the girl who laughs like a telephone ring *

* direct translation of a Mani Ratnam song title

a.k.a. Why oh why...

1. do Indian techies bend over a multi-directional mike in a conference room when it really doesn't improve the sound quality one bit? The importance of a call can often be judged by the distance of the cranium from that ubiquitous starfish lying around in most meeting rooms.

2. does the volume of a telephone conversation in India vary with the distance of a call? Local calls merit a dignified bellow, inter-city calls are awarded with a sonic boom, and trans-continental calls require the calling parties to replace their vocal cords with a Queen Elizabethesque foghorn. Of course, this also increases social bonding as all neigh-boors get instant status updates on little Johnnie K's herpes zoster problem, when poor old green-card holder Janakiraman Kuppuswami starts bawling his guts out to his momma. Sordid, and way too much information, you say? Believe you me, this is the lifeblood of Indian matrons in co-operative societies. God is in the details.

3. do Indians never ever switch off their cell phones in a movie theater or even in a meeting? To add insult to injury, most people:-
a. Pretend as if it's someone else's phone that's ringing. This usually happens others can't pinpoint the origin of the ring.
b. Shamelessly start talking, albeit with a hand covering the cellphone.
c. Walk out of the meeting/theater to attend the call! In movie halls, this would be the person sitting farthest away from the aisle or the exit.

One incident that epitomizes this was when this training instructor asked us all to switch off our cell phones, and ceremoniously proceeded to switch off his own. Halfway through the meeting, his phone started ringing! Turns out that he had only pretended to switch off his phone!