Kripya pratiksha kere, aapki call katar me hai… asuvidha ke liye hume khed hai (kindly hold, you call is in queue… we apologize for any inconvenience.) This is what the foreign tourist will hear when a 24 hour helpline gets started by the Delhi Tourism Minister Mr. Arvinder Singh in association with the Delhi Police.

Apart from this 15 kiosks will be set up in prominent parts of Delhi to make it more “Tourist Friendly”. I think, this step has been taken in lieu all attacks which have been happening on tourists these days.

The only hitch which I see to the system is that, when a tourist will try and call, firstly they will never get through to the operator as the phone line will always be busy, if the tourist does get though, will the operator be able to understand what the tourist is trying to say?

I think the govt. will solve this problem by having a menu which would go like this…

Thank you for calling the tourist helpline. For Rape press 1, for Murder press 2, for Theft press 3. If you are calling for general information… please visit one of our 15 kiosks whose address can be found by calling another number. If you need to talk to a Live person… you will be better off talking to someone on the road because our live help has not come for work till now. If this is an Emergency… please call your embassy directly as they will be your best bet. Thank you and have a nice day!

Delhi police can’t even talk properly with the India citizens, how would you expect them to talk politely with any foreign tourist? Apart from giving yoga classes to officers with a pot belly, now the officers would also have to take mannerism and language classes as well. 😉