Swipe

The fourth ring was cut short halfway. "Hello?" the voice was raspy. "Hello. Good evening sir. Is this Mr. Platinum Card last four digits 9110?"

A few moments passed without any exchange. "It is. Who's calling?"

"Good evening sir. My name is Pissflake last four digits 4242 and I'm calling you since you're a customer with Nexus Blink Copses. Can I interest you with an upper class A human?"

Mr. Platinum was now losing his magnetic mind. He had paused a very serious documentary about fishing thefts in debit pools. Being an aquaculture buff, he needed his daily dose of fins and was busy streaming videos online.

"Look Pissflake 4242, I am not interested in any more humans. I have 3 middle class C males and 1 upper-middle class B female. I do not need any more. My needs are adequately fulfilled and the only need I have right now is to end this conversation."

More silence ensued. This was destined to be a short conversation. It was.

Mr. Platinum hung up on Pissflake quite rudely.


Little did he know that Pissflake was no Blink agent. He had just swindled Mr. Platinum to the tune of 6 months off his impending  expiry date.

"You're hired"

"Please take a seat." Amrita did. She was taking no chance this time. She had brought everything she had - every shred of paper and plastic documenting her life.

She had gone to lengths no one else possibly would. Amrita had sat her mother down and asked her to rummage through the past. "What questions was I asked during my Jr. KG interview?" She wanted to be thorough. And that made her the ideal candidate.

The interviewer's uniform and badge intimidated her. She knew she couldn’t afford to stumble. She took a deep breath and braced herself for his question.

"What would you consider is your ideal destination after the next 30 minutes?"

Stymied, she was. It was make-or-brake time. She shut her eyelids and rolled her eyes around, as if searching within herself. And then she opened them.

"I have complete faith in your judgment in deciding my destination for me."

She had hit the proverbial sweet spot. Shivram Ghate turned the meter down.

"Bandra it is!"

Fruits

Sarvesh knew it was inevitable. He'd been screaming himself hoarse for months now, advocating this absurd change. He believed it was just the sort of thing that would bring everyone back from their commercial stupor.


Mudit agreed, raising all 28 phalanges. Phones on sale on a street cart? "What a wonderful thought!" Everyone could get one. Bargaining wars on the horizon. "No more MRP!" He was jubilant.


Sagar shared his elder brother's enthusiam. He was also the more proactive one among the two. When he heard Sarvesh talk on about the 'changes', he cut through the ambiguity, donned his MBA cap and opened a fruit store. Whether it was Sarvesh's sermons or his own orientation that decided this move, it didn't matter.


Boxed products they were now, fruits - replete with instruction manuals, warranties and seals of authenticity.


It was all for naught though. Last Friday, Sarvesh entered Sagar's store, unboxed an apple and found a bug. He subsequently converted to nonvegetarianism and bought a street cart along with 200 kilos of mobile phones.

Mudit wept.