Way back in the year 1965, there was a big sensation in our house in Mysore. For the first time, a telephone was installed and ours was the only house in the locality with one. The black telephone with rotary dial became a prized possession. Very soon, our house came to be called as the telephone house or telephone mane. As young boys, my brothers and I longed to receive a call. Alas, none of our friends had a telephone. Not to mention, Sunil Dutt singing the song “Jalte hain jiske liye” over the phone to Nutan in the film ‘Sujata’ added a romantic hue to the instrument.
Slowly the novelty faded and the joy was short-lived as gradually troubles began. We started getting calls from strangers asking us to call a neighbour. In the beginning, these errands were completed without fuss. Once the frequency of such calls increased, arguments started between the brothers like “You go!”, “No, you go”, “Last call I went”, “Before that I went twice” and so on.
Neighbours walked in to make local calls and we desisted from refusing, fearing that the bonhomie cultivated over the years would be lost. Matters worsened when relatives residing nearby came and booked long-distance trunk calls. Once a trunk call was booked to talk to a number in another city, the operator had to call you back after connecting to that number. We had to thank our stars if the call came in less than half an hour. Not infrequently, it would take hours for the connection to be given. As a result, we would be saddled with the unwelcome relative, conversing, offering tea and snacks and sometimes lunch or dinner too. When the call finally came, it would not be audible enough and our guest would be heard shouting at the top of his voice, “HELLO, HELLO.”
Sometimes strangers would come to make a call citing an emergency. It dawned upon us after a while that the telephone was more a liability than a convenience. The solution was simple but painful. Surrender the phone. Telephone gone, peace returned to the house but the label of telephone mane remained. Now seeing school kids flaunting a mobile, I recall the days when we watched with wonder and disbelief, James Bond using such hi-tech gadgets in his films!