Indian Innovation - Missed Call

India Innovates

Do you know what happens when somebody in USA or Europe gets a missed call? If you are lucky, nothing else, they'll think, "creepy! He just called me & hung up WTF!"

But here in India, a missed call is more than a conversation, it is sometimes a call to action!

Let me illustrate this with some very common uses of Missed Calls in India :

1. Missing you : Probably the most common use is when you give a missed call to your boy/girl-friend, it generally means that you miss him/her or something on that line.
2. Driver/Chauffeur : (If you are an American or European reading this post, a lot of people in India have a chauffeur, you don't need to filthy rich to hire one) When you are visiting someone or are at some place & your driver is in the car at the parking, you give him a call & the driver knows that you are now free & he comes there to pick you up.
3. Delayed team-mate : Another very frequent use, primarily because a lot of Indians turn up late for meetings. If a team-mate is late for a meeting, you give him a missed call & he knows he needs to hurry up because everyone is waiting!
4. Call Back : Girls use it the most frequently on their boyfriends. They give their boy a missed call & he calls back, almost instantly!
5. There are a lot of other day to day uses, for eg. the canteen guy, you give him a missed call & he knows that you want the daily dish in your office, whether it be tea or samosas!
6. I'm here! : I'd almost forgotten, when you go to someone's apartment or in our case, someone's hostel, what do you do at the security gate? You guessed it, Give a missed call to the person you have come to meet, they'll come & pick you up or get you through the security!

In fact, in case you haven't noticed it already, the notion giving missed calls is so common & used so frequently that people do not say, "Oh! I missed a call." They actually say, "I got a missed call!"

Perfect Indian Innovation!

GO India!

How do you use missed calls in your daily life? Tell me in the comments below.

Dr. Mohan Sawhney's post inspired me to write this blog post.