The "Phony" Phase

Have you lived with someone who is just engaged? How do you recall him/ her now?
I bet talking on a phone :-)

Imagine - when you get engaged – its good news not only for your family and friends, but also for the telecom companies. No muhurat for marriage for next 8 months, even better - longer the gap, happier they are. Though smaller gaps do not prevent one from spending – I had a colleague, who actually spent 1 Lakh in 3.5 months on phone (its not something which I heard from someone, I actually saw his mobile bills – 26000 for first month, 32000, 29000 and 15000 for subsequent months – rounded off to nearest thousand :-) After paying these bills, he was left with just enough salary to pay his house rent. For those who still not believe it - it was year 2002, and STD rates were much higher than that of today.

Another friend of mine, who was determined to match this figure, though in a longer period – 18 months, could not do that, despite of talking 6-7 hrs each day. Till then Reliance had come with a unique scheme – a boon for the engaged ones – just pay a fixed monthly amount – Rs 700 – and you call any reliance mobile for free – no matter how long you talk, monthly bill will be just 700.

So what will be the ideal gift for your fiancée? No points for guessing – a Reliance mobile, and you take the reliance landline. I have observed that mostly guys take the landline and girls the mobile, than the other way round. Why so, we can analyze it some other time. A more interesting analysis would be what these people talk for so long – 2 hrs, 5 hrs, even 10 hrs a day.
10 hrs appear impossible to you….You would ask – don’t these guys have to work? I tell you how it happens – as soon as the guy reaches home, say 7 pm, he calls up his fiancée. And then the call is on till they go off to sleep – say 12. There are a few gaps in between when they are having food and other activities. There are times, when nobody speaks for 20-30 mins, due to a disagreement, but the call is still on.

I also know of an incident, where the girl did not want to speak because she was annoyed for some reason. But the guy did not agree to put the phone down. Both were not ready to give in, so they end up holding the phones silently for the whole night. This was much before the reliance era, and the guy ended up paying hefty bill for the night.

Anyways, I was telling you how 10 hrs – 5 hrs in the evening, 2 hrs in the morning, and 2 hrs in the office spread between 3-4 calls at different times. Hmm 5+2+2, okay it makes 9 hrs….but weekends, the talking time goes up to 12-14 hrs, so on average 10 hrs a day.
I am sure these people wont talk this much even after marriage :D

My another observation is that, in general, the talk time is more in case of arranged marriages than the love marriages (during this period, and not overall). Any contenders on this….

But the million-dollar question remains - what does one talk for so long – since I am inexperienced in this, can the experienced ones throw some light from their own or someone else’s experience. Waiting for the responses………