No Smartphone Saturday

It was the early 2000s, the time when I was no more than 6-7 years old. Our usual dinner meant my entire family sitting on the table, waiting to be served food – right off the fire. My brother and I used to excitedly narrate our day at school, while dad used to share his experiences at office. My mother used to listen to every word with genuine piqued interest while all 4 of us regale the appetizing food. That was how our dinners were…all those years ago.

Fast forward that to 17th January, 2014. It’s again my family having a meal together. The table is awfully quite though. The silence is broken merely by the rotating motor of the ceiling fan. Our respective plates each have a juicy leg piece of chicken along with some biryani, but it remained untouched.

To add insult to injury (no pun intended) we weren’t even looking at the lifeless meat in front of us. We were perhaps.. looking at something.. something else.. something which we held.. in our hands.. a little device.. called the phone. My brother, dad and I were all doing that.

While I clenched the spoon with my left hand, my right hand’s thumb scrolled through my Twitter Timeline on my phone. My dad drank a glass of water with his right, while watching a NatGeo video of blue whales on YouTube on his tablet with his left. My brother was not multitasking like us - he was instead using both his hands to type down an urgent mail on his phone. My mother joined us from the kitchen with a plate of fresh salad in her hand.

“So how was work today, Chirag?” my Dad asked, who finished watching the first video and was waiting for the 2nd one to buffer. A minute’s silence. “Uh.. ha? Yeah, good good.” I replied after scrolling through Twitter and while waiting for Instagram to refresh its feed. Couple of minutes pass by. “Oh, okay good,” replied Dad. A few more minutes pass by in silence.

“Pass me curd, Chirag,” came my mother’s request as I liked a friend’s ‘selfie’ on Instagram. Five minutes pass by, the silence still broken by just the fan above. “Ha..sorry..what? Curd?” I seeked confirmation while waiting for my Gmail inbox to load on my phone.

[In the words of Selina Kyle from The Dark Knight Rises, I would like to say - ‘A storm is coming’] And storm it came. My mother, who noticed the way we were eating our food (or rather neglecting it), started her tirades, which are usually accompanied by one of her classic monologues. “What on earth are you’ll doing? It has become cold as ice. Do you’ll plan to eat it as dinner, or as ice-cream for dessert? Is there ANY time where you’ll don’t use your phone? You 3 sat for dinner 20 minutes ago and no one has even eaten a bite. The chicken is not for decoration, you are supposed to eat it! Leave your phone right now or else I swear I will throw them out of the window.”

My Gmail inbox had loaded, my dad’s YouTube video had buffered, my brother’s mail was sent. However, none of us were looking into our gadgets anymore. We all were looking in just one direction – towards my mother, who for some reason stood up from her chair while delivering her monologue – hence enhancing the dramatic effect of her tirade.

Just when we thought that it was over and the silence that ensued was uncomfortably long, she continued, “This is rubbish, all 3 of you are like school children. You just want to play with your phones all day. Tomorrow it’s Saturday, and none of you have office. Stay at home. We will have a ‘No Smartphone Saturday’. I will take away your phones for the whole day. I won’t give it back even if you cry. Then only you 3 will learn.” (Yes, she was upset. But I have to hand it to her. Her ability of coining the name ‘No Smartphone Saturday’ on the go while sounding pissed off, was commendable.)

For some reason, she kept looking at me much more than my brother and dad, as though I was the chief culprit. We had to surrender our phones for a day. Honestly speaking, I thought mom would forget about it the next morning, but our phones were already locked up in her cupboard before we even woke up the next morning.

That day, it felt we were trapped inside a DVD which was being played in super slow motion. What felt like an hour, was in fact just 5 minutes that day. Meals were really different too. For a change, we were all looking at the food in front of us while eating it. We spoke about sports and movies too while we lunched. It felt different. A good different.

The attachment to our devices nowadays is alarming. I know it’s a sorry state we find ourselves in, but we are certainly not the only ones. There are several others who do what we do during dinner. Those little devices have taken over our lives, they are nearly indispensable now. So much so, that it’s ‘eating’ into our personal family lives, don’t you think?

This needs to be looked into. Something needs to change. We need to go back to the old way of enjoying dinner, without such distractions. Though that Saturday was really difficult, I feel that it was necessary evil.

For those who agree with me, there’s a pressing need to address this issue. You’ll should not overlook it. Do something about it. I think that doing what we did is a good place to start. How about yourself adopting a ‘No Smartphone Saturday’?