My wife says that she has never seen me behave like the first line of a novel. New. Innovative. Fresh. Charged with meaningfulness. Eager to lead anyone out of any form of tedium into a valley where moments also give out a fragrance and change their colours with the changing light. I am none of this.

‘You always have the same postures, the same words coming out in a familiar tone, same demands, same aspirations…,’ she is fond of telling me without realising that even her complaint and the tone she adopts is full of the sameness that so bothers her. The sameness was so thickly and evenly spread out all over me that she even called me Sammy.

No, my name is not Sammy. The real name has ceased to matter. Yes, it does exist in the certificates, on the scooter registration papers, insurance documents, and the odd letter that the postman reluctantly drops in our letter-box on the ground floor. Even my friends and colleagues now call me Sammy which pleases my wife a lot as she feels she has created and given me a new personality.

I work in a bank that isn’t so far that I have to take a bus or an auto… and it isn’t so near that I would have walked. So I use my scooter.

‘1990,’ I once told a colleague in the bank, ’This scooter was bought with a loan that Girija ji helped me write the loan application. You know…’

‘Yes, yes, I know her,’ Shekhar paused for a while before continuing, ‘But it is time now that you bought a car.’

‘Car?’ I was silent. This thought had never crossed my mind. Not that we cannot afford one as I could easily have applied for another bank loan. I was such a senior clerk now and was now also confident of writing the loan application myself. Girija ji had retired, God bless that gentle soul. Had she not sat with me for a full hour, that application would never have been completed and…

‘Where are you? Dreaming about your new car already?’

I was silent. Shekhar could sense that I was debating if this could indeed become a reality. So he egged me on, ‘Approval of the loan won’t be an issue, and you know that Sammy.’

‘Yes. I will ask Sampoorna.’ I don’t have any fancy names for my wife. Her name sounds good and as complete as she already is.

That evening as I sat on the sofa watching MTV, I was also thinking of how and when to start this discussion about buying a car. No, I don’t watch MTV… I don’t really understand the jokes, the language, and even the way everyone on this channel dresses up. It is my daughter Kumkum who insists that we all sit and watch this channel with her. She told me once that she had read in some article on the internet that the TV channel that you watch can change your entire life.

‘Hmm,’ I said as I recollected this change theory that Kumkum had told us about.

‘You said something?’ asked Sampoorna from the kitchen.

‘Yes, Let’s buy a car.’

Kumkum immediately switched off the TV and pulled a stool nearer to sit on it. This must really be an interesting topic, I thought. Kumkum has switched off MTV and she isn’t raring to go back to her PC… and even Sampoorna has come out of the kitchen wiping her hands. Phew! I told myself, this must be more exciting than I thought it would be.

They were here waiting for me to go on.

‘Should we buy a car?’ I like throwing questions at everyone as this is what I have learnt at the bank. ‘Ask a customer a question and he will think four times before he asks any,’ so said Giriji ji once when I was almost in tears at not being able to answer the ten questions that some angry customer had barked at me. But that is a different story.

‘Good idea. We need a car now. It is so difficult for the three of us to go anywhere together on that scooter of yours.’

‘Yes, Pupaji. I agree. Any car. But not Nano.’ Kumkum called me Pupaji in her MTV kichdi language and she was probably right about Nano to be ruled out.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes, I think…’ and after a pause to play a little tabla on the sofa armrest with my fingers, I continued, ‘we will buy whichever car your mummy decides.’

‘Is it going to be expensive maintaining a car?’ asked Sampoorna. I dread questions. I have never liked questions. I hated exams. So, as usual, I kept silent which meant it was upto Sampoorna to answer her own question.

‘I think we’ll manage.’ And then she launched herself into a dialogue with herself. There were questions, then answers. There were rebukes, entreaties, jokes, statements, conclusions, objections… she was in her ‘parliament mood’ as Kumkum had once whispered to me.

‘How can petrol hikes be managed like this? The Government needs to be more sympathetic to the common man.’

‘Arre, our ministers are simply interested in pleasing the petrol companies.’

‘You remember Sammy, what happens every time there is a hike?’

‘We go and queue at the petrol pump and ask him to fill the tank to the top. That is so exciting. Everyone thinking they will save money. And then we drive less for a few days not wanting to have to go back to some petrol pump to buy it again at a higher cost.’

‘I also remember you telling me that our scooter was now old and was using more petrol than a car would. Right?’

‘So I think it is correct that a car should be bought.’

‘But if we buy a car, we will go out more often… and then we’ll have to go to the pump more often and get more petrol and more money will be spent. Do we have so much money?’

‘You are earning enough actually. And we are saving enough too. But will we have enough money to go everywhere and still save enough?’

‘Yes, I think so. I have had a nice long look at our pass book and I know for sure that we will not be in any trouble.’

‘But which car should we buy? I think…’ this when she realised that she needed an answer from us.

‘That will depend on how much loan I can get,’ I said.

‘OK then, it is decided that we are buying a car,’ summed up Kumkum. And I thought how simple it is for us to decide at home. Decisions in the bank always left me with a dull ache in my head. I remember Girija ji used to keep a small bottle of some balm in her left drawer and there was a reassuring menthol aroma around her whenever she applied some on her forehead.

This discussion happened on a Friday night. I spent a large part of the night thinking if we could really afford to maintain a car. Sampoorna was confident but she was not aware that a car meant much more spending on petrol than we did for our scooter. This is what Shekhar had told me once during our lunch break.

‘It is easy to buy a car Sammy. It is easy to buy a car but it is difficult not to go to so many places. Now all of us go all over Delhi… and we also plan weekends out of Delhi,’ he paused as if the thought was somewhat painful to him, ‘and it means that I always need more money for more petrol. I also need more money for more repairs. I also need more money for more holidays…’ and he was almost silent and deep into his own calculations. I did not say much then as I could not really follow what his concerns were. But tonight all that he said emerged out of a past lunch break and began haunting me.

I was worried.

The first thing Shekhar told me when we met in the bank was that I looked worried.

‘Yes. We have decided to buy a car,’ I said sounding as if I had decided to appear for another exam and I was unprepared.

‘So that is good news. Let us celebrate.’

‘But you remember you told me that it is not easy to always have enough money for all the petrol that I’ll need…’

‘That is simple,’ suggested Shekhar, ‘Travel less.’ We laughed it off then but later he came to me and said that he agreed with what I had said.

‘It isn’t that you will need more money for petrol. There is this added nuisance of such frequent petrol hikes,’ he said with bitterness that even I hadn’t detected earlier.

‘What can we do? It is the Government that decides the hikes,’ I said with a helplessness that seemed to infuriate Shekhar.

‘Now you ask what you can do? You can stop yourself from buying that car.’

He paused as if he was waiting for an affirmation that what he said was not incorrect. ‘Yes, you can keep going on that bandaged scooter of yours, with your 5 and a half feet daughter still perched between you and your wife.’

I was still not sure if that warranted an answer and anyway, he continued, ‘You can buy three bicycles.’ Shekhar laughed out loud at his own suggestion and nothing more was said.

I went to my seat and glanced at the headlines on the newspaper kept on the table. It read: ‘Anna to go on a fast unto death from 16 August if his demands are not met.’ I must have read this a few more times than I usually read any headline. I remembered I had also gone to his rally a couple of months back at Jantar Mantar. I had registered my name with the ‘India Against Corruption’ team there and had even shouted a few slogans that everyone seemed to be excitedly shouting at the venue.

‘Are these rallies really able to get anything done?’ I asked Shekhar later in the afternoon. After Girija ji had left, I always looked towards him for guidance when in doubt. Girija ji had told me with that firm gentle smile of hers that it is always a good man who asked the right people for directions and that only the stupid and the arrogant thought they knew all the answers themselves.

‘Now you aren’t thinking of going on a hunger strike, are you?’ Shekhar looked at me with a seriousness that was about to burst out in laughter!

‘No. I am just asking.’

‘But you can,’ continued Shekhar, ‘You can go to Jantar Mantar and sit on a hunger strike. It is simple. Just write your message on a sheet of paper, paste it on a cardboard and keep it by your side.’

‘Sounds good,’ I said. This man is so full of dynamic ideas I was telling myself when he started laughing.

‘Don’t be silly, Sammy. Do you think the Prime Minister will walk down to where you are sitting, tell you that petrol hikes have been abolished forever, and then offer you a glass of coconut water with honey requesting you to break your fast?’

‘He might, you know.’

The conversation came to an abrupt end as Shekhar was called in by the manager for some discussion on loan outstandings.

I knew I was all alone at home that evening. Sampoorna and Kumkum were to spend the night at a cousin’s house helping them put their kitchen in order as they had just got their house white-washed. I was not to be there as I was prone to dust allergies and so was to be left alone for the entire Sunday too.

I was sure that a one-day hunger strike was a good idea and on my way back home, went to the market to buy a large sheet of paper and cardboard for my placard. That evening I sat and created my first ever protest placard:

HEAR me HERE

Don’t fear

PETROL HIKES kill

And I will

Keep sitting here

Until you hear me here!

Once the writing was done, I looked at it with a chest full of pride. Well, I told myself, the ‘hear’ and ‘here’ are a masterpiece, really. There was a lot of self-patting and because it was late, I slept.

I was there at Jantar Mantar sitting under the same tree that gave shade to the great Anna Hazare there and the entire press corps of India were there asking me all sorts of questions and I went on answering suavely all of them. There were the masses who joined me in my attempt to make the government take an informed decision. And, of course, the PM too was there offering me all that Shekhar told me he would if I were there.

No, I could not hear all that was asked nor do I clearly remember what I said in answer, but I did see Shekhar running to me the next day with a newspaper whose headlines roared: ‘Sammy Zindabad! Petrol hikes banished by the Govt.’

The applause in the bank did not seem to subside… and then I woke up to find that the phone on my bedside was ringing.

‘Hello,’ I groggily said.

‘Sampoorna here. Meet me at Jantar Mantar… under that tree where Anna ji sat. remember? Ok… am in a hurry… meet me there at 9. Don’t be late.’

I slowly got up, thought for a while about my crusade against petrol hikes, then wrapped the placard in newspaper, and slid it behind the three trunks kept in the store-room.

‘I am going to Jantar Mantar,’ I muttered to myself, ‘part of that dream is true. The rest… I wouldn’t mind if just the hikes being banished part comes true… the rest can remain within me.’

Sammy's story

Sammy’s story

Arvind Passey
Short-story written on 31 August 2011

Note:
This short-story is written to be a part of the ‘FREEDOM FROM FUEL HIKES‘ contest on Indiblogger.
The contest is sponsored by the Fiat Upgrade Offer.