September 23, 2011
While I was faithfully following award winning farmer, Mrs. Britisha Alexander's adage of examining every leaf of every plant, this morning, our next door neighbor aunty appeared waving an ominous looking paper. She addressed Achan, "Saare, sasthamangalathulla randu kuttikalanu. avarude amma enne kandu karayunnu. ithuvare kalyanam onnum aayila" (Sir, two girls from Sasthamangalam. Their mother was crying yesterday. No marriage yet). I understood I was being targetted as the relief provider for those motherly tears. There must be millions of such crying mothers in India.
To avoid the discussion, I went to check out the marks of some rodent activity near tapioca plants. Some rat had dug a little in before it realized that the plants are too young. I could hear aunty digging in deeper. "Aadyam njan vicharichu nair allennu. Pinne manasilayi avaru communist aayathu kondu jathi peril vachila ennu. mootha mol angu americayila." (First I thought they were not Nairs. But then I realized that they had not kept the caste surname because they were communists. The elder daughter works in USA).
In Kerala, besides the strange breed of communists who go to temples, mosques and churches, there are also those who consider it perfectly alright to go to capitalist America for education and earning money. For everything else, America is the contemptible nemesis.
Aunty proceeded to read from the white paper. I got busy covering the hole with soil. Few words came floating by: ME, Duke, New York. I walked up to her an said, "Ennikoru thalparyavum illa aunty" (I am not interested aunty)
"Sanyasi aakan pokuna?" (Are you going to be a hermit/swami/guru/sage?)
Smile.
"Ippo angane okke thonnum. Vayasavumbo oru koottokke venam." (You will feel that now. But when you are older you need someone)
I smiled wider. She understood that I was thinking how she used to walk around the neighborhood cursing her alcoholic husband, who eventually died drinking few years ago.
A line of argument doesn't work when the arguer herself is the biggest argument against the motion. So she mellowed, "alla nokkanamennu guarantee onnum illa. ellam oru gamble aanu" (True, there is no guarantee that your spouse will look after you. It's all a gamble.)
"Njan oru gambler alla aunty. ee gamble cheyyathe thanne enniku oru santoshakuravum illa)
(I am not a gambler, aunty. Even without this gamble, I am not unhappy)
I went back to check on the brinjals and amma brought me a nice juicy tender coconut. Both the water and the flesh of the coconut tasted great in the morning. Achan politely accepted the paper with information about the two girls and left it on the dining table so that I could transfer it to the garbage burning pit in the backyard.
I think over the next few weeks, she will keep bringing more details about more Nair girls with various "desirable" attributes. The reason is that she has been looking hard for a groom for her daughter. And she can use me as an exchangeable info to trade with other sources who have nothing better to do in life but arrange marriages of the next generation. Those who have tried stamp collecting or WWF cards collecting while in school will quickly grasp this process of info exchange. I am sure the day after her daughter's marriage is fixed, she will stop her efforts to find me a suitable bride.Till then, if it helps her in her search of a son-in-law, so be it. I will answer with silent smiles.
Right after lunch time, my attempts to surf the web were redirected to the BSNL website. It asked me, the "dear customer", to pay the bill to continue the service. No bill had ever arrived. The telephone line was also cut. So off we went, Achan and I, in an autorickshaw to the "Customer Service Center" at Statue Junction.
This office was a classic example of the remnants of the old governmental office in India. There was a bunch of people crowded around the reception desk. There was just a single big hall in which counters 1 through 8 were arranged in a circular fashion. Though all the officers had a flat screen monitor and a pile of files in front of them, people were queuing at counter 7 and counter 8. Some people were reluctant to commit to these queues just in case some officer in any other counter felt merciful. The receptionist was a tall, young man who clearly was waiting to get a better job. May be like modeling or escort service. A signboard at the reception requested that we take the coupon. "Coupon venda, ezhil poya mathi" (No need of coupon, go to seven) he said.
We went to 7 and were 7th in the line there. An officer in his 50s with a slightly younger unmatching toupee sat behind the counter. "System slow" he repeated the mantra every few minutes. I don't know if he was reporting about the system or casting a spell on it. There would be long minutes of silent staring at the printer waiting for the receipts to materialize. As if to affirm that fact that this is a telephone service provider, some phones in the office were continuously ringing. Employees would happily walk by.
A wave of masochistic nostalgia came over me. But there was a level of impatience in the queue which is a characteristic of new India. The manager of the office, I think her name was Usha Kumari, a 40 something stout lady in a yellow sari, wearing specs larger than her face appeared behind counter 5 at one time to talk to the officer who wasn't doing any work there. Suddenly the man in the front of our queue shouted, "madam, oru manikkoorayi nilkunnu. system illa ennu parayunnu. njangalkum vere joli und." (Madam, been standing here for an hour. They are saying system is down. We also have other work to do).
Madam looked helpless. Big glasses enhanced helplessness. In a low voice said, "system illa ketto" (system is down). As soon as she finished saying that, the printer made a cranking noise again to churn out another receipt.
When we reached the counter, I told our land line number. "Ezhuthi tharanam. Bill ullavar undo" (Give it in writing. Is there anyone else with a bill?) the toupeed uncle was upset that we did not know the proper steps to be taken while approaching him. This call for others who had bills brought a wall of humanity crashing onto us from behind while Achan was quickly writing down the number. Too many hands with bills stuck themselves into the counter. The officer chose one randomly, or may be numerologically or according to vaastu. We waited while the system slow churned out that bill. Then he punched in our number.
"774 rupees" he said
"Ithil broadbandum undo?" (does that include the broadband) I asked because we were on a broadband plan that costs around Rs 1000.
"Kanum...ellam orumichanu" (Must be there...its all together)
Achan handed him Rs.800. "Ennurum adakatte?" (Shall I deposit all 800?) he asked. Both Achan and I head-bobbed in our intense desire to get away from the "human armed octopus" that was gripping us from behind. I took the receipt and escaped but not before asking him, "reconnect aayi kanumo?" (have we been reconnected?) "half an hour" he said.
We decided to go the BSNL office near home to see what was going on. Another autorickshaw, another 10 minutes. At the local BSNL office, brand new signboard under a window: Bill payment. This new counter happened in the last month. So our earlier trip to Statue Junction was a waste.
There was only an old man in a mundu standing as the queue. Inside the window another old man was looking at the computer screen.
"Ithippo ettam masamamanu adakkan ponathu. Onpathinte billum vannu." (you are going to pay for the 8th month now. You have already been billed for the 9th month.)
"Oru billum vannila, saare" (I didnt get any bill, Sir)
Aha...so the absence of paper bill wasn't just our problem. As soon as the old man paid and left, I confronted the officer with the window, "Ippo paper bill ayakunile, Saare?" (Paper bills are no longer send, Sir?)
He looked up in the sky for a while. The answer came down to him through cosmic rays.
"Nammal ayakunund. Delay kanum" (We are sending. There might be delay)
Then he turned to Achan, "Saar ivide vanathinte mukhaparichayam und" (I remember your face from your trip here earlier) Achan had spent an hour in that office in July to get the telephone connection.
I asked the officer about the low amount in our bill. He was confused. A big ledger book came out. "500C...athanalo plan" (500C...that's your plan) he said. "Limited?" I panicked. "Athey" (yes). I have used enough internet to blow any limitations on any plan to smithereens. All the while my unlimited confidence was based on "unlimited" plan.
"Junior telecome officer paranjalo unlimited aanenu" (But the Junior Telecome Office told me it was going to be unlimited)
"Aaru? John Siro?" (Who? John Sir?)
"Yes...upstairs"
"Poyi chodichu nokku" (go ask him)
We went upstairs. John Sir was humming "Oru neramengil kanathe vayyente Guruvayoorappa..."(I cannot be without seeing you at least once a day, my Guruvayoorappa), a famous devotional song by Yesudas. I think he vaguely remembered me. As mentioned in an early August note, walking into the office of the Junior Telecom Officer was unheard of in the India that I had left.
I recapped our afternoon adventures in a nutshell. He punched in our telephone number and it took him to a screen that confirmed that we were indeed on an unlimited plan. The low amount was because billing was between August 12 and August 31.
"Sir, you told me about the discount if we can pay for a year, can we get that done?"
"Yes, bring your bill anyday...."
"We are not getting any bills, Sir"
"Hmm," he also tried to look at the sky, but the ceiling was all he could find, "Come by some time next week and we'll fix it here itself."
"Will we have the connection back on when we get home?"
"By today evening you should have it, it is all automatically done"
We came back home by 3:30. The telephone connection was back on by 4pm. It is 4:40, the only webpage I can go to still asks me to pay my bill. Nobody at the customer service picked up when I tried earlier. I try again. Familiar voice on the other end.
"John sir aano?" (Is it John sir) I ask.
"Athey" (yes) he says. The telecom officer doubling as customer service rep.
"Broadband up aayila sir"(broadband is not up sir)
"up aakum, kurachu delay kanum. nothing is manual. its all machine."(It'll be back up. There will be some delay. Onnum manushikamalla. Ellam yanthrikamanu..enthoru kalam!)
"Is tomorrow a working day for your office?"
"Athey, nale working aanu" (yes, tomorrow working)
"Thank you sir"
Finally, internet restored by 6:30.
In the car porch of the unoccupied neighbor house, a cat and its kitten. Noticed them today early evening. She was suckling the kitten. Later in the evening, it was play time. She would just flick and wave her tail. The kitten would try to suppress it. By biting, by grasping, by lying over it. Even if it lies down on the tail, a tiny portion that would still move. Like an imaginary snake, the mom makes her tail dance. After each attempt, the kitten would return to the mom's head as if to say, "do it again". And she would and the kitten would pounce on it again. and again. Is there anything better than childhood? Is there any fortune better than having a loving mother in childhood?
I have observed that the dettol does not deter baby lizards. The grown up ones are totally psyched by it. I am thinking that in reptiles, the first days on the planet are super endowed with immunity and it keeps deteriorating through life. For mammals, it is the other way round. Utterly helpless childhood. Acquired immunity later.
Of course, I am indulging in speculative science. I guess we all can, now that there are some neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. I should check if the hard hat on Einstein's head in the Kerala Traffic Police hoarding has been lowered down to cover his face.
Tomorrow morning I am off to get uniquely id-ed as an Indian. Should be interesting.
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