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Bijoy Ghosh

All-in-one pocket.

I have always had problems with wires, not the least being electrical shocks because of careless handling of wires and plugs.

Now I have problems with wires of a different kind — e-wires. My office bag is full of wires and cables. I carry my mini-laptop (netbook) and the adapter cable. I have my two mobile phones — and their chargers.

Sometimes I also have the mobiles I review, along with their chargers. I carry a card reader, a couple of Bluetooth dongles, three or four pen drives, two USB modems (only one is ‘live’), an iPod and an 80 GB external hard drive.

I have faced embarrassing situations because of the e-wires.

A few years ago, I was stopped by a cop at the security check point at the Chennai Central railway station.

The cop looked startled as he fished out wire after wire from my bag. He found wires hanging out of the external hard drive and card reader, and demanded an explanation.

Fortunately, his superior, who was watching all the tamasha, came over and asked why I was carrying electronic items.

To my relief, he knew what external hard drives were and the reason they had wires hanging from their sides.

He allowed me to go after warning me I was bound to attract attention if I carried such a large number of wires and boxes.

Recently a similar situation arose in my office when a security official felt convinced I was smuggling out things from the office.

He refused to believe they were personal ‘wires’.

“If it is personal, why do you bring it to office?” was the question. I had to explain to him that I use these ‘personal’ things as I also carry work home.

During my recent trip to Delhi, the security person frisking me was stumped by my pen drive. He asked me to ‘operate’ it. The only ‘operation’ I could do was to slide the USB head out.

Again fortunately, his superior nodded his head, indicating it was a safe item.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2082052_efficiently-through-airport-security-austin.html , among other helpful hints about airport security, says, “Avoid planning to carry strange objects or items not understood or recognised by airport security, such as bizarre artifacts or weird electronic gadgets”.

R. Dinakaran

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