The Missed Call
One of the ancillary phenomena that arose due to the mega phenomenon called Cellular Phone is the missed call. Yes, The Missed Call.
The uses to which the Caller ID based feature on a mobile phones is only restricted by the imagination of the users.
Friends and relatives, by arrangement, figure out who has got the most favorable Telephone Tariff Plan. This person is given a ‘missed call’ from others whom he calls back. Of course, there are those who give their folk a missed call, and the receiver calls back from a landline, on most occasions at the employers’ expense.
There is the clever set of people who use a missed call to convey binary information. How many of us have said or heard, “Give me a Missed Call once you reach home”. Some of us have used it to convey, “I am waiting outside your home. It is getting late for the movies.”
Did I miss the missed call that is meant to remind the receiver that he/she promised to call.
While a missed call does not generate any revenue nor cost the subscribers anything, it does have commercial implications. I understand that migrant Bihari workers transfer money to their families via the local moneylender through missed calls.
Like the ubiquitous mobile phone, the missed call too has its workplace utility. The missed call that is made to register the act of calling up. Translated that is supposed to mean “I called, but you did not answer the call. Check your Missed Call register for proof.” The objective is to disconnect the line at the first half ring, so that the phone does not alert its owner but just registers the call. The technique is popularly used when the boss asks to be called up over the weekend.
Back in college, one of the favorite sports during class hours was the ‘Missed Call Game’.
The guys would call each other in the classroom at random. The objective of the caller was to generate a “Missed Call” in the phone of the recipient rival. The objective of the recipient was to answer the call before it could become a missed call. The Casino type thrill was that the penalty paid in the game was instantaneous. The prepaid balance would drop immediately if the caller ‘lost’.
Considering that the number of cell phones per classroom was still in single digits then, it was an involved spectator sport with entire benches backing their representative. Now, I guess, it is possibly an evolved mass sport with several rule variation.
And then there is my personal favorite Missed Call that just means ‘I am thinking about you’. Often made late in the evening, when the called party is known to be asleep, it is just to convey to that (mostly special) person, “I am thinking about you”.
