The out-of-order phone

During my entire visit our home phone was out of order. I had to go to a booth outside in the street to place calls. There you have to stand in a long queue. People were making phone calls to Calcutta, Bombay and other places. You can give them the number you want or you can dial it yourself, and it is absolutely as if you are dialing a local number. It is called ISD. Immediately you get a connection, but you have to wait your turn in the queue.

So many times we went to the telephone office to ask them to repair our phone. Then one day one of the men where I made ISD calls said, “Just give them twenty rupees.”

I said, “Twenty rupees? Is that all? I am going there immediately.”

I went to the office and gave them fifty rupees. They promised it would be fixed. On other days when I went there, they said in a vague way, “Yes, we shall do it.”

After some time I tried to call home to see whether they had kept their promise, but the phone was not working. Again, I went to the office. Finally they sent a repair man the day I was leaving. I gave him another forty rupees as soon as he came. I said, “Now start working.”

He started, and in ten minutes he fixed it. Then I called the manager in Madras. I said, “Our phone is always out of order.”

The manager said, “What do you do?”

I said, “My brother goes to the office here and gives them some money. Then the phone works for two weeks and stops. Then again he goes to the office and gives them money.”

The manager said, “That is the mistake your brother makes.”

I said, “That is what we have to do. If my brother did not give them any money, God knows how many months they would take.”

Everywhere in the Madras-Pondicherry area, the telephone workers disconnect the phones deliberately so that they can get some tip. How horrible they are!