KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - It's a notion that seems wildly out of place in the insurgent combat zone that is Afghanistan: using touch-tone trivia to award cash prizes, build brand loyalty and maximize revenue.
Yet cellphone users can apparently profit to the tune of about 100,000 Afghanis -- about $2,200, minus taxes -- if they're willing to play along with Roshan, one of the country's cellphone providers.
The company is relentlessly advertising the contest by way a stream of text messages that seem to get through even when connecting to someone across the road is a hit-and-miss affair.
This particular competition, which costs 10 Afghanis per minute to play, involves dialling in, and, after listening to a stretch of Pashto, pressing 3 for English.
A chirpy female voice in heavily accented English welcomes the caller to the "Cash Prize Contest" before launching into a series of questions that to many might seem more trivial than trivia.
"A square has how many sides? Press 1 for two, or 2 for four," the voice asserts.
The questions, which span a variety of categories, including politics, entertainment, sports, geography and history, hardly comprise a mental minefield -- at least for anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of Western culture.
An example of the entertainment category: "Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney: press 1 for true, 2 for false."
Also: "What is the traffic light sequence for stop, wait, go? Press 1 for yellow, red, green; press 2 for red, yellow, green."
That last question might appear odd in a part of the world with few working traffic lights and what would seem to be a total disregard for the generally accepted rules of the road.
Some of the questions defy categorization.
"Manure is obtained from? Press 1 for horse dung, press 2 for cow's milk."
"11+11 is equal to 111. Press 1 for true, press for 2 false."
There appears to be no end to the number questions one can attempt to answer -- at 10 Afghanis a minute.
"The largest ocean of the world is? Press 1 for Atlantica (sic), press 2 for Pacific (pronounced pass'-uh-fick)."
The contest rules don't make clear exactly how long the competition runs, but do require the winner -- the caller earning the highest number of points -- to collect their prize at a Roshan office within two weeks.
"The capital of Russia is? Press 1 for Paris, 2 for Moscow."
"Who is the founder of Microsoft? Press 1 for Bill Gates, press 2 for Bill Clinton . . . "
"Thank you for participating," the text message reads immediately after hanging up.
