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Chandigarh: In today’s world of instant communication and virtual interaction, it is difficult to imagine – let alone explain to anyone under 50 years of age – that there was a time when speaking to someone locally, long-distance and especially overseas, was a miraculous feat.

Making such calls in the 1950s and 1960s of my youth was pure melodrama, complete with its own timing, unwritten code of conduct and cast of characters. It was a ritual – requiring patience, perseverance and above all, hope: histrionic and over-the-top in its overall convoluted complexity.

My odyssey with telephones – austere black instruments without rotary dials or push-buttons – began in the late 1950s in Punjab in the era of manual exchanges, when callers waited for the omnipresent command of “Num [number], please”, issued by male operators; women would not feature on the lines till many decades later.

A moment of suspense followed, once the number had been given, after which a faint, burrowing hum signalled that the connection had finally been made. Even then, there was no guarantee of an uninterrupted conversation; breakdowns were common, and calls often dissolved into mysterious “hold-ups”, with voices fading into silence and the line going ominously quiet.

Resolving this usually necessitated a swift trip down to the local telephone exchange, where the switchboard sorcerers presided over the wires. A polite plea, and occasionally a familiar face amongst these exchange high priests, was needed to persuade them to “free up” the line and restore the connection.

But from that magic moment after a connection was established, the operator ceased to be merely a switchboard functionary and became an unavoidable third presence in every call – one who may or may not be listening. There were countless instances of operators stepping in either as referees, counsellors or simply commentators, with unsolicited wry remarks or sage advice when conversations grew heated, confused or on occasion, amorous.

At times, such enforced intimacy from the operator’s side ended up resolving knotty situations that went well beyond the mechanics of mere telephony intermediaries. One apocryphal tale at the time spoke of a heated long-distance exchange between a son and his father, the former asking for money, the latter refusing outright. As the seconds ticked away and tempers frayed, the operator finally intervened, calmly persuading the father to relent – and extend not just the call – but a loan as well.

But above all – anonymous or not, intrusive or not, irritating or not, unsolicited or not – this invisible army of operators embodied a human presence that was almost palpable, prevailing daily across the wires and endless hiss of static. In retrospect, their anonymous voices – wholly unimaginable today, in an age of simulated speech, automated menus and algorithmic replies – once stood gently between people, mediating conversations, softening edges and lending a quiet warmth to even the briefest exchange.

What felt then like an interruption now, in hindsight, feels like intimacy. However brusque or unwelcome those interventions may have seemed at the time, they were unmistakably human. Today, as we loop endlessly through recorded prompts and synthetic politeness, struggling to reach a human voice at the other end, those long-gone operators seem compassionate in memory. Technology, no doubt, has become faster and exponentially more efficient today – but something essential was lost when the human voice........

© The Wire