Love Beep…

Harsh Sinha finally messaged Nita, his girlfriend. The declaration of love: "will u marry me" was zapped from his cell phone screen to hers. Nita had waited 10 months. Extremely shy of expressing his emotions, Harsh says, "SMS helped to say it all!"

Looking for love via the cell phone? The Guardian reports about Donavan Shears in the UK. He managed to find his wife on his phone. Donavan sent six "hello there" messages to complete strangers after buying a new mobile phone.

Curious Kirsty - Anne Stevenson replied with "Hello, who's this?" The pair spent the next three months sending each other about 10,000 messages before meeting face to face. Kirsty finally met Donavan who was waiting with a bunch of roses and his mobile phone, of course.

They are not alone. Most 'texters' admit to having sent a declaration of love and far more admit to employing SMS to flirt with people they would like to know better and fight with people they already do.

Confesses Kavita Kaur: "I had a huge row with a friend in the United States on SMS in a train from Delhi to Chandigarh. The messages just kept going back and forth till I reached Delhi station!" A rough estimate: At least 300 messages. Not to miss the 12-hour difference.

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Though on Saturday nights, popularity of the short messaging service is real high. "It is easier to message someone to find out where they are in a dark, loud nightclub! Also a great way to get out, if you hate the company you are with," says 20-year old Kirti Reddy.

Surveys reveal that 8 out of 10 people use text to co-ordinate their social life, to ask tricky questions without having to take part in long conversations and even find out cricket scores when on a date.

Obviously, teenagers too use mobile technology to satisfy that ancient adolescent urge, lust. It has a new name: 'text-sex'.

The only downside here is that many even admit to ending relationships via SMS.

Work Beep...

"I run my offices in China, Nepal and Bombay through my cell phone while sitting in Delhi," says Alok Kejriwal of Contests2win. "I use ICQ's SMS service for clarifications and longer messages. It's perfect especially when I am traveling!" His only crib: "I think my Orange service has caught on. If you reply to an ICQ message, they charge you ten bucks a message!"

Vimal Khurana is a marketing professional working for a multinational in Bombay. His company has offices all over the country, so Vimal uses SMS to cut down his phone bills by almost 3 times. "There are just no more STD calls anymore. I even deal with clients for clarifications or notifications through the cell phone."

SMS' popularity with businessmen has to do with the cheaper costs and convenience. Cell phone services charge just a rupee for a message. Besides, a message, unlike a phone call, can be answered later on. Says Pankaj Sarswat, "Have you noticed how quickly the babble of the mobile owners is replaced by the frantic tapping of texters! It is great to talk about work at a play or even a family dinner or a conference without disturbing anybody else. Even in an office meeting nobody need know."

But SMS is not cheap for everyone. Kaur is a txt addict: "My bills have increased by over 2K a month because of SMS! I cannot imagine life without it." Likewise with photographer Jaya Motwani: "I pay more for my SMS than my air time because I hardly talk on my cell phone."

Emergency Beep…

The Bhuj earthquake struck. All phone lines went dead instantly. Worried, Devang Kapadia could only use his SMS to check on his family in Vapi. Kapadia's family responded almost immediately. "In fact that is how they even tracked all their friends and relatives in Ahmedabad."

Many journalists also managed to report through SMS. "It helped to locate colleagues. That was fairly simple to do. All thanks to SMS," claims Allied Press photographer Sherwin Casto.

"While it is more painful than email, I think it is more immediate, more relaxed and more informal," believes Ivan Rebello who uses his own SMS shorthand to message his fiancée. This really helps as his to-be-father-in-law has very early deadlines for ending all telecommunications ;-)

Pranks Beep…

"A friend of mine kept sending me messages from a site with a nickname Bangaru Laxman and I couldn't figure out who the sender was. They were all political messages and I was frightened! When he told me it was a prank, I almost killed him," laughs Kavita.

For Ivan Rebello, texting was a great way to play a prank on his colleague who had just picked up a cell phone: "There was a lot of talk of mobile viruses in the air. So we kept sending complete gibberish to this colleague of mine for a month. He freaked, thinking that his mobile was infected by the virus."

But texting has also got many into trouble. Like Ashwin Puri in Nashik. A colleague who watched him being pulled up by the boss sent him an SMS that read: "Is he taking your trip?" Only the message went to the boss by mistake. "He took more than my trip after receiving the message. The worst part was that once you press the 'send' button you cannot stop your message from going through! Even shutting off your cell phone will not help," he explains.

Imagine Kavita's plight when messages meant for her brother-in-law named Inder and a Net pal named Indar crisscrossed!