They are a young Japanese couple in their early twenties, seated at the table adjacent to mine. There is an African family (of three) occupying the one next to them. To my left are two tables joined together, where a group of youngsters (likely in their late teens) of Asian origin, are having their breakfast.
It’s Saturday morning and I am not in my usual “gobble it down in 6 mins” mode like on other weekdays when I rush out of the Hotel lobby, mostly gulping down the last part of my breakfast with my coffee. I generally try to do a longish breakfast on working weekends ( like this weekend in Manila for instance, when I had to stay over for some unfinished work) , and I love looking around the restaurant at the generous spread of people, of different sizes, nationalities, religious beliefs and facial expressions , all of us bound by one common thread to each other – we all feel hungry when the sun is up.
Coming back to my fellow occupants in the cafeteria , I notice a strange coincidence. Except for an elderly lady ( most likely of English origin) sitting in a corner, noone else is reading the morning paper , a scene that used to be the most common sight at a hotel breakfast about a decade ago. Instead, every person is holding on to a smart phone of some kind and is lost into it , completely oblivious to his / her surroundings. While some are typing something into their gadgets with a feverish urgency, others are browsing on as their faces change expressions every now and then. The plates of food lie half eaten(or sometimes untouched) in front of them and whenever a polite waiter stops by to ask if anyone would like a tea / coffee, he is met with an impatient wave of hands by the guest. Suddenly it seems as if the whole world has slipped into a terrible crisis and every person around me has received divine commands to try and reverse it through their smart phones.
I have also observed that among couples, generally one among the two takes on more strongly to gadgets than the other. Rarely have I seen both partners equally addicted to gadgets and net socializing. This seems to be a universal phenomenon.
Coming back to the Japanese couple, the girl is the aggressive gadget freak among the two and she would have typed an equivalent of a few thousand words on her I-Phone screen during the short period. Her partner seems to be less into gadgets, and is reluctantly browsing on, simply because his wife / girlfriend is just not looking up from her phone and talking to him. At times, I even notice an impatient look in his eyes . Suddenly he looks in my direction and catches me looking at him. I can’t help giving him a smile that says, “I know what you feel buddy”, immediately regretting doing so. I mean, I was being intrusive after all ! The guy looks away, slightly embarrassed at his frustration being noticed by a stranger.
As I finish my breakfast and start getting up, I see a group of young girls (aged between 16 and 20), dressed in shorts and summer tops, entering the restaurant. I can’t help turning back to check how the teenage boys would react while checking them out (something which we would have done for sure, when we were in our teens). The boys disappoint me. Not even one among them has NOTICED the REAL girls walking in front of them. They are too lost in their pseudo worlds of gadgets, checking pictures of Facebook girls instead …What a waste !!
As I leave the restaurant, my eyes can’t resist travelling to the Japanese couple once again. Finally the girl is done with her “save the world” campaign and has started nibbling into her slight breakfast. But this time around, the guy is completely into his phone, ferociously working it out – almost as if he wants to teach his partner a lesson for ignoring him for so long. As he looks up once to catch his breath, our eyes meet again.
I wink at him . This time he winks back.
He knows that I know what she doesn't know :)
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