Frankly Speaking !

Anonymity brings the best and the worst out of people. My fair share of anonymity gave me my days of happiness, but when the tables were turned i've had to run for the covers.

The first time i got a phone connection at home, when i was 8, i was amazed by its capability. Then again, that amazement was short lived, only to be taken over by my, shall i say, quest for pulling off pranks.

The Telephone, the modern day connector, in its various forms, has been a revelation and to many a tool to unleash their creativity.

While my initial foray to pranks on the telephone was a more sober one, with conversations usually like:
Me (ring up a friend's number, with a piece of cloth over the mouth piece): "Hellowwww !" Friend: "Hello, who is this ?"
Me: "Hello ! Hello ! "
My friend tapping the mouth piece, and shouting even louder
Friend:"HELLLOOO !"
pretending like i cant hear, i too shout back like i had my shorts on fire
Me:"HELLLOOO!!"
Friend:"HELLOOOOOO!!!"

after 2 minutes of shouting "HELLOO" and beating the crap out of each other's ears, my friend hangs up, with the word still ringing like a temple bell !

On one instance, i recorded my voice in a tape-recorder, which had me asking questions at regular intervals apart from recording a "hello". Armed with such a fantastic weapon, I called up my cousin, and switched on the tape.

The tape contained something like "Hello, how are you ?" ...a small pause, to give the caller a chance to answer.... "what did you do today?"....a long pause..."Are you going out anywhere today ?"....another pause..."you know what happened today ?..."...and my long boring story.....in the end "ok, got to go, bye"..

while my cousin sat at home, for 20 long minutes ruining his day, busy answering my questions, and listening to a boring story about how staff at zoos take care of ducks, i was happily playing football outdoor, and enjoying inside out :D.

Well, it was not all rosy and pink all the time, and the telephone has been a headache on a lot of occasions. The coming of a telephone to our house was one of celebration and happiness, more to our neighbours than to us. Being the only house in the street that had a telephone connection at that time, our house had turned into a makeshift telephone booth with neighbours dropping in to call either their "Anna" in kottayam, kerala or a "PaaTi" in dharampuri, TN.

Since the neighbourhood spoke like a hundred different languages, tamil, malayalam, telugu, and i spoke rookie kannada as my mother-tongue, my young impressionable mind was bombarded with all kinds of languages, making me almost forgot my own language !

One particular lady was the most irritating, one because she spoke in a language i never understood, and the other, and a far more dangerous one being, her screaming and shouting over the phone. She would come in almost every evening whenever her uncle would call up from kerala, asking for "Geeeedhha kupadriya ?" (i later found it was "Can you call Geetha ?") ....while given an opportunity i would just hang up, but under the watchful eye of my mother, i couldnt do that. while my sisters would go scurrying out of sight from my mother, just in case she asked them to call "Geeedha!", i would be left shivering holding the handset, with the voice ringing in my head "Geeedha kupadriya !", "Geedha Kupadriya ?", each time increasing in intensity. One glance at me, and i would know that i had no choice but to walk down a mile and call "geedha aundy"...day in and day out, aunty would go on and on, about how her small land in kerala was being manhandled by her uncle who grew pumpkins on them instead of aunty’s preferred coffee beans, pouring over the phone. My only source of entertainment at that time being the "chitrahaar", that aired hindi songs on TV, would get ample servings of malayalam sandwiched between the songs thanks to aunty. As if this was not enough, she would hang up the phone after a 1 hour marathon, and then sit down to tell the whole tale back again to my mother in broken Tamil. since my mother didn't follow malayalam, and the aunty didnt follow kannada, both had settled for tamil as a common language(which neither knew anyways), and i would be stuck in between them trying to decipher hindi songs on TV !, while the scars on my ankles itched on account being beaten to pulp for accidentally speaking in a language other than English, during school hours; Talk about linguistic confluence !

Being relatively new to the telephone, many of us had minimal or no knowldege of telephone etiquette, with "Hello" being the only common link, between any two caller, in most of the cases. Since "Hello" being a English word, it HAD to be indianized, and it gets real funny when you dont get what the other guy’s telling. In many cases, one cant get if it’s a “hello” or just a decorated yawn.

Some of the hello's include, reading phonetically,

"hey lo",
"Haaa low"
or a more romantic one would be "halove"
..some would sound like the person is threatening you with a greeting: "HALLOW"
a more portly man would sound like "HOLLOW" !
one gujarati aunty who would call us, used to sound like she was always in a hurry, with a fast "haLL oh!", stressing really hard on the "L"s..

Atleast better than a few who would call home and directly jump into the topic, without confirming who’s on the other side.
man:"Hello!"
me:"Hello!"
man:"saar, naale nun maglu madve, khanditha barbeku" (Sir, tommorow is my daughter's marriage, and you are cordially invited)

being the kiddo i was, i was pleasantly surprised by someone addressing me as "sir" and inviting me to a ceremony, but wanted to confirm if the invitation was really for me.

me:"uncle, naanu juggi, elli maduve?" ("uncle, its me juggi, where is the marriage ?")
man:"ayyo neenappa, appa ge kodu" ("oh oh ! is it you, give it to your father !")

RATS !!...i would get shunted out like a bug

some calls are bloody confusing, more like

lady:"Hello"
Me:"Hello, yaaru ?" ("hello, who is this?")
Lady:"naanu" ("it's me")
how the hell am i supposed to know, am i a voice/sound reader ?

once my sister had called up, and i did not get who it was because of the same reason i mentioned above, but i thought I’d rather lie than get caught, and used my usual greeting.

me:"oh aunty !..heli aunty !" ("oh aunty, yeah tell me")
Lady:"yee GOOBE, naano nim akka, mommy ge kodo" ("you owl, its me your sister, give it to mommy !")

JEES...that would now enter into the "book of weapons to torture me" which my sister would use when required.

And to this, the wrong numbers to add to the confusion. Our Home phone number unluckily differed only slightly from that of a nearby tile company, and people used to usually interchange the numbers, and we would land up getting a lot of calls asking for either "Glazy Tiles with pink stripes"...or "Sir, when can i come and pay the bills for the tiles ?"..or even worse, some used to shout "Saar, your tiles have still not yet arrived, why are you so lazy ??? !" ..i did not get how he came to know i was lazy, but he sure had dialed a wrong number !

Once a guy called me when I was in a particularly bad mood due to the "Geedha" effect.
Man: "Saar, venkateshwara elllidare ?"("where is venkateshwara?")
Me(yelling back`):"Tirupathi nall idare hogri next bus nalle, sigthaare"("he is in Tirupathi, catch the next bus immediately, you will meet him")

Even worse is when that long lost pre-school friend calls up, and pesters you to recognize him/her. In pre-school i hardly knew how to speak, how would i recognize a person voice who's grown into a beast ever since?

My Talent for not recognizing people’s voice over the phone only got worse with the wrong number stuff. A few years back, I had an offer from Oracle, but rejected it since I was not ready to travel to Hyderabad. However, my cousin got wind of this and thought he could play a prank on me. Calling me on my cell, masquerading as an Oracle HR, he started off:

Cousin: “Hello, can I speak to Mr. Jagadish”
Me: “Hello, yes speaking”
Cousin: “I am Satish from HR, Oracle. I would like to offer you 5 lakhs, instead of the 3.8 lakh we had initially offered, would you like to join us ?”

I couldn’t believe my ears’; anyone with ZERO IT experience would jump in for such an offer. I actually did a somersault and then went in for the dive.

Me: “Yeah, that is a good offer, I would consider it seriously”
Cousin: “Also, we have decided to pay your accommodation charges, car rental and also give you free travel tickets to bangalore”

By now I was doing a reverse bungee, and trying to walk on one hand. I could not believe they were offering all this.

Me: “Oh that’s a neat offer, I accept it”

A crack, a stifle, and a HUGGGGEEE ROAR….. my ear popped out of my head… my cousin was laughing and rolling, gasping for breath…..after 5 minutes of uncontrollable laugh, he finally told me “ naano, Shekar !” ("its me Shekar !")

I was so shocked by the sudden laughter, I could not register that it was my cousin, and was wondering why the HR guy was laughing so loudly. I had at that time thought that he was so happy I had accepted the offer, that he just could not control it over the phone.

Me: “Sorry I didn’t get why you were laughing ? and you said you were satish not shekar !”
Cousin(still gasping) : “ Lo juggie, naano shekar ! nin cousin ooo !!!” ( "I am your cousin, shekar !")

That sudden realization ….

..and then it was too late to reverse what had happened….

The Telephone has, until recently, more or less been a costly instrument to own. However, even costlier are the calls. Back then, it wasn’t very costly, about 1 rupee for 3 minute rounding. People however would go to great lengths to save that amount too. One aunty who would otherwise speak slow when she used to come home, often comfortably spoiling the evening for me, used to speak like a rattle snake running for life when it came to phone conversation.
Her calls used to be more like:

Aunty:”JustTellMommyThatWeWontBeGoingToTheTempleTodayAndI’llGetHalsandhiKaal SambarAndChutnyPowderTomorrow”… PHATAKKKK …..she would cut the phone; message delivered in less than 30 seconds….I would just tell my mother that a particular aunty had called and spoke in malayalam :D.

Talking about etiquette, the concept of a voice mail, has been a difficult one to swallow for many in India, including me, with many uncomfortable speaking to a machine. The first time I enabled my voice mail system was when I joined my company. I had put my name, a courteous message asking the caller to leave a message. After a few days I realized what a folly I had committed. Every day I would come in to check my voice mail to find messages like
“Hello ! Hello !... hello ? …..Tak Tak Tak…. Chey cut aagi hoithu !” (“It got cut!”)
“hello juggie, ivathu 9:30 ge silk board hatra bartiya ?…hello ! hello !!” ( “Can you come to Silk board at 9:30pm, hello ? hello ?”)
“hello….hello !..chey…phone ethkothane, yeno helthane, amele cut agoguthe” ( “He picks up the phone, says something and cuts the phone”)

My colleague at office was fed up of hearing garble messages on his voice mail, more often being “Hello…yaaro pesraango, yaaro pesrango maa” (“someone is talking, someone is talking mom!”)…apparently, my colleague had left a short message with just his name, which the caller mistook as someone speaking at the other end.

Telemarketing has been a more recent phenomenon in India, but it’s nonetheless frustrating and irritating. Add to this, mobile phones make it even worse. Once my friend, out of an elevator, red with anger “They don’t even leave the lift phones, these Citibank guys !”….and on another instance, a colleague of mine who was running to the restroom, ran back to pick up his phone ringing, only to find out that a lady was interested in knowing whether he wanted to buy kashmiri carpets for 20% discount.

I’ve been troubled many a numerous times. I used to drive to office on my bike, and hosur road is not a place to stop a bike even for 5 minutes. With my helmet on, and speeding into any nook and corner I can find, it is hard to reach office on time anyway, worrying when my PM would call up asking about my whereabouts. On my way to office, one day, my phone buzzed like a wild cat just out of water; slowing down completely, taking off my helmet, stopped at a place to pick up the phone, and I get a moronic voice “Idu Airtel inda nimage uchitha karey….this is a free call from airtel….these are the following crap of offers we have for you right now, to make your life miserable, please dial one for choice, or wait for caller assistance”. DRAT !

Once I decided to give these telemarketers back the taste of their own medicine.

A lady from standard chartered called up,
Lady:”Hello sir, I am calling from Stan chart, what is your name ?”
Me: “hi, my name is mallesha..”
Lady: “would you be interested in a credit card ?”
Me : “Yes certainly, how much credit can you give me?”
Lady(excited) : “Sir based on your salary we can give a credit of up 25K”
Me : “That’s cool, I would like a credit of 25K”
Lady : “What is your designation, sir ?”
Me : “I am currently working as trainee office boy”
Lady ( slightly apprehensive): “What is your salary, sir ?”
Me: “2000 rs per month, including perks”
Lady(voice suddenly changing into a harsh tone): “Oh !! we do not currently have any scheme for that income”
Me: “May-dum, please give me a credit card, please”

Lady(slightly irritated):”I’ll give you a call once I confirm with my manager”
Me:”May-Dum, please maydum, at least give me your phone number, so that I can call and find out once you have decided. Please write down my contact info : Mallesha, care of kalpesha,..blah blah ” ..PHUTAAK….the phone line got cut, and so were the numerous calls I used to get from standard chartered….i guess my number was blacklisted soon after this call :D :D…

The Telephone never fails to astonish me, nor does the numerous possibilities it possesses, to irritate and frustrate people included. However, like someone put it so well for Monsoon’s in India, it is but a “Necessary Evil”.

Right now my cell rests safely in my locker, and so are my morbid fears of someone making another prank call.

Rush Hour

"No, No, No...there is no direct flight to Newark, bombay is flooded saar" moaned the travel desk lady thrusting on me an itinerary which had stops in almost every continent possible. For someone who has hardly been out of bangalore, i thought it was great idea to see four places in one day. My friend, who was to travel along, was insistent on getting a different itinerary which would bypass chicago for us. I was ok with going to chicago, since i had never been there before. Though i thought my friend was wrong to miss such an opportunity to see chicago, it was me who got laughed at more when i told my friends about the journey. Pradeep was kind enough to say "Sareeg Goobey kudsidaale travel navalu" (The travel lady has made a moron out of you).

After some frenzied packing the next day, the weighing machine read 18.5 kg, leading the shop keeper to comment "Saar neeevu kuthkondu hogbodu suitcase nalli, yaaru hidiyolla" (Guess you can sit in the suitcase and it still wont cross the max luggage limit). I thought "Smartie, hold your words, i am going to the YOU-YES-AYE" :D...

apart from the short tours i took to Mangalore and Bombay, leaving Bangalore was seldom in my list of to-do things.

After getting a whole lot of advice from people about New Jersey( in a few cases, some had not even been to US actually), and one big round of "ashirvaada" ceremony, our gang was off to the airport.

"Tidong ting.....Bangalore - Delhi flight is now Boarding" screamed the lady through the public address system, while i was still hysterically waving at anyone i could see through the glass. I got into the plane and sat down gingerly next to the window seat.... the pilot announced a series of stuff that i hardly understood. After taxiing down the runway, the plane turned around like a raging bull, the engine in full throttle the beast sped fast, and in a split second my stomach gave a huge groan and i knew i was in air.

"The plane would reach a maximum height of 33000 feet", the pilot announced. The farthest i had been suspended in air, before this flight, was probably 6 feet during a failed high jump attempt which saw me bang into the side pole, mid-air, on my school sports day.

Reaching Delhi airport was one thing, catching the next flight was another. As soon as we got down the plane, we were frisked into a Box-like Bus, and were dropped off near the entrance of what looked like a dilapidated horse stable. My friend travelling along signalled me to a place where the baggages happily stay put on the carousel. After eagerly waiting for about 5 minutes, i finally saw mine arrive. Not accustomed to pulling the luggage off the conveyor, i knocked down a lady, standing beside me, with my huge suitcase. Aunty went hurtling down, but not before she picked up hers too. She stood up in haste, not remembering whether it was me who knocked her off or she herself in her hurry to pick up her luggage. After apologising to her, and later howling in laughter, i finally hopped into a bus that would drive us to the international airport.

Delhi Airport is madness.

As we entered the airport complex, boards on the wall read "You can enter any gate and then check-in to the respective airlines". Meanwhile an elderly man came to me and asked in hindi "bhai saab, singapoor ko kaha se jana hai ?" (where should we enter to go to singapore ?)... Notorious for my "good" hindi speaking skills, i started stitching together each and every word to make sense of the sentence that it formed. I blurted out "appko kahi se bhi aayiye, aur undar aake search kijiye" ( It meant "Come from anywhere, but search inside"...trying to literally translate the sign on the wall). The old man was as blank as he was before asking me the question. I pointed towards the sign and moved on.

We had to board the alitalia flight, and made towards their counter to get the boarding pass...I was carrying a backpack and a small cabin baggage.

The airline lady, trying to act important, started asking questions
"Do you want to carry two baggages ?"
I said "yes, both put together weighs less than 6kgs, 2 less than acceptable weight"
Lady : "No, No, we cannot allow two baggages inside the plane"
Me: "??....but why ? it is not crossing the limit !"
Lady:"No not possible, airline rules !" (I knew she made this up, runtime)
Me:"Okay, if that is the case, i'll put this backpack inside my other cabin baggage" (and gave her a mocking laugh)
flustered, the lady shouted: "ok ok, you can take both !"
she didnt give up though, and continued.

Lady:"Why US ?"
Me:"to work!"
Lady: "Why are you travelling to the US with a H1-b ?"
Me: "?????...to work ?" i answered tentatively, thinking it was a trick question...
Lady:"Are you planning to come back ?"
no my company is deporting me, very meek chance of me coming back, actually!

Me:"yes in 2 months time"
Lady:"what are you going to do there?"
Me:"create a web-based application"
I thought this was my chance to give back in kind.
Lady:"!!....what work, i meant !"
Me:"!!....software ?"
Lady:"ok!"

After the harrassment, i moved fast, cleared the immigration faster, but not before a punjabi granny with her grandson came to me asking something in punjabi. I gave a blank look, and she thought i had not heard what she said, and shouted again in her ear-piercing voice. In broken hindi i blurted out "muje maaloom nahi hai". Praying "rabb mujhe ..." she went to an unsuspecting italian in the queue, and asked him the same question. The little hindi that italian must have learnt was by now washed down the drain, pink-faced he blurted "eenglish eenglish"....the lady continued chanting "rabb mujhe..." dragging her bellowing grandson and magically making it ahead of all of us, passing the immigration.

Boarding the plane a few minutes later, i sat down on my seat.

"Rabb mujhe....", the sound wafted in the plane....i turned around sharply, and there the elderly lady sat with her groaning grandson on her lap, right behind my seat ! For the rest of my flight, she wouldn't let me move my seat an inch towards her, since her grandson was on her lap !

The groaning grandson, i could partly make out, hated it going in the plane as much as he hated being with his granny, for he kept hooting and moaning like a wolf all through the journey. Added to this, one of the airline staff, a big hulk with a bald head, came in with a color pencil to pacify the boy. The kid freaked out on seeing him, and almost jumped out of the window. granny comforted "uncle hey beta uncle"(raakshas nahi).... and then started "Rabb mujhe......."....i had almost conditioned myself to hearing it... "All passengers can now.....Rabb Mujhe......remove their seat belts" announced the air-hostess, amidst her chanting....all through the journey "Rabb Mujhe...." had become my wake up call for lunch, dinner and breakfast.

10 hours into the flight, i woke up again to the chanting to land in 10 minutes. At the security check, people were moving out of the metal detector like zombies with their hand held high up and straight, while the security lady was shouting "Hands Up", "hands Up".....i had put in my luggage into the x-ray scanning machine, and walked through the metal detector. The machine gave a loud beep, and the lady barked "shoe REMOVE" in thick italian accent....i removed the shoes and entered again....it beeped again loud and clear..."belt REMOVE"...."watch REMOVE"....."glass REMOVE"...."REMOVE, REMOVE, REMOVE"...shouting hoarse like a roadside thief... every time i had to re-enter that damn entrance...each time removing something !...finally the detector let me through...having already wasted a lot of time, i decided to go to the restroom before boarding the plane to Chicago, but the only restroom in the whole airport had a long queue that would have put the kerosene queue in bommanahalli to shame.

"Here or in the plane, what difference !" i thought, settling down before boarding the plane in half an hour. "Rabb mujhe....." had taken another flight, so i breathed easy and slept well for another 10 hour flight to chicago. An otherwise uneventful flight this one, marred by a few ramblings by the guys in the front seat pestering the air hostess for vodka, or the red faced airline guy with a ponch coming in to serve irate passengers while shouting "giving giving, wait wait"... finally the plane landed in 10 hours at the Chicago International Airport.

Chicago airport is huge, and understandably well maintained. We had to pass through immigration, check-out our baggage, and check-in again in order to take a domestic flight to Newark. dragging the luggage, sapped out and tired, we lost ourselves again in the airport. I made a quick enquiry to a lady official standing nearby.
Me: "where do we go to take continental ?"
lady : "First floor, take a right, Train at terminal 2"

Stunned i re-checked my ticket to see if that travel lady back home had given us a train ticket to Newark instead of an air ticket ! luckily it said "air ticket", or alteast looked like one.

Me:" I need to take a flight from here, not the train !"

stiffling her laugh, she gained her composure back

Lady:" you'll need to take a train within the complex to reach the domestic airport, Sir."

The way she ran in the opposite direction, i could make out she was trying hard to control laughing on my face.

After some intense searching, we finally boarded the plane again, and after another 2 hours of travel the plane touched down at the Newark airport, ending my long journey of 4 flights, 3 check-ins, and almost 36 hours in travel time.

Wide roads, Big Cars, no noise....Welcome to the USA.