Chowrangi

You have a zillion things to worry about at work, and the last thing you want is to have someone wasting your time telling you about the financial services they’re offering, or how you can spend your holidays if you take advantage of their fantastic package. Telemarketing has become rampant in this city, and it has the potential of driving people mad, as the person making the telephone call is usually a girl or a woman with a voice which reminds you of the almost-naked Aishwarya Rai dancing in an Indian movie.

I get many calls every day, and I have devised a method of dealing with them in such a way that my time is not wasted.

If, for instance, I’m told that a computer draw has just yielded my name as a result of which I’m invited to tea at a five-star hotel where I can view the fantastic items on sale, I reply, “Please throw your computer into the Arabian Sea, it can get you into trouble!”

The ones who offer financial packages are the worst. After ten minutes of hearing them tell you how their scheme will solve your money problems, they’re stumped when you ask, “Does your package also provide for a free 2000 cc car or a free two bedroom apartment?”

Then there’s the girl who invited me to take a look at the holiday packages devised by her company, so I although I wanted to ask her if she’d come along with me for the holiday, I resisted. Instead I told her, “There’s a much better package which is absolutely free and I tried it last month. I went with the Tableeghi Jamaat and stayed in mosques all over the country, and next year they’ll take me to Europe!” She burst out laughing before I hung up.

Other posts by Shakir Lakhani

• No limit on foreign exchange taken out of Pakistan - November 12th, 2008
• Some questions about the "forex" scandal - November 11th, 2008
• Enjoying life after sixty - November 7th, 2008
• A Hussein in the White House - November 5th, 2008
• Why are poor Pakistanis always punished? - October 31st, 2008
• Pakistan's Economic Crisis: we're responsible - October 29th, 2008
• How Wall Street operates - October 23rd, 2008
• We’ll always have corruption - October 19th, 2008
• If Pakistan goes to war with United States of America - October 9th, 2008
• Killing of Christians in Secular India - October 1st, 2008