“And sometimes he would receive calls from his wife, and he was just tired. He was very gentle and very nice on the phone with his wife, but the wife was apparently, was evidently always complaining about him not coming home, and he was always making different excuses that, okay, I have to finish this guy, and the I promise I’ll come home, and we can…”
Are you experiencing deja vu? There is a good chance that you have overheard such a conversation while you were with a friend, a colleague or your boss! Or you may have had similar conversation with your loved one! We change the tone of our voice while we receive a phone call from a loved one no matter the situation we are in. We may have been in middle of the debate when the phone rang. But we take on a completely different persona as soon as we press the “Talk” button.
The excerpt given above is from an interview with Maziar Bahari. Maziar Bahari was arrested and detained in Iran after the 2009 election protests. He was imprisoned for 118 days. He was subsequently released in October 20, 2009 on bail. He will never be able to return to Iran until the Islamic Republic fails. In the excerpt, Maziar refers to his interrogator, who transforms soon as he gets a call from his wife even though a few seconds back, he was inflicting psychological torture on Maziar.
I have been in similar situations; though less traumatic than Maziar’s. While having a difficult conversation with one of my superiors where decibels kept climbing along with blood pressure, the phone rang! There was an immediate silence as both of us reached for our respective phones! I heaved a sigh of relief after realizing that it was his phone. The other person answered the phone and in the process mellowed down completely. It was his son!
Do we all put on a different face as soon as we are inside the office?
Picture Courtesy: http://www.worldsocialism.org
Tags: Musings,Maziar Bahari,Phone
Lovely post. I guess we all do. But I would have thought the interrogator would have put off his phone while on an important assignment as that!
ReplyDeletehaha nona bhai..u like the t-shirt? it was a gift from inlaw yar..haha..naturally it looks good..:)
ReplyDelete@Radha - Thanks. None of us turns off our phone while in meetings.
ReplyDelete@Ramesh - he he he
I'm not much of a "phone" person (not phony either!) But I guess it's human nature to put on this hard exterior at the workplace, lest they take u for granted!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, we all have 2 faces. Why just the office, some of us even have them at home. On a different note, phone calls have often saved me from difficult situations in the past. The instrument is a life saver.
ReplyDeletehey thanks boss..how can blog be a waste of time,,when i got excellent friend like u..
ReplyDelete@RGB - Yes! Most of us do that! We are careful while showing our inner self. :)
ReplyDelete@Aparna - Blame it on the phone and escape out of tricky situations. Amen! I have also done that! :)