On one of my very recent train trips, passengers were just boarding a train and were not too long into their seats when four passengers seated around the table started to use their mobile phone simultaneously. In this cacophony of voices and ringtones, joined by some others at the other end of the carriage, a very elderly gentleman looked on in dismay, then turned in my direction (as I was also looking on) and shaking his head uttered two words: telephone exchange.
At least the telephone exchanges I used to visit to make overseas calls were contained and sealed cubicles. In the train – even in the quiet coach – nothing is contained. It is free for all. That elderly person may have found an apt descriptor: trains are like telephone exchanges gone public!
Working in London, I often make weekly trips to and from Birmingham. On these train journeys I have heard some wacky, personal and juicy conversations in a variety of languages and accents. I have heard people do bank deals, sell shares, close a business deal, make or cancel their hospital appointments, give instructions to their PA’s and junior colleagues, have domestic quarrels, shared privileged information about the potential sacking of an employee, and do telephone purchases – just to mention a few. In effect these folks have shared very personal and confidential information in an open space over their mobile phones. However hard one tries to appear to mind one’s business, it is difficult not to overhear these conversations in such a public space.
What I find rather amusing and ironical is that this is done by people who are normally very private individuals, who upon entering the train would gravitate towards a seat where they will park all their belongings on the vacant seat next to theirs (if it is not reserved) and would hardly ever broach a conversation with a total stranger and yet they would then proceed to hang outside, like washing, their work/business/family life and personal details for a coach load of total strangers to listen into. Even more interesting is the fact that most people seem oblivious of what they are doing and that this has become commonplace that we now accept it as the norm.
In a society where “me” and “I” matters more than “us” and “ours” and where my train seat and the one next to me become my castle, immediate connectivity may have opened up a new world before us. And I am not sure whether this has improved the quality of our lives as individuals and as a community. At the same time, we have been sucked deeper into a whirlpool of crass individualism which seems to displace our sensitivity, sense of decency, common sense and an awareness of the world just around us. Freedom carries with it a moral responsibility for the common good that includes my neighbours and that includes a cultivated habit of awareness of the world around us.
© copyright Jagessar October 30, 2009
