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Articles: My Experience | Geography has now become History!
- Ms. Shloka Sharma
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Another Monday! God! Why did u create Mondays! They come as prompt as ever, every week all through the year just to play spoil sport after a relaxed weekend. This Monday was especially bad as it was another late night scheduled for me. One of those great late nights at my office, where I am expected to stay back beyond my usual working hours, just to wait for some art guy to finish his work; so that I can complete the formality of ceremoniously handing over the packet to the courier boy. It was already 7.30 and the art guy didn't show any signs of completing the work on hand. It is so frustrating because I had nothing else to do but wait and watch. Found an empty system and decided to log on to Yahoo! messenger. Thinking back, I now realize that decision completely changed my life. It seemed like ages before I finally got connected and spotted Mads. Thank God! She is online. Someone I can tell my ‘dukh’ and crib ‘bhari gatha’ to. We both immediately exchanged notes and cribbed about our respective lives. That night her responses were unusually slow and it immediately put me off. When prodded, she revealed that she was trying to multitask, juggling my IM window with that of another friend. After such a bad day this was the last thing I wanted to know – even my best friend didn’t have the time to devote exclusively to me. I desperately wanted to do something to cheer myself up. So asked her who she was talking to and when I realized that she was chatting with a guy she calls her best friend in the US of A, I immediately pestered her into giving me his . A lot of things were involved in my decision to chat with this guy – firstly, I had heard his name umpteen number of times and my curiosity was killing me but more than that was that I urgently needed a bakra to trouble and in the process lift my own spirits. This sounds like a very mean and silly reason to decide to talk to someone but that is the truth and I cannot run away from it.
One look at his id and my already low spirits did another dive. ‘konkam??’ –what kind of an id is that? I know that people can come up with really weird chat ids (even my id cannot be categorized as normal) but this one seemed to be the limit. Anyway, as I did not have the patience to ask him to change his id, I consciously ignored the it and concentrated all my attention on my bakra. After the initial round of ‘Hi!s,’ to which he innocently responded, I set out to spin my web of imagination and test my story telling capabilities to their limit. As is always the case, I acted as if I was his long lost friend, someone he has not been in touch with, someone who he might have forgotten and maybe even wronged. It all came very easily for me as I started the task only after a through groundwork and background check on him from sweet Mads who was only too happy to help cheer me up. Sweet Mads, that’s what she has always been…A friend who has never let me down. And now, if there is anyone I have to thank for my current state of new found happiness, it is her.
Getting back to my story, told him that I was one of his closest friends in Bangalore where he spent 4 important years of his life. He remained clueless trying to figure out my identity. Then introduced myself as ‘Shloka’ (I have always been in love with this name, dunno why…so finally I got a chance to be Shloka), a student of Mount Carmel in Bangalore while he was studying his engineering. Then I painted this really filmy scene of the way in which we both were supposed to have met. Having been to Bangalore twice with my friends, helped me talk about it as if it were my backyard. And so, we met; on a particularly rainy day in Bangalore in the Kentucky Fried Chicken Outlet on Brigade Road. He was already sitting inside with his set of three friends, when I walked in with a girlfriend, completely drenched. Immediate eye contact! I went up to the counter to place my order. While walking towards my table, I incidentally had to cross him, and just then the worn out sole of my sneakers gave away and I slipped, conveniently spilling all my coke on him! So contrived, that it could have been from any of the innumerous Hindi movies being churned every day, but funnily enough he still continued to talk to me after this spell of inspired narration from me. Obviously, he did not have a clue about what I was talking about but my story did just enough to tickle his curiosity. And so we chatted on. This chatting expedition didn’t end that Monday but in fact continued till the next one.
A week had passed from the time I started trying to bell my goat and instead of coming to an expected ending, my stories just became more and more complicated. By then, I had finished trying to remind him of our memorable (!!??) time in Bangalore and had moved on to telling him about my supposed current state of affairs. I set my imagination loose and ended up being a travel journalist, on the exotic beaches of Bali. I did not have a clue as to whether he was really fascinated with my stories or had tremendous patience to wait till I told him the truth or worse still, was really a bakra and believed every word I uttered. Spoke to Mads about it and she told me that he didn’t even mention a thing to her. Common sense told me that whenever one is confronted with a situation like this, they always gets in touch with all their friends and try to find out who is trying to kid them. But this guy either lacked even an iota of common sense or was too good a player who knew that the truth had to come out one day and so he might as well wait and tire me out. Believe me, it was frustrating. I contemplated bringing this whole exercise to a premature halt but something somewhere kept egging me on to continue with this charade.
Week 3 of this great drama I had envisioned and I had started to loose my patience. It ceased to be fun for me anymore because this guy apparently didn’t really care about knowing who I really was. It also became a little hectic at the work place and my interactions with him became very limited. In fact, it was not until Friday that week that I ran into him again. By this time, I had made up my mind to tell him the truth. But before I could volunteer information, he suddenly seemed to wake up out of his deep slumber and threatened to stop talking to me if I did not reveal my true identity. This actually came as a relief to me because it showed that this guy on the other side of the computer is human after all (I sometimes felt that I was talking to a chatbot!!) This was a perfect opportunity and my story just came tumbling out. He reacted to everything very normally, maybe a hint of surprise when I said that I was Mads’ friend. In fact, he remembered my name from the conversations he had with Mads. So suspense was finally kicked out of our story and everything became normal again. Both of us went back to our usual routines and it was quite some time before I got to talk to him again.
This time we were talking after 2 weeks. I came to office a bit early because I had some work but ended up finishing way ahead of time. That left me alone in office with a lot of time to spare before the rest of the gang arrived. I logged into Yahoo, hoping to find a friend on my list to talk to and immediately ran into him. He apparently came home early from work and seemed to have time on hand to talk to me. Generally exchanged pleasantries and updated each other about our previous 2 weeks. He seemed a little lost to me and when I enquired, revealed that he was having some problems with his girlfriend. That came as a complete shock because according to Mads, there was absolutely no chance that this guy was in a relationship. She gave me the impression that he was one of those typical s/w geeks who plunged into their work as if there was no tomorrow. Not that he having a girlfriend changed anything, he still was a s/w geek so drowned in work that his girlfriend decided not to answer his calls anymore! Don’t know why, but suddenly saw myself playing the role of a relationship counselor giving him tips on how to win back her affection and attention. I kind of started enjoying this opportunity to sermonize someone but my boss walked and spoilt all. Quietly bid bye bye and it remained bye bye for another week.
The next time we met was when I had loads of free time hand in office. I was trying to enjoy the pleasures of having unrestricted personal access to the internet. It was another thing altogether that this machine was renowned for its speed (rather the lack of it!). Suddenly an IM window popped up and said hi! I had completely forgotten about my great Yahoo buddy’s existence till then. So, this sudden message from him came both as a surprise and a relief. Surprise because I was not expecting it and relief because I had finally found something to do. After the initial pleasantries, we moved on to a casual banter. I painfully had to confront the fact that my relationship advice had not exactly done wonders to his relationship with his girlfriend. She still chose to remain incommunicado. Couldn’t exactly figure out if this really affected him and somewhere at the back of my mind, I still could not get myself to accept completely that this guy was involved in a serious relationship. But nonetheless, we continued chatting. We moved on to one of my favorite topics – my campaign against smoking. This guy, apparently a passionate smoker presented to me a very interesting challenge. I loved to have these discussions with smokers, trying very hard to persuade them to kick the butt. Just like the other smoking addicts, this guy was also very stubborn. He talked as if he believed that he was born to smoke and nothing can make him give it up. We ended up having a very heated debate with neither of us ready to give in. Finally, had to just leave it at status quo and officially declare it a controversial topic. What really peeved me was that the other smokers I talked to at least accepted that they should maybe try to quit it. But this guy actually appeared to be very proud of his smoking faculties. This annoyed me to no end and I decided that talking to someone like that was just not worth it.
With the initial excitement about this new bakra of mine evaporated, I got completely caught up with my normal day today life. My relationship with Anup (a guy I started dating recently) seemed to become promising by the minute. And I was going off to Bangalore with Raja (the remaining part of our girlfriends trio) to meet her boyfriend and his gang. Man! What a trip that was - an experience that I will never forget. Whatever it was, it was fun alright. Came back from Bangalore and Anup suddenly had to leave to Germany on work. So interaction with him became minimal and to this day, our relationship is kind of frozen at that point – on the verge of becoming promising.
Then came a very funny day. Raja came home and we both were having our much postponed conversation with Mads on the net. It was a long time since the three of us were talking together and it was all very exciting. Just then, my smoking chimney made his entrance again. I had met him once in between for a very brief uneventful chat. Only thing, we saw each other for the first time on the web cam. Don’t know what he thought of me but he turned out to be a direct descendant of the Anthropoid Ape. When Raja heard about this new friend of mine, she naturally wanted to talk to him. To add more spice to the whole atmosphere, I decided to make him a bakra again. This time, I knew that it would be a futile attempt but decided to try it anyway. Made Raja sit in front of the Web Cam and I completely exited the picture. Then, I made her pretend that she was me and talk to him. And my worst nightmare finally seemed to come true. This guy did not even know that it was someone else and not me chatting with him! Worse still, he did not realize even when Raja got up to answer a call and I continued chatting with him from the side. This was too much dumbness for me to digest. I started giving him a lot of clues and hints and finally had to do the honor of revealing the truth to him myself. Man! Did not know that men could actually get this dumb. This is something that will remain with me for life. I don’t exactly call it an earth shattering experience but it was more disappointing that anything else.
Days started going by in a flurry. Office suddenly became more fun than work. Had built up this great gang of friends who loved to party at the drop of a hat. A new General Manager joined our office and this provided us just another reason to let our hair down. It was one of those usual after work kind of parties in our office backyard. Music blaring and booze flowing. By now I was comfortable enough with the people around me that it did not need too much cajoling for me to make my way to the dance floor. On the whole it was a fun party but I had to go home lest my folks got more worried. My Vice President decided to suddenly sprout paternal affection and got me chauffeured home.
Got dressed to sleep but somehow found myself very active and rejuvenated. The dance had infact, acted more like an energy booster and there was no way I could go off to sleep. So, I decided to log in to check my mail. And just my luck, I ran into my latest discovery – an Anthropoid Ape with a pea brain! I know this sounds very mean but after that dumbfounding display of dumbness, these are the only words I could think of to describe him. One would think that with such strong feelings against a person, it is but natural to avoid that person. But don’t know what made me talk to him again that night. And talk we did. For the first time in our entire length of relationship, we were talking like normal people, without any filters or prejudices. It finally hit me on that day that I was talking to another human being on the other side on the computer – a real human being, who had so much in common with me and despite occasional spurts of dumbness, made lots of sense. The topics we discussed that night were varied and the more I talked to him the more I felt awake and alert. It was one of the weirdest nights in my life and looking back now, I am at a loss trying to figure out where all that energy came from. Far from trying to trick him into believing weird things about me, I found myself pouring out the story of my life to him. And then suddenly, between discussing some vague topic, he said something which I almost ignored. In the beginning, I did not realize the true meaning of what he said and I continued with my banter. Then after a minute or two, his words started penetrating the extra dense bones of my cranium. At first did not know how to react and then I exclaimed - ‘what did u say?!!’ All this while, he seemed to sit very calm and composed, in front of his machine, observing my every move and every expression on my face.
It took me sometime to think straight and I made one sincere attempt to understand what was going on. Asked him directly if he understood the consequences of what he was saying and that if he really meant it. He answered each and every question of mine with the same calmness and patience. At the end of the exercise, did not know what to believe and what not to. One part of me was telling that this was all a big joke, a kind of prank he was playing on me to get back at me. But somewhere else, I somehow couldn’t completely kill the thought that maybe, just maybe, he was telling me the truth and he meant every word he uttered. I also realized that it was almost day break and I better get myself some sleep if I expected to see another day. Also thought - maybe all this was happening to me because of my lack of sleep – maybe I was hallucinating or something and all the frenzied excitement of the evening was finally got to my head. Bid a hurried good night and drifted off to sleep the moment my head touched down on the pillow.
Woke up the next day and every things seemed different. I had decided that whatever happened the previous night was either a careful prank being played on me or hallucinations of my tired mind. Decided not to think about it again but somehow or the other it kept coming back to haunt me and I ended up thinking only about it. Not that all the thinking provided me any extra insights but it infact ended up muddling and fuddling my brain even more. Evening came with a great difficulty and I ran into who else but my favorite friend Mads. I knew that if there was anyone who could help me with this current situation, it was her. Cornered her as soon as possible and poured out the whole story to her. She listened to it all and then gave her judgment – all this was a hoax / a prank/ a practical joke. She told me the guy in question was a very good friend of hers and she knew that he was not capable of such feelings. Whatever she said, kind of confirmed my suspicions but I still don’t know why I couldn’t totally abandon the idea that he might have been telling the truth. At night, I ran into him again and confronted him with the same questions. To my surprise, he again answered with the same cool disposition. In the beginning, I did not know what to say. Seeing me so uncomfortable, he tried making it easy for me saying that I did not have to make up my mind on anything right away and can take my own time. Suddenly I found myself wake up and ask him a whole lot of questions as to why he chose to do this and why me. Must admit I was more impressed with his patience than his answers. Also, told him that Mads also didn’t believe him and advised me to forget about this whole incident. This did not ruffle him one bit and we just continued talking about nothing in particular. Although this whole situation did not make any sense to me, I just could not make myself say ‘No’ and put an end to it all. And so I just let it continue.
And today, almost 6 months and innumerable unexplainable incidents later, our chats which started then are still very much on. The only difference is that those once a week interactions have now become twice a day sessions with special marathon sessions during the weekends which sometimes even stretch to 6 hours on the trot. We have also connected on the phone and try very hard to restrict our telephonic conversations to 5 times a day. These two modes of communication are again supplemented with at least one mail a day. We continue talking about nothing in particular and everything under the sun. Playing games like chess and pool on the internet are our other forms of entertainment. Hooking up through Net Meeting and watching movies together is something we are looking forward to. We have made a beginning and do make it a point to wake each other up and put each other to sleep virtually. But we finally intend to end up together for life, someday. And that time, it definitely will not be virtual.
I am writing this story on the eve of us meeting each other in person in another 20 days. We have been communicating for just over 6 months now but know so much about each other that we might as well have known each other forever. I am proud to confess that we have come this far with 2 oceans and millions of miles trying their best to come in between. The countdown has begun and I can’t wait for my D-day to arrive. I just wanted to share this weird but very exciting story of ours and demonstrate how geography can sometimes, really become history!
Dedication:
To my dearest Aloo, for changing my life and for showing me that ‘Geography is really history now!’
Special Mention:
Mads – U r the best!
Yahoo! Messenger – Our Cupid and much more
MSN Messenger – For playing a good supporting role to Yahoo!
Gmail – For providing enough space to fit in our pages and pages of rants and gibberish
Airtel, Verison and Reliance – For their Logistic Support
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