India, Aug. 5 -- By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

There comes a moment in every man's life when he realises that the world has quietly marched ahead and forgotten to leave him a note. Mine arrived the morning my old phone, a faithful companion of many years, decided it had laboured enough and began switching itself off in the middle of my most earnest conversations. It was time, my family declared with great solemnity, for me to buy a new one. What sounded like a simple errand became one of the more humbling expeditions of my recent life.

I walked into the showroom with the quiet confidence of a man accustomed to advising on complex matters. I walked out two hours later feeling like a schoolboy who had failed an examination he did not know he ...