The most dialled number on my phone is not my mother, not my best friend, not even Swiggy customer care during a wrong-order crisis.

It is my wife.

And before you assume that we are one of those deeply romantic couples who speak every 17 minutes because “communication is the foundation of marriage,” let me clarify.

I call her because she cannot find her phone.

Every day. Sometimes twice. Sometimes while holding it. Sometimes while scrolling Instagram on it.

Marriage teaches you many things. Patience. Adjustment. Financial planning. The exact tone in which “please ring my phone once” actually means, “I have already searched under one cushion and now this is officially your responsibility.”

The contradiction is beautiful. My wife is always on her phone. Always. Instagram, reels, stories, online shopping carts, weather updates, random home décor pages, and those food videos where someone adds cheese to something that already had cheese.

And yet, somehow, the phone disappears more often than common sense in a housing society WhatsApp group.

At night, when normal people wake up for water, she wakes up to check whether her unilateral dialogue with the internet has been converted into numbers.

Views. Likes. Comments. Followers. Engagement.

The modern human no longer asks, “Did I say something meaningful?”

The modern human asks, “Did the algorithm respect me?”

Yesterday, we were at the park. Children were playing. Parents were pretending to supervise while actually checking their own phones. And suddenly, a group of kids started discussing a collaboration.

Not collaboration like a school project.

Content collaboration.

These kids had a combined follower base consisting of both sets of grandparents, parents, two tuition teachers, one bua, one neighbour aunty, and five fake profiles created for “initial support.”

But their confidence?

Absolute influencer energy.

One kid said, “Bro, we should collab and create something big.”

Something big?

At his age, my biggest collaboration was with a vegetable vendor.

During my last summer vacation of school, I used to chase a sabzi wala because he took rounds of the gully where my crush lived. I had no strategy, no content calendar, no ring light, no caption bank.

Just blind optimism and seasonal vegetables. He would shout, “Aloo le lo, tamatar le lo!” And I would think, “Maybe today she will come to the Terrace.” That was my algorithm.

A moving vegetable cart. A dusty lane. A teenage heart. And absolutely no return on investment.

I am not very proud of it. But at least I was not asking anyone to like, share, subscribe, and comment “crush” for part two.

Today, even kids are building brands. They don’t have permanent teeth, but they have content strategy. They don’t know long division, but they understand reach. They cannot tie shoelaces properly, but they know the reel should not exceed 12 seconds because retention drops.

Meanwhile, my wife’s phone, the headquarters of this entire digital empire, continues to go missing inside a 3BHK flat.

The same phone that tracks steps, calories, weather in three cities, celebrity divorces, school WhatsApp groups, and someone’s Europe trip.

But it cannot track itself.

So I call.

Again and again.

Sometimes the phone rings from the sofa.

Sometimes from the kitchen.

Sometimes from inside a handbag that contains receipts from 2022, three lip balms, two rubber bands, one safety pin, and emotional evidence from every fight we have ever had.

The phone rings, she finds it, and the moment of crisis passes.

For exactly 40 minutes.

Then again:
“Can you please ring it once?”

And I do. Because that is marriage.

Not candlelight dinners. Not long drives. Not matching outfits.

Marriage is being the human “Find My Device” feature for someone who is currently watching reels about minimalism while owning crap loads of DIY.

But honestly, I cannot complain too much.

We all have our strange habits.

She loses her phone.

I once followed a vegetable vendor for love.

She checks reels at 2:37 a.m.

I used to believe that if I stood near a handcart long enough, destiny would arrange a terrace appearance.

The methods have changed. The madness remains.

Earlier, love made boys follow vegetable vendors. Today, validation makes kids chase followers.

Earlier, we waited for one glimpse from a balcony. Today, people wait for one comment from a stranger named “official_raj_739.”

And somewhere between all this, my wife’s phone is ringing again.

Excuse me. I have to save a marriage.

And possibly retrieve a mobile phone from under a cushion.

Ta-Ta.