Column: Do You Still Call On People?
Do you still call on people?
It was a quaint custom, one handed down to us via our colonial masters, one we faithfully, happily followed. It involved people getting dressed up, not necessarily to the nines, but quite definitely in their Sunday best. They then went around to other people`s places, rang the doorbell and stood back with a smile on their faces, all prepped for a pleasant experience.
The door would be opened cordially, hospitably, the guests would troop into what was known as a drawing room aka parlour aka hall, and proceed to sit there, make small talk still sticking to the `pleasant` theme, partake of snacks, tea, coffee or that old-fashioned drink, lemonade. There would be much shared laughter, some amount of harmless gossip, rueful head shakes at matters that seemed incomprehensible to the gathered company. After forty-five minutes, the guests would cheerfully say their farewells, the hosts would promise to pay a return visit maybe next weekend or so, and the visit would be over.
The activity was known as calling- on. It operated within a set structure, and was a vital part of social interaction.
No longer, of course. Social media, online networking, a relentless worklife of 70 hours or more per week, a disinclination to dress up and go visit, have effectively killed the calling- on enterprise.
Now we hang (the suffix word `out` has been dropped, leading to immediate mental imagery of people dangling from stair rails, tree branches and balcony bannisters) with friends at a pre-appointed time. We party at someone`s place at pre-appointed times, sometimes a hurriedly set up affair but fun for all that. Now that the pandemic seems to have given over, we regularly meet friends for a movie on the big screen. We take people out or are taken out to restaurants to lunch or dine therein.
The street adda is not dead yet, though. We meet friends and neighbours and stand in the street on or near the kerb talking nineteen to the dozen, our laughter echoing down the street, dogs on leashes and children in strollers waiting patiently while we finish our socialising.
Many people have hailed the demise of the calling-on practice, pointing out the stress it puts on the hosts, how in today`s casual era, the same hosts are forced to clean their homes (yes, the assumption is that cleaning of the homes isn’t a regular affair!), lay in snacks and soft drinks, lay off their Netflix watch and instead make small talk, which comes embedded with those awkward pauses in between conversation where everyone assembled smiles vacuously while thinking hard how to fill the prevailing silence.
On its way out
The thing is, no one really has the time for meaningless chit-chat any longer. Celebrating a wedding, mourning a demise, dropping in to see a newborn are activities that have willy-nilly been outsourced and now take place mostly in wedding halls, crematoria, maternity clinics.
It’s the zeitgeist, we are assured. Now we call out people for transgressions, call on people to step up to the plate, call off events, call up people on our phones all the time. But calling-on as an activity is extinct, or nearly so. What has taken its place is a more direct manner of bonding which tightens and stretches at will, giving an out to those who want an out.
Some people (of an older generation?) openly mourn the demise of the calling-on habit. Others are ambivalent. Still others are relieved.
What about you?
This ran in the Sunday Express Magazine of 12 November 2023.
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Sheila Kumar • November 12, 2023