The year was 1999, and I was the only student in my college toting a
mobile phone. Telecom entrepreneur BPL Mobile, then headquartered in
Coimbatore, had just launched their GSM services across a few
neighboring towns, and ownership of these enviable pieces of technology
was strictly for the privileged. They had just introduced the 160
character Short Message Service (SMS), and were actively promoting it by
subsidizing the service. Consider that sending a short-message to
another phone cost just a tiny fraction of the Rs18 per minute call back
then, and you’ll understand why it seemed like such a boon to us
users-in-the-know.
The only reason I owned one was because my rather liberal NRI parents were more worried about my safety and whereabouts than the exorbitant cost involved in owning and maintaining one of these blatantly excessive units. Besides my parents, who both carried a cellular phone each, the only other people I knew with a similar device was a young doctor in a nearby college, and an old school-mate across the border in neighboring Kerala.
Imagine my delight when my trusty brick-sized Motorola STAR TAC suddenly buzzes, alerting me of an incoming SMS, very close to midnight. Startled as we were, my room-mates and I instantly launched ourselves at the unassuming electronic device.
And it said THE most incredible thing: Hi handsome. I simply cannot translate to you how I felt. My room-mates, however, chose to play the devil’s advocates and volunteered a hundred different scenarios. Everything from lustful vamps and lonely college girls to depraved female politicians and entrapment by the country’s notorious Central Bureau for Investigations were suddenly very strong contenders for my e-attention. With shaking hands, and vociferous prodding from everyone around me, I typed out a hesitant reply: Hi, who is this? An almost instantaneous reply made the phone ‘bleep’ again : You looked so smart today. Your beard is very very very sexy to me. I felt faint. Banished were all the fears that the SMS was intended for someone else. This truly was for me. Finally, the hundreds of rupees I was shoving down the throat of that idiot razor-wielding barber had paid their dividends. Back then, almost everyone I knew suggested that my fresh-grown patch of beautiful facial hair looked more suitable on the pelvic region of a popular Malayalee porn-star, but I wasn’t to be easily deterred. And now, someone obviously rich and famous had finally acknowledged my brilliant good-looks. As they say, a prophet is never welcome in his own home-town… or something like that. After a lengthy debate on the use of a suitable endearment, and with many dissenting members of my suddenly fractious band of buddies angrily shouting down against anything creative I came up with, we finally arrived at a suitably demure response: Thank you for the compliment, dear. I am not able to recognize your number. Where are you now?
Prompt came the reply: I’m staying alone, darling. I wish you were here with me now. Are you alone now? Ack! Chest pains now. With my heart chugging away like a freight train on jet-fuel, I needed no prompting from my friends for this response: Yes, I’m alone also. What are you doing, dear? I aimed to find out where she was studying, or possibly working. And now that I’d started, I just couldn’t stop saying ‘dear’, despite how foolish it sounded. Our National abuse of this supposed endearment is legendary, and I’m glad to say I contributed rather significantly.
I could suddenly feel the weight of the night upon me. And with good reason too… looking around, I realized I was mobbed by eight hot-blooded and aroused young boys who were either leaning against me, peering over my shoulder, or breathing down my neck. Furiously shrugging everyone off, I stood up to take a deep breath.
Another SMS: I’m in my nighty lying in my bed alone. I’m feeling very hot when I think of you and I don’t know why.
The mob was back at my shoulders, and their hooting and cat-calling was loud enough to begin attracting attention from the neighboring dorms. I was desperate to find some space alone before a particular part of my own aroused anatomy began calling unwanted attention too. As it was, we’d been on the verge of going to sleep, and I was sporting just a pair of rather skimpy football shorts. Damn.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, and hugged a pillow to my belly. Phew. The textual adventure began getting truly raunchy, and that night saw the lot of us staying awake till the wee hours of the morning, when she finally said: Goodnight, my darling. Very soon my lonely nights will be over when you touch me. Despite my emotional exhaustion, it took me another hour to doze-off, bent double as I was with a painful erection.
Predictably enough, we were in close contact for the next few weeks, and the texts became increasingly erotic. I honored everything Preeti asked me to do – from staying away from other girls, to never sending her a text message unless she began texting me first. By now we’d begun discussing everything intimate, from our underwear and ‘preferred’ sexual positions, to the things we would do to each other in bed and the number of times we would do it. A seasoned reporter for Nat Geo would’ve blushed.
It was two whole months before I discovered the awful truth… Sure enough, Preeti was young, lithe, wheat-ish, and sported pretty black hair. ‘Preeti’ was an employee of BPL Mobile who worked the night-shifts in their call center, and happened to have unrestricted access to the customer demo-handset during the wee hours. However, Preeti’s real name turned out to be Prabhu.
The only reason I owned one was because my rather liberal NRI parents were more worried about my safety and whereabouts than the exorbitant cost involved in owning and maintaining one of these blatantly excessive units. Besides my parents, who both carried a cellular phone each, the only other people I knew with a similar device was a young doctor in a nearby college, and an old school-mate across the border in neighboring Kerala.
Imagine my delight when my trusty brick-sized Motorola STAR TAC suddenly buzzes, alerting me of an incoming SMS, very close to midnight. Startled as we were, my room-mates and I instantly launched ourselves at the unassuming electronic device.
And it said THE most incredible thing: Hi handsome. I simply cannot translate to you how I felt. My room-mates, however, chose to play the devil’s advocates and volunteered a hundred different scenarios. Everything from lustful vamps and lonely college girls to depraved female politicians and entrapment by the country’s notorious Central Bureau for Investigations were suddenly very strong contenders for my e-attention. With shaking hands, and vociferous prodding from everyone around me, I typed out a hesitant reply: Hi, who is this? An almost instantaneous reply made the phone ‘bleep’ again : You looked so smart today. Your beard is very very very sexy to me. I felt faint. Banished were all the fears that the SMS was intended for someone else. This truly was for me. Finally, the hundreds of rupees I was shoving down the throat of that idiot razor-wielding barber had paid their dividends. Back then, almost everyone I knew suggested that my fresh-grown patch of beautiful facial hair looked more suitable on the pelvic region of a popular Malayalee porn-star, but I wasn’t to be easily deterred. And now, someone obviously rich and famous had finally acknowledged my brilliant good-looks. As they say, a prophet is never welcome in his own home-town… or something like that. After a lengthy debate on the use of a suitable endearment, and with many dissenting members of my suddenly fractious band of buddies angrily shouting down against anything creative I came up with, we finally arrived at a suitably demure response: Thank you for the compliment, dear. I am not able to recognize your number. Where are you now?
Prompt came the reply: I’m staying alone, darling. I wish you were here with me now. Are you alone now? Ack! Chest pains now. With my heart chugging away like a freight train on jet-fuel, I needed no prompting from my friends for this response: Yes, I’m alone also. What are you doing, dear? I aimed to find out where she was studying, or possibly working. And now that I’d started, I just couldn’t stop saying ‘dear’, despite how foolish it sounded. Our National abuse of this supposed endearment is legendary, and I’m glad to say I contributed rather significantly.
I could suddenly feel the weight of the night upon me. And with good reason too… looking around, I realized I was mobbed by eight hot-blooded and aroused young boys who were either leaning against me, peering over my shoulder, or breathing down my neck. Furiously shrugging everyone off, I stood up to take a deep breath.
Another SMS: I’m in my nighty lying in my bed alone. I’m feeling very hot when I think of you and I don’t know why.
The mob was back at my shoulders, and their hooting and cat-calling was loud enough to begin attracting attention from the neighboring dorms. I was desperate to find some space alone before a particular part of my own aroused anatomy began calling unwanted attention too. As it was, we’d been on the verge of going to sleep, and I was sporting just a pair of rather skimpy football shorts. Damn.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, and hugged a pillow to my belly. Phew. The textual adventure began getting truly raunchy, and that night saw the lot of us staying awake till the wee hours of the morning, when she finally said: Goodnight, my darling. Very soon my lonely nights will be over when you touch me. Despite my emotional exhaustion, it took me another hour to doze-off, bent double as I was with a painful erection.
Predictably enough, we were in close contact for the next few weeks, and the texts became increasingly erotic. I honored everything Preeti asked me to do – from staying away from other girls, to never sending her a text message unless she began texting me first. By now we’d begun discussing everything intimate, from our underwear and ‘preferred’ sexual positions, to the things we would do to each other in bed and the number of times we would do it. A seasoned reporter for Nat Geo would’ve blushed.
It was two whole months before I discovered the awful truth… Sure enough, Preeti was young, lithe, wheat-ish, and sported pretty black hair. ‘Preeti’ was an employee of BPL Mobile who worked the night-shifts in their call center, and happened to have unrestricted access to the customer demo-handset during the wee hours. However, Preeti’s real name turned out to be Prabhu.
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