Prepaid EMOTIONS

There was nothing left to do. The rain started to make patterns on the window. The drops moved about the glass like sperm cells. The conductor switched off the dirty yellow lights and the blue screen of a vibrating mobile emerged. Somewhere in the darkness a bag unzipped, a packet of chips opened and an empty stomach mumbled an unknown idiom.

“Appupan is sick!! I had to leave” a feminine murmur broke the rhythmic silence. “He is in the hospital now. I didn’t get time to call u. I left in haste”

The range kept fluctuating in the last two bars and  the bus broke free from any possible mobile range. A conversation was broken and an empty packet of chips was thrown out into the rain.

She switched off her phone. She knew that he didn’t like her leaving without saying a word. “Why can’t he understand?” She wouldn’t switch it on .She will blame it on the network. By then he will understand and probably miss her. He must have felt bad. But he was busy when she called and she didn't have much time either. Appupan seems to be in a pretty bad shape. His third attack. He won‘t live through it to buy her another birthday gift.

She searched for the ipod in her handbag. A cheap yellow handbag with a million tiny circular mirrors. It was 7.45pm and everybody in the bus seems to be fast asleep. She couldn’t sleep. Will I be able to see Appupan for one last time? Will he die tonight and make me walk into a crowd tomorrow morning. Will Arun miss talking to me tonight? Does he still call his old school friend who is doing her B-Pharm in Pune? She switched on her phone. Perhaps he had already sent a message.

She kept staring at the cell phone preparing itself to receive a network. Suddenly she started missing Arun. One new message appeared on the screen. “Mega Offer!!! HURRY!!! Recharge for 100 and get 175 talk time. NO validity!!!”

Irritated, she deleted it. Switching the phone off is a very bad idea. What if someone calls to tell her about Appoopan? Did someone already call and she could not be reached. She called her Dad.

“Appa, is everything alright???”

“ Your Grandpa is critical. Where r u now??”

The bus slowed down to a local dhaba near the highway. “At the Karnataka border somewhere? They halted for dinner”

She got out of the bus. The place had a very different stench. Maybe that’s how a cigarette soaked in Urine would smell. She walked into the small shop near the dhaba.

Her eyes scanned the place for a branded bottle of packaged drinking water. They had only ‘NEW GANGA’ mineral water packaged in Gangothri ‘the mouth of Ganga’ 

She looked around for a rest room. The men had already started to do their business on the other side of the road. Standing side by side and pretending as if they were invisible. She pretended not to see them but she read the board that was displayed on the wall which had suddenly found itself drenched again after the drizzle.

“PLEASE no URINATION here. ONLY ANIMAL LIKE MEN PASSES URINE HERE”.

She smiled at the poor man who wrote it. He must have asked a hundred people for the right words and finally ended up with this.

She climbed back into her seat. One missed call. He had called. She called him back.

“I was out buying mineral water….no there was no range… I was talking to Dad.” The bus climbed back on the road like a tortoise climbing up wooden stairs.

“Don’t argue with me now.... He is serious....What’s your problem???”, She hung up the phone. She didn't want to talk to him. He (of all the people) should understand. She put the phone into her purse. The conductor switched off the light. She switched off her phone. The cold crept in through one of the front windows that someone had opened to throw up the undigested dhaba food.

It was cold now. She started missing him. She searched for her phone. She switched it on. She knew that he would be tying to reach her. There was no range. She didn't switch it off. She imagined his arms around her.

It was 5.30 in the morning. The vibrating phone woke her up. She knew he would call. She looked at the screen. It was not him. It was her brother.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Haripad maybe..”

She could hear the wailing sound of her mother and knew why her brother woke her up. “Appoopan left us…”

“I will reach by 6.30. “ She hung up the phone and looked out through the window. She was not feeling sad. The phone rang again. It was him this time. She couldn't stop the tear drops that rolled down her skinny pink cheeks. “Appopan left me” she sobbed into the phone.

To him she could cry.

An illusion of a shoulder to cry upon provided by the prepaid network.

ps:Some SIMPLEr CONCEPTS

Abhinav: What’s the movie this weekend?
Sarath: I guess they are playing some regional movie – Telgu
Abhinav: I guess, I might learn the portions for the test on Monday.
Sarath: Dude….I don’t have any concepts
Abhinav: You don’t?!!!...you better!
Sarath: I have…..but I am not sure
Abhinav: You need to develop it bro,..work on it.


PS: Everyone in the company talks about concept. It’s like spirituality. If you have it it’s good. If you don’t You better develop it.The corporate training is all based on building concepts. It’s funny…that no one really has it but everyone seems to be building it.

Abhinav: Hey did you get the mail about the guy who shot himself?
Sarath: Which one? The one with the brain splattered on the floor or the one with the half a face?
Abhinav: Brain on the floor??!!! I didn’t get that forward!!
Sarath: Its awesome dude. Chill man! Crazy!
Abhinav: Send it to me..bro!!
Sarath: Let me check it I have it. Yep! It’s on its way bro..!


PS: Corporate training is about forwarding forwards(mails) and receiving forwards. Your mailboxes are always full. The topics in the mails areTrivial though sometimes they appear. Occasionally people get serious mails from HR and they find themselves out of the company. Once in a bluemoon mails with indecent exposure makes us realize that we are humans after all.


Abhinav: Hey, I guess he is wearing a ZOD.
Sarath: What is a ZOD?
Abhinav: You don’t know ZOD?
Sarath: I do!! It’s a….

Abhinav: Shirt!
Sarath: Yeah..branded, costly. I went to buy it the other day, but had to be content with Van Heuseun
Abhinav: I have 6 of them

Sarath: You do? I have 2. The other three are Loui..


PS: You are judged by what you wear.(At least what you wear on the outside) If you can get brands-then they are the bests for niche. If you Can get rejects or duplicates which looks exactly like the original, you learn the basics of economic management. Alternate trends need not be followed because they may be non branded.



Sarath: She is gorgeous
Abhinav: Yup…may be 28
Sarath: She ain’t that old…may be 22
Abhinav: I was talking about her waist size, you idiot!!
Sarath: She is 30

Piyush: Yes, she is 30 for sure
Ahinav: see..Sarath: see…
Piyush: see…30.

PS: Gals dress really good. In the first month they start to wear kurta and jeans ( a neo Indian culture presser..?? yet modern outfit). In the second month they start wearing Tshirts and straighten their hair. In the third month T shirts become tighter, jeans show more curves and accent changes. In the fourth month….



Sarath: Hey did you pay the Vodafone bill?
Abhinav: I paid it online
Sarath: Good..I brought a T Shirt online.
Abhinav: You did! I encountered a small problem while transferring money online.
Sarath: Oh, it always happen…friggin Banks.
Abhinav: My ID is kinda blocked.


PS: Everything is done online. You are expected to do everything online. If your computer or flush don’t work, you are supposed to Notify online. If you die..you are supposed to deregister from the intranet and apply log leave. Swipe out is a must. Single swipes wont be accepted.


Piyush: Where is Abhinav?
Sarath: He got fired yesterday!
Piyush: Why?
Sarath: He flunked in a few tests and has low scores.
Piyush: I am glad he took it in the right sense and didn’t commit suicide like that Bengali.
Sarath: Yeah…whats the movie this weekend?
Piyush: I guess they are playing a regional movie-Kannada

PS: No comments.


(all characters are fictional again.)

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Fearing_layoff_Infosys_techie_hangs_himself-nid-55523.html

THEY TOOK our HILL

                                

 

1997, August

It was the 50^th year of Indian independence. Every vehicle on the road had a plastic Indian tricolor fastened on a white straw. Three rupees a piece, and an Indian flag made to look like flapping wings appeared on every sticker, every shop and every auto rickshaw. The loud speakers on the road sang of great struggles. Gandhi got back his respect. Nehru was long forgotten. The congress party had agreed to support a less bitter leader and IK Gujaral government had taken nimble steps in the golden years. Everyone talked about politics.

Not everyone. Not these kids. They didn’t care. They were patriotic. More patriotic than their bureaucratic parents. The shortest of them was wearing a khaki uniform. The others were wearing white kurta. One of them lost his Gandhi cap running uphill through the small lane with an old junk shop. The others held onto their caps. The one in khaki had a navy blue cap with two copper buttons. They ran uphill. They ran berserk. They ran to their friend’s house halfway down the hill. The grabbed their cricket bats. They grabbed the cricket ball. They ran like crazy.

The hill was one of the highest points in the area. No one had dared to climb the entire height. The kids knew that this was not all that high. It was not taller than a 4 storey building. But it was covered with thick forest. In the middle of a mad city desperately trying to go metropolitan, a green hill with an old mansion and big trees lay untouched, unexplored and haunted.

A small clearing about 100 yards from their friend’s house was their cricket ground. It was a small plot of land with an incomplete basement. The basement presented an incomplete dream. The kids put their stumps on the edge of the incomplete dream. That’s where the mud is soft. The concrete boundary surrounded it. In no time the place would be dribbling with kids who would jump over walls, climb over papaya trees and chase squirrels around the basement. Above the basement is thick forest. The forest which loved soft tennis balls and never gave it back.

Cricket would burn the rest of the day. The bruised knees and injured finger desperately clutching the ball for an off spin would make them feel freer than Gujarals sppech. The caps were kept on black brick wall seething with mosses  and centipede. The Gandhi and its blue counterpart watched the kids play. The kurthas were sodden with mud and green moss. The khaki was still intact. The kid in khaki would say long Hindi dialogues in between. “Give me blood and I will give you freedom “. He played Subash Chandra Bose in the Independence Day celebration drama at) school that very morning. He was still performing. A Subhash Chandra Bose bowling a googly. Excited, surprised and annoyed that it didn’t hit the stumps.

Like every other day the play ended with the ball getting lost in the forest above.

“It’s full of snakes” Kannan would say.

“..And then there is the lady... She kills!!??”

They all knew the lady that he is talking about. The white Mistress and her kid who lived in the bungalow  on top of the hill before independence. She died. She haunts. She is searching for her lost kid.

“Have you seen her?” the khaki uniform enquired.

“No... But we all know she is there, we have heard her sing!!”

“Does she sing in English? Does she wear a cape, or does she dress in white sari with her hair spread over her face like the ghost they depict on Doordarshan ??!!”

“She dresses in sari “

An English ghost dressed in white sari, searching for her child. Funny.  Not stupid. Kannan’s dad has seen her twice.

“Let’s go up the hill” the guy in khaki stood up with enthusiasm.

“There are snakes  ... big ones”.

“Its 3.00 pm. Snakes will be taking their afternoon nap” one of the kid wearing the kurtha tried to make a joke.  A small argument arises on whether a snake sleeps with its eyes closed or open and  and all of a sudden they decided to climb uphill.The bushes were thick. The trees were a bit too wide. Their roots made the path difficult. They expected a snake to jump out from one of the bushes and bite on their foreheads any time. “If a snake bite on your forehead u will die instantly’)”.

The ground was concealed in a thick layer of scorched leaves. The light was pretty dim. Three minutes and they reached a clearing. An old mansion totally destroyed stood amidst the trees.

They didn’t realize that the only ghost they will ever see is the mansion itself. The khaki wearing guy was scared. The Gandhi capped boy ran to the walls of the mansion and took a piss. A sign that everything is clear or that he is scared to the bottom. The sound of piss on the dry leaves made them feel secured. They felt as if  they conquered something. They looked around. In between the trees they could see the city. A city which had lost its soul. Everybody talks about deforestation but as far as they could see there was nothing but coconut trees.

Kannan found some cigarette butts inside the roofless mansion. He found an old port rum bottle and a cheap dirty magazine with a fat lady’s picture on it.

They sat on one of the verandas of that broken mansion. They felt lost. They felt they discovered a paradise. Now they could play hide n seek. Lot of places to hide. The day passed and the mansion became there home. The forest became a part of their happiness. They didn’t fear the sari wearing ghost. They feared fat muscled man who came to these hills once in awhile and left in the morning. They played hide n seek.

2008 November

There was so much mud. Reddish earth. There was the scent of fresh sod in the air. There were machines with hydraulic arms digging them out. I walked past the machines into the damp earth. My sandals had already befriended the red clay. A bunch of Hindi speaking, golden black haired pan chewing frail guys stared at me. The JCB operator was a Malayali. The other three JCBs lay unattended in one corner of the plot. There was a machine roar in the air. The sky was blazing blue but the hired laborers didn’t care the heat. I stood there and watched the elegance of this heavy machine. A mastermind mechanism. A single handed hulk who could bring down an entire army. I saw a lot of people like me watching the machine dance. My friend who was busy on his phone called me “we’ve got to go!!”

“I thought you were busy on your cell ?”

“I was. We had a fight. She hung up.” he said with a grin. As if he had accomplished something.

“Oh… again?” I didn’t expect an answer but I got one “it’s ok. We will be fine.”

“You look upset. Is it the job thing?” he wanted me to know that my problem of not having a job is greater to his petty fight with his girlfriend. But he cared. Deep down I know he did.

“No...It’s the …never mind. Lets go “

“What? Is it about me asking you not to ride my byke?” He was a little hesitant and a lot confused.

“NO”

“THEN”

“Its about the construction site “

He was totally in dismay “what about it? I never knew that there was such a large plot in this area”

“This is no plot. They cut down a hill. Ouer hill. we used to play there”

“A hill?”

“Yeah. This used to be a hill. The only green hill in this part of the city and the M###er  fu##ers tore it open.”

“Yeah? So what? Why do you even care?”  He stared at his phone expecting a compromise call any moment as he spoke.

“Do I look like I care? Pfffffft….. Let them  kill it and build whatever they please. Its not my property"  . And I got in pinion and he road the bike like a maniac.

 

He dropped me home. I walked into my room silently. noone notices nowadays.

I could think about what they have done to my haunted hill. I could feel sorry about the old bungalaw that was pulled down by the JCBs. I could think about all those tiny creatures, the rats, snakes and feel sorry for their loss. I could think about my childhood days when I used to play hide and seek uphill. I could think about my navy blue cap and the tennis balls that I lost . I could feel sorry for the sari wearing english ghost  whose child was still playing hide and seek. I could call Kannan and renew our friendship. I could take my photo album and see the photos of me playactiing Subash Chandra Bose at school. I could remember the good old days at the hills. I didn’t. I didn’t hate the city for the last heaven it took away from me. I lost that hill long back.   Way back when I replaced my friends with books and  pursuit for grades became more important than the hide and seek game on a green hill with an old mansion and a sari wearing English ghost.

 

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