Snatch
“Tell the bus conductor that you want to get down at Vishalnagar, there’s a restaurant where you’ll get down; wait there! Parth will meet you there in half an hour or so. He lives nearby.”, SCP (Sanket C Patel) told me on a phone call with pretty clear instructions. There seemed to be a sudden change of routine by TCS people and dinner was planned at a place convenient to everybody. I called them TCS people at that time, now I call them friends. I was new in Pune and knew only a handful of people. The ones I lived with were my college mates but only SCP and Sidd were the ones with whom I had actually talked back in the days. The rest were pretty much strangers. I had just parted with my friends in Mumbai and it was a tearful farewell — the one I can never forget. I was missing them so much; I was constantly talking with them on WhatsApp. Social Media is a great way to create illusion of physical presence. It helps you to drift away from reality, from surroundings.
On that evening, the first person that I met was Parth. The last time we had met was during our college’s valedictory ceremony to prepare a video comprising of our college memories. And I think that is the only friendly conversation we had during those four college years. My reputation was that of a serious guy in college, I guess I was pretty intimidating — the word that you don’t want on your resume if the hiring is for the post of a friend. So it was an awkward conversation with him at first but then we took apart the whole IT business because you know when two geeks meet, there’s nothing on earth they can’t talk about.
So an hour went by and the rest of the TCS guys started arriving. I recognized Janhavi (Janhavi gokhale) and Trupti whom I had met before. Samir and Varit hit the parking space and parked their beasts. I knew none of them that well. Sidd and SCP provided the much needed friendly presence. The conversation got intense, it was in Hindi and it was about their common workplace. They tried to involve me, to keep me in the loop but the conversation didn’t make much sense to me and I was drowned in my phone anyways. We were still waiting for some more people — Nevil, Saurabh and somebody called Jeta or JT. Well I just hoped they came soon. I just wanted to get through with this uncomfortable gathering apart from the fact that the battery in my phone (and in my body!) was pretty low too! I knew Nevil of course — the guy has the power to create and convey his unwritten and unmentioned laws! It’s a fantastic ability. However, I didn’t know the other two gentlemen: Saurabh and Jeta or JT or whatever! :P
After another half an hour they finally came, thank the hunger gods! And what did I notice? The person called Jeta or JT was actually a girl. In her white collared t-shirt and blue jeans, she literally center-staged the whole conversation and took it to another level of intensity. She was what you call the life of the party, the beat of the group and she was the kind of creature I feared the most — a pure extrovert. It’s a lethal species, introverts should particularly be extremely careful of them. They can drag you back to reality, back to presence and destroy your fantasy world just like Godzilla destroys Tokyo.
The conversation started by me and Parth never stopped. It just changed topics and the persons involved. I pretty much gave up being a part of it as soon as the others came. It finally stopped or rather died to give birth to another one at the dinner table. The introductions were made and the food was ordered. They had a lot to talk about and they were trying real hard to keep me involved. But I didn’t care to be honest! And soon as I had some food in my stomach, I just wanted to get under my blanket and doze off! Enough of this non-sense I thought,”I don’t know anybody, what the hell am I doing here?” But more than that I guess I was not interested knowing that I wasn’t needed there. Even if I wasn’t there, it wouldn’t have made any difference! It would still be a bunch of friends eating dinner and having fun.
The dinner was done and then again on the roadside they went and started talking. I was intentionally the last one to get out of the restaurant; I just wanted to breathe in silence for a moment. With my proud phone in my left hand, a bag tucked on my right shoulder, I walked out of the restaurant. As I was walking towards them, somebody snatched the phone from my hand. Let me tell you something about my relationship with my phone back then: It was my life. It was the first thing that I had bought of my own money. It was the only thing that allowed me to stay in touch with my friends and family. It was the most beautiful priced possession I ever had in my short life and I loved it so much, I had even named it! To say that I was obsessed with it would be an understatement and to say that I was in love with it would not be an exaggeration. And to know that somebody snatched it from my hand was as painful as getting hit by a bus!
When I looked up who that thief was, to my surprise it was JT. Forget about the shocking expression on my face; I still remember the concerned look on Samir’s and SCP’s faces when she snatched it from my hand. It was like one of those Nevil’s unwritten laws that you cannot mess with Ronak’s mobile. We didn’t know each other, we had barely talked and to top it all, I didn’t even know her real name! And there she was acting like we were friends since forever. She was laughing as if she had just won a lottery!
But then it struck me. There was also an unwritten law that you stay where you are and with whom you are! Being able to stay present in present is one of life’s precious present. She was just being nice and wanted me to be a part of the conversation, of the friendship, of all the fun! It was me who was being stupid. With the devil’s smile on her face, she quickly got the others on her side and I was somehow convinced that it was a bad habit and that’s when my Tokyo was destroyed. But the good part is that I made friends with Godzilla :P It was later when I discovered that her name is Jayati and I guess JT because of the Surati accent that Samir and Varit possess ;) We’ve been good friends since then and share the same liking for McDonald’s food. She has always been an advocate of keeping everybody around involved. That snatch was horrifying of course but ever since that day, I’ve become less and less obsessed with my phone.
After that snatch, I kind of felt at home in Pune. It’s the little things that matter; like talking about something to which a new person can easily contribute. Or if a conversation is between people from multiple lingual backgrounds, prefer to talk in Hindi or English. Because if you talk in a language that somebody doesn’t understand then it’s same as conversing with aliens.
A lesson learned. A fake theft averted. A city destroyed. And a friend made :)
