What is life like on the other end of the phone?

Eva Bradley

Thanks to the development of the technology super-highway, there is a lot of talk these days about the ''global village''. Most of us know what that means or at least we think we do.

It means instant digital connections to anywhere, any time. In real-world situations our most frequent contact with the global village interface is the rather faceless experience of talking to someone in a call centre on the other side of the world.

Due to our unique Down Under accent, this has led most of us at some point to vent about the complications of trying to resolve life's occasional glitches with the help of someone we struggle to understand.

When Kiwis and Aussies can't even talk about ''six'' with each other, it's easy to see how talking about cell phone plans and accounting software with a guy in India can become ''interesting''.

But recently as I sat on the couch late one night and listened to my husband resolving some detailed technical issues with Rahoul from Google's Hyderabad HQ, I found out just how interesting such conversations really could be.

Not interested in the finer technical aspects of integrating Adwords into a Wordpress website template, my mind floated off in the general direction of Rahoul's hometown.
What was going down in Hyderabad, India, right now?

What time was it, and where the hell was it anyway? Who was Rahoul when he was at home and apart from a shared interest in Google, what else might he have in common with my husband?

Did he play cricket or prefer soccer? Was he a fresh-faced graduate or a family man with two kids and a wife? What were his hopes and dreams and how did they compare to mine?

Employing the very search engine that literally employed him, I quickly discovered that while it was 10pm, cold and raining in New Zealand, it was 2.30pm in Hyderabad, a relatively comfortable 31C with a south-easterly of 15 knots.

Furthermore, the city of almost seven million souls sat bang-smack in the middle of central southern India and was a major centre for the tech industry.

The city was most likely awash with Rahouls, all of them fluent in the language of www as well as English in every accent it came in, including ours.

But what else? Who was Rahoul when he wasn't at Google?

While we were grabbing a quick Subway for lunch, did he sometimes work through his break, ordering in a rogan josh delivered through hot, dusty streets on the back of a bicycle by his preferred tiffin wallah?

Or did he just walk to McDonald's for a Big Mac?

When he knocked off, what was his commute like compared to ours? Was Rahoul part of the much-talked-about emerging middle class of India, clogging up the chaotic roads with a newly-minted Mahindra NuvoSport? Or did he get about old-school on a much-reconditioned Honda 50cc motorbike?

Not so long ago, India (and most other emerging nations) was an enigma, a mysterious place to visit with a backpack before you had kids and a mortgage.

But now it's a place we connect with by telephone or internet on a regular basis, thanks to a low-cost, highly-skilled workforce.

It's easy to hang up the phone and do nothing more than complain about the challenges created by this modern way of international problem solving.

But next time before you do, try pausing long enough to wonder ... what is life like on the other side of the world, on the other end of the line?