It was a usual late night shift. The cab driver was on his last trip, back to his home. The time ticking on my watch didn't really give me a chance to negotiate the fare. The day was not over yet, in fact it was supposed to be one long session, to bridge into the biggest day of my life. It is a very funny thing isn't it, how one old song playing over the radio can take you back to old times. My thoughts drifted, swaying between those high and low tides, the voices, those pious smells and familiar old faces. The stone steps of Sethani Ghat, the flow of Narmada and a resulting overload of nostalgia.
I scrambled with the keys at first. I have been living in Mumbai for the past five years now, and almost nine months in this flat but none of it resembles like home. The faces move too quickly to get a proper look at. Hence the scramble to identify the right key was almost regular. One leg in and I checked that old phone as usual, and as usual nothing to show for, not even a single ring. An exasperated exhale and dwindling hopes.
I picked the dinner package lying outside my door and was stuffing it down my microwave soon. A quick meal, and the work now began. An interview, "the" interview. The interview I had waited for for the last two years. A shot a glory and a chance to create history; the youngest VP in the history of the company. A bigger place to live in, a down payment of the S Class maybe. The final installments of the ancestral home back in the village to free it from mortgage. The last piece to complete the jigsaw, and the long story which began with swimming across a gorge to attend primary school. But was it that I wanted, in that moment? Knowing everything and everyone it brought together, the darkest corners of my mind were still stuck with something else, with someone else. The old Nokia phone was a testament to that. I still wait for it, to ring.
After all these years, even the gods would have given up. If it had to, it would have buzzed much earlier. But it didn't and the ring meant a tad too much to me. Even as my subsequent smartphones gave my patience a test with dwindling battery levels, it was never low on power. I made sure of the fact that it was always on, with its towers at the mightiest of the scales. It was always there, in that corner, waiting for that ring to come. But it didn't. Roommates and colleagues failed to understand my obsession with it, and I never tried explaining it to them either. It was not that simple, well it is never that simple. It was necessary to start with, a chance that came once in a while. It was ego that took it forward and it was constraints that connected the dots. In the those very darkest corners of my mind, a voice said that it was never going to ring again. The ring which lay for idle all this time. But a voice in the opposite corner said: it just might. And to that I had no counter.
Alas, I winded up that dilemma earlier than usual that day. I had much to prepare for tomorrow. A presentation to give later the same day and packing to be done for next week's trip. The coffee was brewing hot. The news presenter was claiming that their channel had unearthed a new and even bigger scam. Everything was the same, the usual.
And then there was a ring. In fact there were two, both lying next to each other. I froze, caught in the moment. The coffee was now about to spill over. In that dimly lit room, there were two things shining, both wanting to outdo the other. One was my face, lit up like the blazing fire that she wanted me to be; the other that ring which had waited for its owner all this time.
For once, it did ring.
I scrambled with the keys at first. I have been living in Mumbai for the past five years now, and almost nine months in this flat but none of it resembles like home. The faces move too quickly to get a proper look at. Hence the scramble to identify the right key was almost regular. One leg in and I checked that old phone as usual, and as usual nothing to show for, not even a single ring. An exasperated exhale and dwindling hopes.
I picked the dinner package lying outside my door and was stuffing it down my microwave soon. A quick meal, and the work now began. An interview, "the" interview. The interview I had waited for for the last two years. A shot a glory and a chance to create history; the youngest VP in the history of the company. A bigger place to live in, a down payment of the S Class maybe. The final installments of the ancestral home back in the village to free it from mortgage. The last piece to complete the jigsaw, and the long story which began with swimming across a gorge to attend primary school. But was it that I wanted, in that moment? Knowing everything and everyone it brought together, the darkest corners of my mind were still stuck with something else, with someone else. The old Nokia phone was a testament to that. I still wait for it, to ring.
After all these years, even the gods would have given up. If it had to, it would have buzzed much earlier. But it didn't and the ring meant a tad too much to me. Even as my subsequent smartphones gave my patience a test with dwindling battery levels, it was never low on power. I made sure of the fact that it was always on, with its towers at the mightiest of the scales. It was always there, in that corner, waiting for that ring to come. But it didn't. Roommates and colleagues failed to understand my obsession with it, and I never tried explaining it to them either. It was not that simple, well it is never that simple. It was necessary to start with, a chance that came once in a while. It was ego that took it forward and it was constraints that connected the dots. In the those very darkest corners of my mind, a voice said that it was never going to ring again. The ring which lay for idle all this time. But a voice in the opposite corner said: it just might. And to that I had no counter.
Alas, I winded up that dilemma earlier than usual that day. I had much to prepare for tomorrow. A presentation to give later the same day and packing to be done for next week's trip. The coffee was brewing hot. The news presenter was claiming that their channel had unearthed a new and even bigger scam. Everything was the same, the usual.
For once, it did ring.
