The call that never happened!

‘I pretty much forgot everything from those days. Must have been almost 10 years, I guess. Let me think. 2009, is when I graduated. I must have been 22 by then. Now its 2016 — so 8 years, it is…’ thinks the woman, looking at the ceiling, lying on her fabric couch placed in the corner of her single bedroom flat in a posh apartment of Bengaluru. ‘Electrical engineering classes were the most boring ones to death, in fact Engineering as a career itself seems boring to me now. But I vividly remember my first Engineering circuits class by Mr. Vivekanandan, in the Technology tower building. A tall, well built man with impeccable dressing sense stood in front of a hundred students in the most spectacular class auditorium for a university to deliver the basic concepts of electrical engineering. “Dear Friends” is how he starts and my eyes would follow him throughout his class like a radar deducting a warcraft. Along with the memories of his charisma tagged along few concepts he taught us during his classes. In one such charismatic ridden class, he explained us a topic, that took over the rest of my life. ‘Switch’, he started ‘is a component of an electrical circuit, that makes and breaks a circuit. It allows the flow of electricity throughout the circuit. If you think about it, we see switches everywhere, to operate a fan, to operate a Television, to start an engine and the use cases goes on. Switch as an idea can control any object. We associate switches with just physical objects.’, he pauses and lowers his voice to thin hushes and continues, ‘But there is an invisible switch that can operate your life. Its not out there, but its inside you, in your mind. Im not going to name it or pin point to say what it is. Few take control over the switch on their own but majority expect others to drive it. It could be your parents, university, bosses, better halves, worst halves, friends, I mean anyone. The more you are aware of it, the better your life is. So friends, switch is also a mental component, that makes and breaks your life circuit’. His words made me think, though I did not get what he meant back then until few days back.

The phone on the coffee table besides the couch beeps, cutting her line of thoughts. She reaches out for her phone to find yet another notification from him. By the time she unlocks her phone to snooze further notifications, she receives a call. Her screen reads Incoming call from “Asprin Needed Dubai”. She moves her thumb over the screen, light enough to just make a sliding action but not hard enough to attend the call. She does it once, twice and the third time, the accidental touch activates the ‘attend’ button making the call live. With a sigh, she brings the phone near her ear. “Hello”, utters a man on the other side with a strained voice leaving a pause. He then continues, “Anju, are you there?”.

“Hmmm”, replies the woman. “Im sorry Anju. I shouldn’t have talked to you that way. I really want to be with you. I cannot imagine a life without you dear. Its your birthday, I want you to be in my arms, holding you tightly, cuddling all day. But I couldn’t. I don’t know, why I get angry when things don’t happen the way I want. Hello, Anju are you there?”

“Hmmm” replies the woman, ‘I miss you Anju. I hope you also do. I speak out my feelings and you don’t. How will I ever know what you think? You are a different person on the phone. You know what, there are days I have cried thinking about your silence. Don’t make this more harder for me. Hello…are you there?’

“Hmmm”, replies the woman, ‘Why don’t you say something more that just ‘hmmm’s’? Skip it. Listen. You should go out meet your friends. Today should be your special day. Will you do that for me? I want you to be happy. Hello…you there?’

‘I have already made plans, Im meeting Jayesh for lunch’ says the woman.

‘Oh’ replies the man in a disappointed tone

‘What?’

’Nothing’, adds the man in a tone whose dullness spreads across from Dubai to Bangalore through telephone lines in bits and bytes. Though the woman understands his disappointment, she doesn’t want to poke much into his ‘nothing’ reply. If she does, she knows, what she is getting into. She prays for this conversation to end smoothly to save herself from crying on her birthday. “Okay” is the least neutral reply she could think about in the given neck of the moment and she replies the same.

‘okay’

There is long pause between the two. She doesn’t want to initiate another topic and the man badly wants her to speak at least a word to pounce on her. Probably the last time such an intense silence the world experienced was during the cold war between USA and Russia and next comes this phone conversation. With a brave heart the woman breaks the silence.

“Ok Rajiv, I need to leave now”

On hearing her voice, the man at once rushes all his thoughts into coordinated words like a hidden lion pounching on a ignorant deer, “So, he is more important than me, we just had a fight about that bloody bast….’ -

[THUP]

The woman hangs upon him. First time ever. In the past five years of relationship, they have gone through much worse things, but this is the first time. It feels strange, she should feel sad, rather she feels sigh of relief. Thats when she realises

‘Switch’

[FIN]