THE BRIDGE

THE BRIDGE

Time: 1:00 AM, 5^th march 2010

Location: Bangalore, India

Call traffic was comparatively less tonight. I played Su-Do-Ku and kept browsing through wikipedia from one link to other. 75 percent of the customer care calls at this time are “killer” calls, as we call it. Guys can talk with young sweet girls at this time of the night without spending penny, because calls to customer care are free of cost. We cannot stop attending those calls. We are paid for it and moreover, we “care” for our “customer”.

An incoming call beeped in my monitor and I answered it.

“Good evening. This is Natasha from WindTel. How can I assist you?”

“Natasha” is the code name I usually use. We are not supposed to use our real name with customers.

“Hi. Good Night. I am Ravi from Bangalore”

I didn’t laugh for that “Good Night”, because I am paid and trained so.

The caller-number information populated in my screen. The connection was in the name of one “Ramachandran”, and I assumed Ravi to be a relative or son of Mr.Ramachandran who was 54 years old according the data I had.

“Hi Mr.Ravi. How can I assist you?”

“Ya…hmm…ya….How to activate GPRS?” The boy asked.

I hate such questions. It takes a long time explain this and I know this kid just want to listen to me speaking. That’s all!!

“Sure Mr.Ravi. I will assist you on this. But before that, I have to verify your account information for security reasons. Can you please tell me the connection-holder name?”

“Ramachandran Reddy. My Father”

“Does your father knows that you are calling me at this time of night”- I always wanted to ask this, but I did not. Because, all the customer care calls are recorded for internal training and performance evaluation purposes, and my boss will be listening to some random-picked calls always.

“Please confirm the billing address and date of birth” I asked instead.

“I am 24 years old. How old are you? ”- asked the kid all in a hurry.

Now I know his GPRS help!!! Girls-Porn-Rape-Sex???

I muted my call, said the F word and un-muted it again.

“I would like to know the date of birth of the connection holder sir”

“You need not call me “sir”. You can call me “Ravi”” – replied the kid.

“Yes Ravi. Date of birth of your father please”

“24 May, Nineteen…Yes Daddy…No one Daddy…I am watching a movie, Daddy…oh Shit!!!”

..And the line got disconnected.

Thank God!!! I marked my status as “Busy” in my computer and went to take a cup of coffee.

The job as a WindTel customer care executive had been very exciting in the initial days. Every day you can talk to new people, that too strangers. Solve their problems. Sometime they try to flirt with you. Sometime we also do the same and talk about it during the coffee time. Answer their queries, knowing that it’s a prank call, but still enjoying that stuff. But…Gradually it all became boring. Everyday the same stuff. No change in life. And moreover, the “killer” calls started eating our heads!!! I checked my watch. It was 1:15 AM and almost 4 more hours to end my shift.

I went back to my chair, with coffee in my hand and set my status as “ready for call”

We have to meet our targets. A Minimum of 120 calls a week.

I again started browsing through Wiki. Then a call arrived in my monitor.

“Incoming call +91 92753 48630” It showed on my screen.

I answered the call without knowing that, this call was going to change my life!!!

“Good evening. This is Natasha from WindTel. How can I assist you?”

There was silence from other side, but I could clearly listen to the sound of somebody breathing heavily from other side.

“Hello. How can I help you?”

There was Silence again.

Yet another Killer call!

“Hello. Can you hear me?” I was in no mood to talk. We can initiate the disconnect if there is no response for 20 to 30 seconds. It was 15 seconds already. I started to say my sentence and had kept the mouse-cursor on disconnect button already.

“Thanks for calling WindTel…Have a …”

“I need help….” A feeble sound interrupted me.

Oh shit!!!

“Good evening. This is Natasha from WindTel. How can I assist you?”

Again there was a silence from the other side.

This Killer is going to “Kill” me tonight, I thought!!!

I kept silence for another ten seconds or so. Still there was no response from other side.

“Hello Sir. Can you hear me? How can I assist you?” This time I will disconnect.

“Hi….” A pale sound came from other side.

Again a boy, hiding from his father and calling me, I thought.

“Hi Sir, How can I assist you?” I asked with utter patience in my voice.

“My…My name is Richard….” The boy said in a highly muted tone.

Hiding Below the blanket!!!

“Hi Richard. Please confirm your calling number”. This call was on record and I wanted to store the number in his voice.

There was a silence from other side.

The caller information populated in the screen. The connection was in the name of Richard Joseph Anthony.

“Hi Richard…your number is 92753 48630…Is that correct?” I hated this silence. I will finish this fast, I thought. We have got “call-handling-time” targets also. We are supposed to resolve each query in a call on an average time of 90 seconds.

“Yeah...That’s right!!!” The boy replied, again in a very pale voice.

“How can I assist you, Sir?” – tonight, I will not repeat this question to this kid one more time.

“I…..” Then there was along pause and I waited.

“I need to talk to my Father” finally the boy said, but this time with a heavier voice.

Wow! Wonderful!

In my career for the last 2 years, I have never heard such a request from any of the customer.

“Sorry, Sir. I could not get your query properly. Can you please elaborate the same?”

Then I muted, said the F word with some adverbs to it, and again un-muted.

I had to get rid of my frustration somehow!!!

The boy took a long pause and said –“I have got no more balance in my pre-paid mobile.”

I checked his account balance in the monitor screen. It was zero.

Of course it will be zero, I thought. And that is why he is calling me. He need not have any balance to call me.

“Yes sir. You are right. You need to re-charge your pre-paid card at the earliest to make further outgoing calls.” I said, because I was trained to say so.

This boy must be drunk, and now he is calling to flirt with me!

“I had more than two hundred rupees balance in my account. I talked to my friend for a long time and did not realise that my account balance was getting over. Now I don’t have any balance now…but I need to talk to my father. That’s very important for me now”

This boy is going to be a parasite!!! What kind of a retard he is?

I checked his call statistics. I clicked on the last call.

The boy was telling truth. He had made his last call for more than 1 hour and that too to another network STD call, which has eaten up his account balance of Rupees two hundred and ten.

The last call disconnection reason was shown as –“reached zero balance” in red colour!

“I will surely assist you in this sir. But before that, could you please tell me your account information to confirm your identity. This is for security reasons Sir.” I am going to close this call soon.

“Today’ he said, “Today is my Birthday” he said it in a very low and dull voice, as if it was his death day.

Oh! So that is the reason why you are calling me now!!!

I checked the date of birth of the Boy, 5^th March 1985 it said.

Oh Boy! Elder than me!

“Many many happy returns of the day, Richard” I said with a faking happiness in my tone!

There was a dead silence from the other side!!!

“I need to talk to my father….” The boy said after some time.

“Sure Sir. As I explained, the only option to talk to your father is to re-charge your phone as soon as possible. Thank you Sir. Is there anything more in which I can assist you now, Sir?” I moved the mouse-cursor to the disconnect button.

“I cannot walk…” The boy said.

Then I realised that, the boy had no intentions of leaving me tonight. So I slightly moved my cursor to another button in the monitor, which read “Red Call”.

I clicked that button. This means that, now I can take how much ever time I wanted to resolve this call. This is something like a wild-card, which is used to deal with awkward customers. We have some limits in using it and this was the first time I was using it in this week.

I went to my Google page and typed “Richard Wiki”. I have a lot of time to kill, while talking with this kid.

Wikipedia showed the result:

The first or given name Richard derives from the Germanic elements "ric" (ruler, leader, king) and "hard" (strong, brave, court), therefore it means 'powerful leader' as well as 'King's Court'.

Since this was already a red call, I can now ask my own question. So I asked- “Why are you not able to walk, Richard?”

“See Mam…I cannot explain you everything. But, I want to make a gentle request now. I am in a problem now and I want to talk to my father. His phone number is 92753 37635. Can you please note down this number and call him please. And please ask him to call his son, Richard immediately….Please….I beg you”

Wait…! I was not expecting this!

The boy sounded serious but, there are different ways of playing prank. Especially it’s his birthday today. And, the friends must be having a good celebration tonight. And, moreover, it was not my work to help these strangers, even if they were honest.

“Sorry Sir. I cannot do that. Is there anything else in which you need assistance?” I replied in a harsh tone.

“Look Mam…I don’t have any other option. The only person I could call having zero balance was you and that’s why I called you. Please do this favour for me. Think that I am your little brother asking for a help. You need not do anything else. Just call my father and tell him to call me and disconnect the call. That’s all!!!”

Now I had all the rights to disconnect the call according to our rule! But I didn’t….

I have attended many prank calls before, but this guy sounded a bit more genuine.

“Why should I help a stranger? I don’t even know whether you are fooling around or not….” I said.

There was a silence from the other side and then the boy said…”Please…….”

“Tell me your father’s phone number again” – I asked him.

“It’s 9—2—7—5—3—3—7—6—3—5” He said the number very slowly.

It’s a WindTel number. I typed this number on a different window on my screen. The user information got populated. The connection was in the name of Joseph Anthony Sebastian, 58 years old. I cross checked the contact address of Richard with Joseph’s. Both were same!!!

God, It Seems this guy is not lying…What should I do now?

In another window in my screen, I clicked on the button “Request for a bridge call”.

We are not authorized to make outgoing calls from the call centre. But, under the special consent we can raise a ticket for out going call. The request I made just now is to make an out going call to Joseph’s number. I can include Joseph in to our conference call, which is called a ‘bridge call”.

I typed “Bridge call Wiki” in Google. Result for “conference call came” as it is commonly known by this name.

Conference calls can be designed so that the calling party calls the other participants and adds them to the call - however, participants are usually able to call into the conference call themselves, by dialing into a special telephone number that connects to a "conference bridge"

“Richard…Are you there…?” I asked.

“Yes…” He replied.

“See… I can help you out in this. I can call your father and put him in our conference. You can talk to him directly. It will take some time to connect the call. Up to that time, I want to know some details. Where are you right now?”

“Oh thank you very much” he said, “…I am in Leela”. Then there was a pause.

“Hotel Leela?” I asked him and typed “Hotel Leela” in my Wiki.

Hotel Leela Venture Ltd is an Indian hotel company, currently with seven deluxe hotels, located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kovalam, Udaipur, Goa and 2 in Gurgaon.

“Yes…” he said in low tone.

“Which place? There are many Leela hotels in India”- I said to him as if I knew everything about Leela.

After a long silence there I heard the sound of a deep sigh. Then he said -“See… I am really sorry, but I cannot tell you all these things right now!”

My boss approved my request for the bridge call.

It seems he is in track with the developments over here. I had marked this as “Red call” long back.

I dialled Joseph’s number and waited for him to answer.

In the Old Testament, Joseph is Jacob's eleventh son and Rachel's first. In the New Testament, Joseph is the husband of the Virgin Mary. Wiki.

After two rings, an anxious voice answered the call – “Hello..?” It was Joseph, I assumed.

“Hi Daddy…” Replied Richard, as we three were in conference now. I silently kept listening to the conversation.

“Oh my God! Its you Ricky …Where are you? Oh my God…thank you” I felt from his voice that, he was so anxiously waiting for this call at this time of the night.

“Daddy…Calm down…I…just called you now to say my sorry.”

“What? Where are you now? Come home dear. We will talk and sort out everything”

“No Daddy. Its too late and I won’t be coming home”

“What do you mean by – “won’t be coming home”. Just tell me where you are. I will come and pick you from there. Mama has not eaten anything for 2 days. Everybody here is waiting for you to come. We will sit and talk and solve all our differences. Just come home” and then I could hear a silent weeping sound from Joseph.

“Daddy…It’s not what you think. I have done the mistake and I know no one can forgive me for that ever in my life. I am bad. I realise it.”

“Its ok son…we all forgive you. You please come home…” said the desperate father.

“No daddy…It’s all over. I cannot live with this shame anymore. I am sorry daddy”

“What?”

“I just wanted to say bye to you all. I love you daddy and tell Mama that I loved her a lot. Once again, I am sorry Daddy. Sorry for everything…and I pray that I will be a better son in my next life.”

… And with that Richard’s line got disconnected.

There was a loud cry from Joseph for sometime. I could not keep listening to it and I disconnected the call. I was cold and my head was spinning. I felt numb!!!

I just listened to a final “good-bye” from a son to his Father, before he killed himself!!!

After a few seconds, I clicked and opened another window in my screen. In the screen, I clicked on “Request for Location Co-ordinates/Tower” button and entered Richard’s number in it. I clicked on submit button and waited for its approval and result.

Then, I took my cell phone and dialled Richard’s number. It started ringing and I felt my heart beating in a different pace!!!

He answered and there was a silence from other side again.

“Richard this is Natasha from WindTel. You just spoke with me. “I said.

“Hey…. Thanks dear…I could not say thanks to you. I could not have talked to my Daddy without you tonight.” And the line got disconnected again.

My heart was aching now!

I again dialled the number and it was switched off now!!!

Gone! It’s all over!!!

I saved his number in my cell-phone.

After a few minutes, a pop-up came in my computer screen saying:

Phone number: 92753 48630

Status: In Range, Switched Off

Tower: HAL Old Airport Road- 2, Bangalore.

The Leela Palace Kempinski hotel in Bangalore is in HAL Old Airport road, I remembered.

I Googled to get the contact number of Leela. When I called them, a lady answered the call.

“Good evening Leela” She told.

“Hi…This is Natasha. I just wanted to know whether my friend Richard is staying in your hotel tonight.” I asked her, my fingers crossed.

“Just a minute Madam. Hold on…” she told.

“His full name is Richard Joseph Anthony.” I helped her.

“Hmm…Yes Mam. He is staying in A-304. Do you want me to connect to his room?” She asked.

“No…” I told, my eyes were wetting and my throat was drying out when I spoke. “If I am not wrong, he has taken this room to kill himself there tonight. Can you send a security or room service to check his room once?” I disconnected the call.

*************************************************

Time: 10:00 AM, 25^th April 2010

Location: Bangalore, India

I was sleeping my ‘Sunday-sleep’, when my mobile phone beeped for an incoming message.

I checked my mobile. I felt I was dreaming.

Incoming message: From Richard-Bridge call

Message: “Hey Natasha. If you don’t remember me, I am Richard. Thanks for saving my life. That was a wonderful birthday gift for me that day :-)”

I felt happy for being “The Bridge”!!!

“A bridge is a structure built to span a valley, road, body of water, or other physical obstacle, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle” said my Wiki.