really fascinated and the joy was actually
greater than when I got my first phone.
At that time my college had just started. I was
expert in flirting with girls as well. There were several girls with whom I
used to talk to. It automatically increased my screen time. As mobile phone was
not allowed in College, the first thing I did after coming to home was checking
the notification on the mobile phone. The true essence of using the mobile
phone was being felt at that time.
Slowly but steadily, the usage of mobile phone
became addiction for me. The various applications on the Play Store were really
beneficial and made my life easier but I knew at the long term it would not
benefit me. There were no much people with whom I talked to as growing up I had
very few friends. Talking with girls on facebook didn’t felt good either as I
knew no one of them would be mine. The increase in screen time slowly developed
an anxiety and hindered my creativeness. It took a whole lot of time to get
through this as it’s really hard to give up once you are addicted. So, whenever
I see young generation using the mobile phone, tablet, and laptop excessively,
I suggest them to get habituated with the outside world as well. For an overall
development of a human being, each and every aspect of a life should be
perfectly balanced.
As you can see, I still have my first ever phone.
The experience of having my phone was absolutely surreal. Yes, it was 2nd
hand phone and it didn’t had all the luxury that I have now in my mobile phone.
But still, I waited almost 16 years of my life to finally get this phone. The
true essence of life is to be happy on what you have and the experience I had
using this phone has become a fond memory for me. Whenever I look at this
phone, It takes me back to those days.
-Rohan Raj Mudvari