Recharge Your TV Or...

I got fever yesterday. And my DTH TV recharge was due. Though the two things were completely different and never were supposed to be mentioned together, but mayhem started when I received calls after calls on my phone requesting (actually ordering) to recharge the TV while my head was whirling due to nausea and my body was aching for high fever.

Not a single person in my life taught me to be rude. But when I politely explained the guy over phone that I’d recharge my TV as soon as possible and he on the other hand, was adamant that I should recharge it then and there, I lost cool. I felt instant good when my tongue got inspired from my skin-on-fire, and I asked the guy with a raised tone, why he was so bothered for my recharge! The guy was hopelessly mechanical or stunningly shrewd. He started to describe the offers the DTH service was providing currently and, oh boy, it was a long list. I told him that I was dropping the call and after a ‘thanks’ from my side, I ended his robotic chatter.

I was in office, so was occasional busy. I took med, and was resting my head on the table in middle of works. Fifteen or twenty minutes passed by, my phone vibrated with another call. Now a different voice, a sweet female one, but with same request. ‘Sir, please recharge your TV’.

I said, ‘I’ll do’.

‘Sir, when?’

A weird thought came to me. Is the national security depending on the recharge of my TV? Or, maybe this company’s stock may crash if I don’t recharge my TV immediately, or something worse may happen like 2009 crisis. At that moment it was highly logical. So I asked the girl on other side with a voice genuinely concerned with seriousness, ‘What’s the stake here, maam?’

‘Pardon me sir?’

‘I mean, what’s the matter. Few minutes back, another guy called me and insisted for my recharge. Now I seriously believe that he was from some government agency. Are you too from NIA or CBI or something? FBI?’

I didn’t hear anything from other end for few seconds. May be she was discussing with her superiors or recapitulating her blown-up cover. I felt curious. ‘Maam. Are you there?’

‘Yes sir’, the girl’s voice was little shaken. ‘Sir, I request you to recharge your TV’.

‘Yes ofcourse I’ll recharge my TV. I just want to know from which agency you’re calling. And it’s really scaring but thrilling to know that my TV is so spy-kind of thing. I feel so patriotic maam’. I didn’t know what came over me. I closed my fists and put ‘em over my fever-pounding-chest and chanted, ‘Bharat mata ki jay’.

My havaldar was sitting across table, and two contingents were working nearby. They looked at me flabbergasted. The girl again was silent. And then I heard a click sound. The line was disconnected.

I took lunch and another pill. The world was little stable, as my head stopped whirling around. One hour later, I got another call. Now purely mechanical. Some IVR call requesting to recharge. I blocked that in truecaller. Then after half an hour, again. And then again. By the time, I reached home at evening my truecaller app had blocked twenties of call.

When I unlocked my door and switched on light and stood before my black screened LED TV, pasted on wall, I sighed. What if really it was something nationally important? May be I should recharge.

The phone was vibrating in pocket. A new number. ‘Hello’.

‘Sir, I’m calling from Videocon D2H service. Your recharge is due. Please recharge today.’