Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Twisted Telephonic Tales

Rain Gods, all over the world, have developed quirky little sadistic tendencies in response to the Global warming. But those in Bangalore seem to have lost the touch this year. Right up to 2008, it used to rain heavily exactly between 6 and 9 in the evening. Those who have suffered know how cruel that timing is. This year however, it rains when the city sleeps (siesta time included) or after 9 at the worst. I am not very pleased with the situation though. Life has taught me to be wary if someone naughty starts behaving like an angel.

Anyway, here’s an entirely hypothetical question. Would you pick up your expensive mobile phone from a shit-pot (clean and western style, to make matters clearer), back in 2002, when recession was still very much there and incoming-calls were still not free? If yes, would you tell that to the world?

In my 3 year old mobile, the received calls’ duration is 320 hours while the dialed calls’ duration is 405 Hours. That ratio used to be 1:2 once upon a time; now it highlights the behavioral shift. Also, I am not very proud of the nearly 45 minutes/day blabber that these statistics indicate; though there are a few excusable reasons. There have been quite a few interesting minutes in those 725 hours. For example, two weeks ago, I received a call:

“Hello” I said, following the usual protocol. The number displayed on the mobile screen was unknown. There was a pause and the call was disconnected. It was midnight. My mobile beeped again a couple of minutes later with the same number and I picked up the call without speaking a word.

“Hello Priya !!” a nasal voice from the other side. He was probably drunk too. I disconnected with a succinct “Wrong number”. Phone beeped again.

“Hello, who are you?” we both said together and then he repeated it without the “Hello” and then I did the same.

They taught me at the school that the one who calls must first introduce oneself; I agree with the principle. I also find myself putting chewing-gum wrappers or any other paper in my pocket if there is no dust-bin around. However, the worst suffering is inflicted by the habit of turning up on time. Damn those manners, but now they are wired into me.

Coming back to our caller, let’s call him Ranjha, since I still don’t know his name. He told me to give the phone to Priya. I gathered that he was expecting her to pick up the phone when he called. I didn’t tell him that there is no Priya here; just me and my..errr..thoughts. He kept calling and I kept disconnecting after a few seconds, allowing him to scream “Priya” everytime. Apparently she must have been sleeping with me.

Later on I got bored of him and put the mobile in silent mode. There were 28 missed calls by the morning. I was pleased with my enviable status and saved his number as, guess what, Ranjha.
Ranjha called me again next night while I was surfing around and the last night’s pattern followed. I was now in no mood to clear the misunderstanding. On the third night I was ready for him and when he called, I let him listen to the “Bheegey Hont Tere” on my laptop. Man, how he swore.

Next he called me during the day time. When I picked up the phone, he realized, probably for the first time, that the phone number might actually belong to me or maybe I keep Priya’s phone always with me. That should have given him some respite and he should have logically concluded that it’s not wise to infer Priya to be with me during the nights if I pick up the phone always. I can’t say for sure whether love is blind, but Ranjha is definitely dumb.

Ranjha started flooding my mobile with SMS’s now. The plan was to irritate me by flooding the Inbox and force me to call and talk to him. Little did he know that my flat-mates used to call me “Baba” not for nothing. Scratch your nails on the table and I shall smile. Serve me the food of your canteen and I shall gorge. Turn off the fan and I won’t mind. Ranjha must have wasted at least Rs100 that day even with the best of the postpaid plans.

He still calls me sometimes and gets ignored mostly. Once in a while, I experiment if I am in the mood. Till now he has heard the spoon hit against various plates and bowls in my attempts to create music, the flush of the toilet and my futile whistling attempts.

I am not planning to let go of this toy soon, but let me announce the way they do it on Radio “If Priya is reading this blog and her number ends with something similar to 26267, she must contact me to claim a jealous, confused and by now definitely broken-hearted idiot.” Till she contacts me, I would take your requests and suggestions to torture him further. Suggestions like “get a life” would be courteously ignored.

Of course, his misery comes to an end if he introduces himself politely instead of demanding to know who I am and the same has been conveyed to him. But he refuses to learn those basic manners. He should have studied in my school.

Coming up two more tales of the phone in the next post:
1. The one who knew why you called.
2. Bloody Indians in Vegas.

Let me finish with a small incident while I used to stay in Gurgaon. My phone rang and the voice at the other end said “Hello Prashaaanttt” in a typical Delhi accent. I was expecting an invitation-for-Diwali-dinner call from my friend’s mother that day and I eagerly replied with an obedient “Namaste Aunty”. She clarified that she was calling from a bank and so I apologized, as sincerely as I could, while friends around me laughed aloud. She wanted me to have a personal loan from her bank, but by then she had lost the conviction in her voice.

44 comments:

bondgal_rulz said...

Ughhh the midnight callers!!! I stopped picking up calls from unknown numbers a long time back. :)

Anyway, why did you make him listen to bheege honth....try altaf raja instead!! :D I'm sure it'll have the desired effects!! But then again, you never know with his taste!! ;)

Ummm....you could try making him listen to the scartching of your nails on the wall, or you could make fake fart sounds or better still do that literally or make him listen to the flush of your toilet..ohh! you've done that already!...make him hear the sound of your peeing!!!!

Ok I should stop.

Urmi said...

I liked your blog very much.I have become your 56th follower so I will be visiting your blog.
Lovely post.Keep writing.
You are welcome in my blogs.

Anonymous said...

Hahahaaaaa....This post was hilarious! My sides are hurting & people around me are thinking that I have lost my mind or have complete lack in life. Like I care!! :)

I did write on an irritating phone call experience really long back in....ahh here it is http://boxingwords.blogspot.com/2008/08/telecalling_28.html.

But oh how I wish you had written this earlier. :( I could've tortured some poor souls too :'(

Imp's Mom said...

lol!!! hilarious post :D

frm what i remember, it used to strt raining from 4 pm but yea the 6 -9 was cruel!

seeing that ranjha is really dumb, maybe you could just get mean and tell him that she's just not into him.. :P

Swaram said...

LOL @ Ranjha! I hope we get more Ranjha posts to read ;)

TinTin said...

baba...kaafi mast blog hai. Lage raho

vinny said...

huh! i wish Priya finds this post n meets her Ranjha...they have undergone enough hardships :P

u've put some honest confessions here....bravo!

BrownPhantom said...

@bondgal,
"Bheege hont" were supposed to remind him of Priya with me :).

You can be a very adept torturer :)
Thanks a lot for the visit :).

@Babli,
Thanks. I shall visit ur blog.

BrownPhantom said...

@Choco,
Really !! :).
Glad that I could make you laugh. Lemme check who irritated you :).
Thanks.

@Imp's Mom,
Yes, 4 was when the software engineers were not so many in number :).
Ranjha must find a way on his own :).
Thank you so much for the comment :).

BrownPhantom said...

@Swaram,
Thanks. Yes, he can be a fantastic fodder for the blog.

@Tintin,
Shukriya dost :).

@Vinnie,
I am afraid Priya is never going to contact him after reading this post. :).
Thanks for your visit :).

santasizing...Fantasizing said...

hahahahaha:)....
well...i have faced the similar kinda situation....when a girl used to call me a lot,thinking i was dating her boyfriend(who i didnt even know!!)
and all i did was after a few days...
"If hes happy with me,whats ur problem...."believe me,she went berserk...and then eventually i handed over the situation to my friend..who had some terrific time bothering her so much,that she stopped calling within a weeks time..
well ofcourse that wasnt too good...since it stopped my dose of daily entertainment...:)

Riya Das said...

hahaha.. good one :D once we got a call where someone screamed "srinath hai??" in a Bengali accent.

javagal srinath was still in the Indian team back then and my dad screamed back in a similar accent " haan. cricket field mein hai.. " :P

Preeti Shenoy said...

:) :)
Bow to thee Baba!
lovely post.
Cheers
preeti

Shanu said...

Lol..that was hilarious!!

And ROFL with the Namaste Auntyji incident!! Poor lady must have missed her targets for the day!!

Shanu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BrownPhantom said...

@Preeti,
:). Thank you so much for your time and comment :).

@Shanu,
Yeah, hard luck of hers :). Thanks.

BrownPhantom said...

@Riya,
Dads can always be funny :). Thanks for the visit.

@SFizing,
Yeah, there's a constant battle between entertainment and rightfulness :). Thanks for your comments :).

Bubbles said...

whoa!!! BP that sure was funny...!
poor ranjha, hope he wakes up from his 'dumbland' pretty soon!

Winnie the poohi said...

Ah that was funny!! Umm why dont you let him hear himesh reshamiya?

I would like to say I cant believe ppl r like that.. but I know they are!

I once got a miss call n I called back.. only to know that it was a prank call! Since then I got 100 miss calls.. it stopped only after I threatened to complain to the police!

lafemmereva said...

u r forgetting the automatic calls and the annoying salesman and oh the credit card guys with the rpe approved offers!!!

BrownPhantom said...

@lafemmereva,
Not much can be done abt the automatic calls really, though the frequency of such calls isn't that high in India. And "Namaste Auntyji" should serve the others fine I guess :).
Glad to see you after a long time :).

@Winnie,
It's highly likely that he is a Himesh fan :). Thumbrule is to never call back on unknown numbers. If it is important, then they would call you again :). Thanks :).

DPhatsez said...

Ranjha the Dodo!

Dude, if you had made him listen to Himesh long enough , I think he would've gone and hung himself.

Keep that in mind, next prank around :)

Namastey aunty! Haan Loan zaroor loonga :)

Pesto Sauce said...

Poor Ranjha...will curse Priya

Next time tell him not to call again for Priya as she has gone to her Mom for delivery of baby!!!

Destination Infinity said...

LOL@ Baba! I have now realized how mobile companies are making a profit even during a recession :-)

Destination Infinity

BrownPhantom said...

@DPhat,
Let's see what Himesh does to him :). Loan to pyaar se maaf kar degi aunty .
Thanks buddy :).

@Pesto,
Yours is a brutual solution :).No scope for enemy to survice.
Glad to see you here again :).

@DI,
You look to be in an analytical mood :). Thank you so much for your visit :).

Arnab Majumdar said...

Dude, honestly... some life you've got!! :D Reminds me of a call that we used to get at home, which stopped when Dadu (my dadaji) said Mr. Bhowal sanyaas lekar Haridwar chale gaye, and hum logo ne unka ghar hadap liya hai, while the rest of us roared with laughter!

Got an idea, maybe it's a bit too cruel for Ranjha... next time he calls, give the phone to a kid to answer, and when the dude says "Priya" tell him to say "Mummy toh abhi Uncle ke saath bedroom mein hai, aap kaun bol rahe hai?"

I'm starting to wonder what Ranjha's reaction to that would be :P Do blog about it if you try that ever :D Cheers man...

Shruthi said...

Seriously! “Xerox” copy of your right foot is what I ask for. I shall join your fans and call you Baba! Deserving title I must say.

And to ward off such Ranjhas is a task. How bout an old trick- dialogues from movies? Try Godfather dialogues. Or some gangster movie. But the question is, Ranjha being Ranjha, will he get it? Or maybe you could make him listen to a lot of gunshots etc. Well it might freak him out. Such criminal ideas come to me only when am at work. Wonder why..

BrownPhantom said...

@Arnab & Shruthi,
Your crazy ideas have made me sympathetic towars him :).

I would try all of these once he call, haven;t recieved a call since last 5 days :).

Thanks .

gayathri vishwanathan said...

namaste auntiji...hahaha too funny :)

i liked this one a lot

Winnie the poohi said...

Congrats !! @blogadda

BrownPhantom said...

@Gayathri,
Thank you so much for your appreciation :).

@Winnie,
Thank you :). This was courtesy Preeti who recommended the post to blogadda :). She is an author and writes here : http://justamotheroftwo.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

LOL!!this was a hilarious read!! :D
you wicked soul!you actually tortured that poor lovesick soul by making him listen to THAT song?;))


seriously you gave me a completely diff perspective on the wrong number incidents(I have lost count by now)

*sigh*

off to read the next post now:))
and yes CONGRATULATIONS on this one being the blogadda pick!!

BrownPhantom said...

@Abhilasha,
Thank you so much :). That song was my brother's idea :).

aMus said...

this was a hilarious read. i think ranjha's heart is broken.

the song was the right choice though you could have got some revenge by making him listen to himesh

ANC said...

LOL..are you kidding me?! You actually did that? Hilarious! :D
P.S. Though I must admit, my heart does go out to Ranjha :P

BrownPhantom said...

@ANC,
Ranjha hasn't called in days . I miss him sometimes. He is the most confused stalker that exists.
Thanks :)

@Suma,
Yes :). I'll try himesh on him. DOn't have any of his songs, youtube se sunana padega.
Thanks :).

Saurabh Gupta said...

Man...This is xtremely funny..."Namaste Aunty" lol...

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Durga Nandan said...

Next time I get one like that, I know what to do.. ;)
Liked your blog.
Cheerz!
Durga Nandan

Alka Gurha said...

The fact that ur bolg is interesting is one thing...another is that U r based in Blore and talk about Gurgaon.Now I have recently moved to Gurgaon after 5 yrs in Blore and am missing Blore like hell...even though Gurgaon is my hometown. Blore initiated me into the world of writing and blogging.

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