In another sign that Indians do things differently, cell phone companies report that over half of India’s estimated 886.3 million mobile subscribers use their phones for missed calls. To make a missed call, you call someone, wait for a ringtone to indicate that a connection has been made, and then terminate the call before the other can reply. All mobile phones have caller identification systems, which means that people know who has called and often for what purpose. Neither the caller nor the called is charged for the communication.
For people with little money to spare, making a missed call sends a signal of reassurance to the party at the other end that they're well – and it doesn't cost anything. But to India's young people, especially in conservative areas, receiving a missed call opens up the possibility of romance. Seeing an unknown number appear on your screen sparks fantasies about mysterious suitors and tumultuous relationships.
In recent years, filmmakers across the country have realised just how essential cellphones have become to initiating and sustaining relationships, and missed calls have become a trope in regional films. Entire movie plots as well as songs are being crafted about the secret poetry of the missed call.
"Missed calls create suspense," said Ratnakar Tripathy, a researcher of Bhojpuri music and cinema. "Missed calls carry the simple crisp message – ‘call me back’. If a girl or a boy responds to a missed call, it means she or he is interested. Village romance, unlike city courtships, has to follow strict protocols, and any deviation can cause extreme violence. Missed calls also allow for fantasies, since you need to speculate and find out who called. These can be a very involving activity for young boys and girls."
The problem with mobiles, Tripathy noted, is that they make it easier for boys and girls to two-time their suitors. "In such cases, a girl talking on the mobile becomes a suspect, the recorded number on her phone becomes a clue, the history of SMS provides a track record," he said. "So the ‘romantic’ busybodies have to be careful with their mobile sets. Village romance in reality carries levels of intrigue no Bollywood or Hollywood story can handle, since the intrigue itself may become an end on its own."
Tripathy notes that the partners in most village romances know they will never get married. "If they try to, it will shake up their entire lives and that of the whole community," he said. "So the romance itself veers between the insincere and the tragic."
Here are some examples of how missed calls are playing out in song and cinema.
In Kashmir, an entire film was made on the subject in 2009: it was called Miss Call. Give me a missed call or SMS, sing women clad in salwar kameezes as they dance rigidly in beautiful fields and rivers, and I will immediately say yes. There are few other lyrics. Their potential lovers are no doubt absconding only because the state banned new prepaid connections for a year in 2009.
While the potential for contacting people is alluring, missed calls are not immune from being intercepted. The 2012 Punjabi film Kisan highlights these perils. A cocky young man, egged on by his male friends, calls his loved one so that they can hear her voice, but does not cut the call in time. Much to the amusement of his friends, the woman’s mother answers the phone and demands to know who is calling, even as the woman herself lurks beyond a door in dismay. The song then switches to the woman berating her boyfriend for not ringing only once and letting it remain a missed call. (His friends, for some inexplicable reason, set his hair on fire at 1:58.)
Banadi Ra Miss Call is from an unnamed 2009 Rajasthani album. The song, which is called a vivaah geet, or wedding song, is about a societally-approved relationship where a village woman gives her red-lipped fiancé missed calls to get him to meet her. Once they do meet, he gently rebukes her and sings about how phones have changed how they communicate. Much to a viewer’s chagrin, he seems more interested in staring into space and singing than in his fiancée. All is reconciled at the end when a gaggle of friends curtain them off as they sit on a bed and finally, one presumes, make a connection.
Missed calls have even acquired a pejorative connotation in some circles, associated as they are with class and privilege. People with healthy balances – or even postpaid connections – do not have to worry about call charges, and are therefore more likely to have the means to court their loved ones lavishly.
In this song from a 2009 Marathi album Naad Karaycha Nahi (Do not become obsessed), the lead directly associates missed calls with economic capital. “I am a homely girl,” she sings, as she asks whether boy is not rich enough to give her a regular call, and whacks him on the head with a bundle of spinach.
Where other films might hint or suggest, the Telugu industry can always be counted on to take a premise to its logical conclusion. In the film Missed Call, there are no namby-pamby songs hinting at forbidden love, or economic distress. It takes an entire movie for director SJ Balu to tackle what seems to be a story of much promiscuous love and infidelity in an undefined urban setting. However, the people in the trailer spend more time speaking to each other than looking at their phones. To be fair the plot would not progress if people only stared at their phones and gave each other missed calls.
Listen to these songs as a single playlist on our YouTube channel here.
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For people with little money to spare, making a missed call sends a signal of reassurance to the party at the other end that they're well – and it doesn't cost anything. But to India's young people, especially in conservative areas, receiving a missed call opens up the possibility of romance. Seeing an unknown number appear on your screen sparks fantasies about mysterious suitors and tumultuous relationships.
In recent years, filmmakers across the country have realised just how essential cellphones have become to initiating and sustaining relationships, and missed calls have become a trope in regional films. Entire movie plots as well as songs are being crafted about the secret poetry of the missed call.
"Missed calls create suspense," said Ratnakar Tripathy, a researcher of Bhojpuri music and cinema. "Missed calls carry the simple crisp message – ‘call me back’. If a girl or a boy responds to a missed call, it means she or he is interested. Village romance, unlike city courtships, has to follow strict protocols, and any deviation can cause extreme violence. Missed calls also allow for fantasies, since you need to speculate and find out who called. These can be a very involving activity for young boys and girls."
The problem with mobiles, Tripathy noted, is that they make it easier for boys and girls to two-time their suitors. "In such cases, a girl talking on the mobile becomes a suspect, the recorded number on her phone becomes a clue, the history of SMS provides a track record," he said. "So the ‘romantic’ busybodies have to be careful with their mobile sets. Village romance in reality carries levels of intrigue no Bollywood or Hollywood story can handle, since the intrigue itself may become an end on its own."
Tripathy notes that the partners in most village romances know they will never get married. "If they try to, it will shake up their entire lives and that of the whole community," he said. "So the romance itself veers between the insincere and the tragic."
Here are some examples of how missed calls are playing out in song and cinema.
In Kashmir, an entire film was made on the subject in 2009: it was called Miss Call. Give me a missed call or SMS, sing women clad in salwar kameezes as they dance rigidly in beautiful fields and rivers, and I will immediately say yes. There are few other lyrics. Their potential lovers are no doubt absconding only because the state banned new prepaid connections for a year in 2009.
While the potential for contacting people is alluring, missed calls are not immune from being intercepted. The 2012 Punjabi film Kisan highlights these perils. A cocky young man, egged on by his male friends, calls his loved one so that they can hear her voice, but does not cut the call in time. Much to the amusement of his friends, the woman’s mother answers the phone and demands to know who is calling, even as the woman herself lurks beyond a door in dismay. The song then switches to the woman berating her boyfriend for not ringing only once and letting it remain a missed call. (His friends, for some inexplicable reason, set his hair on fire at 1:58.)
Banadi Ra Miss Call is from an unnamed 2009 Rajasthani album. The song, which is called a vivaah geet, or wedding song, is about a societally-approved relationship where a village woman gives her red-lipped fiancé missed calls to get him to meet her. Once they do meet, he gently rebukes her and sings about how phones have changed how they communicate. Much to a viewer’s chagrin, he seems more interested in staring into space and singing than in his fiancée. All is reconciled at the end when a gaggle of friends curtain them off as they sit on a bed and finally, one presumes, make a connection.
Missed calls have even acquired a pejorative connotation in some circles, associated as they are with class and privilege. People with healthy balances – or even postpaid connections – do not have to worry about call charges, and are therefore more likely to have the means to court their loved ones lavishly.
In this song from a 2009 Marathi album Naad Karaycha Nahi (Do not become obsessed), the lead directly associates missed calls with economic capital. “I am a homely girl,” she sings, as she asks whether boy is not rich enough to give her a regular call, and whacks him on the head with a bundle of spinach.
Where other films might hint or suggest, the Telugu industry can always be counted on to take a premise to its logical conclusion. In the film Missed Call, there are no namby-pamby songs hinting at forbidden love, or economic distress. It takes an entire movie for director SJ Balu to tackle what seems to be a story of much promiscuous love and infidelity in an undefined urban setting. However, the people in the trailer spend more time speaking to each other than looking at their phones. To be fair the plot would not progress if people only stared at their phones and gave each other missed calls.
Listen to these songs as a single playlist on our YouTube channel here.