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CHENNAI HAS probably seen it all - right from the veshti-clad, betel-chewing phlegmatic veteran to the yuppie zipping around with a mobile phone pasted to the ear in dense traffic. The convergence of dot com, telecom and IT hype has probably changed our lives to the extent that every household has embraced hi-tech to varying degrees.

There are some who would jump the bandwagon and dive into the nitty-gritty as if it was going out of fashion. For instance, you would have come across those techno-savvy types who would achieve mindboggling levels of expertise on that ubiquitous device called the cellphone.

From the time the user received his slick brochure from the two cellular operators in Chennai, a flurry of activity resulted in poring over the information manuals. And soon, the mobile phone user knew what to do to program the instrument for call forwarding, setting the ringer to vibration mode during meetings, adjusting the volume and chimes on the ringer, they would perhaps go in for visual display of calling party so that they could view the same and decide, in the midst of driving, to take the call or duck it to avoid pesky callers.

Actually, it seems to be some kind of Freudian thing. People appear to be wrestling with the assault of technology and there is an overriding compulsion to grapple with it and emerge victorious.

Here is a nugget of information which may have passed most people by .

An enterprising cell phone user called Sekar, (A. Chandrasekar of C & S Securities), asked for a mobile number of 73527 so that he could print on his visiting card the following against his mobile number: SKYCELL SEKAR. Now, any of his customers wanting to buy or sell shares can dial him from anywhere without having to refer to their index (electronic or ordinary). And, they can use this nice little idea even on an ordinary telephone because the alphabet also exists on the buttons 2 to 9.

Originally, the British System had this done to facilitate storage of frequently dialled telephone numbers from the user's instrument.

The only constraint is that the name corresponding to the numbers should be limited to five letters and here is an area where Sekar's name fitted in exactly. But, by the same token the early bird advantage ensures that no other user of Skycell called Sekar can use the mobile number 73527. One more Sekar can apply for the same number but that would have to be done with RPG, the other cellular service provider in Chennai.

Kiran Ramnane and Nalini Radhakrishnan are two ladies who run an event management company called Events. Kiran beat her friend to Skycell and managed to get her mobile number as 38368 to read SKYCELL EVENT on her visiting card while Nalini, whose name has six letters, had to be content with SKYCELL NALNI. A better idea for them would perhaps have been to choose Skycell Kiran and Skycell Event for Nalini. Maybe the other mobile number was not available! Discreet enquiries lodged with the cellular service providers in Chennai revealed that any of their existing subscribers could apply for a change in number to accommodate their names. If available, the change would be effected at a nominal charge. Worm your way in, early birds.

M. SRINATH NARAYAN

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Section  : Features
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