Vera

                                                                                        

Father pushed my hand and I looked into his eyes. Usually they were playful and vivacious. We were leaving the din of the city. Lights traveled by, blurring every moment. When I looked into his eyes, the world blotted out. We would sometimes venture into the peregrinations to the shore when he would want to make love. We would walk down through the city scum, us alone hand in hand, to our beach of the loners. The path was tortuous.  A stranger could never penetrate into our realm. It is only by practice that one can begin to understand our path. Father always said that only we could take this journey, no one else could submit to it. I followed him, like an obedient child. Today was another one of such journeys; and so we set out for the sea, hand in hand.

Father was a little pensive today. He had a worrisome brow. From time to time he left my hand and put it on his temple. I could not comprehend his presentiment. His dark eyes were tired; maybe that is why he thought of making love today. Sometimes, when overworked, he would come to my room with an air of melancholy. He always said- that my sight was all glitter and he drew strength from this very dust. I engulfed him in my dust and made him stronger and weaker- he was there to take it all.

I touched his shoulder but he kept walking on. At some distance we saw a looming figure. He was a boy, about my age with aquiline nose and eyes as dark as mine. He seemed as if he was standing there for quite some time. He kept making marks on the ground by his shoes; he kept drawing some illegible patterns. His eyes met my father’s and at once they held the knowledge of recognition. Father saw him and left my hand altogether. Suddenly he started towards the direction of the distant boy. I was rooted to my place, all incomprehensible. Who was this boy, I thought. Father went up to him and took him by the shoulder. They sat down on a broken tree bark. I kept my distance. It was hard for me to cope with strangers and estrangement.

They were talking and listening. I could not hear any of them. I did not try hard. I had a looming sense of jealousy. Father was with him by the shoulder and not with me. I started for the shack. I kept walking with sand in my foot. I reached the destination in sometime. The landscape was overwhelming, as always. It was dusk and the sea was deep blue. Our shack was on the cliff which overlooked the sea. In the distance there was civilization; the people of the world. I thought of how I could compel father in my own way. Maybe a candle would be mystique with aroma of roses. I would need some preparing for that.  I took a chair and sat facing the sea.

Sometime later, I heard a someone walking down. It was father with his slow steps. He sat down beside me and took my head on his shoulder.

‘Who was that boy?’, I asked.

‘He was my mistake.’, he answered.

We were silent for a long time. He kept stroking my hair, stroking my wet cheek. I started sobbing and he took my face in his hands. From the back, we heard voices of women. We looked around and saw mother and sister coming towards us. My father disentangled himself, and embraced mother. I saw my sister in all her glory, with her tallness and feminine charms. She was always so beautiful, with long silky hair, bright eyes and charming face. She was so tall, twice as tall as any one of us. She wore white all the time. When she walked, it was as if a stallion was gracefully racing against the wind. She was a celestial nymph.

 She bent down to kiss me on my cheek. Oh, how difficult it was for her!! We all moved to the other part of the shack where she could stand without difficulty. For her, we always had twice as much things. It was difficult to accommodate her sometimes. I put my head on her lap and heard mother singing.

Sometime later, I stood up and walked over to the edge of the cliff. I sat there. The family was singing tunes. I thought that now there would be no love.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my hand. I turned and I saw Vera. He had come again test me.

‘Why have you done this?’ , he asked.

I kept looking at him, hating him with all violence.

‘I have not done this.’

‘It’s ingrained in you. It’s in your being. Every time you come to this brink, I see the futility. Why? Why? Why?.....’

He kept ranting. He kept ranting. He kept ranting.

Suddenly I felt a rush of heat. I opened my eyes to his and shouted-

‘It isn’t me!!! It never is!’

He stopped in between his words, as if my words struck him. He was heaving. His heaving died down. He looked into my eyes as if the knowledge finally penetrated him that it is never me. It never was.

He took my hand and we started off for the Neverland. 

The Excess of Silence

Descartes said- ‘I think therefore I am’. I wonder to how many people he could truly explain this. I wonder how many people have truly understood what he said. ‘Saying’, grown to ‘talking’ is a bit of a problem. Thinking is fine; it has a limited domain. But talking is difficult. Talking requires an effort of construction- and that too an appropriate construction. We’re all builders; we try to build our lives. One block after another, piece by piece- we try to make our places. But building sentences needs deliberation. I can think, I can think in my sub-conscious. But when it comes to engaging basic faculties of another human being, I am at a loss. I lose myself to the idea that I don’t have the capacity. It’s like traversing the unknown grounds with invisible pitfalls. One doesn’t really want to fall in the holes so one resorts to reconnaissance. It’s as if I project myself elsewhere- like radar to know what rocks I might encounter. I am always pulsating to find, to search but with equal derision for myself, my being.  The derision foretells the story of rejection- the rejection of my being from an unchartered context.

Let me tell you the story of the time when all this started. It was a time of great impacts and great distinctions. The theory of ‘single child’ is appropriate; it causes great harm to be alone- for it leads to distorted speech, dehumanized bedrooms and play areas full of imaginary friends. Now the great thing about the imaginary friends is that they know you- so you don’t have to explain anything to them. It is through one’s soul unknown to oneself that a child alone fabricates his universe. The communication is in whispers, in countless lost moments of togetherness. One may talk- and the other may listen. Here, in the bedroom of the single child- one may talk and everybody may listen. Everybody is present by their absence. The child has the sun to talk to in the day and the moon to talk to in the night. Certain wind may carry his words elsewhere- but hardly to any place where they are not misconstrued. The friendly chatter is too much clamour and too much clamour is excess of silence and silence is the infinity. Like Simon and Garfunkel said-

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

So yes, no one dares disturb the sound of silence. Silence and the being exist in singularity. Vaguely do I remember the song of other voices but hardly have I forgotten my own melodies. Vaguely do I recall touching hands all the time but never do I forget my own complicated being. It’s what I call the internalized form- and what they think is a melodrama. It’s what they call confusing and what I call ambiguous.  I don’t think I exist in the binary logic of nature – culture. Neither have I had a stand of a Unitarian rejecting the trinity. I look forward to form a perception; I close my eyes for a moment or so. That is where I encounter the countless moments of solitude.  The reconnaissance is only for the well being of my faculties. Reconnaissance is to know that something beyond me exists. And here fore, I begin my construction of sentences to tell you the relatively true story of silence in excess. 

CIRCLES

Speed -0 km/hr. This is just a beginning. I see the road around me- black moist tar, silver splinters, reflections of the neon and a resident beggar on the pavement. It had been raining since the evening and one could still feel the dreadful flashes of lightening. The air is full of chronic anticipation. I am inside my box, trying to be distant from this apathetic world. I feel I am protected.

Speed- 20km/hr. Here I have really begun. I am in relative motion. I think about the time when I was a little girl in my childhood….or was it that I was a boy?....I can’t seem to remember. I think about the time when I was little and I was sitting in the drawing room, waiting for the father to come home to me. I had a red crayon. My mother sat beside me. I felt pangs of hunger and I looked at my mother for some food. But there was none at home. We had no refrigerator and everything was a rot. The only bout of fresh air was a mile from my place of birth. I close my eyes, the steering in my hand, and recall the crayon.  Somehow I feel in control and I am cruising alone in this apathetic world. I give twenty credits to that childhood of mine.

Speed- 50km/hr. I feel as much air on my face as the dreary weather can allow. The city is in a blur as I am depreciating downward. I see tail- lights in front of me and I want all of them to turn off. When I imagine all of them turned off I want them to remain the same. And then I come to love them…their flitting movements….as if a lullaby of lights. For some moments I feel unwound in this dark world. I am in control of my light. I can choose to cruise and I can choose to shine and choose to fade. The others only fade out and fade in. How would that dance be? I think more and I see my emotional attachments- the sister or the brother, the father and the mother, the ghost of the family, the ghosts of the families to be, the ridiculed spirits of the friends and the  preserved intimacies of distant acquaintances and at last, myself, bigger than any of them. More money, more clothes, more food, more wine, more cigarettes……...more money, more clothes, more food, more wine, more cigarettes……..more money, more food…..

John Mayer sings- maybe I’ll tangle in the power lines….and it might be over in a second’s time….

The buildings have grown bigger over my head. I am hungry. I need more food. I have been circling round in the city. I am tired. I need more food. All those buildings won’t feed me though….those are meant to feed birds in the sky. I am the worm underneath, or so is their belief.

Speed- 0km/hr. I get down in a friendly environment of the derelicts. The place is ablaze with dark matter. But I am familiar with this. I am familiar with the carcasses, the carcasses to be, the hyper-active mites and the forgotten furniture. This is the murkiest picturesque setting. I am leaning on my car, eating and my eyes are on a beggar….no, a person who is begging. Our eyes meet, and I see the dance of the ghosts. It feels I have talked to him. He is my brother and sister. I feel unprotected and perishable. I see my reflection….no money, no clothes, no food, no wine, no cigarettes. I see his angry eyes. He comes to me and I go to him. We meet halfway and he stabs me in the chest. The air and blood gush out.

Speed- unknown. I go out as a light. Me and my beggar are travelling to a distant place. A place where money, clothes, food, wine and cigarettes will be so much that they will stop to matter. I reach there in no time. This is just a beginning.  I see the road around me- black moist tar, silver splinters, reflections of the neon and a resident beggar on the pavement. It had been raining since the evening and one could still feel the dreadful flashes of lightening. The air is full of chronic anticipation. I am inside my box, trying to be distant from this apathetic world. I feel I am protected.

All that a lie is…

A lie- all that it takes to convince me that I am a being. Lying makes me human. Dr.House says everybody lies. It’s a fine process. A lie in physical world is the shady colour manifested in eyes, the surface of the darker face, in the slight trembling of hands and the slight fluttering of eyelids when the occasional pangs of conscience surface. I know this because I’ve been lying all along. Lying is a collective knowledge, occasionally used as wisdom. It is wise to lie when someone’s life is at stake. It is even wise to lie when other needs consolation of acknowledgment. I would like to sample such lying exercises expansive knowledge.

Bertrand Russell writes that each man perceives all words of a language in different ways. Every man is unique and so is his perception. So if one says- ‘we are having sour soup’, I have my own layer of understanding. Sour is good for me. Sour keeps me up on my toes. For me all relations go ‘sour’; seemingly all sweetness disappears. For me the idea of ‘sweet and sour’ is potentially wonderful. What if one speck of aslt is more than collective specks of sugar? Quantitive analysis should be very conclusive. And what about brainwaves? What if my brainwaves go berserk and my brain tells me to understand what is sour as sweet and what is sweet as sour? What if my chemical equation changes? Will I still be kissed with same amount of urgency, with the knowledge that my body’s wants are inconclusive? Evry body lies. A person walking here may be running on some other planet in multiverse so gravity lies. This matrix of cognizance is dichotomous. I have access to everything if I move but to nothing if I’m unable to move. I see colours with eyes open and become colourless with eyes closed. I have maps of my mind but I trust none of them. I lie to myself that I can walk fast when I know I can walk faster. I have questions for more questions- all disregarding lies and grievances, but to get more lies of more colours. It is not disbelief that; it is an assurance of conscience that lying is as good as eating dry cakes with no cherry topping. Please don’t misunderstand this with the true cubs of lion and its pure pride. I am talking about a seemingly overpowering Liger, all a partial lie in genes and a full lie in its roar lying is like that liger- it seems mightier in proportion but has bad mane style. Nevertheless a liger roars as good as a lion or tiger.

A person walking with a hat and an umbrella might be a complete subject of torrential storms inside. As he moves towards the edge, he wants comfort in the shade. He lies that the outer sunshine placates him. I might be him someday, thinking that lying, in academic vernacular, is cheating on me.

A lie has a free form, like liquid; doesn’t behold a shape; rather consumes the space and becomes greater than the definite shape of a being. Lie can traverse distances in this free form. A lie, thus, is never caught; the person lying is caught. Nina Simone keeps asking- ‘ Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to?' and keeps on asking about the destination of running. With a lie, one can relay between the Lord and the Devil. Unless lie really doesn’t get on one’s conscience, it’s an instrument of entertainment for the Devil and the Lord. And in between, no one is immune to the lie.

Can there be ‘music of lies’ wherein every note is a lie. To come to think of it, it is all relative. The notes, they could always be less melodious or more. So is the lesser melody a lie before or after a melody? Is there an ultimate truth in the seemingly ultimate melody through which divinity is bespoken? Or the ultimate truth lies between the warfare of relative lies with relative degrees of atonement? That miscegenated form of life- the liger looms everywhere and yet it is a subject of relative degrees of atonement. Was it not for the truth of the species and our own partial knowledge of the world did we consider liger as a lie? Co-habitation of different species is evolution and nothing in evolution is absolute. A truth can be as much a lie as that liger from the desert and liger from the forest.

At a fountain, all in light and shade, I thus caught a speck, glimmering hot and cold. I put it in my mouth and heard my own gulping of it. It was sweet and sour. All was in black and white. It shall remain in this exclusivity till the time truth and lie become one as the ultimate superhuman reality and the ultimate hopeful fantasy, together in this bipolar world.

Slow

“You’re good….don’t screw it up just because you’re miserable.”

- Dr. House

Complete degeneration can be a bit laudable, because then it would mean complete regeneration. Complete hypocrisy is equally good, because then one is not morally accounted for the lies. What is not good and laudable is something in between.

As a human, I suffer through pain, hate, love, fear, anger, peace, horror and what not. The problem is when I stop suffering through all the above. Mind shuts down, body is slack. I know eating marsh mellows is more convenient because they smell better than the acridity of extreme emotions. Wild thoughts become remotely repugnant, since even thinking about them causes close inconvenience. Adventure is locked up in closet with the thought that it takes up too much of energy. And the only way to fill intervals between two extremely mild activities is morsels of marsh mellow aforementioned. Marsh mellows need not be home cooked since now they are very conveniently available in packets. This is what is called ‘lethargy’.

These are days when in all capacities of being sluggish, habits change. One knows one has to address the issue of ‘globalization’, read economy, get healthy by running a lot, systematize life if it is not; but it hardly matters. Anyway we read that systems fail in time. Say the biological system of human body- it ultimately fails in the form of death of the person. What does not die is the person’s ‘soul’. I think this is what a slug does- he is busy searching his soul. It must take a lot of time. Mind you, it is not an empty mind with a devil’s workshop. It can’t possibly be because then devil can very well do a lot of obnoxious stuff with no extremities. No….it’s more of a soul searching with soft marsh mellows. The entire world can wait but soul searching cannot. It’s as important as getting good recommendation for a job interview and marsh mellows help doing that.

All this soul searching is done anywhere- in the bed, while slowly brushing teeth, while slowly taking bath, while slowly putting on clothes, while slowly chewing on breakfast. It is also done in certitude of ‘lost desires’. It is a process of slowly renouncing these desires. The hungry love is refused, passion is refused any space and the stardom is rejected. Only mild dissatisfaction is shared with others around. In a way, restlessness is dealt with peace. The thought of going out and eating in a place called ‘Hungry Eyes’ is non-existent. The thought of going to an ‘Amusement Park’ is not an option. ‘Hard Rock Café’ is even worse. So is ‘Multiplex’ and ‘Traffic Park’. There are no places with less extreme names and slow gravity. And that’s how a bed becomes the most convenient place for living a life with content. Of course there are these occasional things like one should not avoid- like bathrooms, towels and toothpaste. But once in a while, one can take a peek out of the window not too far away from the bed, have a look at life around and realize that bed is not the only place to have marsh mellows; there are things and places to be shared, people to be dealt with and some meaningful work to be done. One can always do that in slow steps.

Francis...oh Francis...

Dwindling in the snowfall, Francis dealt with the storm. There were only two environments there. Either calm air, or a roaring storm, in either of which survival was difficult since Francis had more power to surrender than to fight. It was all in her tiny head…all those conflicting thoughts…which weighed upon her constantly. And she lived in this continuum. With a constant fear of loneliness. So surrendering was one form of befriending an enemy. Or at least, symbolically, it was an attempt to mix with the surrounding. That was when she had lost all the faculties of sensibilities and sensitivities. Because…it was her fear that had overtaken everything. Her mind, her soul. Fear devoured her. It engulfed her. She loved a man. She tried loving everyone else. She tried to give. She tried to take. She tried to snatch. She tried to snatch so hard, she fell down far behind. She feared losing again. But she did not get up. She sat there…listening to the rising storm…her faculties dispatched to some far off land. She sat until the point she started freezing. She sat awhile more. She sat…staring into space. Where was the cradle she could reach and be rejuvenated? That was her question. A woman with so many legacies of her own mistakes wanted ablutions of purity. But if purity was somewhere, it was on the other side of a grand gorge. If she set one foot forward, she would fall in a dismal darkness. It was so hard to conceive that purity had such a hard price. Francis did start with a pure heart. She did start with promises of faith. She did start with innocence. If one may ask, what is so precious in the beginning of anything? It would be the innocence. Francis had that innocence. And once, in the course of time...that innocence was gone. It was because of a man. And Francis was never the same again. Fear, the inevitable devil, engulfed her. And it multiplied. Fear multiplied into deception, anger, hate, regret. Fear infused mistakes. Fear destroyed morality. Fear destroyed the genuineness. Fear got away with her soul. And fear reigned……..

The Case of the Telephone Line
I stepped down from the Nagpur bound train, glad that I was home again. It’s something about the Nagpur station. It’s always clean. Some good people take good care of the floor. Sometimes it shines, when the pedestrians and travelers are less. But this sight is rarely possible. Because it is always filled with trains and people, arriving and departing. Another thing which makes me feel good is the Bridge construction site, very much visible to even a child on any platform. They are on the verge of completing a carriage. It’s huge, massive and very bulky. Seems quite MODERN. So every time you observe an addition, like more steel bars or more concrete, you feel you the city has grown a bit.
I walked up a ramp and then down a ramp. We went home by our Alto, a typical middle class four- wheeler, very reliable, very comfortable for a family of three. I was quite aware while observing my surroundings as we went by car. I spotted changes in the roadside advertisements and hoardings. Also the process of dilapidation of roads. And I put up a question to my father, “When is the Government going to build the new roads?”
He said, “KAY MAHIT” meaning who knows. My question needn’t be answered. But dad’s answer was a wee bit positive than I thought. I thought he will shout “KADHI NAHI!” So his answer was better than the one I supposed.
Anyway, we came back, and I had tea, prepared by my grandfather. I ate the renowned Hyderabadi Dum biryani, always a courtesy of my dad when he comes from Hyderabad. Then we rushed to the Axis Bank, for cancellation of Demand Draft and for making a new draft as well. My dad is a bit of a funny guy, in a serious sense. He doesn’t like incompetence in people working in banks. When I was a kid, I used to be awed at his knowledge of everything. I used to gaze at him with wonder while he used to admonish people badly. Badly, in the literal sense. Sometimes I saw peoples’ blood pressure soar because dad would pose a question to which they would not know any answer. I was his fan back then. I’m trying to be like him now.
The lady handling us at the Axis bank was Pratima. She was quite simple looking. Didn’t wear any gloss. Didn’t wear nice clothes. In fact, the ones she wore were ghastly, according to me. The next two girls in the row had the same kind of style. At the end, there was a woman. Boy, she looked fabulous. She was a senior. And thus I concluded that maybe it wasn’t allowed to be presentable much if you are not a senior.
The first girl gave us the directions to fill up the form. We did. We went to the third counter, prior to the woman’s counter, meaning the third girl in a row with the ghastly appearance. We wrote the amount in the DD slip. Eight hundred rupees.
“The charge is fifty six rupees sir” said the third girl with the ghastly appearance.
“ What charges?” asks my father.
“Bank service charges for the DD.”
“The lady on the first counter said that for a quarterly it was free.”
“ No, we charge fifty six rupees.”
Mean while I drifted away from dad and the third girl. I thought this conversation was the beginning of the half hour quarrel that my father is going to pursue. I deliberately took some interest in my surroundings and deliberately started adoring the glass partitions. And started liking them.
Meanwhile my dad goes to the assistant bank manager. Very chubby, but extremely attractive.
“Mam, your staff is inconsistent. Kindly tell me the reason for this. One person tells me there are no service charges for a DD in the quarterly and the other charges me fifty six rupees. What is this?”
I saw the woman was very calm. A woman of experience, she was. I started admiring her. She immediately took charge and walked to the girl on the first counter. She was absent. She called her,
“ Pratimaaaaaa”
Dear Pratima came with the same calmness. Her face was expressionless. At that moment I thought then even she must be a woman of experience. She sat at her desk.
“ This Sir is saying that you told him the DD charges are absent in the quarterly.”
“ Yes mam! But I also old him to correspond with Tara (the woman at the third counter)”.
“OK. But the DD charges are absent for the quarterly of the priority customers”, she explains my father. Meaning, you have to have at least one lakh rupees for every three months in your account. So that’s how you become a priority customer.
“Yes but then explain me why your people keep suggesting wrong things to wrong people” said my father.
Well at that moment, even the assistant branch manager became speechless. We just hurried out of the bank.
I was still unwashed. I had only brushed my teeth and washed my face. I badly wanted to have a bath. We were going to get the DD in fifteen- twenty minutes.
“We go to the telephone office now”, said my dad.
I was slightly agitated by this next move of his. But I love my dad.
“Ok”, I said, “I’ll bathe for one hour at least when I get back home.”
He chuckled on this. I sat behind on our dear Dio, which actually belongs to my mom. And in two minutes we were in the telephone office. Looking at the building I thought it was a big institution. But it later turned out it was filled with small people with big lazy bones.
We went into the elevator. I’m always scared of elevators. Because I think the traction cable will snap and I will fall in the dark hole of hell and not die. That’s because I’m grossly overweight. One of my friends says that I am “grossly overweight but extremely cute”. So I think the God will punish me for my sins by letting the elevator fall and blame it on my weight. But he won’t let me die at all because I’m extremely cute.
Anyway, we entered the elevator. It was the automatic, two-leaf kind. Means when you hit a button, the door shutters slide from both sides and shut in between. And the same thing happened when we hit 5. The leaves closed, but we didn’t move up. I panicked. I shouted,
“We’re stuck! We’re not moving up!”
There was some low grade official of the building traveling with us. He understood the problem completely. He kicked as hard he could on the door. And by the grace of some good force, we moved up.
Third floor. The leaves opened with a screeching noise. Kkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
They slid back with the screeching noise. Kkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
Fourth floor. The leaves opened with a screeching noise. Kkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
The slid back with the screeching noise. Kkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
By god! I thought. My eyes were always fixed on the sliding doors. I was waiting for them to fail so that I could shout my heart out,
“We’re stuck! We’re not moving up!”
Or maybe better,
“HELP! HELP!”
But we safely reached the fifth floor.
It was a different realm. Not quite what I had expected when I thought of an institution. The paint was very old. It was green, with patches here and there. And all the wiring was exposed. You could see all the chaos tangling everywhere. And the building was replete with old people. We went in search of a man called Mr. Verma. He was the man who dealt with my father some six months back when he had lodged the same complaint. Last month, some two guys came from this office, checked the phone line, said that they couldn’t do anything about it and Okayed the complaint. The complaint disappeared from the records. So my father was with a lot of energy to confront all the bureaucratic non-sense and bring back some sense in our phone’s life.
There was a lady, one Mrs. Chitnavis, apparently serving as the secretary of Mr. Verma. We asked her,
“Is Mr. Verma inside?”
“No. he is yet to come.”
“When will he come?”
“I don’t know. Hello? (she gets a call on her desk)”
“Madam it’s eleven thirty now…..”
“Hello…I don’t know”
“When can I come back?”
“Hello ( still on the phone, completely ignoring us). Yes, do it please. We have been waiting for this….yes ( to us)…meet the person sitting there…what’s his name…I forgot his name…I think for the time being he can help you.”
We moved on to the next person who was sitting only ten feet away from Mrs. Chitnavis.
My dad began again,
“Hello sir. My name is Avinash Chitins.”
“Yes...”
“I have come here to complain about my telephone. It is not in working order since last eleven months….I talked to Verma sir about it. But nothing has happened.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Chitins.”
“In which area do you stay?”
“Ramnagar.”
“Ramnagar?”
“Yes. Last year, there had been some theft of phone cable from Ravinagar to Bharatnagar. Our phone was dead for three months. After that your people came, and still our phone did not work. I don’t know what they did or what they installed. But our phone doesn’t work.”
“Bharatnagar?”
I began to think he can only recite area names.
“There was no theft in Bharatnagar. You must’ve misunderstood.”
“It was in the papers as well.”
“Ohhh…hmmm…so you say your phone isn’t working?”
“Yes. I talked to Verma sir some six month back. I had even given a letter in written. He said the problem will be solved in a few days. But nothing happened. He only said those things. I don’t know where his people went and what they did; they certainly did not come to my place to fix the phone up.”
“ Ohhhkkk Ohhkkk…under what exchange does your area come in?”
“Sitabuldi.”
“Oh…have you lodged a complaint in your sector office?”
“Last time I went there to lodge a written complaint, the people in Shankarnagar said that they don’t take written complaints anymore. I will have to do it on the phone. On the number 198. I did that about three times. Nothing happened. I even visited their office. But those people don’t come before 11..11.30. What am I supposed to do?”
“Hmmm…Shankarnagar? ( there he goes again)…see sitting here I cannot tell you anything about that office. I can only suggest you to give me a written application now. I will see to it that it is forwarded to the right authorities.”
“Another written application? Sir what happens here, please explain me. Who will look after my written application? Nobody does anything. People come and go. They wash out the records of complaints claiming they have fixed it. That means somewhere in your data there is a false report saying that my problem has been solved. Whereas I come here every time after certain interval to give the same complaints, that too in writing. Just tell me that you can’t make it work. I will surrender the connection.”
“See, I’m not saying what you are saying is wrong….but…ta….let’s not talk about other things…I’m giving you the best possible solution now…a written application...”
“I have one more thing to tell. We have a broadband connection. It’s not working since when the phone is not working. And your people are charging me three hundred rupees per month. Why so? You can check out my internet usage. It will come out to be zero.”
“Yes…..but tell me …what is the matter with your phone? Is there a disturbance…a humming?”
“Yes. It hums, like you said. That’s all it does.”
“What is your number?”
“It’s 2576399.”
“Ok…mm…”, he searched for some number in an ancient diary. It was all scribbled with numbers with the corners of each page filleted due to gross over- handling. He punched a number into the landline in front of him.
“Hello!...hello!...yes…yes. This is Kareem speaking…yes ….yes…yes…I have a number here…it’s of Ramnagar…the work of Ramnagar has been completed….is it not so? Yes…yes…yes…ok…ok…ok…yes check out the number please…yes…it is 2576399 …92, Ramnagar Nagpur…yes…yes…yes…ok…ok…ok……”
All this while I and my father were staring at him with utter dismay so as to accentuate the effect to prick his conscience.
“Would you like a normal tea or a lemon tea?”, he asked.
“Lemon tea would do.”
“Are listen (to the baai)…bring three lemon teas please…”
“Not much is left. I’ll bring as much I can.”, said baai. So much for the excellent customer service.
“Ok…bring as much as you can.”
We revert back to our hot topic.
“Sir , what about my internet bill?”
“Look…this is the exchange department. We don’t handle the broadband department. But I can forward your application to the respective officer. I can check your usage and the amount of rebate.”
By that time some other office worker came. Seemed a little younger than Mr. Kareem.
“I can check it right now”, he said.
We had our tea. It was quite well made. The taste of it made me want to look at its black color in the cup. So for a long time I stared into the cup. And frankly, I was getting tired of this old man. I think that’s why I loved the black tea so much.
“Sir what happens here, please explain me. Who will look after my written application? Nobody does anything. People come and go. They wash out the records of complaints claiming they have fixed it. That means somewhere in your data there is a false report saying that my problem has been solved. Whereas I come here every time after certain interval to give the same complaints, that too in writing. Just tell me that you can’t make it work. I will surrender the connection”, my father began again. The same sentence. I looked up at him admiringly. He certainly had patience for these things. I remembered I waned to be like him.
“You can take some other internet service. Like…what is that called ( he couldn’t remember the name of the service his own company provides which made me silently curse him)….(to some person standing fifteen feet away)…aree what is the name of that service?”
“ WLCA”, came the reply.
“Yes. WLCA.”
Now it was my turn to have my say.
“Is it better than the broadband?”
“Maybe it is.”
“How much speed does it have?”
“Maybe higher than broadband.”
“How much? Give me some number. 10 kbps. 100mbps. What?”
“Maybe 120mbps.”
I swear if I had a leather hunter, I would have thoroughly used it on him for his usage of “maybe”.
The younger person came in and confirmed that our usage of internet was almost zero since last December.
“They have used for only 10 mb. Which is nothing because we give 1 gb free. The downloads I mean.”
“That means we should get about three thousand rupees back.”
Wow, it seemed we were going to get a wee bit rich.
Another man came in. He was as old as Mr. Kareem. He had a worried face. A slight stoop. And he was the shortest person in the room then.
“Sir”, he begins, “I can give them a demo of the WLCA right now.”Finally someone was interested in doing something.
“Ok…show them…you can go with him”, said Mr. Kareem.
“What about the telephone sir?”
“Huh?...oh yes…I just talked to him personally…he will check it out and fix it…”
“And what about the broadband application?”
“Huh?...oh yes…write an application. I will forward it.”
“Where to?” I asked.
“Mmmmm…to the broadband department. Do one thing. Why don’t you go there yourself and meet Mrs.Deodhar there.”
Aha! Another name. I was waiting for it anxiously.
“Ok”, said my father.
“Thank you for giving your time Kareem saab.”
“Yes…yes…yes…”
We left with the fellow with a slight stoop. And of course, we took the much dreaded elevator. We stopped by the canteen. I stayed out, because all people inside were busy speaking in loud sonorous voices. Dad went inside with the man. After ten minutes they came out.
“This new plan is useless!!” cried dad. “We have to pay seven hundred rupees rental.”
The scheme we installed only had three hundred rupees rental. So much for the WLCA.

We met Mr. Verma who was busy chatting with some people with a smile of a politician’s. Dad went up to him,
“Hello Mr. Verma!”
Mr. Verma did not recognize my father for a couple of seconds. And when he did, he again flashed his smile of a politician’s.
“Sir what happens here, please explain me. Who will look after my written application? Nobody does anything. People come and go. They wash out the records of complaints claiming they have fixed it. That means somewhere in your data there is a false report saying that my problem has been solved. Whereas I come here every time after certain interval to give the same complaints, that too in writing. Just tell me that you can’t make it work. I will surrender the connection.”
Now I started regarding my father as superman.
Mr. Verma, still smiling consoled my Dad saying he will send a man again as soon as possible. Pretending to be consoled, my father continued his stride toward Mrs. Deodhar energetically. We went to her building which was at the back side. We saw many people engaged in the favorite activities of smoking and sipping on masala chai.
We hurried up skipping the elevator. We entered a corridor on the second floor inhabited by a series of shelves containing wires and circuits stacked together in huge amounts. I had a feeling I had entered the Nagpur version of The Matrix. We saw a woman cleaning floor and asked her for the directions to reach Mrs. Deodhar. We went through the twilight of the corridor and came upon her nameplate. We entered her cabin and saw a man asleep with his head thrown back on the chair. He must be trying to imitate some Siberian worker, I thought. We did not awake him. I thought it would be a sin to wake a man dreaming about…God knows what.
We knocked on the door and dad peeped in. in a moment we were inside telling Mrs. Deodhar the same thing again.
“Our internet is out of order since last December and we are still paying for it every month.”
“Have you put up a complaint?”
“Yes, on the number 198.”
“Has your phone been checked?”
“Yes. It was checked, decided to be ok. My complaint was removed then by your people.”
This Mrs.Deodhar had short hair. A good built. She must have a child or two.
“Is it? Your number please.”
She wrote our telephone number and dialed a number on her cell phone.
“Yes. Mr.Sagdeo, Deo speaking. Yes..Yes..I have a number here…one of Ramnagar. They said they put up a complaint in Shankarnagar and somebody discarded the docket after apparently a false inspection. Yes…yes…please look into this. The people there are doing this at a good frequency lately. Yes…I suggest you look into the matter. Yes. The number is 2576399.Yes. Thank you.”
I thought at last our problems will be solved.
“Have you given an application in writing?”
“Not at Shankarnagar, I haven’t. They told me they have stopped taking written complaints.”
“What?”
“Yes, they don’t take written complaints.”
“I see. I suggest you do it in written.”“I had given a written application to Mr. Verma. But it seems he is unable to do anything about it.”
“Ok. Then I suggest you go back to the Shankarnagar office again and give them a written complaint.”
“Mam the people we talked to sent us here.”
“But I can’t take the complaint. You have to do it in your respective area office.”
Then I saw she was incapable of saving us.
“What do I do then? Whom should I go and meet?”
“I suggest you go and meet the Principal General Manager Mr.Batra.”
“I can put up the complaint in his office?”
“Yes you can do that.”
With a heavy sigh, we left her cabin. Dad started shouting in the corridor,
“Hopeless people these are! No customer service! They only know how to persecute someone!”
A couple of men passing by became suddenly became worried witnessing my dad’s outburst. Dad was like a sparkling warrior in the darkness of that corridor, full of exuberant energy.

We were in Mr.Batra’s office in another two minutes. In Mr.Verma’s office I saw a poster which said- “ never never never never never never give up!”. My father had scanned it with great interest. Here in the staircase I saw another poster- “only way to be the best is to provide the best quality service.”
I scanned it with great interest.
We found the PGM’s was on the first floor itself. A man of importance, I thought. The guard took our signatures in a large green register along with our phone numbers. Another welcoming act indicating the importance of man sitting upstairs. I wondered how Mr. Kareem or Mrs. Deodhar would feel when people would have to sign in and then make an appointment to meet.
We went upstairs and there it was, written in all bold and flashy fonts with big size- PRINCIPAL GENERAL MANAGER. We entered the anteroom and saw two middle aged women sitting at a large table wearing same red colored saree…possibly same fabric….with same red color of lipstick…with same autocratic expression…only one had spectacles and the other probably pretended to have a good vision. Because as we entered, the one not with spectacles failed to acknowledge our presence and the other was on the phone, apparently telecommunicating. After a period of a couple of minutes, the one with spectacles asked us the purpose of our visit.
“It’s regarding our telephone line.”
We sat in the waiting room for some time. And then we were summoned.
The moment I entered PGM’s office, I could see empty space followed by ribbon windows. I was accustomed to so much darkness and artificial illumination, that at seeing so much light, I again realized that there exists a sun, our now alternate source of energy.
I turned left, and there, at the end of the hall, I saw a long table, good enough to accommodate a family of ten at dinner time, with a man sitting in the middle. I saw that even he had aged with time. Only that he was quite rich in fats, fatty acids, glycerides, tryglycerides and sugar. He was a slug of a man. No elation came in my heart at this site. I could guess, he is definitely incapable of helping us. Our hopes had banished.
But anyway, we went with the same sentences. He went with the same sentences. There was definitely nothing different that we did. There was no plausible development of confidence or action as we moved in the upper echelons with our sorrows. In fact, the more we moved up, the more comic it became. A comedy teaching us the true pattern of gross mis-governance, mis- management, incompatible system, very much successful in giving the laymen customers as much inconvenience as possible. I could fail to think that the people working in this institution were fellow humans. If they possibly were fellow humans, then they should have understood the fellowship. They should have helped us. After all, we remember our tribe when we have to fight greater threats like floods, famines, earthquakes and global warming. But correcting a telephone line is not that great a concern. Because it’s not any atrocity, not an extremity, not fatality, not any ending. It’s just a daily inconvenience. I realized most of us like to be stationed where we can escape evolution, development or anything that requires motion and action.
And we handled all our disappointments in the best possible way- by laughing at the system we live in, sipping delicious tea and eating cookies at dusk. Bur I bet, the amount of distance we traveled from one person to another is never traveled by any human who works there even while changing all the telephone lines of a sector. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but only in the physical activity. Not in morality.
The carriage of the bridge grows everyday. Houses are built everyday. People make homes everyday. New streets are formed everyday. The city grows everyday. Disappointments await us everyday. We lose confidence everyday. We dread our decadence everyday. Hopes await us everyday. Nevertheless, we breathe everyday. We wait for a good telephone service everyday.