When a slim brick has virtually replaced the plain old telephone…

It will not be too long before a youngster looks at a ‘conventional’ telephone and wonders what on earth the gadget is meant to do. The camera finds itself in a similar predicament, and both will be going the way of telegrams, box televisions, vinyl records, manual typewriters, clocks and probably even printed books soon. It is, of course, a miracle that telephones still cling on in obscure corners at a time when sleeker personal communication devices are strutting their stuff.

There is no doubt that even despite several design makeovers so that they no longer look like squat, black, Bakelite frogs, standard phones have lingered on mainly thanks to nostalgia or even — as in the case of the UK, for instance — due to arcane regulations that stipulate maintenance of this traditional service by telecom companies.

Ominously, in recent times, the old gadget has been divested of its original diminutive — ’phone — and saddled with the more Luddite-sounding nomenclature ‘landline’ in popular parlance, indicating an unbecoming, immobile stodginess. Of course, in India, ‘landlines’ are enjoying a renewal of public affection given the increasing instances of ‘call drops’ during cellphone conversations. However, once voice over internet protocol services come into their own, the fading of the landline’s renaissance is guaranteed.