At the age of eleven, following the adventures of the Dover-based Smith family in my English textbook, I learnt that when English-speaking people pick up the phone, they say “Hello”.
Almost fifteen years later, following my own personal Delhi-based adventures, I learnt that in India when people pick up the phone, they don’t simply say “Hello”.
They play the “Hello” game.
The “Hello” game is quite easy and provides a lot of fun or frustration, depending on which side of it you play. All the game needs is a telephone and two players on opposite sides of the phone line. The game begins as one calls the other needing some sort of service such as a cab, home delivery, shopping, or simply information. He composes the number and the recipient picks up and answers “Hello!”. To that the caller replies explaining which is he reason why he called, and when he has finished the person on the other side says “Hello?”. That is the most intense moment of the hello game, because at that point the person who called normally checks if the reception is working by trying: “Hello?”.
“Hello!”, the recipient would say, in a perfectly clear I-can-hear-you tone, and then the one who called repeats what he needs, now that the line is finally working.
But his problem is not the line, he is simply caught in the middle of the “Hello” game and he doesn’t know. At least not until the end of his second speech, which will be followed by a long silence and he’d have to ask “Hello?”, to check if anyone is still on the other side of the phone.
“Hello!”, yes, of course the person is there.
At that point two things can happen:
The first is that there can be a third, or even fourth, match of the game.
The second is that the doubt of being stuck in the “Hello” game rises in the caller’s mind.
“Do you speak English?”, he’d ask.
“Hello?”
“English?”
“No sir”.
Game over.
