Addiction

Oct 08

The landscape was uncompromising. Miles and miles of area all round but it did not have what he desired. Once again he cursed his stupidity and his laziness. He knew that he should have been prepared for the worst case scenario. He was to blame entirely. Now his girlfriend would never let him hear the end of it. " I knew it " she would say in her squeaky voice . " It was my gullibility that led me to think that you have turned over a new leaf; I should never have trusted you in the first place- she would say as her voice would break up and she would end up sobbing uncontrollably . It was not the first time it would happen - but each time it did, it left him totally drained of any emotion. He should have got used to it by now but that was not the case.

Earlier That Day

That morning he had left for his college hostel at around 0530h. The previous evening was spent on texting and speaking to his girl friend. He did not know when he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion . Next thing he knew - he was being roughly being shaken awake by his father - his dad's mood was also not all that sunny. The old man realised that he would have to go and drop the boy at the station . Not wishing to exacerbate the issue he got off the bed in a fog and without a word got into the car to proceed to the station . Somewhere he felt that ablutions would have to wait till he was safely ensconced on the train in his birth.

He dropped off to sleep again as soon as the train was out of the station.  The nasal cry of the Idli vendor woke him up. IDLEEE...IDLEEE.. screamed the chap with little regard to the sleeping passengers. His agenda was to get rid of the idlis as early as possible - if some people were woken up in the process - well then , just too bad. The boy felt a sharp pain in his stomach. His brain told him that his body was starved of nutrition and that something needed to be done about it. He called out to the vendor and bought a plate of idlis. He ignored his mother's injunctions in his mind- telling him to brush before eating.Breaking a piece of idli his eye idly wandered to the wrist watch of the person sitting across him. On seeing that the time was 0900h the idli fell from his nerveless fingers. He was to have called his girl friend at 0830h and now it was 9'0' clock. She must be fuming. He scrambled under his blanket to look for his mobile phone. He found it. He then tried to switch it on and found that it was drained off all charge due to his excesses the previous evening. In any case nothing was lost he only had to charge the phone and explain to his girlfriend that he had fallen asleep and everything would be okay. He opened his rucksack and began to search for the charger. His search became a bit frantic as the charger was not in the front pocket, neither was it in the side pockets nor was it in the body of the ruck sack. He started shaking like an addict deprived of his fix. In addition to his girlfriend venting her fury, for him - the 24 hour long trip to his destination without a cellphone loomed up before his eyes. Other than speaking to his girlfriend he had to play candy crush , solve a criminal case and save the boy from the police man in Subway Surf. Not to mention that he had to speak to friends, listen to songs, get titillated by some videos sent by his friends and also speak to his parents just to inform them that his continued presence on earth necessitated their involvement in his upkeep.


The unreasonableness of the situation made him weak with anger . He castigated God for making him incommunicado. Wildly he looked around - his hunger and the idlis that he bought forgotten. In his mind he held this wild hope that someone of his fellow travellers would have an extra charger. People had extra of everything - pens, pencils sharpeners and some men had extra wives also so why not chargers? Seems like no one did have one or if they had , then it was too early in the journey to trust a fellow traveller. He sat there casting covetous looks at all the chargers . Since he had to have a charger he started to converse with the man sitting across. He had never done this before. He used to regard them as a nuisance - People making loud noises and laughing raucously - While he was busy doing important things on his mobile phone. Now it was different he had to befriend the man to get his charger. There was a quite desperation about his actions. Not having used his mobile since waking up made him feel that he was missing an important part of his life. His mouth was dry and his fingers were twitching.

He ignored all this and set about conversing with the man. The conversation was stilted at first. Slowly both of them opened up to each other . The man's son was also in the same college as the boy (he learnt- though senior)  The man was going to meet him. The boy absentmindedly consumed his breakfast. A full stomach made him drowsy and he fell asleep . No phone to disturb him. He slept like a baby. Someone was gently shaking him. "Son wake up - it is dinner time" . The old man woke him up. " I did not have the heart to wake you up .You were sleeping so peacefully. I have taken the liberty of ordering dinner for you".

The boy felt very refreshed after a long sleep. Suddenly the fact that he had not spoken to his girlfriend, class mates or his parents did not matter any more . The old man's concern for him touched the boy . It was as if that leaving his charger at home was a blessing in disguise. The absence of the phone opened up a whole new world for him. In the morning when he would reach his hostel and set about charging his phone he might forget this glorious evening where technology took a back seat to human relations - But - Tomorrow is another day.