The unnatural number

I was being harassed by friends. Get a phone, why don't you?'' they urged. It's the easiest thing for a journalist. There is no backlog...

I was being harassed by friends. “Get a phone, why don’t you?” they urged. “It’s the easiest thing for a journalist. There is no backlog of applications in your area exchange,” I was assured. After three months of procrastination, I finally applied. A month on, the stern visage of three linesmen greeted me outside my door. They scoldingly informed me that there were people whose connection had yet to come a year after they applied. I should count myself lucky. I did.

I was even more pleasantly surprised the next evening when I lifted the phone off the hook to hear the welcome buzz of a dialtone. I had been told to expect the connection in three or four days. Somebody would call and give me my number. But here I was, able to call a month after I ever applied for a phone.

Something very welcome had been going on, right under my journalistic nose, which had plainly escaped me. Obviously our perceptions about the state of things in the motherland were failing to keep pace with the state of change in the self-same motherland. I warned myself to be less deprecating about our public utilities in future.

Well, yours truly launched into a modest celebration of her telephone-owner status by calling friends and well-wishers. She told them that although they could not call her just yet because she did not know her phone number, that would soon be taken care of.

Four days passed. No call yet to inform me that my number had been allotted, issued, or whatever it is that happens to phone numbers. Well, I wasn’t going to be churlish. I called the exchange and explained my predicament. A sour voice told me curtly to call another number. I did. A sour voice told me to call the number I had first called. I demurred, but did. Sour Voice Number One lost its temper, but gave me a third number. I called. A nice voice asked me for something called the OV/OB number. I didn’t have it, I had never been given it. The nice voice furrowed its brow and asked for some other number. I gave it. Nice man said could I call back at a certain time. I did. For the rest of that day, and the next, no reply.

I called the exchange. Sour Voice Number One patiently repeated some number which I should instead be calling. I did. Irritated Bihari voice greeted me, and raised itself when I persisted in the temerity of wanting to know my own number. “Madam, register kholna parega, pareshaan mat keejiye (Don’t bother me. I’ll have to check the register).” He really said that.

Much as I would have liked to let fly, I asked the man instead why he was annoyed: I was only asking for my own number. He began to leer at me: “Madam, aapse kaise naraaz ho sakte hain (How can I be annoyed with you)?” But he wasn’t going to oblige. He asked me if I knew anyone who possessed a cellphone. I was puzzled by this turn to the conversation, but said yes. “Well, call him on the cellphone and your number will flash on his phone.” Simple! Staggered as I was that I should have to do this to find out, I repeat, MY OWN NUMBER, in sheer despair I thought I would.

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Only, the next morning I get a call demanding to know name and address. Yippee, they were going to tell me my number! I give name and address. Angry voice at the other end asks: “How did you get this connection? This number belongs to somebody else. We will cut it off now.” Before I can get in a word, I have been hung up on. Ten minutes later, the line goes dead on me and stays that way for ten days. I beseech a colleague on the telecoms beat to save me. Two days later, the line comes alive. The next evening, I call my editor on his cellphone. In a profoundly amused voice, he tells me my own number. “Write a piece for the paper,” he says. Of course, I had told him my story before calling him for my number. So here I am.