by Pawan Mishra
When Kasturi thought a topic deserved serious attention from the other party, as in the present case, she put her point across in a melodramatic way. Daulat’s sharply declining emotional intelligence was constantly causing Kasturi sleepless nights—she at least wanted Daulat, before he was to lose his sanity completely, to use his contacts to land Coinman in a stable and more rewarding job. She knew that with the current trajectory of Daulat’s condition, the family was running out of time.
Daulat had begun to be not quite himself already. But, when he was, for a small fraction of his time, he appreciated Kasturi’s practicality about his condition. He found out that one of his own former colleagues was acquainted with the owner of a big firm. Daulat pursued the lead relentlessly until Coinman was offered employment as a clerk.
By the time Coinman had settled into his new job, Daulat had ventured further into his secret inward world. Additionally, he had had a sharp decline in his memory, and his social abilities had become very severely limited.
Daulat’s world kept shrinking around himself—until it contained mainly him. He hardly spoke to anyone, unless he was made to, and hardly remembered anything unless reminded. He never asked for food, eating only when it was served. Kasturi tried to engage him in as much physical activity as possible; she even forced him out of the house for a walk around the neighborhood. Yet it was only a temporary interruption of his downward spiral. Doctors couldn’t bring any ray of hope, either.
“What would you have for lunch?” Kasturi asked him on one occasion around this time, entering his room.
He did not answer. He was lost in the newspaper.
Kasturi walked to him and shook his shoulder. “Hey, listen, what do you want to have?”
“What?”
“Food, food. Do you want to eat rice or bread?”
Daulat stared at her face for a minute, looking lost. “Anything.”
“Anything isn’t available anymore. What would you like to eat other than anything?”
Daulat just stared at her again and said, “Maybe salads?”
Then he got up and walked out the door to go to the kitchen. He pulled out cucumber and kale from the refrigerator and started cutting them.
“At least wash them first,” Kasturi shouted, then noticed that his hand was bleeding. He had cut himself but did not know it until she hurried to him with clean cotton and dabbed the cut.
“Look,” Kasturi said, “you have hurt yourself so badly. That’s why we tell you to ask us for what you want.”
As such problems became more frequent, Kasturi was actually relieved when she saw Daulat develop a new fetish for reading the newspaper. He essentially started having another address within his house: he lived in the newspaper of the day. When someone wanted to locate him, the best advice was, “Look for today’s newspaper.”
As soon as he got up, he jumped off his bed and ran outside the house to fetch the paper for that day. The newspaper was delivered at six in the morning by the hawker, and Daulat set his clock to wake him up a minute before six. This had two purposes: first, to get him to the paper as early as it was delivered; second, to let him avoid having to spend any impatient waking moments without the newspaper of the day. In the rare event that he had to wait for a few minutes, he would get the previous day’s newspaper from the shelf to kill time.
Daulat spent a large amount of time reading the newspaper in the bathroom, after accidentally discovering the joy of carrying out the two most important tasks of his existence together. What had started as a method to avoid a disruption to his avid reading by an unwanted call from nature soon turned into an addiction. Once he went in the restroom with his paper, he did not come out until someone knocked at the door.
If he found an exciting news heading, he immediately rushed to the restroom to savor it in the most enjoyable conditions possible. Once, during an increasingly rare moment of sanity, he even tried to convince Coinman of it.
“The joy of reading while simultaneously evacuating your bowels is second to none in the world,” he enthusiastically declared. “You will have to experience it to really appreciate it. There are only a very few ways in this world to achieve utmost physical and mental satisfaction, both at the same time. The relief experienced by the execution of one activity helps in achieving a greater focus on the other. And as a result, each word that you read seems to be descending straight from heaven.”
13. The Sublime Collusion
Sometimes fate just plays a strange game of Scrabble with you. Irrespective of your tiles, and your successful turns, fate always gets all the doubles, triples, and bingos. If you challenge a word, fate always has it in the dictionary. On the other hand, if fate challenges a word, the word stops being valid in the dictionary. You have no clue what words fate will create.
You are always in some game with fate. Sometimes, despite your impeccable position, all the right moves, and all the foresight, it’s fate that dictates what happens at the end.
Given the hatred against the coins that had recently leaped from below the surface to the center stage, and Hukum’s failed attempts to have a dialogue with Coinman, everyone knew that someone needed to spearhead a formal campaign, yet no one could have ever guessed it was going to be Saarang.
The unpredicted twist in Saarang’s meeting with Tulsi had led him to organize, quite unexpectedly, the most historic event connected to this story. Call it Saarang’s attempt to make his fabricated story to Tulsi more authentic, or whatever, it was happening.
It started when Saarang gathered the first floor in the cafeteria, to almost a full capacity, and addressed the gathering.
“Friends, brothers, wingmen,” he said, adjusting his tie, “lend me your ears; I cometh to fury Coinman, not to hon’r him; woes that he causes hath become oppressive. Mine heart is with Coinman, but mine mind sayeth that he wilt be amerced. We wilt not mourneth f’r ourselves. We wilt outcast the lown.”
“Mine broth’r from anoth’r moth’r,” Panna said, “we all know your desperate attempts at literature. You aren’t in the ivy halls of your miserable literature pursuit now. Without wasting more time, will thou cometh to the pointeth? Dost thou wanteth us to stayeth or leaveth?”
“Stayeth, stayeth…certes,” Saarang hurried to say nervously. He wasn’t known as the best public speaker—perhaps why he was taking cover under Shakespeare.
“Without much further ado,” Saarang said after collecting himself, “I will kick off the session today by declaring that my undying persistence with Tulsi has finally borne fruit.”
He purposefully paused to see the hearts leaping as high as a mountain before continuing, “Therefore, I have a very distinguished new member with us today. She is no stranger but our own golden girl, Tulsi.”
Clapping is easily the best example of self-amplification in the world. It sprouts from a single wham to a wave of sound in no time. As soon as someone clapped on hearing Tulsi’s name, an avalanche of applause followed.
Tulsi appeared from nowhere, smiling, effecting an addendum to the applause.
Some of them even pinched themselves to double-check it wasn’t a dream that they were partners in the coup with the most divine of all beauties. Saarang probably hadn’t received as much gratitude in his entire life as he did in those few minutes.
Tulsi was clad in a purple sari that artfully wrapped around her waist, skillfully showing her enchanting collarbones that were in perfect harmony with her modest neckline.
“That was some greeting! This is such an enchanting group,” she said. “Firstly, big thanks to Saarang for all the efforts. Since he has already apprised me of the latest and greatest, I am not going to get into the background and all. Good use of time is the universal ingredient in cooking a palatable dish—doesn’t matter if you are baking, boiling, frying, brewing, or grilling.”
“Or even microwaving!” Saarang’s enthused addition caused an abrupt end to the laughter Tulsi had managed to launch them into.
Tulsi continued, “I
would say, though, that I can already see the future success of our endeavor on each face here. I am thankful to God for honoring me with such amazing colleagues.” Then she laughed. “Well, except for one.”
The group burst out laughing again.
“Before I go further, let’s agree on our goal. I have to ask this. Don’t raise your hands if Coinman has perturbed you beyond your tolerance limit. Please raise your right hand otherwise.”
“Very good,” Tulsi said after seeing that no one had raised a hand. “It’s very important to make sure we all are into it with our hearts and souls. Our management has buried their heads in the sand, but I am glad to see that we are all willing to take matters into our own hands. We are, however, going to do it our own subtle way.”
“Allow me a sec,” said Ratiram, “to emphasize the importance of team spirit here. Like Tulsi has said, when something is being planned, nothing is more crucial than sticking together till the very end.”
“You have hit the nail on the head.” Tulsi addressed Ratiram. “Thank you for bringing this important element up. Adding to what Ratiram has said”—she turned to the crowd again—“there will be a need for great teamwork to carry out different parts—and no matter how dire a situation we land ourselves in, no one must reveal specifics of who did what to anyone outside this circle.”
“I get it,” Hukum said, “but are we only going to talk in the air here? Can someone help me understand what we are going to do?” Hukum, it must be said, was still sour deep within because Saarang had snatched his opportunity to lead the crowd on the matter.
“Wait,” Saarang chimed in. “I request everyone to allow Tulsi to share her thoughts first.”
“Mate,” Panna interjected toward Saarang, “aren’t you fully recovered yet from the damn diarrhea that made the poor janitor work twenty-four-seven like your sidekick? This isn’t the restroom, buddy. You can’t afford to have bigger accidents here while only attempting to let some gas out.”
No one, except Tulsi and Saarang, could resist a laugh.
For his wit, Panna’s popularity wasn’t only confined within the gang; he had a much larger fan following on the first floor. It was said that he had learned this art from Ratiram, during the latter’s early days at the office when he hadn’t yet tempered expressing his raw thoughts to the sophistication level required to maintain his current reputation. People also believed that Panna had read every possible book that was worth reading.
Tulsi pretended she was in such deep thought that she couldn’t pay attention to what Panna had said.
“Let’s get back to the point.” Ratiram brought everyone back to focus at once.
“Let’s see what our two captains have come up with!” Hukum said sarcastically. “They must at least have discussed broadly what needs to be done—else why would everybody be called here for just wasting time?”
“Let us strip him of his coins,” Tulsi declared abruptly, caught off guard by Hukum’s direct attack. “Let’s rob the filthy insect of its wings!” She shouted, “Let’s snatch his happiness and share it equally among us.” Then she dropped her voice to almost a whisper. “Let’s do it in a way that lets us kill the snake without breaking the stick.”
“But why the heck do we need to snatch the coins? We can always find other ways to get his coins,” Sevak put in. Even though he knew the answer, he asked the question for two reasons: one, to win some quick brownie points from Hukum; two, for the benefit of many others in the room who, he thought, didn’t have enough guts to speak their minds in public but were likely to confuse others later.
“Tulsi’s approach seems very sound to me,” said Ratiram calmly. “By symbolically robbing his coins together, we are going to make a statement that the entire office is united against his coins and won’t stand them anymore. If all we do is steal coins, Coinman will bring another set in no time. There is no way out but to confront him openly, collectively, and prudently.”
Saarang was desperate to speak, as he was feeling sidelined from the meeting he was supposed to be leading. He had been searching for something to say for the past few minutes to reestablish his lost authority.
“I am sure there were dark thunderclouds, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes—everywhere—when he was born,” Saarang said. “Nature must have demonstrated a giant disagreement on the event and, in this manner, must have warned the innocent people of an upcoming crisis. If it is up to us to free the world from his tyranny, we will rise to the occasion. We will teach him such a lesson that his fingers will tremble at the very thought of going near his pockets!”
“I have not heard anything that useless in a while,” Panna said. “Although I’ll give you that it sounded like something great. But it didn’t mean shit.”
“Let’s wrap this meeting up here,” said Tulsi, realizing that the discussion might go sideways. “Ratiram, Hukum, and I will catch up offline and meet everyone here tomorrow to update the details of our execution plan.”
Saarang was clearly offended by not being included in Tulsi’s invitation. “Hey guys,” he said, “don’t forget to include me as well in the discussion.”
“Why not?” said Tulsi. “After all, you might be able to at least listen in.” She laughed as she said this, and everyone else laughed as well.
Et tu, Tulsi? That was all Saarang could think.
14. The Grapes of Wrath
A clay pitcher that goes to the well too often is broken at last.
Thus the big event happened, on a day when management was out of the office for an off-site meeting. Coinman had barely settled at his desk that morning, after transferring coins from his desk drawers to his left pocket, when Hukum walked up to him and put a twenty-rupee bill next to his nose from behind. “Coinman, mate, I have gotten myself in a kind of a desperate situation and need your help very urgently.”
Coinman’s chin had sensed something fishy and had started to flutter worse than a trapped flycatcher bird.
“How can I help?” Coinman asked, pushing the bill away from his face using his right hand. Hukum walked to the front to face him.
“I need to buy cigarettes—but have run out of change. Can I get some change for this bill?” Hukum could not resist a smile that risked exposing the dubiousness of his request.
His colleagues’ recent odious episodes had bred an extra vigilance in Coinman, equipping his nose to smell a malicious prank in the making. Thus his newly upgraded nose and notably precautious chin had formed a deadly alarm system that could sense and signal the minutest unfavorable activity to the brain.
“That doesn’t explain why you need change. I have always seen a full pack with you. So why would you suddenly want to buy loose cigarettes?” Sufficiently alarmed, Coinman’s brain was at work.
Hukum did not seem prepared for this question—he couldn’t respond promptly. Then he thought fast.
“I have promised my wife that I am quitting smoking,” he lied smoothly. “I am going to reduce the number of cigarettes I smoke every day. The only way I can do it is by continuously reducing over weeks. If I keep the pack, I can’t achieve this. I have promised myself that I will go and buy a loose cigarette every time I want to smoke. You’d agree I have better chances with that. Now please—give me the change. I am dying with cravings here. I have had only one cigarette since I woke up.”
“Well, these coins are a gift from a very dear friend,” Coinman said, seeing that other colleagues were very attentively following their conversation. “I can’t give them to you. My apologies. You can ask others. And if you think you might need some change tomorrow, I can happily bring it then.”
“Actually, I need the coins right now,” Hukum said, looking like a resolute lion detaining its prey. “And I really can’t settle for any other coins but the ones that you are carrying in your pocket right now.”
Coinman could see that a number of others had left their work and were gathering around them, keeping a safe distance.
“What kind of hooliganism is
this? I have a right to decide about my own coins.” Coinman could barely speak through gasps of anger and nervousness.
“You have only two options,” Hukum declared. “Either gift your coins peacefully to us, or we are going to rescue the coins from your pocket without your consent.”
“Us? We? Who else wants the change?” Saying this, Coinman looked around, and the entire picture flashed clearly in his mind.
It was a moment of truth. At a time when he really needed all the grit that could come his way, he instead felt like a deer detained by lions, and his heart bore the weight of the world. He felt he was sinking deeper every moment into a bottomless abyss. His chin had gone berserk—but it was more nuisance than help now, since he fully knew the danger he was in.
Hukum knew well that any imprudent move from him at this delicate point could make Coinman run zigzag in panic. So he inched closer to him in small arcs.
Terror-stricken, Coinman was frozen. Collecting all his courage, he slowly moved backward until he hit a pillar. Startled by this, he turned to his right and began to run toward the main entrance—only to find it blocked by Daya and Panna.
“What’s the hurry, Your Majesty?” Panna said, and laughed. He was improvising his role in this. “Whence doth thou wanteth to goeth, leaving us hither?”
Coinman could see his colleagues were everywhere—blocking all the exits. And the worst: a number of them had started walking toward him in a circle.