Wrong numbers and cross connections

Raise your hand those of you who have never received a crank call on their mobile phones or, come to that, their landline phones. Any takers? Nope, I do not see a single hand going up and neither did I expect to see one. Those amongst you below the age of consent who are not aware of what a landline phone is, please consult you parents or anyone you know who is above the age of 50. Getting back to crank calls, they assail you in a variety of different ways. We are gradually getting accustomed to the sinister, fake ‘digital arrest’ calls about which we read in our broadsheets every other day. By now we are pretty much aware of how to deal with such calls and I shan’t delve further into the subject. If you are still innocent of the dangers involved in engaging with the fake caller, on your head be it. The same applies to friendly voices over the air waves who are keen to divest you of all your hard-earned cash by promises of untold riches in the shortest possible time. As a trial and to establish credibility, Rs. 3000/- is all you need to transfer to a specified bank account. Within three days you will receive a credit of Rs.6000/-. And the 6k does indeed arrive on queue. 6k grows to 12k and you are over the moon. Little knowing. You have been sucked into their odious web. Another get-rich-quick scheme hits the bullseye. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute,’ said P.T. Barnum. Don’t whine later that you were not warned.

As I have had my fill of telephonic criminality, I am confining this piece to the more gentle, accidental ‘wrong numbers’ which often give rise to amusement and anger at the same time. Here is a good example of something that happened to me only a few weeks ago. I dialled a wrong number on my mobile instead of another number I had not yet saved. Must have got one of the digits mixed up. I am all thumbs on my mobile. I thought I was calling my car service company. Instead, there followed what can only be described as an entertaining snatch of a not entirely unpleasant conversation. I opened the proceedings.

‘Hello, who am I speaking to?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Nobody? Is that your first name or surname?’

‘Haha. Very funny. Are you a stand-up? You called me, so you had better identify yourself first.’

‘Isn’t this the Prime Auto Service Garage?’

‘What if it is?’

‘If it is, I would like to speak to the service representative, Ronny, who is in charge of my car which is being serviced. I was promised an estimate for the work being done.’

‘Ah, but this is not the Prime whatever garage and I am not Ronny. However, if you are looking for some prime property on the outskirts of Bangalore, I am your man.’

‘Look, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place instead of wasting my time?’

‘Sorry about that. Just having a bit of fun. I do that whenever someone calls me by mistake. Today it was prime property, tomorrow I could be selling health insurance and the day after, if the mood takes me, I become the floor manager of the city’s largest retail mart for consumer durables. You know, smart TVs, refrigerators, kitchen appliances and so on.’

‘Yes, I know what consumer durables are, thank you very much. Now, if you’ve had your share of fun and games, I should be disconnecting. One last question. If you are none of those things you might be pretending to be, and you are not Ronny as well, what or who in fact are you?’

‘Just a 25-year-old educated, unemployed youth, hoping to hit the jackpot with someone like you who might be impressed by my clever ploy. And as you might have guessed by now, I have a nice line in repartee.’

‘What a big mouth you have!’

‘Said Little Red Riding Hood to Grandmother Wolf, if I know my fairy tales. Written by the Brothers Grimm, it’s a grim cautionary tale, as the Big, Bad Wolf literally makes a meal out of LRRH. And wolfs down her human grandmother as well for dessert. Why the Grimm siblings thought this nightmare-inducing stuff was fit for children to read at bedtime beats the hell out of me.’

‘How well read you are! And just 25 years old. How many nursery rhymes do you know? Tell you what, despite your smartass methods, you have struck a sympathetic chord. Now that you have my number, send me your bio-data by WhatsApp. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And your name and occupation, Sir?’

‘That’s better. A bit of respect. My name? Charles Perrault should suffice for the time being.’

‘How much?’

‘Exactly. Not so clever after all, are we? Why don’t you Google him? On second thoughts, I will put you out of your misery. He is the other bloke who wrote Little Red Riding Hood with which literary masterpiece you appear to be so familiar.’

‘How come two people ended up writing the same story and both took credit for it? Didn’t they have copyright laws? Weird.’

‘In point of fact, they were both more or less the same story, only with a slightly different “moral of the story” ending. It is a bit odd, I agree. Why don’t you download them on Kindle for your bedtime read?’

‘Thanks, but no thanks. I am only half way through Jack and the Beanstalk. And thanks for reminding me. I have to learn Three Blind Mice and Little Jack Horner by heart by tomorrow morning. Or my teacher miss will be very cross. I will consider your offer and revert soonest.’ Too clever by half, with a penchant for sarcasm as well.

Anyhow, the line went dead. Pity. I was just starting to get into the swing of things. I would like to leave you, dear reader, with one more example of a colourful telephone call. I hark back to the early 70s when I was a management trainee in an advertising agency in Calcutta. The previous story, while based loosely on a true incident, was heavily embroidered by me to make it more engaging to read. This one is far closer to the truth in most respects. Those were the days of landline telephony and it had already gained dinosaur status in the City of Joy. Frequent disconnections and cross connections were the order of the day, but we soldiered on. Just untangling those frayed, corded cables was a job in itself. It was one such occasion when I was having a serious telecon over the crackling wires with an important client and this happened.

 Brand Manager (Vikram) – ‘When can I expect to see the final artwork of the press ad for our new brand of radial car tyres? It’s long overdue and we barely have a week before the launch. Your media chaps have already booked front page solus positions in all the mainline dailies and I cannot wait any longer. The boss is frothing at the mouth. No more iterations, please.’

Me – ‘We are almost done Vikram. Just giving finishing touches to the body copy. You and your boss are going to love it. Just give me till…’

(At this point a third voice, no right to be there, intervenes).

Third voice (an unknown female) – ‘Ooh, I would love to see some bawdy copy. Shall we set up a date?’

Vikram – ‘Hullo, hullo, who is this? I was speaking with Suresh. Are you from the agency?’

Me – ‘It’s a cross connection, Vikram. Bloody Calcutta telephones. Lady, will you kindly get off the line? We are discussing important issues.’

Unknown female – ‘And what’s all this about artworks? Are you holding an art exhibition? I could meet you there, if you tell me where and at what time?’

Me – ‘Meet whom? Me or Vikram?’

Unknown female – ‘Interesting question. Why not meet both of you? You have nice voices. A ménage à trois?’

Me – ‘Vikram, I am disconnecting now and making a police report. They won’t understand French, but I’ll take my chances.’

As I was disconnecting, I just about caught the mystery lady’s fading words. Something about being a wet blanket. Before she could say she will be wearing a yellow sari with a red scarf round her neck and standing outside Flury’s on Park Street at 6 pm sharp, whistling Roses are Red my Love, the line went dead. There is a tailpiece to this story. My client Vikram called me back a few minutes later sounding very cross. I thought it was about that delayed artwork again.

Me – ‘Listen Vikram, I told you I will come round in a jiffy and present the finished artwork.’

Vikram – ‘Forget the perishing artwork. Can you get that lady on the line again?’

I couldn’t even begin to fathom the salacious motives my client Vikram might have harboured in wishing to reconnect with our intrusive and anonymous femme fatale. What aroused my curiosity was her linguistic sophistication. Anyone, purely on the strength of aural waves, who can convert ‘body copy’ into ‘bawdy copy’ and casually throw in a French phrase like ménage à trois must possess a level of erudition that goes beyond the humdrum nuisance value of an attention seeker. However, wiser counsel prevailed and I did not pursue the matter any further, much to Vikram’s disappointment. There is a limit to how far an ad agency executive will go to please his client. If you ask me, the lady just happened accidentally to join this cross talk. And decided to take the mickey out of us. C’est la vie! Those were the heady days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

Postscript: The more observant amongst you might well be wondering how I figured out, on a phone conversation, that the lady meant ‘bawdy copy’ and not ‘body copy.’ It’s just the way she said it. And the pretentious ‘ménage à trois’ put the lid on it.