Telephones and me

I do not like telephones. Having one means you are more accessible to everyone when you would rather be left alone. Right from all the salesmen who try to sell you everything from a bank to a shoe lace to the weirdest of strangers who call you just to pull a prank on you. Several of my girl friends had a list of numbers of these pranksters stored in their mobile phones under names like stranger 1, stranger 2 etc . I too had my pick-me-not numbers.

  One such memorable number was an auto walah. "Auto chetans" generally gave us their number so that we could call them when we needed a ride to office. Being IT they assumed that our wallets were probably stuffed with more than normal non IT folks. [ A popular misconception since most of us had more cards than cash.] So all of us had numbers of a couple of auto chettans who would pick us up in the mornings and drop us off at the office at the same astronomical rates reserved for us. On one occasion when I had several stuff with me to take to office, my friend gave me a number of one such auto chettan. But he turned up really late and we had to take other means to reach office. I called him again and told him in the nicest possible way that since he had been too late we had taken another auto to office. He apologized and reminded me to call him again next time we need a ride.

 That night or rather the next morning around two 'o clock I got a call on my mobile. Its the auto walah's number flashing on my screen. Woken up rudely in the middle of my sleep I couldn't even begin to imagine why he would be calling me at this time. In order to not wake my roomie I picked up the call quickly. The conversation went like this,

Me : elo? [ The first word after being woken up in the middle of a deep sleep is always horribly disfigured]

Autowalah : hello this is me... <some name>

Me : _____ [ thinking of an appropriate response at this insane hour.]

Aw: If you need a ride next time, please dont hesitate to call me.

Me: ok. [I try to deduce from his voice whether he is drunk. But late night my detective skills are not functional]

AW: I am always reachable on this number, just give me 10 min advance notice just in case I have some other  passenger.

Me: mm.. [By now I am awake and angry.]

AW: If you need to reach office please call me. I ....

Since this now sounded like a re telecast of the earlier message I cut the phone. For good measure I kept the phone on silent mode so that I could go back to sleep. Sleep came easy since I had not really contributed anything to the conversation and within minutes I was back in dreamland. No further calls came that night nor did any autos chase me in my dreams.

Next day morning at office the man calls again! Now I was thoroughly exasperated. When I get angry I fume silently. Since this situation demanded quiet a different response I didnt pick up the call. Thankfully, I had a blood boiling in anger kind of a cubicle mate at that time, who also happened to belong to the male gender. So I handed him the phone, explained the situation, sat back and enjoyed the fireworks that followed. 

 I have never been called by that person again. After this incident, whenever an auto chettan gave me his number I diligently fed it into my mobile in order not to disappoint him and make him increase his fare. By the time I left India my mobile was full of 'madhavans' and 'karthikeyans'. Yet whenever I needed to reach office however late or in a hurry I was, I always waited by the road side holding the phone in my other hand and waving frantically at every empty auto that passed.

end of part 1