Communicating with “The Missed Call”: An Indian Innovation
I’m traveling to India on business. I am staying at a hotel and I need to call my driver when I’m ready to leave. How do I let him know I’m ready to go? I don’t want to call his mobile phone as I would have to pay $3/minute for roaming charges to my U.S. carrier. He can’t call me because he doesn’t want to make an international call. So he tells me – “Sir, just give me a missed call when you are ready”. So when I’m ready to leave, I call his mobile and hang up. Presto, the car is there when I reach the lobby! No money spent. No words exchanged. But the message goes through and the job gets done.
The “Missed Call” – Yet another uniquely Indian innovation in communication!
Here are some other scenarios for communicating with “Missed Calls”. My friend’s mom lives in a high-rise apartment building in Mumbai. She has a DVD rental guy drop off DVDs for new movies every couple of days to her apartment (this itself is another Indian innovation – “Video on Demand”, Indian style!). She needs to inform the building security to let the guy in. A few minutes before the DVD rental guy reaches the apartment building, he gives her a Missed Call. She in turn gives the DVD rental guy a Missed Call to let him know she is at home and is interested in new DVDs. She then calls the building security guard and lets him know that the DVD rental guy is coming in a few minutes. He is let into the building and she gets her movies. Nobody calls anybody, but a lot is said and done!
My wife’s cousin lives in India, and she prefers that we call her from Chicago as it is more affordable for us to call her than for her to call us. So she calls us and hangs up. We see her number on our Caller ID, and we call her back by responding to the Missed Call. The same idea works if you are traveling internationally, and incoming calls are free for you but outgoing calls are very expensive. Just place a Missed Call and have the other party call you back.
So there you have it. For us in the United States, missed calls are missed communication. But in India, a Missed Call is a powerful and elegant form of communication! So, call me but don’t talk to me. I’m waiting for your Missed Call!
Satsriakaal Uncle
A simple “Missed Call” is indeed a very powerful and elegant method of communicating and this leads us to the concept of “Jugaad”. Its a Hindi/Punjabi word which has pied meanings. It can mean an innovative fix , a solution that bends the rules or a resource that can be used as such or a person that can solve an inextricable issue. Wiki defines it as locally-made motor vehicles that are used mostly in small villages as a means of low cost transportation in rural India. However at the end of the day its an effective tool developed by the commoners to get the work done .
So I believe that a “Missed Call” is a quintessential “Jugaad” which has proven to be effectual in providing a new method of communication.
Regards
Karan Singh
Considering I am an Indian who has used this “missed call technique” a zillion times, it was great reading this post. Its amusing how one gets instantly habituated a different system. Being in the US for the last few years, I am so used to the voice message system. Although I still use the “missed call” mode of communication, everytime I miss a call which does not leave a voice message, it does annoy me a little!
I guess the key to this successful method of communication is that the person knows exactly what the missed call is supposed to convey!
Not uniquely Indian. I have seen this in Peru and Vietnam, too. Any country where telecom is still expensive relative to average household incomes.
Hello Sir
The power of missed call in India was demonstrated in the Anna Hazare Anti-corruption Campaign. Each missed call on the number 022-61550789 would be considered as a vote of support for Anna Hazare.There were more than 25 lakh missed calls in a week