Office Capers: Playing Telephone Operator
Naya Bachcha (NB) is a tricky bugger. Several months after induction, training, rubbing elbows in the cramped quarters of work (before we shifted to our spacious, spacey office), running over each other’s toes with our swivel-chairs in this new place…..all this while later I still can’t tell if he has a girlfriend. Or if he has several. Or a boyfriend. Or several.
Why, you may ask, should my colleague’s love life (or lack of it, thereof) be of any consequence to me? Mainly because:
a. NB has a habit of leaving his cell lying around.
b. NB has the most atrocious ringtones of all.
c. NB is himself mysteriously invisible when his land line rings.
Guess who gets to play telephone operator? Lucky me.
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRINNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG
Me: Good evening, this is …..
Other end: ………………………..
Me: Hello?
Other end:…….*Muffled thumps*
Me: Hello….can you hear me?
Other end: ….BANG!!!!! *disconnected tone*
Me: Siggghhhh…..yet another blank call.
Ashiq banaya…..ashiq banaya….tere bin…
Me: GHDLSFHKDSLHFDS (That’s gritted teeth trying to ignore NB’s cellphone buzzing close to my elbow)
Tere bin…lamha lamha…..
Me: A mobile phone is supposed to be mobile. That’s why its called a mobile. (Yes, I talk to myself when I’m reeeeeeelllllleee irritated)
Tere bin….SOOOONI SOOOONI hai raatein
Me: Where the hell does that lyricist get his ideas from? Someone give the singer Vicks Action 500….he’s got a nasty cold.
Ashiq banaya….AAAAAPNE
I look around. I contemplate throwing the phone across the office. I decide I’ll just hide it under the pile of never-touched papers in the bottom drawer of NB’s shelf.
NB materializes and picks the phone in a classic Superhero-reaches-for-heroine-seconds-before-she-plummets-over-the-terrace move.
NB: Hell-O?
Other end: *Sqwaky female voice*
NB: *whispering now* I’ll call you later, okay.
You know what the best thing is? Since the phone lies next to me all day, I see the caller ID flashing. And each time, it’s a different name. Sometimes female, sometimes male.
Rinnggggg……*sigh*…there’s the phone again.
Hehe.A good way to make him stop leaving it around is to make ISD calls from it..
Almost lived in a qualis for 4 days on a recent trip..and all the music our driver had was the tape of ashiq banaya aapne aapne..he wasnt the shy sort..he played it all the time.
speaking of ringtones, you should listen to the tinny mechanical version of the “chandramukhi” number… and in case you don’t know what “chandramukhi” is… you’d better not come down south. You Will Be Shot.