It was a time when landline phones were dominant. I had not one, not two, but three such instruments on my desk. One was an intercom phone; the second was a hotline. The third phone was seen by some as a trapping of power—a direct line that connected the outside world and me without an operator snooping. Its WOW factor was the STD (subscriber trunk dialling) facility. Envious, a co-worker from a marketing department remarked, “You’ve arrived, man.” I harboured no such illusion.
The white ornament stood out not only due to its looks but also because it had a loud and clear ring, a welcome change from the stutter of its counterparts. But there was one problem: its number appeared in the paper’s imprint line (the tiny text that bears the names of the editor, publisher, and printer, the contact numbers, etc.). It meant I stood exposed to callers outside the office.
That realisation confronted me soon. One day, a father from Malleswaram called: "You are corrupting the young generation." The allegation was grave. With as much politeness as I could muster, I asked what the problem was. "You print obscene pictures. See page 1. And what trash you have on page 3! You're doing yellow journalism." The front page had a picture of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ever graceful, greeting a foreign dignitary. Page 3 bore a photo of a minister pointing at an emptiness during an inspection. These surely couldn't be vulgar, I offered.
"No, look properly," he ordered. I couldn't find anything heinous. After much back and forth, it turned out that the images I was accused of printing had appeared in a supplement of the paper that routinely published pictures of pretty young women. "We´ll convey your concern to the people concerned," I promised before hanging up.
The next call was about the world's most contentious matter: religion. The caller had read an article on the editorial page about an upcoming festival. "Who is this fellow?" he demanded to know about the author. "What does he know about our festival?" The writer was a social scientist, a learned man who could not be wrong. His writing was about compassion, kindness, and unity. No such explanation worked. The call ended with an ominous, "We will see him when he lands in Bangalore."
A caller inquired about the closing price of Tata Steel. Another sought to know how late the Karnataka Express was running. The only matters I was not asked about were Rahu Kala timings and the best showroom to buy Mysore silk saris.
Bad things end, don't they?
The 2008 global financial crisis wreaked havoc. Jobs and salaries were slashed, and hiring was frozen in all industries. But it had one positive impact: the white landline was disconnected as part of my paper's cost-cutting measures.