A call centre person called me the other day and I was so happy that finally I get to speak to someone this week on my phone.
“Are you free to talk now?” she asked, and I said, “Oh yes, go ahead,” even though she had told me that she was calling me from my bank.
(When I was a teen, a bank was a deadly boring and snooty place where they readily took your money, but if you wanted money, they laughed and asked silly questions like, do you have collateral and you always came back home empty-handed. Now, at least in Dubai, the banks call you and ask if you need money and say they will give you up to five salaries, even if you do not need it, if you sign on the dotted line).
Anyway, I did not realise this but I was lonely, longing for human conversation after exchanging texts with my wife, sons and friends the whole time.
“So, how was your day,” I asked my wife when she returned from work.
“Didn’t you read my message?” she asked, before heading to the living room with her laptop to conduct an interview on Skype.
“Dad, WhatsApp me,” said my son when I called him at his university. Apparently, he did not want his friends to know that he was still using the ancient mode of communication such as speaking.
“WhatsApp me now, I am in a boring meeting,” said a friend, when I was looking for an interesting conversation, or convo (pronounced kon-voh), as it is called nowadays in internet slang.
I wondered why I bought a phone when I don’t speak to anyone anymore. Then I became proficient in the ways of the modern world and sorrowfully, lost my gift of gab. Maybe this is revenge, retribution, for boring so many poor souls to utter ennui, I thought to myself.
Being a good listener
Professional speakers (yes, there is such a job) say that to be a powerful communicator and get what you want, you should first listen.
I never could listen, because for some reason Indians speak rapidly and if you do not speak even faster you are lost in the crowd.
There is no question of listening to what the other person is saying, because Indian cities are so noisy, with motorists honking, buses crashing and goats bleating, that you have to shout at a couple of decibels over the normal range of your voice.
“You are late,” said my boss accusingly, and as I closed the door to his air-conditioned room I did not realise that it was now soundproof. “The bus broke down,” I shouted, scaring his secretary who was waiting to take dictation.
When we first got a touch-tone phone in the neighbourhood after five long years after applying for a landline, we got it a special table, and since the wire was not long enough, we placed it near the entrance of our home.
Nobody called. Then a neighbour dropped by and as she walked in she saw the phone on the table sitting on a monstrous looking phone book that had thousands of numbers of businesses, people and doctors. But it did not have the number of the corner grocery and anyway it would have been useless as there was no concept of home delivery then.
The neighbour looked at the phone with a little trepidation, giggled and told my mother. “I never speak on the phone,” she said. “I feel nervous.”
A blogger points out that the first ever decline in mobile voice usage occurred in 2013 and that trend is likely to continue.
Today, people are talking less and texting more. In a couple of years’ time, no one will talk anymore and for some people, that will be a relief.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mahmood_saberi.
