THE CALLING BELL

Major crisis at the Synamen office.

The Calling Bell is being installed!!!! (What are we going to do? What are we going to do?)

Personally I don’t see what the fuss is all about.

But as I walk-up the flight of stairs that leads to the office, there’s Vijay fiddling with an impressive bunch of colorful wires that look like they’ve exploded from inside the switch box.

“What are you doing Vijay?”

“Installing The Calling Bell” he replies, smiling vaguely in my direction while concentrating on the wires.

“Oh right” I mumble stupidly and walk in. (I didn’t know that Mahesh was no longer the receptionist till later… Tcha …. No one tells me anything around here!)

The office is in a mild up-roar. The men all file past my booth on their way out to watch Vijay fiddle with the wires.

Chuck-it! I’m going to watch as well!

Three things become apparent immediately.

1] Vijay is no electrician

2] No one in the office is an electrician

3] They all want to fiddle with the wires

“The blue wire is the live one”

“What does the yellow do?”

“Connect this lead to that … like this. Right. Now ring the bell”

The light comes on.

“Oh”

Then another flurry of activity, advice and fur-flying.

“Can’t you guys just call an electrician and be done with it?” Of course everyone pretends to not hear me and I stand around – the only one content to just watch and not pitch in – feeling silly for being blessed with common-sense.

It sounds like a bull charging around a china-shop and Sriram enters. Oh no!

He grabs the spanner-thingy from Vijay and looks at the wires very intelligently. He crosses one wire with the next – in spite of Vijay’s “Anna, we’ve tried this before” - and asks Mahesh to turn the switch on from the inside.

The light comes on.

“Oh”

The tea arrives and they all stand around sipping tea and looking thoughtful while tossing technical terms about, which would have been impressive if they hadn’t all just managed to turn the light-bulb on instead of installing The Calling Bell.

“Wouldn’t the house owner be mad that you guys are going to town with his wires?” – I’m ignored of course.

“Maybe you should just call the house-owner and get him to look at this” – What am I? Invisible?

Sriram leaves –Phew! – because he’s late for an appointment (Big Surprise that) and Shreeram takes over – Oh no! He’s very studious and has an elaborate chat with Vijay – who’s progressively beginning to act like a proud parent with the wires. They criss-cross the wires this way and that and finally Shreeram walks away stating that we should just knock loudly and pray to be let in.

CS takes over now – and I thought he was the sanest of the bunch! Vijay proudly explains how, no matter what they do, the light always comes on, but The Calling Bell never rings. CS, rakes his hair a couple of times and then runs his fingers down his face a few times in agony. “This is such a waste of time!” and walks away.

WOW …. There IS some reason left in the world after-all.

2 days later the electrician comes in and installs The Calling Bell. For 50 Rupees.

Poor Vijay!