Friday, January 9, 2015

Filling time

It's 9:23 PM on a Friday night. I'm alone in the office. If I stand up and look across the hall, I see two hundred computer screens, most of them dead black, some of them blinking with screensavers. "We innovate" lights up the screen in bright yellow, followed by a bold screen-size "passion for performance" in green. A few TV screens hanging from the walls, muted of course, show a nameless man opening and closing his mouth in a magnificently determined way, and the old guy with the crew cut sits before him nodding sagely. The recycled fiber glass on my desk was filled with soy milk an hour ago. I drank it with corn chips from the vending machine. Later, I felt unsatisfied and went back and got a pack of cheese crackers. Then I thought I'd go back and walked out into the freezing parking lot. Suddenly dawned on my it was -12 degree celsius and I had forgotten my ear muffs on my desk. Who'll go back, I thought, and ran to my car about fifty meters away. The car's battery had broken down, so I had to come back anyway. I called car services, and the woman asked me my address thrice. I do not understand how my awful accent could be so awful that each time she mistook my three for a two. You know, it makes no sense to me. The second time, I had made sure to speak three with great emphasis on the ree, and also followed it by saying, you know, like free, like a tree? She repeated the address afterwards, again having noted down two in place of three, and told me she's sorry about my accent. I was, like, I love India. I'm now waiting for the guy to come give my car a jump start.

I never asked for roadside services in India, wasn't even aware that there was some such thing. Three times in my driving life in India, I had to change the tyre. I knew how to do it, and on top of that, each of those times I had friends with me. The first time was late 2009 in Gurgaon, when I used to live in Vipin's house, when Vipin and his dad helped me. Actually, that was the time I was taught how to do it by his dad. Then in the monsoons of 2010, at 2 AM in the night while leaving work, I found my tyre punctured. Vibhor and I fixed it, it took almost forty minutes for us newbies. The third time was a couple of months before I left India, in 2012. I had Kavish, Vaibhav and Gyanesh with me, and this time was the hardest, for none of them helped any more than cracking jokes in the background while I attached the stepney. I do not know why it is a fond memory. Really, I have no idea.

The guy just called. He said he'll be here in five minutes, so I better wind up the post quickly. Actually, it's no admissions essay, so I do not have to worry about an appropriate closing, I can end pretty much anywhere. What'chya gonna do about it?

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