Thursday 3 January 2013

Mahaa'call'aa!

There is this astrological Q & A program called 'Mahaakaala', which is aired everyday on Kasturi TV Channel. A live phone-in program. Viewers from all over the Karnataka call on the mobile number(flashed during the program) with questions, to seek astrological answers to the queries they pose to the astrologer, fielding the queries from the TV studio. Unfortunately for me, I share almost a similar mobile number except the last digit. The squigglish last digit of the mobile shown on the TV resembles the last digit of my mobile number. Hence there is a tendency for the the viewers to dial my mobile. This has been happening since more than three months now. Initially I was pretty alarmed that all of a sudden people are calling me to get me to predict their future. Felt like it was some prank being played on me. Later, when I gathered information from those talks, my investigation resulted in discovering this program on Kasturi channel. So, every morning between 9.00am to almost 10.30 am, Iam busy attending calls!
 
Initially I endured the irritation with outrage, for my privacy was encroached and also feeling harassed for receiving the calls that wasn't meant for me. I tried my best explaining to the callers as to how they're calling the wrong number etc etc. I even called the Kasturi channel and requested them for a better clarity in displaying their mobile number  but all of it were no use. Gradually I somehow felt that this issue was not worthy enough to effectively take it forward to fetch a rational solution to it. Hence gave up taking to the TV channel, which they anyway were not able to grasp  my problem. So, I called it a truce for my own sake and gradually turned it into an entertainment channel for myself, for my family members and even to my friend and her family.
 
First, I let my little nephew respond to the calls, putting the mobile's audio on loud speaker mode so that all of us could listen to the conversation. The result was greatly comical! While my nephew was most eager and happy to do it, all at home almost rolled on the floor laughing due to the audible confusion heard from the other end. After a couple of days, the novelty value wore out for my nephew and he started turning his face the other way. I let the other family members too, handle the calls just to let them gain a first-hand experience of how to respond to wrong number calls and to become a seasoned expert. I can say that my mother enjoyed the most. Being inquisitive by nature, mother never let the cat out of the bag until the right moment was due and until she had all the information she wanted to learn from the caller. First, she was curious to know from which part of Karnataka the caller called from. (later she'd make her own statistics of how many calls came from this many places). And if it was from a place that she hadn't heard of before, she would enquire the caller about a brief details on the geographical location of the city/village/taluk they called from and even goaded the caller to share the specialty about their place/hometown etc. Poor callers, under the belief that the conversation was happening live on Kasturi channel, were very forthcoming about answering mother's queries. And then finally she would advise that they have called on the wrong number.. By the end of the call, she would respond with a mock-anger (ofcourse, only after the Q & A session) as to how badly it is bothering us, mostly to cover up her own undue Q & A session initiated with the caller.

While I was hanging around at my friend's place, I let her family members too indulge in this entertainment. When it was my friend's turn, the caller asked "Kasturi na idu?" ("Is this Kasturi?"). The only Kasturi that my friend is connected with, is her maid Kasturi who has a sister named Lakshmi. So my friend was greatly tickled to give out a frivolous answer "naanu kasturi alla, avaLakka Lakshmi" ("Iam not Kasturi. Iam her elder sister Lakshmi"). The effect of imagining all possible and probable expressions of baffle at the other end, simply set us off into peals of laughter.
 
So this is how it has come to be ...
 
I have informed those of my friends who call me often, not to disturb me between 9.00 am to 10.30am in the morning. I have taken it upon myself to do an honorary service to Kasturi channel, by re-routing all the callers to Kasturi, helping the callers in knowing their future predictions. However, the calling frequency appears to be reducing as the days pass by, implying that there are no second-time callers.  Having developed an inadvertent and a vague love and affection for those faceless voice-humans, I think I am going to miss them for a while when Iam finally done with the cycle of first-time callers or when the program itself comes to an end. 
If the scenario was set else where, say in the 'developed' country/ies, this issue would've been fixed in no time due to the  highly skilled action-oriented speedy solutions to public grievances, and if the nuisance persisted, a right to evoke the tenable legal facility of suing the channel for citizen harassment, si well in place.
 


But it works a bit differently here. 

First, one gets to experience an anger and repulsion, then endure a compulsive harassment, but later it is followed by entertainment, value-addition to general knowledge, comedy and laughter, collective participation, improving sense of humor and even leveraging stock options to those interested in investing in it, learning to trend statistics and data, upgrading communication skills, telephone etiquettes, followed by it becoming a wonderful writing content for the blog, Facebook status etc, but also ofcourse tinged with wee bit guilt, for being a prankster (even though it driven by circumstances)in deriving an entertainment delight at the cost of somebody unknown. Finally, being subjected to do a selfless social service to a TV channel and its viewers, after which perhaps someday, this very event would gradually cease to occur!