SNAP

Half the lights were off and almost all cubicles empty. It was half past eight in the night and the only people remaining in the office were guys with deadlines staring at them or those who had nothing better to do in the outside world. Me? Well, I certainly don’t fall in the former category and I like to think that neither do I fall in the latter. In my case, its just that, this was due. Don’t understand that? Well, let me introduce myself. I am the Lord of work-shirkers. If ever there was a man who escaped from work to catch the six o’clock show or, for that matter, to go smoke while ogling at the neighborhood girls, I am the inspiration behind all that. Or, well, to be more realistic, if my Project Manager had the privilege of murdering someone without getting prosecuted, he would make me run circles before finally finishing me off.

So considering all that, I decided to stay back today just to see how it feels. To be honest it was a bit unsettling at first. It seemed like the whole world was passing me by as I sat here stagnated in my office. Another guy packed his bag and left. There was not a whisper to be heard. But gradually, a kind of quiet began to settle in my mind. This was new!! I felt a sense of belonging. I felt like exploring the office as if I was a tourist visiting an old fort. I wanted to see how it feels to have coffee alone at half past eight. I strolled to the coffee machine. It was off. So it was really that late!! I had outlasted the coffee machine today. Deeply satisfied I returned to my desk, packed my bag and left with a sense of triumph. As I stepped outside, I instantly felt the need for a smoke. I pictured myself proudly walking down the lane that leads to my house as lesser mortals sat fixated in front of their TVs in their underpants. Suddenly my phone rang. It was Nada. It feels good when you can brag about how hard you work in front of your friends. As for Nada. I knew he didn’t gave a f*** about all that. I picked up the phone.

Me: Hey, how’ve you been?

Nada: Stop this nonsense you asshole. Where the f*** are you. What’s all this noise?

Oh!!, before we go ahead, let me introduce Nada. First things first, I don’t have the slightest clue why we call him Nada. The name just stuck and I couldn’t care less about the reason behind its inception. He liked it, we liked it, that’s all that matters. He is a bizarre six and a half foot monster who tries to pass off as a likeable guy. Or is it the other way round!! Well, anyways, he is studying at IISc. I met him long before he crossed this realm of what was humanly possible. I mean c’mon, the guy is at IISc. We wasted away our lives in college, me more than him and ended up as two smoke machines who talked about all that never concerned them. As much as I hate to admit it, he was always right about things.

Me(With a smile): I am returning home from work.

Nada: What the f*** were you doing in office so late? Shagging off to some sleazy south Indian porn??

Hmm, didn’t knew the adjective ‘sleazy’ works with porn too. Ever heard of non-sleazy porn?

Me: Just stayed back for the heck of it. You know, should try everything at least once. What’s up with you?

This is how each of our conversations begin these days before we get transformed into two half-sober(half-intoxicated) guys smoking away in that room in the VNIT hostel.

Nada: Dude, hasn’t life become too mundane. Its like all I can remember is slogging my a** 10 hours a day.

Me: At least you are doing something purposeful, something you like. Look at me, its like I have hit a dead-end and there’s no way round it.

Nada(Made his thinking sound): I think its human tendency to get caught up in insignificant details. We miss the larger picture. Just think, even if you were in an MBA school, you would still be whining about the work load and stuff. May be its in our psyche to never get satisfied.

Me: Ya, you are right. But this is totally different. How do you define satisfaction? I think we both understand that our frustration does not root from lack of materialistic pleasures. May be its something much deeper, a longing for some unordinary experience. You know, something part of the larger picture. In that case we ain’t missing the larger picture, or are we?

It had happened. We had again started one of those talks that lead to nothing but gave us some intangible satisfaction. Well, satisfaction is always intangible so the word intangible here adds another level of ‘intangibilty’ to it. Or at least I think so.

I ‘was still strolling on the street outside my office. I felt no hurry to reach home. The cigarette had burned out so I immediately lighted another one.

Nada: I get what you are saying but unordinary experiences are appropriate once in a while as wake up calls from our deep slumber and not as part of our daily routine. May be our lives aren’t boring enough for something unordinary to happen just as yet. May be we aren’t born to lead adventurous lives.

I smiled at the thought.

Me: Ya sure, but routine leads to a certain comfort zone which can be dangerous. Men need doses of adrenaline to keep them on their toes.

I saw this beautiful girl standing some hundred meters from me. She was wearing a T-Shirt and a Jeans, had long hair and was standing near the bus stop as if waiting for a bus or an auto rickshaw. Needless to say, the information had to be passed on.

Me: Dude, the thing I am talking about is this. Now there’s a girl standing some distance from me. If this had been a chance encounter and I had been talking to her rather than you, that would have been exciting.

Nada: I understand. I am going through the exact same thing but don’t jump on her, for God’s sake.

Me(Laughing): Don’t worry. It takes a degree of insanity to do that and I am not drunk enough.

Meanwhile, I kept walking towards her. Obviously, that’s a male tendency (every guy does it, no exceptions).

It was nine o’clock now and the area looked deserted.

Nada: If she talks to you don’t cut the call man. Let me overhear. I promise I won’t make a noise.

The pun in his voice was unmistakable. Still, somehow I hoped it would come true. I was standing at a distance of some feet from her now. When you work in IT and still have no girl friend, you tend to hang on to the tiniest rays of hope.

Me: What would you have done if you were in my place right now? Doesn’t this have the potential to develop into something out of the ordinary?

Nada(Laughing his monster laugh): Dude, I am pretty sure nothing is going to happen. Not now not ever. Its as simple as that.

I heard a vehicle approaching us and wished it was not a bus as it would mean she would go and I would have to go too. I just wanted to stay there for a while talking to Nada as he shattered my confidence into pieces. Suddenly a jeep stopped right in front of us. Two policemen stepped out. They started saying something in Telugu which I did not understand. I didn’t knew if the girl knew Telugu and just stared at them. One of them approached me and to my utter disbelief held me by the shirt. The other one was shouting at the girl who also didn’t seem to understand a word of what he said. Before I knew, we were pushed into the jeep. I hadn’t cut the call and Nada was shouting at the other end. He didn’t understand either what was going on. In all this chaos, one of the policemen turned to me and reprimanded me in Hindi saying that he will teach me a lesson for engaging with prostitutes.

It all made sense in a flash. She was standing there alone on the deserted road in the night. What else it could have been!! What a fool I was not have realized that!!

As they drove us to the police station, I tried to argue my case with the policemen, but they were not in a mood to listen. The call was cut. I thought of calling Nada back but decided against it. How could he have helped me at this moment. I was furious at the girl, furious at myself and somehow furious at Nada. If he hadn’t called me at that time, I wouldn’t be here. In times of despair, one tends to lay the blame on anyone and everyone. Nada was not to be blamed of course, neither was I. I had asked for something unordinary in my life, and had got a spoon full of it.

Our hands were tied and the girl did nothing but sob all the way to the police station. She tried to convince the officers that she was not a prostitute but neither did they understand much Hindi nor did they let her speak much. After all, which whore would actually say she was one. I was stuck there with the policemen, the whore and staring at least a night in prison.

We were locked up in different cells. Nada kept on calling me incessantly but then they confiscated my cell and my wallet and all that was left of me was a ghost of a hapless man scared to death. In situations such as this, the biggest fear one has is of being ostracized. Physical wounds can never hurt as much as psychological ones. Even if I was proved innocent and let free, it would leave me with the fear of being ridiculed.

I heard a woman officer slapping the girl in the next cell. Now the girl had stopped talking. All she did was crying and the more she cried the more she got beaten. I felt a sense of hope that they would let me go free and deal with the whore afterwards. She was now the only one I was furious at. A policeman entered my cell. I could have shit in my pants right there. I did not know what to expect. Would he hit me, or just shout at me. I hoped he would just shout. Its strange how in dire straits, we hope for things which seem inconceivable normally. He slapped me so hard I fell to the floor. Two more knocks and I was rendered unconscious.

In the morning, I was let out of the cell, fined and let off with bitter words. My left eye was swollen and blood had dried under my nose. As I left, I saw the girl sitting in her cell, her face a mess from all the crying and slapping. She stared at the floor, no motion, nothing.

Last night felt like a distant dream. I remembered talking to Nada before the unthinkable happened. Upon reaching my flat, I washed up. As my roommate had gone to visit his parents in Delhi, I was alone. There was just one thing left to do. So I called Nada.

Me: Hey

Nada: What happened? What the f*** happened last night? Did you get into a fight or something?

I told him the whole incident. He was shell shocked.

Nada: What the fuck!! She was a whore. You should have slapped her twice before the policemen lay their hands on her. Are you OK now?

Me: Yes. I asked for it, didn’t I. Something out of the ordinary.

Nada: Relax yaar. It wasn’t your fault, you know that.

Me: Guess God was trying to tell us how blissful our ordinary lives are.

Friends visited and I told and retold them the story. It felt good to hear them say that I was innocent. Somehow, it reassured my faith in myself. It is at times like this that men are most vulnerable, they need someone to believe in them to regain their self esteem. Days passed and the wounds began to heal. I almost forgot about the whole incident. On a Sunday morning, I picked up the newspaper and ran through it quickly. On the local news page, something flashed before my eyes. It seemed unreal. There was the story of this girl who had been taken away by police while she was waiting for her friends on a street some days ago. They had mistaken her for a prostitute and put her behind the bars. A chill ran down my spine as I read the story. She had been mentally unstable since the incident and what I feared the most had happened. She had committed suicide.

I was almost unable to think for some minutes. I felt a rage of anger surging inside. I needed to shout, shout out aloud at the top of my voice wishing my throat would seize. I had been cursing the girl all this time and as it turned out, the real victim of the night was she, not me. Tears surged up, I began to perspire. The only thing I could think of at that time was calling up Nada.

Nada: Hey, what’s up punk.

Me: She committed suicide.

Nada: Who?

Before I could answer, he knew it. For a minute there was silence on both sides. It was the first time we had failed to talk to each other.

When we are little kids we are taught to be considerate, to look out for each other. The truth is, when we face things on which we have no control, it all comes to nothing. Man is said to be a social animal but society to man is only useful as long as he is not threatened. Under threat, we are beasts, our notion of help and social morals dropped at the first sign of danger. Then all we know is that we have to escape, at any cost. That is what I did with that girl. We learn all the crap in schools and life needs just one moment to show what a mockery we have made of ourselves. This is how life, in a snap, can take away the rosy picture we have painted for ourselves and show us how we look when stripped of the fakeness with which we carry ourselves around.

It was the first time Nada had let me talk on for so long and as I told him this, I knew it was instantly true. At last he spoke.

Nada: Out of the ordinary experiences are meant to teach us lessons which we should follow in our ordinary lives. You learnt it, what else can you ask for.

As always, Nada was once again right.