Hello...

I was walking on the passageway leading to my office when my mobile phone rang. I fumbled for my phone inside my handbag and found it screeching, outsounding the din all around me in the morning rush hour.

I was exasperated at seeing an unknown number. I was running late to office this morning, thanks to my late night reading habit. Now I was in no mood for any “Ma’m are you interested in a personal loan” or a “Ma’m we are calling from ABC resorts and this is regarding the free trip you’ve won in our lucky draw”. I was mentally prepared to give them a piece of my mind, rather nastily, to keep such callers at bay, at least for today.

I had to work on a presentation which I had to give the following day for a few foreign delegates. I was supposed to have completed the presentation slides last night, but my curiosity of what the finale would be of the Erle Stanley Gardner book I was reading, took the better of my mental faculties. And I ended up reading the book rather than working on my powerpoint slides.

I reprimanded myself for having been slack on the work front last night. Had I completed it, I would have had sufficient time on hand to prepare for tomorrow’s presentation. Now I had to rush through everything. Time was certainly at a premium today.

With all these thoughts racing across my mind, I answered the call. The other person’s voice was drowned in the din. I could see the passage teeming with hundreds of people, all chattering away on their mobile phones. This triggered my annoyance (today there was no need for any spark offs to get my volatile temper to the forefront; I woke up with it). I hollered in to the phone, “Hello… Who is this? I’m not able to hear you…”

I could hear a feeble voice from the other end, but loud enough for me to recognise it as a man’s voice. “Hi honey, my phone battery drained and is out of charge, so am calling you from my landline”.

Immediately I realised that it was my flirtatious friend Rishi. I wasn’t too pleased at having him call me at this hour, given that my mind was already guaging way ahead into the time span required for my daily schedule of work to be completed. And Rishi had this uncanny knack of calling me at the wrong time always.

I sighed and mentally made a note not to be harsh with him. It was unfair on my part to vent out my irritation on him, especially at that early in the morning. So I said to him in a whimpering tone, “Yeah, tell me…How come you called in so early?”

Rishi said, “Actually I tried calling you last night, but your cell was not reachable. Were you working late or something?”

“No, I was reading a book and didn’t want to be disturbed. So I put my phone in the silent mode and dropped it into my table drawer.”

“But…Weren’t we supposed to spend time last night, deciding on where to go?”

“Where are we going? I wasn’t aware of going any place with my hands full with work. We are having foreign delegates tomorrow and I need to give a business presentation. That will consume half a day. And I had to spend half a week preparing for that.”

“But sweets…”

Now Rishi was really getting on my nerves. Bad enough that I had already told him that we wouldn’t be able to meet for another ten days thanks to my hectic schedule at office, here he’s making plans for some kind of a weekend getaway. What’s worse, he was flirting with me, which was all the more infuriating.

My voice sounded provoked, when I told him, “Rishi, for God’s sake, I told you a few days ago that I’m bogged down with work. I have no free time to make plans for any retreat”.

“Er…”

Without an interlude, and without giving him a chance to break into my monologue, I continued, “Can’t you ever understand the pressures of work? We work in similar corporate environments and you still refuse to be aware of the constant time constraints we work under.”

I paused. I was actually livid.

“But darling, we were supposed to choose our honeymoon destination. Besides, you never did mention anything about a business presentation to me.”

That was it. Rishi just inflamed my temper to the highest order. I literally yelled into my phone and at Rishi, “For heaven’s sake dude, can’t you just stop flirting with me? I’m cheesed off as it is, now you don’t have to add fuel to the fire. Can’t you ever think beyond enjoyment? Do you live life between holidays and vacations? And now you talk about honeymoon. What the hell is wrong with that damn pea brain of yours?”

“Er… What do you mean?”

I went on relentlessly, my nasty alter ego, taking over the better part of me. “And by the way, I never thought you did have any brains, let alone having a brain pea sized. Were you dozing off when God was giving away all the senses to people who were born on the same day as yours? Or were you too busy vacationing… correction, honeymooning? You seem to have a fetish for vacations and ‘honeymoons’. What’s with you man?

“Excuse me…?!?!?!”

“And you have no empathy for your friends. You say that I’m not just your neighbor, but I’m your good friend too. Is this how you behave? Can’t you understand that I’m busy dammit? You are just worried about enjoying in life and frolicking around. You have no sense. You have no seriousness You are not at all understanding. What kind of a friend are you? You just think about…”

“Er….Is this Dhriti? I mean, is this 9845440335?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I was shocked for having blasted the life out of the stranger at the other end who was under the impression that he was deciding about the honeymoon destination with his fiancé. And I was enraged that I wasted ten minutes of my precious time talking about honeymoon destinations with a moron, who couldn’t realize earlier that he called the wrong number.

I replied curtly, “Wrong number” and hung up.

I felt like a moron myself. At the same time, I could envision fumes coming out of my ears. So much so, for trying to save time!