Talking Past One Another
By Shashi Tharoor
Newsweek International
July 26, 2004

The other evening, as I stepped out of my building, a couple walked by, seemingly in conversation. An attractive young twosome, I first thought. But there was something odd: they were not in step. The man spoke, and after a longish pause, the woman, half a meter behind him, seemed to reply. But she wasn't looking at him as she spoke, and he kept his eyes on the sidewalk, not on his companion.

What a peculiar relationship, I thought, until I noticed, in the gathering twilight, the telltale cord of a cell-phone earpiece dangling down each person's cheek. They were in fact immersed in conversation--just not with each other. And indeed, a few steps later they went their separate ways, connected only in my imagination.

People may use similar-looking cell phones around the world, but the way they use them is still as varied by nation and locality as any other cultural habit. Text messaging has taken off in Japan in part because it's considered unutterably rude to blather on in public. New Yorkers have no such problem. I've seen them all: the blowhard blaring into his hand-held, the gossip giggling over her screen phone, the discreet mumbler muttering seemingly to himself. (I've been in New York long enough to know that that would hardly be unusual, even without a cell phone.) And with this chatter has gone a basic tenet of civilized urban life--of decorum, privacy, manners. The invention of the cell phone has confirmed New Yorkers' illusory sense of their own personal space. To someone wired to the wider world, your space no longer exists.

No one's embarrassed anymore to discuss intimate details of their lives in front of strangers. I've heard people instructing their wives on beers to buy and their brokers on stocks to sell. I've waited at pedestrian crossings as young women shamelessly dissected their absent dates and young men boasted of their conquests--naming names. I've tried to concentrate on a newspaper on a train while the woman in front of me reassured a succession of callees that she was on her way back to their apparently anxious arms.

On the politically sensitive Washington-to-New York run, as well as various commuter lines, Amtrak introduced "quiet cars" for those who want to travel undisturbed by the conversational patter of others. But too often these are invaded by business travelers who want to put every minute of their time to profitable use: they spend the entire journey striking deals, wheedling clients and leaving messages for distant assistants. A friend tells me of an acquaintance who recently overheard two lawyers discussing the details of a merger--involving her company!

Of course, New Yorkers have always had a yen for sharing a little too much--the garrulous granny on a crosstown bus loudly describing her ailments to the lady on the next seat in the mistaken assumption that everyone was as deaf as she was. Once upon a time, people with cell phones would be among the first to roll their eyes at such behavior. Nowadays, they're the ones who infringe on our peace--and their own, if only they were aware. Not a day goes by, I've found, without my spotting a couple on the street, sometimes even holding hands--one of them ignoring the other and chatting on the cell phone. Last week, while standing on the corner trying to hail a cab, I hit the jackpot: a couple quite visibly together, walking side by side, each of them animatedly engaged in separate conversations. Why bother to be together, I wondered, if you'd rather be talking to someone else?