inquiry 

It is Vijay's birthday. There are a lot of telephone calls today - mostly meant for him. Mittal is in the town. He is also ringing up for some services. They are all immediately and methodically attended to, because we seem to anticipate his next request. If you book a ticket, for example, the next move is to cancel it - likewise!

Santa came on the line. He was leaving for Mahabaleshwar. So where do we come in? His auntie had promised to visit him that day. She might now be disappointed. Cannot Santa himself inform the auntie? That would not be possible, Santa says, as she was somewhere between Surat and Baroda travelling in the Frontier Mail. I promised to forward the message if ever she asked for it! For Santa we represented the Bulletin Board Service.

Then it was Damodar on the line. "I believe you had left a message"

"Yes, of course", I said

"What was the matter?", he asks. "I have been trying to reach you for the last one hour, but could not get your telephone." He was furious.

"You did not get the telephone? How come, it has been free whenever Vijay was not receiving calls" I proposed

"I just did not have your number -- your instrument might, after all, have been available" he said. "You know you are not listed in the directory." He appeared surprised.

"It is possible. After all I am only three weeks old in this part of the country. And the telephone directory is not published every fortnight. It is no use blaming the directory anyway. I do not take much advantage of it. The last time I consulted it for pushing  a dead cockroach out of the drawing room. Of course I admit they are of better consequence to the trading community. More than the local directories they need the ones of the out-stations. I wonder if you have any solutions for them!"

"You could have been in the correction slips, had you not been in the white pages. Or those people at the inquiry should have had your name, address and the telephone number."

"It didn't happen?"

"I did not get any response before I disconnected. Even if they had answered it is probable they might not have heard about your company or of your rank."

"Did you hear that they never printed telephone directories in Russia?"

"Could have" reacted Damodar, "I have also heard that the Russian telephone instruments were equipped only with receivers but no transmitters. The underdogs were expected only to be talked to, never to talk back!"

"Perhaps the publication of the directories can also be done by those not directly involved in running the network - like the yellow pages for example."

"I do not buy that. The Administration has an obligation to be able to dispense information to its constituent subscribers. Much as we expect from the registered societies, in their being able to tell us all about members registered with them. It is not a tall order, after all!"

"You seem to be in a nasty mood"

"Pretty" said Damodar.

"You just do not want to borrow the jack "

"What is that supposed to mean -- I do not get it"

"Forget it ", I said " As soon as we opened our office, we inserted ads in all the papers, including our contact addresses and phones"

"You may be right. I might have also seen them. Still it does not explain why I shouldn't get the information..."

"...when you needed it most" I completed. "As for myself, the instant I get some new information, I push it into the diary. Sophisticated professionals call that a data base. Right at entry, the data is inserted in the alphabetical order so I do not have to sort or collate later"

"Come on, don't try to teach me the computer culture -- it is a fad with you MBA guys of the Doon school"

"I do not have to tell you anything. I volunteered so you may not lose your cool next time"

"Thanks for the advice. What seems to be the matter, anyway?"

"Mittal was  trying to reach you. In an unadulterated friendly gesture -- I guessed a warning could be of help" I said. "He wanted some statistics, I have dutifully reported, anyway"

"Of my business area?" parried Damodar.

"Yes, naturally. Why, is there anything wrong?"

"Everything" Damodar retorted.

"Shanti! shanti!! I got the info from your 2-i-c, namely Gopalakrishnan, so I can claim to be right"

"How could you talk to Gopes, when I have not been able to reach him since morning? "

"With great difficulty, naturally ". I told him the truth.

"His listed number is faulted"

"And you have not informed yourself of his unlisted line"

"Exactly" replied Damodar.

"Gopes buys wheat from the same retailer as I do. So I could get the identity of the line I needed. Well, please tell how did you land on my line finally? "

"I remembered you gave your card to Prof Lusignon last summer during the Seminar on Cellular Mobile. I rang him in his Canadian Office. I was told he had gone to Florida. I actually located him in a restaurant at Cherry Hill near Philadelphia, entertaining some Japanese guests. The good news is that I had the right connection and he had your correct number. You will not have any trouble if you are in the directory. Like me, for example. I am in the book since the 92 edition. That is why," Damodar added, "you have no difficulty locating me"

"I did not make use of the telephone directory" I told him, "I came down the stairs by one floor. You were away for the morning jog. So I informed your daughter"

Tamilnadu Telecommunications handled nearly three million requests over their hundred Directory Enquiry positions, last year. Coimbatore occupies the leading position handling about a third of this volume.

A telephone line rendered free after a lease to one subscriber should be placed under changed number surveillance for three months, before being allotted to another.

It is difficult, however, in practice because of the pending demands. Within weeks, an old line starts functioning for a different individual. Frequently, the new customer has to offer the Changed Number Interception.

Problem is compounded when area transfer from one exchange to a new switch takes place. The prefix is modified after an announcement in the leading dailies. Despite best efforts, the numericals (last four digits) of existing lines may also change on technical compulsions.

The issue is less painful when new exchanges are opened. But they are rare.

Remarkably performant contemporary technology systems announce the exact changed number, on request, in the cities of Bombay and Madras.

The telephone directory is a constantly changing Data Base. What is current this minute is certainly not so in the next. On-line retrieval has been successfully practised in France in L'Annulaire Electronique in their Minitel network.

At home, telephone directories are already machine readable at Hyderabad, Delhi and many other cities. Networking them for real time access has not been exciting due to poor response. An attitudinal change is indicated.

Post Script : Happily many of the directories are now accessible on line. Or on CDs. The currency can be debated. But we cannot but admit progress has indeed been recorded.