It is #CMRL vs #BSNL

Nomo (and not NaMo) phobia, so The Man from Madras Musings learns, is the fear of not having a mobile phone. True the Chief managed without one all his life but then he was an intrepid man, allowing such material possessions to pass by him like the idle wind, which he respected not. But not so lesser mortals such as MMM, to whom the possession of a fully charged and functioning mobile phone is like a security blanket. Which is why when MMM’s friend called him up with a rather longwinded story, he could readily sympathise.

It transpires that the lady in question found her landline dead one fine morning. She lodged a complaint with the government agency that ran the service and was assured of prompt attention. This was by SMS on her cell phone. But as the days went by and the phone remained as dead as a door nail, she decided to lodge a fresh complaint. This too was met with an immediate and courteous message to the affect that the matter was being attended to. But at the end of a month, with no mitigation of the problem, she decided she had to take steps.

This amounted to calling all the phone numbers listed on the telephone service’s web site. She received responses of several kinds – in some cases the number kept ringing, in others it was answered and then put on hold, in a few instances an officer answered and curtly said it was not the correct number/department or division and in some cases there was dead silence. And then one day she struck gold. Answering the call was that rarity – a courteous public servant who not only patiently heard her out but also assured her that she could call him at any time for follow up but that may not be necessary as he would have the matter attended to immediately.

Sure enough, a man arrived within a few hours. He twiddled a few wires, fondled the instrument, looked deep into its innards and then suddenly, quite inexplicably, left. MMM’s friend was deeply puzzled. Had there been any unintended slight in the welcome she accorded him? When the man did not return and showed no signs of coming back, she decided to call the helpful officer. He expressed his astonishment at what had happened and promised to look into it. The next day, MMM’s friend received a call from a lady officer. Did MMM’s friend not know she asked, that Metro Rail work had commenced in the area and so most telephone lines were down? With such a massive public project ongoing, was it not necessary that MMM’s friend and others of her ilk display some patriotic spirit and suffer in silence? Nothing can be done for the time being declared the voice.

MMM’s friend, having heard this exhortation in silence waited till the voice paused for breath and said that it may interest the voice to know that no metro service was being contemplated anywhere in the vicinity of her residence. It was the voice’s turn to appear baffled and after a hurried apology the caller disconnected. That afternoon, the repairman, the same one who had vanished on the earlier occasion leaving not a wrack behind, reappeared. This time he went into the garden, tweezed a cable and presto, the phone was restored to life.

When asked as to what was the reason for the delay, he informed MMM’s friend that the telephone service was faced with a severe shortage of staff and he was the sole survivor of what was once an army of linesmen and other mechanics. He too was soon to retire. The Metro Rail was a convenient excuse when the number of complaints became too much for him to handle. But since Madam had proved really persistent, there was no other way but to attend to the call.