Sorry, Wrong Number
Vasant Hattangadi
“T
|
rrrrnnnnn…..” my telephone had been ringing
incessantly --- God knows for how long.
Cursing under my breath whoever was
calling at this unearthly hour, just when I was about to slip into my own world
of sweet slumber, I struggled out of the bed and promptly stumbled across
something in the darkness, perhaps my grandson’s toy motor or roller skates. I
glided smoothly into the living room where I mumbled a drowsy “hello” into the
telephone only to discover that some fool wanted to know the latest quote on
Reliance share!
About half the world, they say, has never
made a telephone phone call and is perhaps better off for it because, ninety
percents of the other half who do invariably get a wrong connection! It happens
only in India --- this wrong number syndrome. Not a day passes when I have not
received a call meant for some other poor soul. More often than not, some poor,
half-witted beau wants me to call to the phone some Madhuri Dixit staying on the
sixth floor in the next building! Firstly, I don’t know why he should choose to
woo his flame at this hour of the night; perhaps, her Dad works in the night
shift! I try to tell him that he has got
the wrong number, no girl by that name stays anywhere in the near vicinity and
to my best knowledge she stays somewhere in Bandra or Juhu; but, the guy keeps
insisting that she does. Finally, in a last resort I tell him that she left for
U.S.A only the previous day to join her husband!
“WHAT!
Don’t tell me, she has a Husband!!” squeaks the poor fellow in an obvious state
of shock.
“Yes.
She had to go. It seems in U.S you get only two months’ maternity leave.”
“MATERNITY
LEAVE! Don’t tell me, she has a baby too?”
Occasionally, you get a math nerd who has
never heard of a wrong number! “I know Prime Numbers and Imaginary Numbers,
but, what on earth is a Wrong Number? It’s a perfectly Rational Number, you
know.” he continues “At the most, you could call it a Unique Number. Add any
two of its consecutive digits and you get a nine. What’s more, the first half
is a mirror image of the other half.” While I am trying to unravel that one, he
keeps calling me back until finally, when I am sufficiently mad at him, he has
the nerve and audacity to ask me: “If you’re so damn sure it’s a Wrong Number,
why d’you lift the phone then?”
Then, once there was this meek, old Parsee
lady from Carmichael Road, who was probably so paranoid of wrong numbers that
she would always start by asking hesitantly,
“Excuse me, please. But, is this a wrong number?”
One late night, A Sardar called asking
for one Beant Singh of Singh’s Auto Garage. I told him that he had the wrong
number and banged the phone. But he kept calling me back and insisted that he
had dialed the number correctly. Finally, somewhat irritated, I asked him to
tell me the number he was trying to reach and I was all but flabbergasted when
he gave me my own telephone number! I had to tell him that he had the right
number but the wrong person. “Come on, Beant Singh!” he insisted. “You are the
person I want. Because, it’s the telephone number on the visiting card you gave
me!" Now, as to why in his wisdom Mr. Beant Singh had my telephone number
on his card is something I am unable to fathom yet. Perhaps, it was a typical
Sardar’s idea to keep those discontented customers from pestering him in the
night!
Wrong Numbers have their utility too. For
instance, when my wife rings up her bosom friend, Swati she surprisingly
finishes her call in just ten minutes if she has got a wrong number! When I was
working on the Laddertron project, my boss would call me up every night to know
about the progress the call often culminating in an unsavoury reprimand ---
until I hit upon a brilliant idea. Soon as I recognized his baritone voice, I
would fake mine and say,“ Sorry, Wrong Number”. The ruse worked well for some
time until, that is, my boss saw through the game and started calling me at my
neighbor’s phone!
Then, there was this friend of mine in
the army: one Colonel Chopra, who had a very suspicious wife. Whenever she went
to stay with her mother, she would call him each night to keep a tab on his
movements. One night when she made her usual monitoring call, she heard a
strange voice on the line and she asked, "Who's this?”
“I’m Tej
Bahadur Thapa, the new Batman" came the answer in a distinct Nepali
accent, “I joined duty just this morning, madam.”
"Oh!
I see. Well, I am Mrs. Chopra. Where is Colonel Saab gone?"
"He's
sleeping upstairs with Memsaab,” said the Batman.
“
Memsaab! Which Memsaab? I told you I am his wife. Who is this bloody,
self-seeking witch sleeping with my husband?”
“ How am
I to know, Memsaab? I thought she was the wife. I am new here, you see.”
"
Okay, Okay. Now, Bahadur, listen to me carefully. Would you like to earn some
big money?"
"
What will I have to do, Memsaab?" asked Bahadur rather uncertainly.
"
D’you know where Colonelsaab keeps his gun? Well, I want you to take the gun
and shoot that awful Choodel for me.
Can you do it? I will pay you one lakh rupees."
After a while, she heard two distinct
gun shots in the distance. Then, the Batman came back on the line: "Well,
Memsaab, it’s two lakhs, now. I killed them both”
“ BOTH!”
screamed Mrs. Chopra “Fool! I told you to kill only the woman”
“ I
know, Memsaab. But then, what can I do if Colonelsaab kept coming in the way.
……. Now, What shall I do with the bodies, Memsaab?"
The
baffled Mrs. Chopra answered weakly "Drop them in the big pond behind the
house."
Mr.
Bahadur said, "But, Memsaab. There’s no pond here --only a small hill and
jungle."
"
My GOD! Hello, isn’t this number
286433...........?" asked the stunned ‘Memsaab’.
“ No.
Wrong number, Memsaab. Happens sometimes.”
******************
(Published in K.S, Vol LXXXVI, No.9
Sept. 2005, p25)
