Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

by Pawan Mishra

  Defeated, and sweating terribly, Coinman stopped and stood quietly in silent dread. No words could come out of his mouth, even though he wanted to shout. Worse, he knew that even if he’d been able to shout, no one would help—they were all in on this. He suddenly noticed, through blurring vision, that Ratiram was watching from a distance. Though Coinman had recently discovered the snake in him, this was the first time he saw Ratiram’s open participation in his disgrace. It broke his heart again—somehow he hadn’t given up fully on Ratiram until now. Until now he’d still hoped.

  Caught in dejection, Coinman was distracted enough that Hukum had time to grip both his arms together in a handcuff position. Sevak slipped his hand in Coinman’s left pocket, a place that had been more remote and confidential than a nuclear missile site, to grab all the coins. Amazingly, the coins seemed to have a mind of their own. They dodged his relentless fist every time. The imbalance in the united stance of the three men made every second challenging for Hukum and Sevak, trying to stay put until the coins were successfully retrieved. Daya and Panna rushed to bring in more stability and make it less difficult for Sevak to draw out the coins. Daya put a noose of his arms around Coinman’s waist, while Panna dropped to his knees and held Coinman by his thighs pressed against his chest. Most of Coinman’s energy was now focused on keeping him standing.

  Help isn’t always useful when complexities of mind are involved.

  “Aaaaarrrrgh!”

  Coinman screeched, a hysterical explosion in terror, and channeled force through his arms and legs to push everyone away from him as hard as he could. As a result, all five of them collapsed onto the floor. The coins were completely unprepared for this and were sadly deceived by their own inertia. As a result the coins sheepishly fell to the floor—old and new, outdated and in use, humiliated but still in the news.

  Scrambling, Coinman made a frenzied attempt to collect the coins, but a dark mental jolt suddenly shook his whole body, entirely blinding him for a few moments.

  His life so far hadn’t prepared him to cope gracefully with this degree of embarrassment. In total humiliation, he lost control over his senses for a moment, lying helplessly on the floor. The overly colorful images of his colleagues appeared to pierce the dark that occupied most of his vision, to peek at him before disappearing quickly to merge back with the dark. Their faces had even begun to distort, exaggerating repulsive features normally hidden. Some of these faces even grew bigger in size and laughed before disappearing in the dark.

  Coinman tried to speak but couldn’t. He felt publicly stripped, as if his clothes had suddenly disappeared from his body. Bracing himself on his hands, he scrambled desperately for support to stand up again, but he couldn’t seem to muster it alone. Of course no one came forward to help him. One by one everyone dispersed, leaving him and his coins looking like a tragic battlefield just after a war.

  Coinman had no clue how to gather his dignity back, scattered in coins around him. It was few more minutes before he managed to get up and stumble away in silence.

  15. The Qualm and ABC

  Dead air ruled the first floor following the coin robbery—a perfect silence, much like the one that lingers after a storm.

  The magnitude of the robbery had surpassed all their imaginations; they were worried now. There was only one possible sequel to this enormous incident—an ABC apocalypse. The engagement with ABC, the three most dreaded men at the office, was imminent. An incident of the magnitude they’d pulled off, they thought, was surely going to be reported to the administration.

  They hadn’t imagined it was going to turn out this way; all they had planned for was taking the coins out of Coinman’s pocket, making a loud statement of their revolt against his tyranny. Now they knew that it had unquestionably gone too far. A breach of discipline of such magnitude had never escaped the ears of higher management, irrespective of where it happened, what it was, or who was involved in it.

  On the other hand, the great mystery had always been how such things got reported to senior management. Some had even searched in vain for hidden cameras on the first floor.

  The fear of the consequences made them radically reflective now. They felt their plan had been sloppy, impatient, and half-baked. Why would they plan in such a way, knowing of management’s vulture eyes? Doubtless excitement had made them careless—excitement that came about from a synthesis of Tulsi’s charisma, Saarang’s want of attention, their desire to deep-six the coins, Ratiram’s unconditional support, Hukum’s steam, and, above all, a big opportunity to let loose.

  In their excitement they had failed to understand that unlike their regular pranks, this one wasn’t going to remain under the radar of the disciplinary process that had been enforced at the office for years. Realizing that only now was a humongous source of shame.

  No one could blame them for a collective cold sweat.

  Discipline at the office had long been enforced by the use of three methods: the meeting of the first kind, the meeting of the second kind, and the meeting of the third kind. These easy-to-remember methods were comprehensively documented in the employee handbook to help managers enforce superlative discipline at the workplace. The new associates were told about them as part of their onboarding process.

  In a nutshell, when a discipline infringement occurred, its scale determined the method. A bigger offense warranted a meeting of a higher kind. It was technically possible, as was well documented in the handbook, to upgrade a meeting to the next kind on the spot if the need and circumstances left no other option. However, this was roundly discouraged to ensure the right application the first time; one of the things people did best at the office was to use flexibility to its last atom. It was not permitted, however, to upgrade a meeting of the first kind directly to a meeting of the third kind; it had to then go through the two-level process—an upgrade to the second kind, and then, if proceedings of the second kind warranted, another upgrade to the third kind.

  The meeting of the first kind, simply referred to as “first kind,” was the most sparing of the three. It was a meeting with one’s own supervisor, and could come about for practically anything. The meeting of the first kind was purposefully kept fluid to allow a universe of possible topics. The handbook had left it fully to the discretion of the supervisor to determine what a good-enough cause for the first kind was, citing some examples such as missing timelines repeatedly, humming lousy songs during office hours, getting caught shopping during a sick day off, dancing when others worked, keeping a skin flick at the office, wearing revealing clothes, using Ratiram for personal work, complaining openly about management, or dispensing soundless air biscuits deadly enough to knock an elephant to the ground.

  For this reason “first kinds” were taken so lightly that it was almost customary for the suspect to receive verbal tickling and even compliments for having been invited. The only thing that could go wrong with this kind, a negligible possibility, was an upgrade to a second kind.

  The handbook clearly stated, however, that if an employee was referred to a meeting of the first kind for a fifth time, it automatically upgraded him to the second kind. These meetings were very carefully tracked by the administration in a centralized system that proactively spotted automatic upgrades.

  “Small crimes multiply,” the handbook stated philosophically, “to consolidate into a bigger crime. Bigger crimes need bigger probes. The automatic upgrade to the next kind covers the risk from inevitable inconsistency in decision-making by individual managers, thereby taking our vision of a hassle-free workspace to an unforeseen level.”

  The serious business started with the second kind: a meeting with the unit head, Jay, a most polite man who could hold his calm composure even while delivering the most unfavorable message to the other party. During a second kind, the suspect was consistently roasted with tough questions until the matter was resolved, or until the meeting was upgraded to the third kind. If the suspect was determined guilty, Jay not only determined the penalty, bu
t also warned that the next offense of the second kind within six months would automatically qualify the offender for the third kind. Even though people knew that no one had lost a job during a meeting of the second kind, the suspect lost sleep until the verdict came out—because a second kind brought the suspect very close to a third kind. For this reason, someone subjected to a second kind received a vanilla wish from everyone of, “Hope the meeting remains true to its kind!”

  The last one, the third kind, was the gravest of the lot. It was also known informally by many other names: “third degree,” “date with ABC,” “summons,” “gold letter,” or “deathbed.” All the third kinds in the history of the firm had ended with a termination of the suspect’s employment with the firm. The meeting was a form of abysmal trial conducted by ABC, Andar, Bandar, and Chandar. Their exact positions with the firm could never be confirmed, yet it was common knowledge that they possessed the highest authority in matters of utmost importance to the firm. The only way to see or meet ABC was through meetings of the third kind. It was a catch-22 situation for anyone who wanted to meet them because that meant the last day at the firm for that person. So no one wished to meet them. A mere mention of their names was enough to bring a cold chill up the spine.

  Ratiram had famously described it once to the gossipmongers: “It’s our version of a black hole. Just like amply compact mass can distort space and time to cause a black hole, a sufficiently dense breach of discipline in our office causes a black hole that sucks the offender away for eternity, never to spit him back.”

  Since an offender of the third kind slipped directly into abysmal oblivion at the culmination of the trial, no one could ever witness the debris from a third kind. Yet rumor had it that the offender’s cerebral state after this trial was in such an indescribable mess that if asked, the person would probably need a few minutes to recall his father’s name.

  The last time a third kind had happened was around two years back when the accountant Ramta, who found it difficult to remain non-abusive during a meeting of the second kind, was referred by Jay to a third kind. Despite this decision’s being a no-brainer, Jay had taken two months before upgrading Ramta to a meeting of the third kind—such was the prudence exercised by the management, because a third kind had to be well covered from a legal perspective.

  It was said that Ramta had received an invitation to a third kind via a golden envelope in his drawer at the office. The rumors said that Ramta couldn’t open the gold letter immediately because the strength in his shaking hands had failed him completely. That was the last time anyone had seen him. His disappearance had been no surprise, but confirmed that the sanctity of the process was still fully intact. The rumors had added that Ramta had held ABC’s feet to plead for mercy as the only source of bread and butter for his family of seven, but ABC couldn’t tarnish a success story that had spanned decades.

  Why were the workers here, with a discipline so hard to bear?

  It was a mixed bundle of reasons: First, a group denial carried people through the days: bad things happen only to others. No one ever believed that it could be him…until it really was. Second, the third kind was very unlikely in most cases; per the records, there had been only five third kinds in the last twenty years—probably fewer than the number of people who’d kicked the bucket during that same time period. Third, the workers knew of no one else who had as much fun at work as they did. It was said that no one had ever left the firm voluntarily.

  “If you ask me,” Ratiram had once said, “it’s the daily kick of the place more than anything else. No superior fun like this comes without taking a chance. Acceptance of the danger is of the essence for playing a quality sport.”

  Panna had once told Daya that golf was no longer the most popular sport among the corporate czars because they found playing with natural balls much more satisfying.

  “In the case of ABC,” he had added, “the enjoyment is even more fulfilling because they get to dispose of the balls after each game.”

  16. Connubial Fluctuations

  Despite progress witnessed elsewhere in matters of the heart, parents in this part of the world haven’t quite come around to letting their adult offspring choose their lovers.

  Coinman’s parents were certainly different from the majority. Kasturi had very open-mindedly allowed Coinman a decent amount of time to find a partner for himself. But after observing the lack of acquaintance his mind had with romantic possibilities, and considering Daulat’s complete descent into the newspaper, she began selling marriage to Coinman.

  “A man is a scattered energy until he is married.” She started saying this kind of thing around the time when Coinman had been in his job for about five years. “A marriage helps him to accumulate this energy at one place and direct it to the best possible use. Look at the enviably successful married life your father and I had before he was shrunk to a glass bead by his sickness. After finding an outlet of his most secret worries in me, your father was able to keep negative energies from getting stuck within him.”

  She was very concerned about her son’s lack of a social life. At times when Coinman was away from the house, she even searched his bookshelf and computer for any graphic evidence of her son’s romantic involvement; all in vain. What made things even worse was that she couldn’t share the concern with her best companion of the past, now lost to nothingness. She missed her afternoon chats as never before.

  But Kasturi wasn’t one to sit quietly. She thought Coinman just needed help in approaching girls, so she increased her participation in community events, and volunteered him frequently, along with her, for events more relevant to young women. She played a bridge in introducing him to girls, sometimes even disappearing abruptly from conversations to let the chemistry work all by itself.

  Sadly, though, word soon got around the community, advising people to avoid the mother and son.

  “Maybe God is earnestly planning on him becoming a priest,” one of her close relatives sighed to her once. Kasturi couldn’t appreciate such careless speculation, yet it raised panic in her about the situation.

  So she decided to take the matter entirely into her hands, resolving to seek an arranged alliance for Coinman within one year.

  She lost no further time, embarking on extensive travel with Coinman to visit prospective families for an alliance. Coinman’s reserved nature toward women hindered him from starting an interesting conversation with any of the girls he met. Coinman lost his patience when the eleventh girl they had met declined to take the matter further with him.

  “It’s kind of derogatory,” Coinman finally said to Kasturi in frustration, “to continue offering myself this way. I feel like oversized trousers on sale, not even made of good material, that no one wants to buy. They just hang in there hoping that someone someday will compromise for their low cost.”

  Coinman’s candid sketch of his current distress doubled Kasturi’s grief; she was already heartbroken about her son’s recent bad luck.

  “Don’t overanalyze this, Son.” She tried her best to uplift him. “You are a perfect gem, one of the very best men I have known in my life. Matters of the heart are so incalculable! I am sad that none of these girls could permeate through the layers of your outer personality to find the gem that’s at the core. In a way it’s good it did not work out with them, because if they failed to see the gem in you, they wouldn’t have appreciated your qualities later.”

  “Well, even if I consider for a minute that I am a gem waiting to get discovered, I still have no patience left to put myself on sale to get discovered.”

  “But Son, one has to get married. The world turns into an unbelievably lonely place without a partner. People around you may often seem to be good stand-ins, but they can never fill the void a lack of a partner creates.”

  “I understand. But it looks like we have a deadlock situation here. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about getting married. But I can’t bear to see you sad, so I will marry whomever you find for me.”


  “God bless you, my son. Your openness to getting married is all I need.”

  Having secured carte blanche from Coinman, Kasturi went back into the game. She wanted to go over things this time with a fine-tooth comb.

  “It’s Mr. Rout’s daughter,” she announced to him after accomplishing her mission in less than a month. “Her name is Imli. A beautiful name, like her beautiful heart. I am told that she is one of the best artists in the town. Son, I won’t keep you in the dark—there are things that people say about her, not all positive at times. Her parents have provided me with a full disclosure.”

  “Tell me more about them,” Coinman said without expression.

  “They are a family of cows—so humble and honest. Apparently she is more talented than anyone else among their relations or in their neighborhood. Pissed off by this, some people badmouth her behind her family’s back. That’s what I mean when I talk about not keeping you in the dark. That’s no concern to us because, as history tells us, talented minds have always been stealthily targeted by mediocre ones.”

  “What kind of artist is she?”

  “She has worked onstage in numerous plays. Also, unlike many other girls of her age, she does not engage in idiotically wasting her time. Given she has acute focus on her acting career that allows her no time for other stuff, who would be surprised if her neighbors think that she isn’t very social! Everything can be interpreted a hundred ways. So what do you think, Son?”

  “Why would she marry someone she hasn’t even seen?” Coinman asked.

  “Because she is a gem just like you that hasn’t been discovered yet.” Kasturi replied.

  “Is it a hassle to arrange a meeting with her?”

  “Not at all, dear.” Kasturi said. “Actually, Imli’s parents also asked if you two could meet—they are an open- minded family and would love their girl to see her husband before marriage. That said, I am so excited because I think it’s a done deal. Let’s prepare the guest list. We haven’t had a feast for years—actually, not since Uncle Sukhi arranged your third birthday party.”