Hemant R. Joshi's Blog, page 13

Chai time

“Chintu, wake up, Prachi didi is here,” Chintu’s mom screamed. Her voice penetrated Chintu’s ears even though big headphones covered them entirely. Chintu woke up instantly, excited to see Prachi, his cousin sister who was always willing to chat about his school and play computer games with him.

He dropped the Chemistry book sitting in his lap and hopped to the bedroom door at once. “Didi, kaisi ho?” He smiled as he saw her.

Prachi had come with a box of sweets. She was getting married to a local businessman who she had known for several years now. She showed his photo to Chintu’s mother, whose eyes widened looking at the handsome face.

Chintu was sitting but was not able to join the discussion revolving around the wedding preparation. “Chintu, go make tea?” Chintu’s mother ordered.

As he prepared tea, the women started discussing all the different aspects of a wedding. The venue, the food, who was going to be invited, what Prachi should wear, what was trending these days with weddings, getting a wedding planner. Things Chintu didn’t care about. All he cared about was getting to play computer games with Prachi.

He made tea the exact way his mother had taught him. Adding in some chopped ginger to the tea leaves, he let it simmer for a while before letting it boil. The tea took a long time to boil, but when Chintu brought it to the living room, the aroma from the three cups stimulated a vacuum in the core of Prachi’s belly.

“Arre waah!” Prachi commented, “The tea is really good. You could earn a lot of money making tea,” she chuckled.

Chintu’s mother smiled.

“Want to play video games?” Chintu asked, looking at his mother as if asking for permission. She showed hints of resistance on her face but smiled eventually.

“Sorry, Chintu, I need to go to a few more places.” Prachi was on an announcement mode currently, going across the colony to hand over the boxes of sweets lying in the large white bag sitting beside her. Chintu was a little saddened but could see what was coming in the future.

Until now, she used to visit their house almost every week to play video games with him. In fact, she had also got Chintu into online gaming leagues. Once she would be married, he would not be able to see her as frequently anymore.

“When are you buying an Xbox?” He had been asking the question for three years now, to the same response- “Soon, Chintu. Arun loves Xbox!” Prachi’s fiancé was a game fanatic too.

Chintu was more excited for the Xbox than her marriage.

Once she had left, Chintu started going back to his room. His face muscles had again relaxed and the narrow smile had subsided. “That tea was really good, Chintu.” His mother commented as he was walking back.

Which made him think. If it was that good, there was a potential to sell it. While Prachi had just joked about it, Chintu’s mind was already picturing himself as a tea vendor. If he did it properly, he could earn a lot of money. Rather than bug his parents for an Xbox endlessly, he could actually buy his own. That would be his dream.

“Yes, I am doing this.”

The exam three days after was the least interesting to him. He knew he had studied enough to pass the exam. Being only a unit test, there was no reason to worry. Class eighth anyways did not matter, neither to him, neither to the world. Somehow, getting an A on the report card mattered only to his parents.

He was sitting on a study table writing down estimations about how much money he needed. He checked the table drawer to check the money people had gifted him during festivals.

“Three thousand,” he announced.

He needed tea leaves, water, milk and ginger to make tea; plastic cups to serve and a stove to boil it. His mother had recently purchased an induction cooktop, which was portable enough to carry around. She was hardly using it. Chintu had put it in one of the kitchen cabinets where his mother’s eyes and hands did not reach.

The plan was simple. He would lay a tea stall right outside the colony wall. The colony was on an exit road from the city, which had thousands of vehicles rumbling over it every hour. While he didn’t have money to provide a seating space for people, he was positive that once the money started flowing in, he could make that happen as well.

But there was a problem.

His parents would not allow this venture.

The solution was to run the shop at night from 11:30 when his parents were asleep to 4:30 am in the morning. His room had a window that opened beside the road, so getting out of the house was easy. The colony was not guarded by anyone, so Chintu was assured that he could run this operation in peace.

“I will earn enough for the Xbox and quit.” He promised.

It was a bright night with twinkling stars when he stepped out for his first business night. It took him around three hours just to find a good place to install his induction cooker. He knew of a plug point on the colony’s wall that was used to illuminate the lights on the wall. The plug-in point, however, was inside the colony. Chintu took an hour to figure out he would need an extension cord to power the stove. His computer’s spike guard would do.

He was quick in hopping back into his room and bring the spike guard out.

He finally boiled three cups of tea. To make sure he had done well, he had a sip from a plastic cup. The one sip helped him to stay a bit longer, so he had another one. It was only after he had two cups did he realize that he was only left with little tea for anyone.

“What if customers come now?” He threw in some tea leaves and water hurriedly in the vessel sitting atop the induction cooktop.

He realized he couldn’t stay awake anymore after 2:30 am, so he threw away the boiling tea and started to wrap up. His small bed felt like the most comforting place in the entire world.

His mom woke him up at 6:45 in the morning to get ready for school. Of course, he slept in one of the classes and heard a good one from the teacher.

When he returned, he saw his mother and father both getting ready to leave. “Chacha had an accident and fractured his leg. We are going to go see him.” She hurried to wear her chappals. “There’s roti and sabzi on the dining table, eat it and study. Don’t spend time watching TV.”

“Okay mom,” Chintu nodded with his eyes red and his head spinning. Right at the moment, his parents stepped out, his eyes charged up, realizing he could operate the Chai stall right now without waiting for the night. “What if someone complains to mom?”

The second thought was scary, but the inclination to earn money was very high.

“But if she doesn’t find out, I will earn a lot more than earning at night.”

Within half an hour, he had connected the induction cooktop and had a litre of water already starting to heat up. Today, he had a cardboard stating the name of his company – ‘Kai Chai Services.’ Coming from watching endless Japanese cartoons, Kai was a word for victory.

An hour had passed when he had his first customer. The first customer that he ever served tea to. The serving cup was small but the taste was so good that the person had another one. Chintu knew very well the art of chopping ginger very finely and adding it while letting the tea simmer without milk.

The stranger left after paying him Rs. 16 for the 2 cups. He had his first taste of earning money.

The number of customers started increasing, with the aroma of brimming tea spreading with the wind. Chintu had realized that he would have to buy a lot of materials to get a formal tea stall in place. But his current focus was only to buy an Xbox.

Customers actually loved the tea he made.

He estimated that at the current rate, he would run out of milk and water in another hour. Full sales for the day! It was clear that if he had to run a business, he would also have to sell tea during the day. Also, sacrificing sleep was not something he would like to do.

“I will tell mom about this tonight. I can convince her for permission. 3-4 hours every evening after school.” He thought. He had almost made his decision for life. He was going to run a tea shop in life.

After a few more people had added notes to his shirt pocket, he saw a familiar face emerging from his left. The red pimple on her right cheek was noticeable when Prachi visited him last evening. Chintu was excited to tell her what her good compliment had led to in his life. She was walking with a stranger, who Chintu guessed was her fiancé.

“Time to get my best tea ready,” he said.

As she reached the stall, Prachi was stunned. Her fiancé was talking to her about buying a new house. He ignored Chintu’s stall completely, while she ignored his dialogue while staring at the stall. Chintu called her to the stall.

She only waved back and kept walking.

Chintu’s heart burned in rage, but with more customers coming to the stall, he had to focus on work. He served another customer, looking at the to-be-married couple walking away.

“I am never going to let her play my Xbox once I buy it.” He announced to himself.

But why would she ignore him? Was it because her husband would not like Chintu? Were they discussing something really important? Was Chintu’s tea not that good after all? Questions emerged from all directions as Prachi disappeared to his right.

“Oh, it was because she doesn’t want to be friends with a Chaiwalla! How did I not realize that?” Chintu thought. He was feeling terrible. He disconnected the induction cooktop and threw the leftover tea in the vessel in the dirt nearby before bringing tearing apart the cardboard. He went home, washed the vessel, kept the induction cooktop back in the kitchen cabinet and went to bed.

“Even if I make good tea, I am not allowed to make it?” He wondered. “Treat everyone as equals, right?” He remembered reading in the Civics book a year ago. “What’s the point of going to school to learn these things, then?”

Not being able to serve tea to Prachi, however, bugged him. What was the point of getting an Xbox if she was not going to play with him? What was the point of selling tea if he was not buying an Xbox? What was the point of earning money if he didn’t need it?

Life had no real purpose if he had no one to play video games with. He decided to quit.

At the same time, a tear dropped from his right eye while he felt culpable for not told his mother about his adventure. When his parents returned later in the night, he explained to them all that happened while shedding tears. As opposed to scolding and thrashing him for the misadventures, his father ordered him to go make tea for them.

“If not for others, make tea for your own people,” he told him. The boy was disheartened but took his time to make a good mixture.

Without saying a word, it was clear that he would have to stop the venture and focus on school. Class 10th was coming up.

“But what is the point of equality if we are not equal ourselves?”

“Things are not as simple as they are stated in books, son.” Chintu’s father replied.

“Then why teach them that way?” Chintu asked.

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The day of failure

“Driver, Bandra?” Prakash asked. The cab driver sitting in front of him was busy smoking his beedi while standing beside his taxi. The sound of the mechanic hitting the chassis with a hammer was irritating Prakash’s ears.

“Driver?” Prakash uttered after getting no response from the driver.

“The car is not working, sir. Can you not see?” The driver’s response was blunt and obvious.

Prakash didn’t want to give up.

“I am willing to pay you as much as you can. Just take me to Bandra right now.”

Prakash helplessly started walking away from the garage to the bus stop. It was the start of the rush hour, but the bus he took started from here, so he was usually able to find a place to sit. The unnecessary honking of the cars and bikes on the main road didn’t bother him as he took a vacant spot on the bus stop seats.

“Failure is the precursor to success!” He thought. A TED talk that he had seen last month had proclaimed this statement boldly. Laden with examples, the talk had shown Prakash why most of the successful people were failures at some point in their life.

But that only made Shekhar sad. Looking back at his life, he had no experience with failing. How could he? In school, he was one of the top 5 in the class usually. He had failed at a few entrance tests, but failing an exam was not one of the failures mentioned by any of the inspirational talks. They explained a failure to be a big regret that troubles you so much so that in order to fix it, you do something extremely well. Prakash had none.

He had tried to aggrandize some of his minor failures in school. When he was in ninth standard, he had failed at making a girlfriend because she didn’t like him. When in the eleventh standard, he had failed to get his school a medal in Football as he failed to make a penalty. But the magnification of such small failures was not going to deeply trouble him. He knew very well that he had never failed like the people he had heard giving inspirational talks.

The thought of not failing was like an irritating pimple. Every time he scratched the thought, it grew bigger and uglier. By now, it had persisted in his mind so strongly that all he could think was about failing.

For the past six days, everything he did had a malicious intent. He intentionally ran late into meetings at work, freely made logical errors while writing code, erratically kicked off a few scripts that should not have, and also managed to sleep at work for a couple of times. Not just at work, at home as well. He started cooking without looking at recipes but had discovered that he was actually good at cooking. None of the experiments in the kitchen tasted bad. Last weekend he had also made sure to get drunk to be able to do stupid things in the hope of failing.

Only his friends could tell how silent he went when he was drunk. There was not a single word that came out of his mouth.

The only relationship he had in life had recently ended, but Prakash considered that to be his biggest achievement rather than a failure.

At work, his boss pitied him, thinking that everyone had bad days in life. Though Prakash’s mistakes were often, she ignored them and didn’t term them as failures but areas of improvement.

Two nights ago, Prakash had realized that to fail, he had to try something new. He started his own Youtube channel that had a video with a collage of photos that he had collected since childhood. The video had been liked by 250 people, which was not terrible. If he kept posting new content, Prakash knew he would succeed.

Frustrated with this feeling, Prakash had woken up this morning determined to fail at one thing at least in a big way. His day ahead was thus going to be packed with surprising events.

He had already left ten minutes late from his house, making sure he would miss the first meeting in the morning. This important meeting was regarding his future projects at the company. By missing the meeting, all the good work would be picked by others on his team, so he was assured of failure. To convince himself of the mistake, he intentionally came in front of the taxi undergoing repair.

If the taxi broke down on way, he would not be able to make the meeting with a good reason.

The bus that he sat in today was one of the new buses. BEST had recently procured new low-floor buses which had a pleasant, airy ride experience. The driver behaved as if his struggle lasting tens of years had come to an end as he calmly pushed the pedals. He couldn’t afford to have even a scratch to the new machine. As a result, the bus was going slower than usual.

“Do you mind if I postpone our meeting until afternoon? I woke up a little late this morning.” Prakash’s boss messaged while he was sitting on the bus while looking forward to failing. All the other team members responded with a ‘No Problem’ to the question, so Prakash had no choice. His forehead now had wrinkles.

He started thinking of an alternative way of failing. The bus took him to work in another hour. While he wondered if he should get down from the comfortable bus and think of failing by not going to the office, he knew this was not a foolproof option. Failing took more than avoiding working. He stepped off the bus and headed to work.

“Should I go to the kitchen?” He thought. The kitchen was busy in the morning getting lunch ready for the hundred plus employees of the company. If he was able to talk his way in to go into the mega kitchen and make a big mistake, such as dropping a big pan of vegetables, he would end up making a mistake for which he would have to pay a price. No one at the company would be able to eat.

But he was not allowed entry into the kitchen at all. The chief cook mentioned he could go in the afternoon when the kitchen was a little more relaxed.

“Up the game, boy!” Prakash thought and thought for a few minutes while wandering in the cafeteria. Petty mistakes were not going to count towards a big failure.

“What if I go eat some wild stuff today to get sick today? What if I abuse my manager so much that he fires me from work? What if I put all my money today in falling stocks? What if I kill someone? Will I be a failure then?”

All these thoughts, he realized soon, were leading him to petty mistakes. In normal scenarios, these mistakes would lead to failures. But most of these would create a bad image in the eyes of everyone, which he didn’t want. All the TED talks he had listened to were of the people who had failed in life but had not necessarily earned a bad name for their failures.

The thoughts revolved around his mind as he went to his desk. Writing code for new features that were due to release three weeks later, he finally had a powerful idea. What if he leaked the new phone his company was launching? Prakash was developing the company’s website and had the webpage ready for the phone launch. The webpage was going live two weeks later.

“Wait a minute, will that be a failure of mine or just a mistake?” He asked himself. “It will be a failure. I would fail at keeping a secret. The boss would definitely hand me a pink slip. There is no chance I am surviving this one. Finally, I am going to fail. I hope this one leads me to a lot of success in the future.” He would get a bad name at the company, but no one outside of the company would know or care.

He decided to push the buttons. The webpage went live in less than a minute as Prakash sat in his squeaking chair. He had finally made a big mistake.

Nothing moved, however. For the next fifteen minutes, while Prakash thought he would be called in for interrogation by someone above his ranks, there was no one.

The office functioned as usual. People sitting beside him still had their earphones plugged in. His boss was sitting opposite his cubicle, minding her own work. The water purifier machine on his left was frequented by people from time to time, but none of them turned towards him. The air around him didn’t feel any different. There was no heat of resentment or hatred for him anywhere.

“What the hell? Has no one noticed?” He googled the phone to see if it had been creating a buzz in the media. There were three articles already written about how fabulous this phone was and the articles had been generating a huge amount of traffic.

“It is just a matter of time before I am kicked out of this place.” Premature releases were bad because competitors got hold of the phone’s pricing and features. The phone was this company’s best work yet, labeled as a budget phone that everyone would desire to have. The company had invested almost Rs 10 Crore in the research. The production was due to start next week, giving enough stock before the phone could be made available in the market.

Prakash sat in his seat while no activity happened. He went down to lunch with his colleagues, talking about the IPL match last night where Kolkata had beat Rajasthan in a nail-biting finish. Prakash was worried the whole time but made no mention of what he had done.

He checked his phone during lunch to see all the hype this new phone was generating. Several Youtube videos had come up, phone reviews were starting to populate Google’s search results and the overall sentiment about the phone was quite high.

It was finally when the Customer Service Department was bombarded with phone calls that people noticed that the phone had been leaked. No one pointed a finger at Prakash, though. The market was excited about this phone, which was considered good by the customer service department.

A sentiment analysis that the marketing team ran indicated that the phone had an overall positive rating from the public and the traffic generated towards the phone’s website had grown three times, which indicated people were excited to buy the phone.

Prakash finished lunch and reached his desk when a message popped on his screen. “Can you meet me on the third floor? My office?” It was the company’s CEO who was calling Prakash in.

“Yes, of course,” Prakash replied. It was his moment of failure. Once he was out of this job, his struggle for success would start. He would be able to deliver his own TED talk sometime. Not that that was his intention.

“So, Mr. Prakash,” the CEO noted. “I see that you have raised the company’s valuation by at least a hundred million dollars. Based on the trend that we are seeing in the market, the phone is poised to do really well, without minimal marketing.”

Prakash was confused.

“I want to congratulate you for making this happen. My secretary told me you were the one who made such a strong push for the phone in the market.”

Prakash was dumbfounded at this point.

“I want to congratulate you. Also, looking at the existing demand for the phone, we are starting production today itself and should start delivering them in a couple of days. Would you like to oversee the supply operations? I want to make sure the demand is satisfied.”

“What?”

“You’ll be directly reporting to me. We were missing a Supply Chain Director for a long time anyways. Work the logistics out with my secretary.”

“But, sir…”

“Don’t worry. I am sure we pay well.” The CEO had to rush to a meeting. Grabbing her laptop, she started pacing outside the door. “Once again, congrats. We are excited to have you here.”

Prakash was disappointed. Instead of being kicked out, he was promoted to get a huge responsibility at the company. The fear of their competitors grabbing hold of the leaked phone and coming out with similar products was wiped out if the phone release was preponed.

The CEO played a brilliant game. By putting the responsibility on Prakash, he ensured that the mistake would be paid for by his work.

“Maybe I fail at failing,” Prakash uttered and chuckled his sadness away, to enjoy the promotion and the pay raise.

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The dream flight

“Chacha?” a skinny person with a loose blue shirt uttered. “Hurry up, departure in ten minutes.” Adjusting his glasses once more, Chacha narrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the giant front wheel. The headphones on his ears managed to block the noise from his ears, but the vibrations were not entirely subdued. Assured that everything looked good, Bhaskar Chacha hopped to the open jeep waiting for him.  

“What took you so long?” The young one who had joined two weeks ago was scared. Maintenance people were not supposed to be under the planes right before departure.  

“I thought there was some debris stuck in the tyre. My old eyes can still spot debris in tyres. Thankfully, there was nothing in there.” 

“Okay.” The newbie was on the ground for the first time after his two weeks of training. The open jeep proceeded at a steady pace while overlooking the runways on one side and the gates on the other. The jeep driver was sharp in braking right in front of another big jet as Bhaskar Chacha started to climb down once again. Aircraft inspection was a series of items on a long checklist, but in Bhaskar’s experience, he had seen that divergence from the checklist was not abnormal. Carrying the checklist in his left hand, he proceeded to the plane.  

The planned work continued for another hour before Bhaskar and the newbie had their dinner break. It was 11:00 pm at night, peak traffic time for the Indira Gandhi International airport. They headed towards the cargo terminal and from there exited the airport to go to their daily overnight food stall, serving food and chai to the thousands of maintenance staff workers at the airport.  

There were at least fifty people sitting on the plastic seats in front of the stall as a young chap raced between the tables holding a water jug in one hand and five glasses held in each of his fingers in the other. A drop of sweat swept down his cheek, but there was no visible fatigue on his face. He returned with two thalis and placed them in front of Bhaskar and his young friend.  

As Bhaskar started tearing apart the puri, the young one, Sanju, started chatting. 

“When do we get to ride a plane?” 

Bhaskar laughed. “Twelve years, my friend, for twelve years I have been doing odd jobs at this very airport. I have not taken a plane ride even once.” 

The boy looked confused. 

“You should not expect to. You have a job which pays you money; be happy with that. Don’t expect fancy plane rides. Those are for the rich.” 

The boy chewed on his puri. The puri was not the tastiest but was good for a late-night dinner especially due to the hunger. But Sanju’s question threw a serious thought in Bhaskar’s mind.  

Bhaskar looked back at his last twelve years at the airport. He had never thought of taking up another job. He had served inside the terminal building, inside the cargo loading area, the baggage area and now was working as a flight maintenance technician, accepting orders from the flight maintenance engineer. The pay had increased with his latest post, as it involved technical skills and nuanced eyes required to look for the slightest aberrations on a plane.   

In times when young people would join and leave after six months, he had stayed at the airport, also acting as a guiding force for all the new people who joined the team. He now led the training for new people. By the time the trainees started checking planes on their own, they went beyond the checklist to spot any aberrations at all.  

The question that Sanju asked, however, flashed through his mind several times. Why would someone want me to travel on a plane? Do I deserve a plane ride? How do I get one? 

Paying for a plane ride was not an option, so he had long ago come to a realization that these jets are not for everyone. He would still have to find his spot on a crowded train heading to his village, even though he was within an arm’s reach of a plane heading in the same direction.  

“Hello?” Sanju had a phone call. His eyes widened and the muscles on his forehead narrowed in a moment. Bhaskar looked intently at his face but found himself asking more questions and finding no answers. He barely knew this boy. 

“My elder brother was hit by a bus. I need to go to the village.” He almost started crying as he spoke. “Doctor said he might die in a few hou…” tears started rolling out of his eyes.  

“Okay, leave right now. How far is your village?” 

“Near Bhopal. It is ten kilometers from Bhopal.” 

“That’s far. Do you have any money?” 

The boy nodded that he had some. “But I will not be able to get home in time. There’s only my mother at home. She has to take care of everything until I reach there.” 

“Check when the next train is. I’ll get you to the station on time.” 

The boy unlocked his phone and checked the train timetable on a website. The next train going towards Bhopal was not until three hours from now. The boy started weeping profusely, putting his head down on the table. Bhaskar checked his wristwatch, realizing it was almost time to get back to work.  

“Can you wait here for fifteen minutes? The train is anyways leaving after three hours. Let me try something.” 

The boy stopped crying after a few minutes. Some people had gathered around him. They shared the pain, but also knew that if they didn’t go back to checking planes, a lot of flight delays would be caused. This could mean that the entire airport would have to come to a halt, upsetting a lot of passengers, airplane companies, and airport authorities. The first thing that these people were taught was responsibility towards the job. Many of them had been taught by Bhaskar, who was currently sprinting towards the cargo gate to enter the airport premises.  

His panting was being transmitted through the walkie-talkie as he managed to say a few words into it. 

“Connect me with Pandey Sir. Emergency” He showed his ID to security guards standing at the gate with their big guns. He let the security guards frisk him carefully, grazing the metal detector through his entire body. Once inside, he gained pace again, heading towards the open jeep which took him towards the terminal building.  

The jeep took him to the maintenance room. Instead of clocking in to report for duty, he walked towards the restricted elevator which opened up in the terminal building. Workers in the maintenance room minded their own business considering they had tight schedules and any aberration was not acceptable.  

As the elevator landed on the fourth level of the building, he ended up on the Departure Gates level. The ambiance of this side of the terminal building was maintained such that every passenger felt pleasant. Especially since the terminal building opened in 2010, an added emphasis was laid on the passenger experience which had led to passengers starting to like the airport. The number of complaints regarding the airport staff had gone down as a result.  

But Bhaskar’s legs were tired now. He still had to cover a fair bit of ground before getting to the other end of the terminal building. Running that distance didn’t look possible. Even with the moving walkways in the building, it took him almost ten minutes to reach the other end. Struggling to breathe, he asked for Mr. Pandey again. Mr. Pandey was the operations in-charge of Air India.  

“Sir, I need your help.” 

“Sure, Chacha.” Mr. Pandey knew Bhaskar from the time Bhaskar worked in the luggage department. Mr. Pandey had been overseeing flight operations since that time. “But can we move away from the lounges and the waiting area?” Bhaskar was not supposed to look tensed in the waiting area. 

Bhaskar dragged him along as they headed to one of the restrooms.  

“Tell me, what’s wrong.” 

“Sir, we have an emergency.” 

“I am listening. Go on. Which flight?” 

“No, not with any flight.”  

“What do you mean?” 

“Sir, one of my colleagues has an emergency. His brother had an accident and doctors say he doesn’t have more than a few hours.” 

“So, he can take a leave of absence. Someone else will have to cover for him, right?” 

“That’s not the point. He needs to reach home within those few hours.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“In my long career, I have never asked for this favour. I come to you because I know you are the only one who could make this possible.” 

“Please be clear, Bhaskar. I have work to do.” 

“Can he be accommodated on the flight to Bhopal? It leaves in an hour. I am the one who has to check the flight before departure.” 

Mr. Pandey chuckled. “You know that is not possible, Bhaskar.” 

“Please, sir, please. Think about it, his brother only has a few hours. I have never asked for a plane ride for myself despite taking care of them as my own. Please, this is the first time I am asking for a favour.” 

Bhaskar begged for a few more times to the same reply. “Sorry, Bhaskar, I cannot allow that. Protocol.” 

Of course, he was right. But Bhaskar was not giving up.  

“In fact, there is no space on the flight. It is full to the last seat.” 

“Don’t tell me that, Pandey Ji. He can travel with the crew if required. You can make it happen if you want.” 

“Sorry, Bhaskar. It is not in my hands to make such decisions.” 

Mr. Pandey started walking away. Bhaskar stood there staring at the people waiting at the gate from which the flight was supposed to leave. Boarding was about to start in ten more minutes. Bhaskar’s eyes suddenly emanated a spark. 

“Pandey sir!” He screamed. The boss turned around to see Bhaskar running towards him. 

“I am not going to inspect the plane. You can find someone else if you want.” Mr. Pandey was aware that there was a shortage of people today considering the holiday season. The new people at the airport couldn’t be trusted completely for inspecting planes. Though the inspection parties were usually groups of two, Bhaskar’s counterpart for the day, Sanju, was already unavailable.  

“Are you threatening me? You know that I can take action against you. You will lose your job.”  

“Yes, I am aware. I am not going to inspect this plane. If I don’t go within the next two minutes, the plane will be running late for departure.” 

“Whatever you say, Bhaskar, I am not letting that boy on the plane.” 

“Okay. I am not going to the plane. I will take a nap on one of these nice cushioned seats.” He looked at the waiting lounge. 

Mr. Pandey thumped his feet as he went away, speaking into his walkie-talkie. He started looking at alternatives to take care of the plane. He waited for people to respond to his broadcasted message stating he needed a resource for this aircraft. No one did. 

He spoke with his staff members to understand if he had any other alternatives. The plane had completed refueling, baggage was already loaded, the only piece remaining was inspecting the tyres which needed an experienced set of eyes. He looked at Bhaskar with his head pushed on the seat and legs spread out. It was unusual to see a maintenance worker up in the departure area.  

“So, what should we do?” he screamed into the walkie-talkie, responding to his subordinates who kept mentioning that they couldn’t find an alternative on such short notice.  

Plane delays caused monetary penalties on airline companies, as the airports had very limited space available for parking planes. If one plane left late, that meant the other planes who were supposed to be at that gate had to be diverted to other gates or wait for the gate to be vacant. This was the last thing Mr. Pandey wanted. 

“Bhaskar chacha, call him up here.” He screamed, looking at Bhaskar with his eyes wide open. Bhaskar smiled and dialed a number on his phone.  

The young boy was quickly frisked for security and was at the departure gate. Bhaskar disappeared from the gate.  

While he checked the plane’s wheels, he had a satisfaction that his experience had helped him bargain a plane ticket, even if it was not for himself.  

“Never again,” he thought, realizing that he could have been the reason for more than one flight delays a few moments ago. A plane ride for himself had to wait until the time he could gather enough money to pay for a ticket. 

Once the inspection was done, he looked at the plane’s nose, knowing that his friend was sitting in there and would reach his village in the next two hours at most.  

*****

Image credits: Hindustan Times

Sir, add an ‘e’ before the mail

“Hello?” the old postman uttered into the phone lying on his desk. The phone was surrounded by files whose edges had been feasted upon by rats. Rays of the setting sun penetrated the doorway of the post office and glowed on the metal desk behind which he was sitting. 

While his ears were listening, his eyes were captivated by the cables that looked like a fat python. The village was getting ready for the next generation of telecom speeds. An interested group of youngsters stood by the construction site, all peeping at the workers and the drilling machine boring holes. To them, the ear-splitting noise made by the drilling machine was not an object of irritation, but of excitement.  

The postman, however, had his eyebrows narrowed. As an essential part of the village ecosystem for more than half his life, Shyamlal had delivered several messages, happy and sad. Today, he was the one who felt his throat getting heavy as he spoke on the phone. 

From being an ordinary postman who delivered letters to a powerful source of information delivering the latest updates on what was happening in which household, his responsibilities had grown significantly. There were several big changes that had happened in the village during his 35 years of service. The village had gained access to electricity, sufficient water supply, improved connectivity to the nearby town and other villages.  

The number of buses had increased and so had the number of people traveling. There were several new kids who had started taking up jobs in the town while still living in the village. With the money that had started accruing, these kids were bringing gifts back to the village. With that, an abundance of information about the world around them was coming in.  

With the technological advancements that the country was going through during the last two decades, Shyamlal was surprised at the pace of progress. He was amazed to see that there were several new jobs that the technically advanced generation was picking up. Right in front of the post office, there was a shop which had three phones setup which allowed anyone to speak to anyone in the world. Such was the promise of the telephones.  

“Only if this telephone line could transport people as fast,” he looked at the sky. 

Until now, he never feared the phones or the better connectivity. Though the number of letters at the post office had reduced in the last decade, his feet had also aged to no longer being able to deliver hundreds of letters a day. The older generation still asked him to read the letters, providing him with a good grasp of what was happening in the village. Of course, all the official communication was still channeled via the post office. 

Today was exactly one year before he would retire from the Post Office. What a retirement it would be? Being the only person who worked at the Post Office after his boss’s retirement, he was responsible for the one-man-office, fulfilling responsibilities of a postmaster and a postman. He had fulfilled all the duties very well, ensuring a near cent percent accuracy in making sure that the letters were delivered.  

However, where there was a good vibe about the development and his village gaining a lot of facilities and amenities, he was skeptic about this new thing. Young ones in the village were talking about ‘Internet’, a new mode of communication where people could send messages to anyone in the world, for free. For free? How would that even work?  

His questions were usually met with a lot of facts and examples presented to him by these young people, who had by now convinced him that this mode of communication worked really well. The best part of it was that the communication happened within a few seconds.  

With such seamless connectivity, he was really worried. Not for his job, knowing he would retire happily from the post office. The real cause was that he would no longer get to provide his suggestions and comments on other peoples’ letters. He would no longer be the news reporter of the village.  

From a teacher to a life coach to a financial advisor, he had put forth his advice whenever a letter passed through his hands. In case a letter brought bad news, he was the first person to console the recipient. In case the letter was from a distant relative, he knew he could expect a piece of laddoo or two depending on the news. He had even made a few students make decisions about their careers and these students used to write to him often telling him how the choices had worked in their favour.  

As a result, he felt he had a responsibility to take care of the village. But without knowing what was written on the messages being sent through the internet, how could he ever give good advice? How could he live the rest of his life unbeknownst to what was happening to his land?  

This was the reason why he had been talking on the phone for almost fifteen minutes now. By speaking to his peers in the nearby town, he wanted to know what would happen to the good old connections he had established. Will this new thing kill the postmen? was the only question he had prepared to ask.  

Gathering information about the internet was heartbreaking, like the denial of a bicycle to a kid who wants one to go to school each day. His face was distressed, but no one really cared to notice. Everyone was busy observing the cables being put under the earth.  

The grey colored modest telephone had served him on numerous occasions to his delight. But today the phone looked ominous with the dust that had settled on it.  

After a few ambiguous replies, he put the receiver down with his hands trembling. The phone had not been his lucky charm today. As much as he felt like throwing it away, he realized that the damages would have to be paid for. He could only sit in his chair looking at the cable being put in through the hole just outside the Post Office door.  

It took only a casual glance for a curious young friend to notice the sadness in his eyes. Shyamlal had an extremely emotive face. As much as he thought to himself that he was excellently at hiding things, his face gave things away very easily. Despite the wrinkles and the rough stubble that had grown on his face, his cheeks and the patch under his eyes gave expressions away.  

Kunal was quick in walking to his table at once.  

“Kya hua, chacha?” Kunal asked in his raucous voice. The old man didn’t reply, even after being asked four times in different ways. The old man was sensitive, but he knew that the problem he was facing was not a problem for others around him.  

As age progresses, a person comes across several predicaments where he chooses depending on what suits the best at that point in time. Of course, some of the choices are regretful. Nevertheless, these choices, good or bad, form stiff preferences and thus a way of life. From being an elastic handful of clay, a person starts solidifying to become a thick rock of mud, shedding some mud on his journey.  

Kunal didn’t realize the predicament of the old man here, who had learned to live life one way and was at an age where changing from a pencil to another seemed like a daunting task. He had to find a new way of life, without the gossip, without the news, without the free counseling service. Noticing that the old man would not speak, Kunal walked away realizing that the old man might have problems that he didn’t want to broadcast.  

The construction workers progressed with their work, looking good to meet their deadline. If the work continued at the current pace, there would be a stable dial-up internet connection across the village starting next month. Though the number of computers in the village was just two, the number of excited people noticing the activity was like a group of pilgrims headed to Haridwar. Everyone knew that the two computers were about to be an object of everyone’s envy and yearning. The questions surrounding affordability of computers remained, but more and more people were planning to save up to buy one of them.  

Having seen the trend with telephones and televisions, Shyamlal knew that the transformation to a computer-dependent village would not take more than 2-3 years. When this transformation was done, he would no longer be needed in the village. No one would seek his advice when they could send instant mails to people across the world. The villagers would definitely seek actual experts and not him, a poor fellow who had gathered his knowledge on the basis of his observations of the village.  

The sun drowned behind the mountains lining the village as the construction workers stopped for the day. Most of them were drinking water from the earthen pot that Shyamlal filled daily when he came to work. The workers thanked him for the water, but none of them noticed the deep lines on his forehead. 

Kunal came back to sit with him and tried to indulge him in politics, talking about the forthcoming elections. Though Shyamlal spoke to him until it was dark and the construction workers had all disappeared, his face still bore the look of a forlorn cloud that knew it would no longer be able to shower on the earth.  

Even Kunal gave up after talking to the old man for almost an hour, realizing his friends were calling him to play cards. The village had dived into the night activities as several televisions were switched on for the daily doses of news and new episodes of TV serials. Only the crickets chirped as everyone else was involved in his little house.  

Shyamlal remembered the times when nights would bring people together for a round of cards or discussions about their daily lives. These meetings had in the past held discussions which had proved better than the Panchayat meetings. As the number of televisions and telephones had increased, these discussions had gone down, and so had the emotional connect between the villagers.  

Though Shyamlal had managed to keep in touch with everyone due to the occasional letters, he felt that the village was now going to be all-the-more divided. The day was not far when there would be no one coming forward to make any decisions for the village. For a few moments, he even imagined the village broken down into so many pieces that no one even bothered to look at each other while walking on the streets. Everyone was stranger to everyone.  

With the concerns ringing in his head, he started walking home. All the households were watching Doordarshan on television, apart from a few boys playing cards near the village Pan Shop. “Kunal!” He called his young friend and walked towards the group of friends. The group made space for the old man. 

“Want to play?” Kunal asked. The old man nodded. 

“Can you people promise me?” Shyamlal asked the group. 

“What?” 

“That you will always play cards every night?” 

“Haha, usually people are trying to shun us away from…”  

“Just answer my question.” 

“Sure, why not!”  

“Why would we ever stop playing cards?” Kunal thought. Of course, he was too young to realize that a wave of change was coming. 

The old man left after playing one round, convinced that at least five people would hopefully still want to meet every night. 

The Familiar Stranger

The smell of the cooking curry or the aroma of the flipping rotis did not affect Shubham’s attention. The constant buzzing of the exhaust fan was disturbing his ears, but the sound did not seem to register in his brain. As he entered the kitchen, his eyes quickly focused on the window in front of the stove through which the less dense air rising up from a pan was seeping out.  

“Go get me some potatoes from the store,” his mother announced as she felt his feet walking towards her. She had to turn around to grab his attention. 

“It is three days in a row now! This is too much!” Shubham almost screamed out loud. “Why do you need them again?” 

“Just go get them from the store. There’s money on top of the fridge.” 

Shubham walked back towards the refrigerator with his lips pressing against each other. It was only in the past month that his hand had started reaching the top of the fridge. Though he would usually jump to the top excitedly, today he just stretched his right arm to get the money. He took a grocery bag sitting on a table beside the fridge and started walking towards the front door of the house.  

The store around the corner was the perfect place for getting household items.There was no need to go on a weekly visit to the grocery store to stock up fresh vegetables and fruits for the week. Whenever his mother needed anything, she would send Shubham to this store and get whatever was needed at any time of the day. So was the case of several other households in the vicinity.

As the shopkeeper handed over a bag of potatoes, he produced a candy in front of Shubham. Shubham usually got a candy or two with whatever he was buying, but today was different. He rejected the offer at once with a sideways nod, put a twenty rupees note on the counter and started walking back towards home. Today was different.  

His friend, his beloved friend had not visited home today. Shubham was so fond of this friend that he would come running after school to be on time in the kitchen. His mother used to flip rotis on the pan around 1.00 pm, exactly when Shubham entered home. One roti and one slice of any fruit depending on the season was all that was needed by this friend.  

The routine was set when a year ago, on a warm day a crow came cawing at the kitchen window of the new house that Shubham had moved into. Seeing the heat outside and the torment it would be throwing poor birds into, his mother put a flat bowl of water outside the kitchen window. As she started doing this habitually, within a few days, this place turned into an assured source of water for the crow. 

One day, as she was flipping rotis, she saw the crow still cawing despite having finished the water in the small bowl. On realizing it might be hungry, she kept half a roti for the crow on the window’s edge. Shubham was viewing the whole interaction with curious eyes, looking at the crow to decipher if there were any emotions. Even though his mother had a strict no-pet policy at home, she was extremely gentle and caring while feeding this crow.  

Shubham was present every day in the kitchen to view the activity with amazement and awe. Soon, the crow too started acknowledging his presence in the kitchen. The crow had now started accepting the odd roti from Shubham’s hands, increasing his circle of friends from Shubham’s mother to one more person.  

It was just three weeks ago when Shubham had to stay a bit late in school as his school bus broke down. As a result, he got delayed in reaching home by more than an hour. The disappointment was so intense that he refused to get off the bus when it reached home. It took the bus driver more than five minutes to convince Shubham to step down. As he came out, knowing that the bird must have flown away by now, he gently picked up the gate knob and entered the house in silence. As opposed to the usual days when he would hastily chuck shoes out of his legs in random directions, he quietly sat on the only seat in the verandah and carefully untied the shoelaces. He took sufficient time to take his socks off while staring at the kitchen door from where emerged the faint aroma of Rajmah-Chawal.  

As he pushed his shoes properly in the shoe rack, he heard a familiar cawing. It was easily distinguishable from others due to its short length and high pitch. The crow activated its vocal chords in short bursts as opposed to the long ones that crows near every garbage can in the city. This crow was a rather terse one. Shubham’s feet didn’t need any other calling as they raced towards the kitchen, slipping on occasion but somehow making sure he did not fall when he reached the kitchen.  

The happiness that day on his face confirmed that this crow was a true friend. Not that they had any common interests or things to talk about, but a relationship of trust for each other and a longing to see each other every day at the same time had emerged.  

Shubham’s mother served him lunch once the crow flew away. The smile on his face had already bought one on hers as well. She decided to treat the young boy with leftover sweets from last night to celebrate. None of them talked with the mute bird. The mother was happy that they were helping it survive. Especially in this scorching sun, there was not much the birds could do on their own. 

“Mumma, can we make a nest for the crow?” 

“Haven’t you heard?” 

“About what?” 

“That crows build nests that only get stolen by cuckoos.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah, crows do all the hard work and cuckoos use those nests. So, if we are building one, our little friend will be using it rarely.” 

“Oh, okay. But if no cuckoo sees the nest, there is no question of it using the nest, right?” 

The mother nodded, seeing Shubham had already convinced himself about the work. Might as well let the boy learn about nests and how birds build them, she thought and let him. 

“But promise me you won’t make the house dirty. Otherwise, I will shred the nest to pieces. Okay?” 

Shubham started working diligently. Every day, once he came from school and was done seeing his friend, he would start on gathering twigs. In a village or a town where towns were plentiful, finding twigs was not a problem, but in the concrete jungle that he found himself in, it was extremely difficult. He had to roam around for three days before he had a sizeable number of twigs.  

One-by-one, as he started assembling the twigs and making a structure out of them, he kept telling his friend about the new house tailor-made for the crow’s comfort. This house would never be washed out by rains, no audacious cuckoo would dare to come close it, no sun would be able to destroy it as it would be under the ceiling of the verandah. The spot was perfect for making a nest.  

It was three weeks since he started when he peeped out of the kitchen window as usual but did not find his friend. He waited for almost an hour, but the crow did not come. He walked out of the house to view if the crow was nearby, but seeing no activity, he was back with a tear slipping out of his right eye. His mother was worried for the crow as well, but age had reduced the display of emotions that came with such feelings.  

The nest was ready to live in, but the resident was nowhere to be found. Shubham came back from the grocery story with a bag of potatoes and had a disheartened lunch, so much so that he didn’t realize there was no salt in the Potato Curry today. Perhaps his mother was also affected.  

Something needed to be done. If the crow was not able to come here, it was time for Shubham to step out of his home and find it. Maybe the crow was waiting for him. The summer sun was at its peak when Shubham left his house and refused to subside even after an hour since he started walking.  

Thirst started making him gulp his saliva while his face was dripping with sweat as he kept walking with his slippers dragging on the road. His calf muscles had started to pain as a result of the intense walking and the lack of water in his body. “Maybe it is sick and couldn’t come today, it’ll definitely come tomorrow,” he uttered and started walking back.  

But when he was walking back towards home, he saw a large flock of crows gathered on the left side of the road near an electricity pole. His first reaction was to not heed them, thinking they must be after the odd rat they had hunted. But on getting closer, he found out that they had gathered to mourn the death of one of them. Their cacophonous cawing warranted his thought. Shubham’s heart skipped a beat.  

He neared the area where the crows were, all of them looking exactly similar to each other. He couldn’t recognize any of their cawing – all of them different from the familiar short bursts he had heard over the past year. His eyes had already widened and his breathing intensified. His friend had most likely decided to leave him to go on a journey alone. Shubham stood shocked for some time but then started on his journey back home, convincing himself of the reality and to prepared to announce it to his worried mother.  

His feet were almost dragging themselves when he reached home with tears already slipping down his cheek. He told his mother of the crow’s death to which she asked the logical question – “How did it die?” 

Though it was unclear to Shubham, his mother realized the answer when she heard where the crows had gathered. Among the many other difficulties created for birds around the city, electrical wiring was one of the most common causes of bird deaths. Normally, when one walked by the road, several birds would have perched on these wires without realizing that all it took was completing the connection with the ground for them to be dead.  

“I think…” Shubham uttered. 

“It is one of the cables that go overhead, most probably. But are you sure it was our friend?” 

“Yeah, none of the others had the same cawing as our friend.” 

Shubham’s mother sat down at the dining table for a long time. Her expressionless face made it tough to comprehend the feelings going through her mind. Her eyes scanned each and every wall and intermittently went back to the kitchen window, but they didn’t get any feedback from anywhere. Her face had turned unusually pale. Though she had seen several people die in her lifetime, the grief this time was different. This friend expected only the bits of roti and fruits from her without complaining about anything.  

She didn’t bother to go towards the kitchen though there were a lot of utensils lying in the washbasin, neither did she bother to heed the phone which was ringing in the bedroom. Shubham finally realized that she had similar feelings as his. He placed his left hand on her shoulder as she put her hand over his. Though the two tried to console each other, they were sure that an irreparable dent had been made to their hearts. Would anyone else be able to reduce the pain caused by this dent? No one could, they knew. 

Shubham sat in front of the nest proudly hanging in the verandah, waiting for its first resident. While Shubham and his mother had helped the bird survive for this long, their efforts were not enough.  

A few days later, he saw a cuckoo occupy the nest. Although he thought the nest was placed to not be discoverable to other birds, the cuckoo had discovered it nevertheless.  

Mightier than the sword?

“Hey, hey!” the fattie screamed at the thin one. “You cheapo!”

The thin one didn’t respond.

“Yeah you, what do you think you are! Such attitude, what are ya trying to get, eh?” the fat one taunted. “Just look at ya body. I can see through completely, haah!” He commented in his bombastic voice. The other one still didn’t respond, choosing to just stay still.

“You think you can just stay quiet, eh! Yeah, of course, what can a cheapo say? Your mouth is only meant to spill when one prods you a thousand times, right?” The condescending voice became louder. “Look at the cheap plastic on your body! Haha.”

They had been sitting here for a long time but had not had a single conversation because of the heavy class gap between the two. It was only in times of despair like these that conversations started, even though on false notes. When we fear something, it is only then that the sense of somebody being nearby relieves us. It was the same feeling that the rich one felt.

The Modern stationery shop had been in an isolated region in Pune where the only customers that used to come were school students and shops. The shopkeeper made sure that the stationery shop was refreshed at the start of each school year with essential items for children, but during other times of the year, the shop was used more like a mobile phone shop. Several mobile phones were on display with tall billboards of cellular phone plans and discounts. The business was enough to sustain his family of two but was not enough to generate any savings. The shop had seen several kinds of items, from phones to sweets to chocolates, but none of them had led to a highly successful venture, so he no longer wanted to start anything new.

The 10 feet by 10 feet shop had the counter lined up with mobile phone dummy models that were replaced every week. Behind the counter was enough space to occupy only a stool on which the owner sat, followed by shelves from the floor to the top. The most prominent shelves had more mobile phones, sim cards, phone accessories and cables. Only looking at the top shelf could one say that this was a stationery shop. On this shelf, there were rows of pens and pencils, printing papers, notebooks and writing pads of different sizes. The items were ordered such that the ones that were sold the most, such as the cheap pens and pencils and cheap notebooks were kept in front while the others went at the back of the shelf, hidden in darkness.

It was on this shelf that these two pens found themselves. The cheap one was sitting in light but did not heed the comments by the shiny, expensive one sitting at the back. They were different in many ways, not only because of their costs but also because of their attitude towards others. While the rich one had been brought to the shop seven months ago, the poor one was brought in just a couple of months ago. Both of them, however, had outgrown their anticipated times at the shop.

“Hey, ya! Can’t talk or what, eh?” the rich one asked once again.

“What do you want, sir? Please let me sleep while I can. Once someone buys me, I will have to slog, work really hard, unlike you rich brat, whose only point is to hang in someone’s shirt pocket.”

The rich pen was quick in taking offense at the comment. “Do you think I am incapable of writing? My superior German nib can work far better than your cheap one which will break as soon as someone flicks a finger at it.”

“Of course, if a nib is never used, it will never break. Ain’t it simple, my rich friend?”

“With my nib, no one has to worry that it will not write when needed. With you, everyone has to think about you drying up if not used. With me, such problems don’t arise. I am always ready for writing.” The rich one taunted.

“The only problem is, no one wants to write with you. They just want the shiny look until they get bored of you. All the people that will use you are anyways rich hypocrites and politicians. People who don’t care about other people. People who just care about money and nothing else.”

“Well, the poor ones who will use you don’t even care if you exist or not. You will just be thrown away after a month or so. How do you feel about that, you snob?”

“Actually, a good master will take good care and refill me rather than throwing me away.”

“As if that matters… Anyways, what are you without a refill? A pen whose refill dies loses its soul, you see, eh.”

“Not even in the smallest amount, sir. I have committed my owner a certain performance and only after I deliver that performance will my refill be changed. Anyways, who are you to talk, no one cares about you as well. Your users will usually have many like you and losing you won’t make them a difference.”

The rich pen stayed silent for a few seconds. The stinging comment was in a way true. All its users had just kept it for the sake of owning it. There were only a few people who would write with it, and those people would soon get bored of it and throw it away. The poor one, on the other hand, would be thrown away only after it had fulfilled its promise. It felt sad, but the debate had to go on.

“At least my owners would wear me proudly on their shirts.” The pomposity of the rich one was still speaking. “They wouldn’t leave me hanging on a table in a penholder.”

“Haah, what good is a pen that doesn’t want to sit in a penholder?”

“You see, normal horses stay in stables, but the premium racehorses stay in stud farms.”

“Yeah, yeah, as if staying in someone’s pocket makes you work.”

“The most respected people in the world will use me to sign papers. These people have important roles in the world. If not for my family, many decisions would still not have been signed.”

“To that, it was because of my people that all that was written before the signature was made possible. You can easily see hundreds of people using my people to write before a file went to a boss for signature. You see, we help millions of people do their work, unlike you.”

A young boy appeared at the door, which turned the poor one’s attention towards him. Trying to capture sunlight and shine bright, the poor one checked its own appearance to see if there was any dust on its body. The young boy looked at all the shelves making the poor pen happy that it had a chance of leaving the store while the rich one sat in the back with its eyes wound down.

The boy, with his three-fourth pants and a T-shirt that had the Superman sign on it, moved across the store to see all the items that the store had. The owner sat behind the counter but didn’t pay attention to the boy. The confused young one looked from shelf to shelf, trying to find something until he finally asked the store owner. The poor pen was expecting the boy to demand a new pen.

“Uncle, mobile phone ka cover chahiye.” The further conversation was not of interest to the poor pen so it started drifting back to its sleep.

Behind it, however, the rich pen had a laugh at its heart’s content. So much so, it almost burped some ink out. The poor one stayed silent at first, but the irritating, condescending laughter provoked it within minutes.

“At least someone checked me out. Unlike you, sitting there in the dark. Not even the sun wants to see you. Haah!”

“People don’t want to look at me. If someone wants to buy me, they just come in and ask for me. You see, I have high standards, unlike your cheap showing off to people even when they don’t want you.”

The young kid kept talking to the shop owner checking out mobile phone covers for his phone. He had a fixed budget and was trying to convince the shop owner for a lower cost.

“And, none of the kids play that stupid game with me. The one in which you just hit pens against one another. What kind of a war is that? At least I don’t have to deal with these notorious people.”

“That game is called pen-fight. It is a true test of a pen’s strength. More than anything, it shows off a pen’s valor. I am eager to show my master my worth. My toned body will do much better than your fat body, anyways.”

“I will never have to play that stupid game anyway. A pen’s valour lies in hanging in someone’s shirt pocket, not in fighting with other pens.”

“If you look at history, all men have had to prove themselves in wars. The same is true about pens.”

“It looks like you care more about getting injured than writing. Why should I care, though?”

“Of course, you shouldn’t. You can never face another pen in a war. Looking at your meaty body which doesn’t have any muscle, just fat, I can tell you will be thrown off a desk within a minute. You don’t stand a chance.”

“At least my nib would stay intact.” Although the rich pen tried to find a rebuttal, this was the strongest he could come up with. From the earlier time when the rich one was winning the debate easily to now when the poor one was sweeping away, they had discussed all they had.

A silence engulfed them as the young boy left the store. The poor one’s ambition of getting bought was crushed. The rich one didn’t want to poke at the poor one anymore, but silently kept thinking to itself about its own life. So did the poor one. The silence lasted for a long time with several thoughts going through their heads and none of them coming out through their mouths.

“Whatever we think our advantages are, the reality is…” the rich one spoke, his voice wavering a bit. The poor one listened to it with its nib about to spill ink inside the cap. It wanted to weep, weep till the refill would be done.

“The reality is,” the rich one continued, “both of us are being tested for our patience. Seven months is an awfully long time for me to stay in a shop and two months is the same for you. Whatever our advantages, they were applicable only in the past when people actually used pens. Nowadays they just keep staring at screens…”

“Yeah, that is true. Even though I claim to write more than you, the reality is no one wants to write now. And the same goes for you as well. No one has to sign documents these days, it seems. Machines have truly consumed us.” The poor one added.

“So, my friend, if we have to spend the rest of our lives just sitting in this shelf looking at people buying others in the store, let’s at least not have any animosity against one another. You have your advantages, I have mine. Let’s stay that way.”

Although both of them wanted to get rid of their lives by just blurting all the ink they had, they still had the small, infinitesimal hope that one day a generous person would decide to use them. The hope that people would one day appreciate the tangible value of writing with a physical object as against the keyboards and keypads who made it too easy to write.

The two pens went silent as they no longer had a reason to vent out their anger.

The last ride

The traffic signal at the busy junction went green as several vehicles thrust themselves forward. The car behind Ramesh honked loudly as he stood still, but his ears were accustomed to such cacophonic ear-tearing volumes now. His feet slammed the accelerator as soon as he came back to his senses within a second, but a car that just appeared ahead of him forced him to slam his brakes and horn buttons simultaneously. As a result, several cars behind him had to wait impatiently. After a wait of just a half minute, the traffic signal, as merciless as it could be, went back to red. Ramesh’s taxi had just crossed the traffic signal line by this time. He would have normally ignored the signal and sped fast to avoid attention, but the traffic policeman standing at the intersection today made sure that he had to wait for his turn once again.

Ramesh Shukla had been driving a cab for the past twenty years in this city where he had grown. ‘The city of dreams’ others might have called it, but for him, it was simply home. He had never experienced living in any other city, so the ‘dream city’ feeling that was attached to Mumbai had never occurred to him. For that matter, he even hated the city at times, for its traffic had just grown to a pathetic state where no one had any control anymore.

Today, his worries were amplified by the skinny passenger who rode behind him, constantly nagging him to go faster. The passenger had his own worries, but his worries definitely could not match the years of frustration on the road, the constant eye-hurting smog and the frequent knee sprains that Ramesh had experienced. The travel time to go to from place to place in the city was just increasing. At times he felt that in the near future, everyone in the city would just spend their days traveling on these jammed roads. Driving a taxi, which had started as a job that rewarded with good money and a steady career path was no longer that appealing to him.

Somewhere, he had reached his boiling point. He had stopped shaving every day, letting the white strands spread on his cheek. From the bulge under his eyes, one could tell that he was at that age when work had no importance in his life now. Despite the financial constraints, the constant pressure from bosses or from family, the pressure to gather finances for the education of children, a person at this stage decided to make a selfish decision and quit. Ramesh was just at this age. In this case, the financial burden had now almost nullified as he had cleared the loan for the taxi that he drove. His only daughter was now in the final year of college and would soon start earning. It was only about himself now, as his wife had decided to part ways many years ago.

“Bhaiya,” the young passenger again asked, “can we go faster?”

Though none of it showed on his face, Ramesh felt like just parking the taxi right in the middle of traffic, open the door and just walk away. Into the garden that still had some fresh air to breath, or near the beach where the breeze would bring in some fresh air. But one promise that he had made to his ex-boss- that he would always finish the journeys that he had begun and never leave any passengers hanging, came right in front of him. He pushed hard on the accelerator pedal as he realized that all these thoughts would die soon.

The passenger behind him had no choice but to hurry. The clogged traffic was visible to him as well. There was not even space for humans to walk on the road as the cars had jam-packed the road. Whatever space was left was taken up by motorbikes as they tried to pave their way out of the traffic. But if he missed his flight tonight, he would be missing the biggest opportunity of his life. An interview for a big promotion was waiting for him in Singapore, so reaching the airport was of utmost importance right now.

Looking at the passenger’s worried face through the driving mirror, Ramesh decided to do him a favour by trying something radically different today. Over the years, he had learned that a customer’s happy face was one of the few cheerful things amidst all the frustrations that he and his fellow taxi drivers experienced.

Reaching the airport would take around 45 minutes if they took the jam-packed Western Express Highway, but if they went through smaller routes and single-lane gullies, they could have a better chance of not finding much traffic. Usually, he avoided driving on smaller roads as they didn’t allow faster driving because of the constant movement of people and kids, but today he was willing to take the risk.

The route in his mind was well-planned out as he sharply turned to appear just ahead of another car on his right. The other car’s shrill horn almost tore apart the eardrums of the passenger, but Ramesh was as placid as the traffic signals on the road. Turning sharply right on the first opportunity, he floored the accelerator pedal as the taxi pulled into a smaller lane. The taxi’s silencer threw a larger amount of carbon dioxide as the car’s speed kept rising.

The airport was another forty minutes away if he drove slowly. But if he managed to speed up and flex his driving muscles, he could make it within thirty minutes at the most. Even if that meant driving carelessly, so be it. The frustration that had accrued over his shoulders was adding fuel to the rage in his heart as his right hand constantly pressed the horn and his right leg refused to leave the accelerator pedal.

Exactly at the first left he took, a yellow school mini-bus almost rammed into his side as it came at him from the left. It was only the agility shown by the bus driver in slamming the brakes that the taxi was still rolling on its wheels. Ramesh sighed at being safe, but the rage in his mind had just been fuelled even more. All the frustration was channelizing itself through the solid concentration that he was driving with at this point, ignoring all the noise around him. He made another right turn. This time the car’s rear tires drifted away from the car, throwing the passenger in the opposite direction.

“Actually, you can go slower,” the customer said promptly, now fearing an accident and praying to god for the taxi driver to go slower. Ramesh took it the wrong way, making sure that the blood flowing through his veins was boiling. How could someone question his driving ability? He glanced behind and floored the accelerator pedal once again.

“Bhaiyya,” he called him again, but to no response. The sweaty passenger realized that he would make it to the airplane if he was alive in the first place. Ramesh refused to slow down, shifting his car into a higher gear, scaring even the stray cows who were the most aloof creatures when it came to heeding to the traffic. Every residential building that he passed through heard the loud honking of this car. The few people who managed to see the car knew that the taxi driver was in for a big accident soon.

The passenger even turned to his phone and dialed 100 for the police, but the slight possibility of a successful risky adventure turned his fingers away from the phone. If the taxi driver was as deft as he appeared to be, he would take him to the airport in time despite the rash driving. Thus he tightened his grip on the left door handle and used his other hand to stabilize his laptop bag lying on his right. He had not put on the seatbelt as he was in the back seat, so he tried to force his buttocks into the seat with all the force he had, making sure he would not fly out of the taxi in case it hit something.

Just like several taxi drivers in the city, Ramesh had loosened his seatbelt such that it would hang around his shoulder just for the sake of showing to the traffic policemen and avoid fines. This hanging seatbelt was of no use when an accident would happen, but Ramesh was confident that the seatbelt would never be put to use.

As the frustration vented out through his arms and legs, he was reminded of the good time when his father used to carry him on the rack of his bicycle constantly ringing the ‘ting-ting’ to his joy. He remembered how happy his father was when he saw a new car on the road. The fifteen-minute bicycle ride to school was always filled with dreaming about buying a car and drive it around the city. His father made sure that his son was taught to dream, even though they had no money to afford a car. ‘Dreams are free,’ his father had narrated to him always.

“I want to drive one of these big ones. God, please make me grow up as fast as you can so that I can finally own my car!” Ramesh had prayed to god time and again.

And God had fulfilled his wish. His schooling had been free, but he could never go to college because of the exorbitant fees in colleges. Therefore, he had started doing what he had intended to do always- drive. He had started after a month’s search in one of his father’s friend’s taxi. The kaali-peeli taxi that he had started with was more than joyful to drive. From there, his career took off and he never looked at doing something else for a living. It was only in the past five years that the frustration that came with increasing traffic and decreasing passengers had started showing up.

He came out of the distraction when he realized that a truck was too close to his right as he was crossing a junction. His eyes went wide as he heard the truck’s horn which haunted him this time. Even though his right leg automatically slammed the brake, the truck rammed into the right side of the taxi as Ramesh was jolted out of his seat as he felt several of his bones being crushed. The shards of window glass pierced his face but couldn’t make it to his eyes. His neck twisted and hung loosely on his shoulders as he realized it was all over. His car, the beloved machine that he had been driving for the past three years was totaled.

Destined to oblivion, he realized that he was finally free of all the frustration and the mess- everything that he wanted driving not to be. He felt his shoulders were cleared of all the burdens and he was riding on a plane to a city where he would no longer have to drive. Somewhere, he also wished that he had not wished to drive for the rest of his life but asked God for something else. An office job where the air conditioner would make sure the air was always pure and the chaotic sounds of the traffic were suppressed behind the white noise of running air conditioners.

“I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop,” he muttered as his thoughts went back to the beatific bicycle rides with his father.

An ambulance came to him soon and took him to the nearby hospital. After five days, when he woke up, he came to know that the passenger had been safe and had brought him to the hospital. Several questions came to his mind again, when he realized that his taxi was beyond repair and the truck driver had already imposed a case against him for damaging the truck’s front. The truck driver had also claimed huge losses because of the accident.

As a tear dropped from his eye, Ramesh realized that he would have to start driving again to make sure he could pay the damages to the truck driver. He wished he could rewind and start again. But time didn’t wait for anyone- certainly not for a taxi driver who had once wished for time to fly faster.

 

 

 

The season of umbrellas

The mighty monsoon season was well under way. The city of dreams, which ideally should be waterlogged by now with all the gutters overflowing, had experienced only sparse rain. There were a few concerns raised by the meteorological department that the rain would make its presence heavily felt in a day or two, and the following week, it will make up for the lost time by clogging the city completely. In fact, the warnings stated explicitly that offices and schools might have to be shut down because of the rain clubbed with the high tides during that week.

Well, it might be bad news for the educated, the working-class who thought that rains were always troublesome. But for the students of Class five of this school, it was just the news they wanted. They were already praying that to reach the school, they would have to swim. They all knew that the raincoats and umbrellas they had hanging by their school desks would be useless as soon as the tough rain would start. For them, the monsoon season always provided opportunities for boasting about the newest and the fanciest umbrellas and raincoats.

As the school came to an end, Raghu showcased his own umbrella to the group of 10 friends how this new umbrella worked. “Look at how strong the build quality of the spokes is,” he explained to his friends as they came up with their own. He was proud of his new possession. And why not? He had a right to be. It was only after two months of cajoling, starting from April that he had convinced his mother to buy him the new, expensive green umbrella. He had confidently and proudly promised her that he would not lose the umbrella at any cost.

Like many others in his class, he had a history of losing umbrellas every year. Every year loads of umbrellas were lost either in school or in buses. The school administration had received several requests from the parents of students to collect the umbrellas and return them, but the administration had just ignored the requests, leaving it to the peons to do whatever they felt like with the umbrellas.

Raghu explained many more features of the umbrella before the students decided to go home. He tied the umbrella’s small extended strap to his backpack’s front with a knot, to show off to his friends at how great his umbrella was. “I am sure this will hold on. It has one of the best straps.” When the backpack went on his back, the umbrella was hanging away from him, but he had no reason to worry.

Unlike the other students who used school buses to go home, Raghu had to use public transport. The school bus usually took an hour to reach his house, as opposed to the city bus which would take him there within thirty-five minutes. Of course, it involved a walk of about ten minutes, but he never complained to his parents about the walk. It was a good time to hum songs while dreaming about his future.

It took him a couple of minutes to reach the bus stop. The pale-red bus arrived in no time as he hung onto the handle before swinging in. He was still standing by the bus door as the conductor indicated to the driver with the bell near the driver tolling ‘ting-ting’. It took the bus conductor’s scowling for Raghu to move up into the bus. He had to stand in the crowded bus, but he didn’t complain.

Thoughts in his mind included the food that his mother would have cooked for lunch today, what would happen on the next episode of DragonBall Z, and who would win the cricket match later tonight. The new video game CD that he was going to ask his mother was one of his biggest worries for the past month. The thoughts rotated in his mind just like the wheels of the bus. The people in the bus didn’t care about this boy in soiled school dress owing to the long football game in the Games period.

As the bus approached, he pushed himself through the several people standing in the gangway, indicating to the conductor that he had to get down. Although frustrated at him not going forward earlier, the conductor still made sure that the bus waited till the young one stepped down. “Hooh!” he sighed as soon as he stepped out of the bus.

The area where he lived was beautiful with carved trees on each side of the road. But under the trees, he could see water puddles which probably were going to stay for a few days. His eyes moved from the trees to the buildings behind them, scanning the not-so-tall buildings from the bottom to the top and finally leading up to the sky. “Oh, it might rain in some time,” he realized.

Casually taking his hand behind the bag to feel his proud possession, he could directly feel the surface of the bag. There was no umbrella! As his eyes widened with the thought of losing the precious possession, he swung his bag in front of him. No, there was no umbrella. Turning around, he could see that the bus had disappeared, so chasing it would lead to no good.

Still, he ran at the top of his speed, with a heart heavier than the three-kilogram backpack behind him.

Crying while running in the direction that the bus went, he wondered what would happen if his mother came to know that he had lost the umbrella. Havoc, total havoc. A lot of censure and lecture would follow. It took him a few minutes before he slowed down.

The journey to home was a tough one, filled with thoughts about the scolding he was going to get from his mother. She was definitely not buying him any new umbrellas. But the bigger problem was- what would he explain to his friends? His social reputation would be gone! From being a star this afternoon, he was going to soon be the biggest fool his class had ever seen. At the same time, he would lose his friends and no one would ever look up to him.

It took no time for his throat to feel heavy under the thought of betrayal by that new umbrella. As his feet kept moving towards home, he asked himself one question – “Should I tell mom today itself?” The thought was encouraging- if he didn’t tell her anything today, he would get additional time to search for the umbrella the next day at school. But Raghu was smart enough to realize that the chances of him finding the umbrella were impossible. He had seen enough monsoons.

When his mother asked him the question as he reached home, he bluntly told her that it was in his bag pretending to be tired, so she didn’t ask much. His mother had already cooked food, and right away ordered to go freshen himself up and be at the dining table within minutes. Bunty had successfully evaded the question for now.

The day ended with a lot of thinking of the possible things he could do to rectify the mistake, and how he could avoid his mother’s scolding. After his mother closed the bedroom lights that night, he twisted a lot in the bed before his mind finally numbed itself to go to sleep.

It was already drizzling as he readied himself for school. As his mother asked him to take out the umbrella while he was stepping out, she realized within a few seconds the whole matter. She was sure that her son had lost the umbrella. Fuming with the fact that Raghu had lied to her, she wanted to give him the harshest scolding of his life. But he would get late to school in case he didn’t leave now, so she let him go- “No umbrella for you today! Go and get wet. This is your punishment.”

As Raghu walked alone towards the bus stop with a hazy vision due to the tears, he knew what was coming after he returned from school. Never in his life had he seen his mother so angry. But that was a matter to be bothered about later. Currently, he had to evade his friends and craft a story to tell them. A few plans had already come up in his mind as he walked through the light drizzle.

“Oh, I just gave my umbrella to my mom today. She is sick, so she wanted it more than me,” he explained to every student that came his way asking. The story, although small, was extremely believable. But just to make sure that he had a good background of the story, he had also thought about the disease his mother had, where she was going even though she was sick, where her usual umbrella was and finally, why did their house not have any other spare umbrellas.

All the questions had apt answers with specific backgrounds. He knew the people who would ask the questions, so it was easy to prepare these answers while on the bus. And the plan worked as expected. By the time it was recess, everyone was convinced that Raghu knew how to value his possessions.

But by the time the recess ended, there was another problem, this time a major one. The rain had increased tremendously to a crashing speed now. It was pouring so heavily now that the rain had started seeping into the classroom through the closed windows. The blustery wind ensured that open classroom doors slammed hard against the walls. As a result, Raghu was left wondering how he would get home today.

The two periods still left to go were probably the longest in his life. If he stepped out, the school books would be wet within a minute, and he would have to do all homework from the start of the academic year again. He would have a running nose within minutes, thus making sure he would not be allowed to go to play video games at a friend’s place.

Most importantly, he knew that his lie was going to be detected by the end of the school day.

As the day came to a close, he waited in a corner of the classroom for everyone to leave. Still scared because of the terrible noise that the rain made as the clouds charged each other, his feet refused to move. As people passed by him, there were several instances when he could have asked people for help in taking him to the bus, but shyness did not allow him to speak with anyone. Soon, the building was deserted.

It took a lot of courage to move towards the school’s gate, but even as he put his first step out of the building, he realized how wet he was going to be. There was no way to prevent himself from the rain, no way to avoid another big scolding from his mother.

As a result, he waited there for almost an hour, noticing that there was not a single person in the school now. Tears were dropping constantly from his eyes, but they were subdued under the mighty drops coming from the eyes of the heavens. These had been the worst two days in his life, all because of the stupid umbrella he had forced his mother to buy. Had he known that the umbrella was going to lead to such problems, he would never have bought it in the first place.

He wept profusely, looking at the unmanned road that the rain had caused. Only after an hour and ten minutes of standing here could he see one single person pacing towards him. Without a doubt, he was the happiest person on the planet. “I would never lie to her in my life again. I am not going to make such a mistake in my life ever again.” He expressed to himself, as he was about to run towards his mother. But she indicated him to wait under the roof while she came to him with one umbrella over her head and another in her left hand.

A mother had felt terribly guilty because she had gone too far in her punishment. A child felt terribly guilty at having lied to the one person who came to help when the whole school left him alone. The bond between a mother and her child was strengthened because of a small umbrella.

A coordination that is often overlooked

Shyam stepped out of the car that had carried him to the big auditorium. He walked towards the big auditorium, at first awed by the number of people walking inwards. The red carpet which was under his feet signified a sense of achievement more than he had ever felt in his life. As he reached the gate, a guard, with a wide, dense moustache welcomed him, ‘Namaste.’ Shyam smiled back, but as soon as he passed through the wide doors, his fears came back. Had he been too callous in his preparations for being here?

As a young boy from a small village but with a big dream, this was the first time he was about to experience what big audiences meant. His village had just been chosen as a role model by the government. Being the topper of the only school in the village, he was chosen by the village Sarpanch to present in Mumbai why his village was a role model. The intent was to let the future generation of the village showcase the future of their village.

The day he had heard the announcement was a very bad one for him. While he was good at studies, almost everyone at the school agreed that Shyam’s personality didn’t allow him to be a good speaker. He was a thinker who would rarely utter his words out. Also, rarely in his life had he participated in activities that required speaking in public. But the Sarpanch had insisted that the school’s topper should be the one who presented.

As a result, two teachers were appointed to groom the young boy, force him to talk and make him practice so much so that he could talk in front of a thousand people without a single ‘Umm’. The boy was obedient, as he regularly came an hour before school began each morning. But the effort of turning the boy around was not simple. It had taken the two teachers- the two best speakers in the village, almost two months to get the boy to a level where he could speak confidently to people.

After this, they had gone on to lengths to create a presentation for the boy on the school’s computer, and the boy had managed to infuse his creativity and design skills into the 10-minute presentation. He had deliberately seen a lot of TED talks and had seen several CEOs launch their products with ease. “How easily could these people speak?” he had thought every moment while going through the several videos he had seen.

This morning, as he left the village with a presentation in his USB pen-drive, the whole village was here to wish him luck. The Sarpanch was himself going with the boy, to make sure that the boy had support and won’t feel lonely amidst the hordes of people he would find in the big city. Shyam was confident as he sat in the car at 6.00 am in the morning. The Sarpanch had exact reports about his preparation, so he knew that the boy was well prepared and he would easily be able to pull it off.

As the car left the boundaries of the village, the Sarpanch indulged the boy in a conversation talking about the importance of the presentation. It was only now that the boy was told he would be presenting in front of the country’s President. In fact, the President was going to hear from fourteen other students just like Shyam. As the depth of presenting to the President struck him, he suddenly feared why he was here. He was very well aware that there were several other people in the village who were perhaps more deserving than him.

The tension in his mind started to accrue as the Sarpanch, although mistakenly, had triggered a chain reaction. What if I am unable to open my mouth? What if the President doesn’t like the small stain on my shirt? What if people don’t like the way I look?

It would lead to a lot of bad publicity for the young boy, whose school friends were his life currently. As soon as they would come to know of his failure, they would distance himself, and there would definitely be several students who would mock him. He was soon going to be a monkey in a circus, one who was an integral part of the circus because people laughed at him and mocked him.

The 4-hour long journey soon turned into a journey of 4 centuries, as Shyam twisted and turned several times. His hands were sweaty even when the Air Conditioner had the temperature inside the car well under control. The Sarpanch had by now turned to his newspaper, leaving the boy alone in his preparation.

Within two hours since they started, Shyam wanted to turn back and drive home. He wanted to go hug his mother and go play cricket with his friends. By now, the tautness had deepened to him thinking about his village’s reputation being at stake. If he fumbled even once while giving the presentation, the village reputation was only going downward.

Suddenly, everyone he could see seemed so perfect- the driver with his left hand firmly sitting on the gear stick, the Sarpanch having reached success in his political career, the passers-by in other cars who were definitely successful at whatever they had done. It was only Shyam who was going to fail in the biggest exam in his life. He already felt that he was thrown into the well from which there was no coming back. There was so much more to do in life, but all that was put to rest. His throat felt an ache, but he somehow held on as the car cruised ahead.

The car reached the destination exactly at 9.45 am, as Shyam got goosebumps when the car braked for the final time. The sarpanch called him out, and he was walking on the red carpet within a minute.

As he entered the auditorium, the sarpanch naturally wished him luck. “You are our village’s future. Do your best, there is a lot at stake here. But believe in yourself. I know you will do well.” The words were just like an additional hundred kilos being pushed onto his shoulders.

Somehow holding in one place and not uttering even one word, he reached backstage, where fourteen other students just like him, many of them elegantly dressed stood beside him. He handed over the pen-drive to one of the administrative staff, who checked the presentation for him before going on stage. He was scheduled to go third, but the wait was going to be a long one, he was sure.

But now that he was here, he knew one thing. There was no going back, so it was better to look at his notes lying in his pocket and making a mental note of what all he had to cover during the presentation. As a result of this exercise, he was a little bit more confident, but the pressure still lurked.

As the first student stepped onto the stage, he saw him holding a black rectangular remote which he was constantly pointing at the screen. It was only now Shyam realized why he was worried all this time. He was just not prepared! He had seen several presentations online where the presenters used a similar device which had a laser pointer which would point towards the screen. The device also had buttons to go to the next or previous slide.

Unfortunately, Shyam didn’t have access to such sophisticated tools in his school. As a result, he had used his hand to point towards the lines on the slides. But looking at the first student on stage comfortably use the device, he felt that if he didn’t use the device, he was definitely going to lose out to other students. He desperately had to figure out how the laser pointer worked.

But the innately introverted nature prevented him from talking to the organizers. He tried to look closely at how the student holding the pointer was clicking the buttons. He was petrified every time the boy pointed the sharp laser pointer towards another line on the screen. This was a question that he had left hanging ever since he had started seeing the videos online-“How did the speaker know the exact coordinates of the point to which the pointer should point?” Of course, it was the years of practice that the speakers would go through before they got such a high accuracy of pinpointing.

After staring constantly for another five minutes, he realized that there was no way he could use the pointer as efficiently as the other boy was using. Forget the pointer, he didn’t know if he could even change the slides using the pointer.

The pressure mounted as the crowd cheered loudly as the first student finished his presentation. Shyam realized that the second student, a girl from Assam, was equally proficient in using the device. She had gone many steps further with all the fancy animations she had built into her presentation.

As the girl neared the end of her presentation, Shyam was completely dejected as a result of all the things that had happened since morning. He just wanted to get done with this, not caring about the result. People in the village would move on from his failure sooner or later, he realized. As for his friends, he would try other things to gain their confidence. About the village’s reputation, he didn’t care anymore. People in the village were dedicated towards the cause so they would find a way to work around his failure.

As the girl stepped off the stage with a loud applause from the crowd, the comparer called out Shyam’s name. Shyam was handed the device as he entered the stage. He looked at the screen once and realizing the first slide of his presentation was already up, he looked towards the crowd. “Good morning everyone. I am Shyam,” he started with the part he was to talk while the presentation was still on the first slide.

It was only after a minute into the presentation when he felt the need to change the slide. The device in his hand had three buttons, one which had a red dot for laser, one up arrow and one down arrow. Shyam quickly pressed the up arrow and noticed the slide changed to the next one. Realizing the partial victory, he almost sighed into the microphone.

But he soon realized he still had to get through the thirteen slides so he began talking again. As he spoke for another minute, he was wondering if he should use the laser pointer. The next slide was where he would actually have to use it. This slide had a roadmap diagram, and it was imperative that he either had to use his hand to point towards the slide or use the pointer. Using his hand was not possible as the slide was too big and his hands won’t be able to pinpoint.

As he turned to the next slide, he paused for a few moments. The crowd was busy looking at the fancy diagram he had drawn on the slide, so he decided to steal a moment and try out the laser pointer. He looked at the black device and calculated the angle at which he should hold it to be able to point to the first part of the diagram. He then looked at the diagram and once again thought if he had placed the device’s laser pointer at the right angle.

But as soon as he pressed the button with the red dot, he realized that the laser pointer was exactly where he wanted to point. As he began talking, the crowd was once again engrossed in his talk. He swiftly moved the pointer through the slide.

The young boy flipped slides one after the other, confidently speaking with the exact voice modulations that his teachers had taught him. With a talking speed that stayed consistent throughout, his presentation ended exactly in nine minutes and forty-eight seconds.

A boy had learned that his brain was smarter than he had thought. This was his first experience at realizing the power of hand-eye coordination. He was prepared now to face the world and talk as many times as was required.

The machine that used to be

A diverse crowd, with people ranging from the most powerful people to the least powerful people, squatted and stood around the pan stall that marked the entrance to the small village. Standing amidst the dust and the sounds that emanated from a constant flow of trucks and buses that passed through the tiny village, the stall had been iconic in shaping the recent history of the village.

Ram bhaiyya, as the owner was known fondly, had established himself as one of the most knowledgeable persons in the village when it came to village politics and the ‘what’s happening with’ questions that were asked around. The reason for his knowledge wasn’t the popularity of the pans he used to sell, but the daily discussions that cultivated at his pan stall. Everyone, from the Sarpanch of the village to the farmers and the passers-by, had time to visit his stall once a day. Of course, who wouldn’t like the free news service that Ram bhaiyya offered?

It was a tradition that had lived along through the generations, as people usually made a point to visit his stall at least once a day. Everyone from the Sarpanch in the village to the only sweeper in the village managed to wait at his stall to find someone to get to discussions which lasted hours. Ram Bhaiyya always tried to add fuel to the fire of the discussions and debates, making sure they continued on and on, thus trying to sell an additional cold drink bottle or a paan or a cigarette.

The time people spent at his stall was directly proportional to the quality of food at his home. If his earnings were poor, it was the trite dal chawal and if they were good, he used to buy fruits for his family which included his wife and two kids.

But his desperation for earnings had grown in the past one year or so, ever since people started buying mobile phones and landline connections became legacy devices. When the landline devices had arrived, he was the first person to sign up for one of the coin-operated machines provided by the telecom company, deciding to invest in the box as he could easily see the demand.

The village had a very small population, just above two hundred people so it made sense to have only one phone in the village which could be used by everyone. Also, since the cost of installation of such devices was high, no one actually wanted to invest high amounts in getting landline connections. Thus, Ram Bhaiyya had chosen to be the one who would earn using the device.

But with the rapid decline in prices of mobile phones, people were more than willing to buy a phone which they could carry wherever they went.

When he had bought the device, Ram Bhaiyya was proud of his investment sense, realizing he had invested in an asset whose value would only grow as people started getting accustomed to it. And it did. People valued the ‘Bijli’ device, as he fondly called it, more than the paans that he sold at the paan stall. While paans were a luxury, Bijli was soon a necessity.

On busy times, Ram Bhaiyya had to open his stall at 6.30 am in the morning and he would usually stay up until late night, sometimes even midnight. But the business was good, and he was able to sustain his family of 4.

Since Bijli became an integral part of the lives of almost everyone in the village, people had gotten into the habit of gathering around the phone to wait for their turns. As a result, this modest pan stall thus became one of the most common rendezvous for discussions and complaints about one person or the other. As the village adapted to mobile phones, thus abandoning Bijli, they didn’t want to change their venue for discussions. Ram Bhaiyya’s shop was still the go-to place for anything related to the village.

But today, the crowd didn’t seem in a mood to discuss the usual affairs. They stood silently looking at Ram Bhaiyya who constantly stared at the bright-red colored Bijli. It was only this morning that he had announced in the village that he would no longer provide the services of the landline device since no one was using it. The burden of maintaining the device was too much for him. He had to pay the phone company a fixed monthly device rental cost. The amount he paid was not recovered in the past three months, thus he could foresee the phone being a burden to his business.

The villagers were happy to use their phones, but they didn’t want to see the device go away. This machine was like a guardian of the village, readily available with its services anytime day or night.

Ram Bhaiyya was going to the nearby city today in the afternoon, where he would surrender the rented device and take his cash deposit back. He was in need of money, so he was trying to collect as much as he could. The initial investment in the device had paid off in the last three years, no doubt, but it was becoming a burden now.

“Bhaiyon aur behenon,” he announced, unable to look in the eyes of the villagers. He explained why he had decided to take such a radical step and why it was unavoidable for him to go through the tough decision. The company had demanded an increase in the monthly rental rate to Rs 200 for the device and was also increasing its calling rates. These two were the thresholds that pivoted Ram Bhaiyya to pull the plug. Of course, business and money was to be kept above the petty emotions, right? Ram Bhaiyya had arrived at the decision only after due deliberation, and there was no going back now.

To make sure that he gave a good farewell to his most successful business investment, he had already asked his friend who owned a jeep for a ride to the city later in the afternoon. The plan was to take the device to the city in a jubilant atmosphere, just like a bride. He had also arranged for laddoos for all the people who came to his shop today. The three big tin boxes of laddoos lay right in front of him, while the people watched. But no one cared about the laddoos, all they wanted was to keep the machine.

But Ram decided it was time to announce that there were laddoos for all of them so that it would be a happy farewell for Bijli. But as soon as he said this, one of the ladies in the crowd had tears drip down her cheeks. Within a minute, Ram’s eyes turned red and soon there were more people who started shedding tears with him. It didn’t take much long for the farewell to turn emotional, as stories about how the device had helped people during their times of need diffused into the air.

“You know, I had to admit my son to the hospital, and Bijli…” a woman started the discussions, which led to more cases and more grief for the owner of the stall and the villagers alike.

It was almost thirty minutes until the people turned back to Ram Bhaiyya, who by now had gone back to his home and brought back his small bag in which the device would be carried to the city. As he passed through the crowd towards the phone, everyone looked at him silently unplugging the device from the landline connection wires. Under the hood of the silence that was visible to the passers-by, everyone was anxious to see their Bijli go away.

“Thehro!” the new politician in the village finally uttered, noticing Ramu clean the dust one last time before taking the device back to the company. Everyone turned around to the politician, knowing he would try and politicize the issue by gaining the sympathy of the people around. People were certain he would make a speech about how the device had helped the village, thus making everyone emotional. But eventually, he would ask people to elect him as sarpanch in the coming election season, maybe promising them that he would get a device back from the company as soon as he was elected. But the villagers knew this would be a fake promise.

As people looked towards him placidly, Ram Bhaiyya continued with cleaning the phone one final time. He used his fingers to go through the gaps between the numeric keypad where dust had managed to stick in ever since he had bought the device. As the politician patted on his shoulder to gain his attention, Ram Bhaiyya turned towards him happily.

“What if…” the politician stopped as he was about to talk. His puzzled look was now confusing to the villagers, who were otherwise certain this was another one of his political gimmicks. It took the politician a few moments before he spoke again to Ram Bhaiyya.

“What are the expenses of keeping the device?” the politician asked, facing Ram Bhaiyya in his eyes.

“The charges are not affordable to me, bhai sahab. I cannot afford to spend money which doesn’t return me anything. Last month, there was not a single call made using the phone. Everyone uses their mobile phones nowadays…” Ram Bhaiyya explained his story.

“Tell me the amount it takes to keep the device here,” the politician cut him short.

“It takes Rs 200 every month to maintain it. But that is only a part of the expense. I had to deposit Rs 2000 initially when I had assured the company a deposit for maintaining the connection. It was expensive, but the investment paid off back then. Now, I am in dire need of money. I have been earning at the most Rs 2000 every month these days because of the paltry sales of other items from my stall. Survival is a big challenge, and I don’t want to keep my money hanging for an idle phone.”

“Hmm. But the other items at your stall… your shop seems to be busy all the time!”

“Yes, but people rarely buy stuff these days. My daily sales range anywhere between Rs 300 to 400. Imagine…” Ram Bhaiyya couldn’t speak as his throat ached.

The politician turned away from Ram Bhaiyya, and stared directly into the eyes of each villager standing there. He was aware that this was the perfect opportunity to win the coming panchayat election. Thus, with bright eyes and a loud voice, he announced.

The politician would pay Ram Bhaiyya the Rs 2000 for maintaining the landline device. Added to that, he agreed to pay Ram Bhaiyya an additional Rs 1000 as a token of appreciation for the services he provided to the village for the past 3 years. He also mentioned that Ram Bhaiyya would no longer have to pay the Rs 200 as rent, as the village didn’t need the telephonic service. They would just disconnect the telephone connection.

The phone was a symbol that needed to be protected. The village didn’t have a sophisticated museum, but the villagers knew very well that it was essential for the coming generations to know the importance of this phone. The phone had saved several lives, apart from providing happiness to several people who otherwise would have chosen to live in sorrow.

Elated with the announcement, Ram Bhaiyya promptly picked up the sweets that were still lying idle on the counter and distributed them among the villagers. Everyone was happy to pick one and pass along with a wide smile. After exchanging pleasantries and profusely thanking the politician for acting and not merely promising, the crowd soon started clearing up.

As the clock turned to 11.30 am, Bijli was still proudly squatting in its place. Ram Bhaiyya was sitting on his counter, humming a melody merrily.

Of course, he was happy. His plan to somehow get money for sustaining his business had succeeded. The politician had fallen into the trap just perfectly. He didn’t have to make any additional efforts to entice him, just ensure that the timing of the whole drama was perfect. And today proved to be the best day for the politician, just one week from the voting day for the coming elections.

The money was not too big, but he had plans to use this money to expand his business by providing mobile recharging services at his stall, thus making sure that the business stayed afloat. But right now, he was happy to sit behind the counter and celebrate his ingenuity.

A businessman had used his non-performing asset to extract capital for his next investment. A common man had learned how to leverage a politician’s weakness perfectly. At the same time, a politician had perfected how to win the hearts of his voters.