One day with me......by 20C 0J6JJ4 A ten rupee note FINAL EPISODE

The wooden box which held me was opened and closed very frequently. Infact the frequency started increasing slowly.
More and more of my relatives, majorly elders, got into the box and very few of youngsters got out. I was trying to be one of them. Once in a while a stout hand will just pick my elder relatives and count them and place them in their dedicated shelfs.
For sometime I thought this was the place where all of us end up. I had to wait for more than a couple of hours to get of this place and at last that moment came.
The second senior most person in our family was thrown into the box by the stout hand. Then the hand came to pick a couple of us. Luckily this time, the hand picked me up and my elder brother. We were placed together on a white round plate and over us he placed a steel round cup.
I don’t know what was there in that cup, but another hand took the plate and started moving. We crossed the tables which were dark. It was too noisy inside and some people were shouting, clapping hands, crying, slapping and some were even dancing. The more far we went, it was darker.
At last we were placed in one dark corner of this area. The hand knocked the table twice and left. There was a man, sleeping with his forehead bent over his folded arm on the table. There were some plates, with left out onions, chips, groundnuts, bones of chicken. Also in the table I found one emptied plastic water bottle, one tall bottle which had TEACHERS printed on it and it was almost empty. The glass had a couple of ice cubes in it.
When the hand knocked the table, the man slowly lifted his head “hmmmmmmmmmmmm” he stretched his arms and turned left and right. He pulled the white plate in which we were kept towards him.
“See what I have got” he grinned seeing us.
Biting some last pieces of chicken, he took a sip from the glass. He poured some more from the tall teachers bottle and shouted for ice.
He took me out of the plate, holding me in both the hands he turned his head slowly to left and then to right.
“So, you are the guy. I was waiting for someone to be with me and talk with me or atleast listen to me. Now I got you little man” he kissed me a couple of times.
“I wish he could also hear me” I thought to myself.
“Nowadays, I tend to talk to non humans, I talk with my cell phone, talk to my camera, talk to my mirror, my bike, my toilet, my laptop everyyyyyyyyything”, he grinned and removed a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
“So what do we talk about?” Again I thought to myself.
“A lot of things are happening around me are not at all good. I wake up daily trying to enjoy the whole day, but never sleep like that. I almost end up crying man”
He now took me very close to his eyes, “Can you see me? Dude Can you see my tears?”
Ah! I didn’t see any tears in his eyes, but in fact he seemed depressed to me.
“Now since you have seen me crying, I can tell everything to you…..” he continued. “Do you know why people cry? Hmmm???” ….I very well knew he won’t hear me, so I was just listening to what he said
“Tell me man,…..tell me why people cry? It is too noisy here, come on tell it in my ears”
With both his hands, he took me close to his ears. I didn’t know whether I had to tell something, but before I did I heard him talk again “Yes. Correct, you are 100% correct” he said.
He placed me now on the table between his hands, by this time, his glass was filled with ice. Taking another sip, he said “People cry when something very sad happens, they break out and their tears are just the relief of all their pain. Today I am sad, very sad……….I WANT TO CRY” he shouted. I really wanted to help him out of this, wanted to ask which thing was it, made him cry and shout like this.
“Sir Its closing time!” the waiter came near us and informed.
“Yeah! Yeah I know its closing” and lying again with his is forehead near me and started scribbling over me with his nails.
“Today……” he continued. I think he is going to tell what happened to him today and infact he did “Today…..my team lost a cricket match against Australia” He stopped.
Pushing his forehead nearer to me he continued, his nails were still on me. “How could they lose it? I was so confident on it. BTM BONKERS has the best players in the world; even then they lost it, that too against Australia?” He hit his palm on the forehead twice. I was going to faint now.
“The match between BTM Bonkers and Australia started off well, but again as usual it was a sad ending for me. We had all the great players like Manjunath, Someshwar, Lingaih, Mallikarjun, Gopinath, Kasi, and Subbiah in very good form. Even Venkatreddy and Santhosa were bowling in bowling session. Even then we lost the match by 1 wicket”
“Do you know how terrific it is to lose a match, that too against, Australia in our home pitch Madiwala? Damn it” he hit the table hard and started shouting “Why, Why not, Why Me?”
The waiter came to the table and this time, he held the shoulders of this guy and said “Please, its time” and helped him walk away till the entrance of the room.
I sat there confused of what was happening, I didn’t understand what he said and couldn’t really figure out the reason for his sadness.
The waiter came back to the table and looked at the table, he picked the remaining teachers bottle and took me in his hands.
From a distance, I heard a voice, “Wait a min”
Oh no, not him again, the drunk fellow came near the waiter and rested his hands on the shoulders. “Actually, I was talking to my friend; I cannot leave him alone here” saying it he picked me from waiter’s hands. He gave him a different 50Rs note. He also managed to get back the remaining bottle from the waiter, having both of us in each hands, he headed towards the gates.
I was worried of my life ahead, this guy is sick, he is mad, I thought to myself.
He came out to the road, his legs were not stable, and his body was rolling in all directions.
Crossing the road, he started walking towards a corner of the road.
“AUTOOOOOOOOOOO” he shouted and within seconds an auto rickshaw came and stood near us. He was holding me in one hand and bottle in another and he was shaking.
He bent forward to the driver seat and asked the auto driver “What is the time?”
“1135 PM sir” the auto driver replied.
“Oh Ok, thanks, carry on” saying this he started walking again. He had held me high in his hand. from here; I was able to see the auto driver slapping himself.
After 15 mins, he was in front of a wooden door, which seemed to be his house. He knocked the door for some time and also rang the door bell. There was no response.
“Shhhhhh” breathing heavily, he shouted “Open the door man”
After a couple of minutes, the door opened and a man with bare body and shorts was standing before us.
“Can’t you open the door yourself, you have a key with you” the other person shouted.
“Can’t you see? My hands are busy buddy” he replied. Ignoring the other guy went inside his room.
He sat on his chair, and took another sip directly from the bottle and after a long time; he placed the bottle on a table.
He saw me again and said “I told you about my story, now tell me yours”
I knew he cannot hear, even if I saw. So I stayed silent. He stared at me for a couple of minutes. He placed me in the table and started searching for something, later came in front of me with a transparent tape.
With one hand he placed me on his cupboard door, and with his teeth, he tore the tape and placed on piece on my right top end.
Slowly pieces of tapes were fixed on my bottom right, bottom left, top let and a long strip in the middle of my body.
I had no idea, what this guy was doing with me. He sat down in his chair which was against another wall.
Even without opening his shoes or anything he was still busy doing all these. I saw him opening something, it was his laptop.
I was able to make out that he was typing by couldn’t see because he was hiding with his shoulders. He took couple of sips and in another 30 minutes and slowly drowned in his chair itself. When he lay down, I was able to see, what he had typed on his laptop…….........

One day with me......by 20C 0J6JJ4 A ten rupee note....................

One day with me......by 20C 0J6JJ4 A ten rupee note EPISODE X

Lying below, the shop keeper’s jute bag, only my head peeping out to see these kids enjoying with the toffees. Of all today’s activities, this was the most memorable moment I can think of. Happiness for so many kids, with their sweet smiles and in their sweet smiles, this old man trying to find his happiness, I was getting emotional now.
I was in the middle of sliced mangoes, pineapples, watermelon on steel plate, 4 jars of different colored toffees, dry tamarinds, peanuts, dates etc. There was a small stick on which the shop keeper tied some old cloth and he was waving that over us, to drive the flies away.
After a long hot day, I started feeling the cool breeze around me. The jute bag below which I laid was giving me more comfort than I expected.
Thinking of what happened the whole day, I got into my own world. My travel from call center employee till this road side shop keeper looked better than staying inside some stupid lockers. I got all the excitement, which I wanted. I was hurt a couple of places, but still I had the same energy, value, power.
I don’t remember when I started sleeping but woke up with a sudden shock, when the jute bag was pulled out.
I was holding the jute bag tightly, which flew away from the shop. I saw the shopkeeper shouting and crying at four guys around his shop. They were breaking the glass jars and took the money from his pocket and the shop. One of them came towards me plucked me out of the jute bag and pushed me inside his pocket.
His pocket was dirty, and I couldn’t see anything out. The guy started running and I was able to feel it from inside. The smell of the tobacco was filled inside his pocket. After a few minutes, he stopped. He pulled me and others out of his pocket and held us in his palm.
I saw three of the other guys surrounded his palm. They also pulled some of my family members from their pockets and placed them over me.
“Count it!” shouted one among them.
“Okay, wait, let me check how much we got” he started separating us according to our heights and started counting. He licked his fingers when he did that and this time I was not able to escape from his wet fingers.
“Two hundred…….!” He shouted.
“Wow, come on we got enough for today” the other said and snatched us from the first person’s hand. He folded the bundle and his hand went below his hip level. A curtail below his hip opened and he I was able to see a trouser inside the curtain. He pushed us inside that trouser pocket and patted twice.
It was dark inside but I was able to see a bundle of Indian beedi, match box, dry tobaccos, a small knife, and some papers inside it. We all were scared inside that dark trouser, which was torn slightly at one end. I thought of escaping from that hole, but I realized, I cannot move without anyone’s help.
I found that guy had stopped walking and pulled us out of his dirty pocket, after getting us out, his curtain closed automatically.
My eyes got a slight irritation, when I first saw so many lights around me. There were bottles all around me.
“How much?” handing over me to the other guy he asked.
“180” a big bellied fellow at the counter took us in hand and started counting. I escaped from this person’s saliva.
“Give some plastic glass and chips for the rest of the change” the curtain clothed person said to the shop keeper.
They left leaving me there, it was bright here and again I was inside a wooden box, whenever the box opened I was able to see the bright light and hundreds of bottles placed in racks around me. They were placed, type wise, height wise, weight wise, and color wise. I wasn’t able to find many differences between each rack and the only thing which didn’t change was, whenever I came out to light, one of them was missing from the rack.
I was in a deep thought, who are these guys? Why are they staked? Why those guys hit one shopkeeper and gave the money to this shopkeeper. What is there in these bottles?
……………..To be continued. concluding next week.....