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The
rickshaw SMS
booklets: guidelines for messaging addicts
driver goes mobile The ubiquitous gadget has changed the way we lead our lives in many novel ways By Saher Baloch The increase in the number of cell phones over the past
few years has been nothing short of phenomenal. Critics of this now essential
feature of our lives may go on about how this trend represents waste of time
and money, but the ubiquitous gadget has changed the way we lead our lives in
many novel ways. Karachiites are increasingly using phones to help them earn their daily living. One does not necessarily have to be a literate or wealthy to use a mobile phone. Low-end devices can be bought for less than Rs3,000 from anywhere and a whole market in Saddar caters to those interested in second-hand phones or cheap China-made mobiles. Whether it is your tailor, your Dhobi, plumber, or the boy who brings you tea at the office, or parks your car for a small fee, you can be sure that they will have a mobile phone to make your routine transactions much easier. Rafiullah Rehman, 46, takes special care of two things. His rickshaw and his mobile phone, which he says earn him his daily bread and monthly earnings. Squatting on a pavement beside his rickshaw, he makes clear that he be given a "missed call" 15 minutes in advance, and he can be anywhere in the city. Being a resident of Sultanabad, with six family members to support, he says it is not a big deal keeping a mobile because he receives calls from his regular customers and is not expected to make any. Many rickshaw wallahs like Rafiullah are trusted for their ready availability and punctuality. This helps them in making their services exclusive for selected passengers. "Alhough I earn money all day long by taking
passengers from one place to another, I also have a bunch of permanent
passengers who pay me Rs2,000 to Rs5,000 a month, which helps me in saving
some of the money for later use," says Rafiullah. Waking up early every
morning, he says he works only in the daytime as the sweltering heat and the
constant rush from one place to another saps his energy at the end of the
day. "I refuse to take passengers after 8pm," he says. When asked
what if it is one of his permanent passengers, he confesses that "I turn
on the busy tone." Also jumping onto the mobile phone bandwagon are the local tea shop and burger stall owners in the city, who start receiving customers as early as 10am. Majid, a 30- year-old owner of a burger stall near Clifton Bridge, is not just catering to the customers who come to his stall but also to delivering to the offices and residences in his vicinity. Opening his stall around nine every morning, Majid says he earns a lot from the orders he gets on his mobile phone. Blushing beetroot red, he shows off his mobile and says he can not hear too well from it "but it helps." His daily earnings come to around Rs1,000 a day from customers visiting his stall, but it exceeds Rs 4,000 if offices are included. Living in Delhi Colony, Majid says his family is in Sahiwal and his earnings do not help them all that much. However, he says he tries to help them in whatever we he can. "Sometimes I earn a lot in a month and at times just enough to spend on myself." Adjacent to the Pakistan State Oil head office in Clifton, is Daulat Khan's Dhaba which has expanded within the last few years from a small hut to a concrete restaurant and tea shop. But even though he receives hordes of customers every hour of the day, he too has a special clientele exclusively restricted to cell phones, who order tea and food to be delivered to their offices. Ramzan Khan 26, is famous among the customers for bringing tea and food on time, says the owner, Dilawar. He says that besides paying the waiters Rs 1,000 per month he also pays them Rs 50 to "load credit." Coming every day to work from Orangi Town, Ramzan says that he does not understand mobile phones much but he does understand what they earn him at the end of the month. Sheikh Mohammed Arshad 60, owner of a bakery, Bakers Hut,
says that times have changed now and to keep pace with it one has to adapt.
Dealing with customers for the past 30 years, Arshad says that there is now a
difference in how the young generation communicates. "Earlier, every morning I used to receive customers with whom I had an understanding and shared a bond. Although it is the same with the younger ones but it has changed a bit. Most of them now ask for my cell number on the very first meeting," he says smiling. Explaining, he says that most of the residents of the area call him up to order what they want and he has now got so used to them on the phone that he sometimes fails to recognize them. " I could not place an old lady who used to regularly order stuff on the phone, until she told me her cell number, " he says with a smile. Getting more serious, he says that it is necessary to have an exclusive bunch of customers on the phone, as on certain days he does not receive as many customers at his shop as he did before. "At least you can rest assured that these loyal phone customers will buy their monthly supplies from me."
SMS booklets: guidelines for messaging addicts By Rafay Mahmood "Tum Bijli, Pani or Train ko Rote ho Faraz / Is Mulk Mae Tau Toofan Bhi Time Per Nahin Aata"... This message was circulated all over the city when cyclone Phet proved to be an anti-climax for Karachiites by arriving late and then changing course before it hit the city's coast. The brains behind this poetic gem is 'Faraz', who baptizes every new cell phone with one of his socially relevant yet romantic poetic masterpieces. He is a legend, the undisputed king created by messages being forwarded on cell phones. The Short Messaging Service (SMS) plays a key role in
our lives today and the SMS culture has not only redefined the identity of
people like Faraz but has also spawned the creation of an SMS book industry. "Roothe Dil English Urdu SMS" (Volume 8 priced at Rs. 20) with a tragic picture of Ajay Devgan, with a heart pierced by a candle and barbed wire surrounding it, is just one example of this new genre. It is a small book full of poetry in Urdu and Roman and provides 80 pages of romance and tragedy that can easily fit individually into a single SMS space. A sample of its content: "Dil ke Zakhm Zuban per Laya Nahin Karte / Apni Ankhon se Ansu Bahaya Nahi Karte /Zakhm Kitne hi Gehre Kyun na ho, Hum Honton sae Muskurahat Hataya Nahin Karte." This is just the beginning of a book which offers a cheap form of entertainment for many, near-devotional guidelines for unresolved love stories, but the bottom line is that this is the place from where message are actually created and circulated all over the country. Be it the poetic archives of 'Faraz' or some random romantic poetry, this book has everything for the love sick. And surprisingly, teenaged girls are the biggest market for these books. "These books just come and get sold in a day or two, and teenaged girls are their most avid consumers. I don't think it requires any further explanation," Saqlain, a bookseller at the Gulshan-e-Iqbal old books market, told Kolachi. "SMS books have a very large market. I know many people who come here either to buy Sydney Sheldon-type bestsellers and those who buy these SMS books. And trust me, the number of buyers of SMS books is larger primarily because of their low cost and longer shelf life". For young men, however, what is more popular are the even smaller SMS joke books which are priced at Rs 10 and are full of wisecracks that you can fit into a single message space. "Tumse Mila Mein Kal Toh Mere Dil Mae Hua ek Sound/ Aur Aaj Tum Kehti ho Your File is not Found", or "Roz Tere Pyar ka Email Mere Dil ko Lubhata hai / Per Beech Mein Tere Baap ka Virus Aa Jata Hai"... these are just two of the few stirring verses of this comic entertainment. Shahrukh, a 15-year-old boy who has bought the ninth volume of the same book has a lot of fun waiting for the latest offerings . "I love these books. Once my father sleeps at night, I put my sim in his cell phone and message all my friends and we all share jokes," Shahrukh told Kolachi. He added that "it is all about being the first one to forward new jokes and discuss them the next time we meet". But who is behind this growing SMS fever? Who is the chairman of the SMS Educational Board and who defines the curriculum of this diploma in messaging in which thousands have qualified? There are many who lay claim to this title, but Imran Publisher is one of the names printed behind all these Urdu Bazar cell phone gospels, be it "Aghaz-e-Mohabbat", "Roothey Dil", "Ghame Tanhaai" or "Yeh Lamhe Judai Ke." "I have so far released 42 volumes of this sort and there is no rocket science involved in writing these messages," Imran Publisher confessed to Kolachi. " All you need to do is go on the internet, find some romantic poetry in Roman Urdu and just print them in a cheap book." He added that most of the content is lifted from the internet. He and his team just play around with some verses, compile them, dress them up in a cover full of Indian film stars, give them catchy, romantic titles. He said that "although the business has gone down a bit due to easy access to the internet and the increasing number of publishers in the market, the trick is to give readers something entertaining in Roman which can be adjusted in a single SMS space." It is not just poetry and jokes that such books provide. They also give readers a very strange and unusual list of self-created abbreviations for economical messaging. Here are a few highlights: "AAM: As a matter of fact, IMNSHO: In my not so humble opinion, IOWAN2BWU: I only want to be with you. Can people like Imran Publisher move on to become Pakistan's answers to Steven Covey and write bestsellers like 'More than Seven Habits of the Highly Addicted Cell Phone Messenger?' That thought may be far-fetched, but Imran and his books have definitely found a big niche market in Pakistan. The new SMS culture has given young people an alternative form of entertainment, a pastime which has a ripple effect. You might find it cheap, you might find it very uncool and cheesy, you might hate all those who send you lame messages night and day but the bottom line is that we are all now a part of this "cellulartainment" culture and these books are its essential coursework.
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