Monday, January 08, 2007

Hello!! Hullo!! Heylow?? Hi there!! :)

You can judge people by the manner in which they talk over the phone.
When people who have spoken to me over the phone on numerous occasions but haven’t met me in person end up meeting me, they look decidedly disappointed!
“Oh! Is that you Saee? I had imagined a totally different person! (Which I am dead sure is a much better version of me). They tell me that I sound much more stylish and reserved on the phone (which means I have a lousy dressing sense). I don’t mind disappointing them. At least I enthrall them on the phone!

My mom seems to be in a mysterious hurry from the moment she answers the phone. Even if it is a Sunday and she is sitting with her feet up on the coffee table reading her weekly forecast in the newspaper, the person on the line gets a feeling that he is demanding an awful amount of time and that if he stops talking he would let my mom make a great deal of positive difference to Mankind.
Sometimes when she is on the phone with an important client, she starts drawing sadistic doodles on the first chit of paper under her hand. Pictures of eyes with excessively narrow dimensions or of cartoons that look oddly adult! I have never been able to fathom the meanings of such cryptic conversations!

My uncle (mama) and my grandfather have been blessed with very powerful vocal cords.
You’d be able to hear every word they say from wherever they are calling from even without the telephone. Sometimes we put them on the speakerphone and yell across from the adjoining room to save us the “reverberating headache”. My grandfather is a rock-star on the phone. He is a glib speaker so when he finds himself at a loss of Marathi words, he jumps to Sanskrit and then goes on to quote Plato on the phone. He has been diagnosed with a hearing loss recently that has taken all the burden of dialogues off his mind. He is happier now; as he doesn’t have to listen to other people .So most of the times he uses his talk time to talk than listen.
We have strict instructions not to put him on unless it is absolutely essential.

My dad never confirms if he has dialed the right number before proceeding. So he rains down on complete strangers asking them about the ratio of biological and chemical fertilizers he needs to add to the soil. Then abruptly goes blank and starts reading the dialed number aloud and suddenly disconnects and turns around to find us giggling under our breaths. His cell phone network does not cover our house so every time he is on the phone; you can see him stooping awkwardly out of the window.


Some people make animated gestures, trying to convince people over a telephone call. Some people go suspiciously inaudible when they are on the phone, which kind of makes me worry if they are conspiring against me.
There is a different subclass of girls who speak in higher octaves when they are on the phone with their boyfriends. I guess it must be to make it musical, but people who are in their ground states of existence ( meaning who are not in love and fully loaded with work or more precisely,like ME) find it a tad unnerving.

The most irritating type of phonecall however would be the one made from your cell phone to a land phone situated in a disorganized household. When you need them to take down a message or a number, they put you on hold and you can hear the frantic opening of cabinets and drawers in search of a pen. When they finally manage to collect the stationery, they make you repeat the same thing twice and confirm three more times. When finally you think you are through, they ask you your name twice and then realize that they know you and start enquiring about your parents. I usually disconnect during the pen search and call back because I hate to hear frantic opening of furniture. :)

I think the way you use your phone speaks volumes about you!! So next time when you call me, dont forget to tell me that you are charmed! ;)

5 comments:

jay said...

"hello" saee! :)) thanks to ur blog. you made my day....i m smiling even when writing this comment (and i just can't stop!), the moment i started reading ur blog, it reminded me of an obsessive romeo (a fresher in my previous organisation). his juliet use to call him atleast 20 times a day (no exaggerations! unfortunately he shared my desk phone, and i was the one to pick it up first and pass it on to him)...the first thing he uttered was not a "hi" or a "hello"..it was "kidhar hai tu?". believe me, every time she called, their conversation started with this question. we had nick named him "GPS" (Global Positioning System). and the funniest part was, after a while even my group adopted that, when we called each other (even across cubicles) we started with this "kidhar hai tu?" and the next was a hearty laugh :)

RagingMars said...

hahaha!!! amazzzing!! sahiye!! perfect descriptions!! You forgot one kind of people though. Some long lost(usually aged) relatives who call up and the moment you pick up the phone, they say 'Hello kon boltay?'. I have answered "tumhi kelay na phone. mug tumhi sanga na TUMHI kon boltay te adhi" to such people only to find out they were some atte mame maushe ajis and ajobas. (sometimes such people have also been wrong numbers!) So these days my answer to such "hello kon boltay?" is a "aplyayla kon havay?" in an extra sweetened,extra polite voice...to save me the embarressment later!!!

RagingMars said...

Jay's comment was amazing too!! had a heart laugh readin it!!

RagingMars said...

we had one girl in our hostel who used to talk on the phone...the intercom between the hostels..to her boyfriend. the moment we went in a 1 metre radius around her she used to start whispering on the phone and giggling out after every 5 whispers...so that the person near her would herself get embarrassed and walk away... (although later we used to adamantly sit near her with the pretext of reading the newspaper which used to lie on the same phone table..just to see how long can she continue the conversation in whispers...which used to eventually stop after about a set of 20 whispers and 4 gigglings.)

Saee said...

@Jay and Ameya..
You wrote a mini blog yourself!!
I am so glad you guys liked it..actually I was planning to add a para on sms too, but then I might just write another blog on that! :)
I had a hearty laugh @ jay's comment too..GPS was awesome..hehe..
Thanks Jay, you made my day too! :)