I was narrating some adventure of my youth to younger colleagues of mine one day. When I got to the part where the ongoing flame of the time, left a message on my answering machine asking whether I was going to a common friend’s place and if he could meet me there, my colleague gasped in wonder – “You had an answering machine!” she said. And “people don’t really ask questions like that now, they’re more likely to send you a Facebook invite to an event, indicating that just maybe, they might be there too. It’s very non-committal.”

The relationship between the telephone and intimacy is as old as, well, the telephone. In my house, when the telephone rang, many competed to answer it. That tring tring tring madhur dhvani, as the Bangla band Mohiner Ghoraguli sang of it, signalled the possibility of delicious surprises. You had no idea who was on the other side. You hoped it was a long lost friend or someone you were crushing on. Even if it was just an aunt calling for your mum or the telephone exchange checking if your phone was now working, the sound of the bell, never failed to generate that zigzag thrill of anticipation.