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A Phone Call : A Story from My Life

I was dreaming in my sleep. I don’t recall the subject matter but I am sure it was a pleasant dream. “Cring Cring……..Cring Cring” my phone rings which I have placed at a distance far away from arms length. I woke up reluctantly & crawled to the phone. It was Banti, my friend. Did I pick the call? No, I didn’t. I returned to my dream & slept 2 more hours & finally woke up at 9am.

I picked a bucket of water & rushed to the toilet. I was busy clearing my stomach but my mind was blank. Immediately the thought of Banti flew into my mind. “Why did he call me?”, “Is something wrong?”, “What if he needs a favour?”. My mind was littered with questions. After leaving toilet I started brushing my teeth, still thinking about the same questions. I was about to finish brushing & my phone rings “Cring Cring……..Cring Cring”. I threw my brush over the basin & ran to pick the call.

“I was tired, so i couldn't pick the call” I said.

“You probably won’t pick the call if someone had an accident” Banti said.

“Is something wrong? Where are you?”

“At the hospital. I will call you after an hour” Banti said in a sad tone & cut off the phone.

Then I went back to pick my brush & continued brushing teeth. Honestly speaking, I was a little sad. But I didn’t spend much time pondering over the accident incident although sometimes I was bugged down by the exaggerated thoughts my mind produced. I completed brushing & took my oat meal. The thing I like about oat meal is that you can eat them quickly & it came out handy for a person like me who usually takes around 12 years to finish his breakfast. As soon as I finished my breakfast I took the staircase & arrived in my study room. I was only 10 days away from my exam. So I started turning my short notes & quickly entered into my engineering world.

Time passed slowly that day. Seconds were like minutes & minutes were like hours. It was more than an hour since Banti called. As time passed I became worried. “I am going to call him” I thought. “May be he is busy right now” I thought again & decided not to call him back. I came back to study & started focusing on few math problems. There is something about math. Unlike any other subjects math brings a lot of mental stability when you indulge in solving varied range of problems. Fortunately it worked for a certain time. But 30 minutes passed & I was inside the accident topic again.

I was mad as hell & equally bored. So I took my bed, placed my phone near my head & took a nap. It was not a healthy nap; it was unusual. May be it was because I was a little sad, may be it was because I wanted to pick his call & took someone to hospital or may be it was because I was sad my exam preparation was not going well. “Cring Cring………Crin”. I picked my phone before it completed the 2nd “Cring”.

“Where are you now? What happened exactly? Whose accident it is?” I asked in one breathe.

“Do you have 49 rupees in your account?” Banti said.

“Yes” I said in a strange voice.

“Recharge the number I have sent you through WhatsApp”

“Done, so where are you now?” I said after recharge.

“At my home” Banti said.

“When did you return from hospital?”

“Hospital? What hospital?”

“See I am serious. Don’t play with me”

“Ok, Ok…It was an operation” Banti said in a deep tone.

“Oh my god, it was Chinu then. He had a bruise in his ankle”

“No, it wasn’t”

“Then who was it” I said in a frustrating voice.

“It was Raju”

“Who is Raju?”

“Raju Rastogi. Remember?”

“Are you watching 3 idiots?” I asked. 

“No..I am going to watch. You just reminded me.”

"So you called me for recharge?" 

"Sadly Yes"

"Why such drama then?"

"It was fun" 


 

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