When we came back to India in 1995 (see how I sneakily established the returned NRI bit 🙂 ), getting a landline was a priority and boy o boy what an exercise that was.

A landline was your address proof. Mobiles were still in their infancy. So off we went to apply for one. It took a few visits to get the approval.

THEN

The Lineman Ramesha visited one day and announced that he had our “instrument”. We could only use BSNL’s instrument, any other was illegal we were told. Of course everyone had others, but that was the law (like the Radio license thing). He made a big event out of placing the instrument inside and then taking the wire out to the pole. Once that was done the real drama started. He said “Saar illi junction box fullu saar. Yenadru maadbeku idakke” (Junction Box full, something has to be done). It was his own way of requesting financial assistance. He took me to the junction box and showed me a jumble of wires as if I would understand how it worked and said “nodi” (see)…his expression was of extreme concern (good actor he was). Of course being foreign returned and all (again see how I slipped that in), I was appalled… “This bugger is demanding a bribe? What has this country come to?”…and so on and so forth..finally a neighbor intervened and the line was activated in a month at a cost of Rs. 700… There was no higher up we could call.. Ramesha was it !!!! Of course it was a crappy line, whenever we needed Ramesha would be there and would repair it for a small “fee”

LATER

A few years on (less than a decade) , we are in the same locality, competition to BSNL in the form of Mobile Operators and others forces them to “improve” their customer service, now we had the number of the Junior Engineer and the JE’s boss. Any problems arose, a call to the JE would make Ramesha appear at our doorstep within an hour and fix the problem. The “fee” became optional and disappeared altogether.

NOW

We kept our landline more for “Address Proof” rather than any kind of utility. We don’t have a landline anymore..

#TheEnd