The Plan

There is always a thrill of doing things on the sly, like watching late night porn with the T.V on mute when everyone is sleeping, or texting your friend during class hours when the most hard-assed of all professors is taking a class, whispering sweet nothings in your girlfriend's ear in a movie theatre when the lights are out, watching youtube clips when actually your boss is the next cubicle, lying to your nagging wife about a business meeting and spending a weekend with old friends. It is the fun of making people believe what they want to believe. Your professor must be thinking that your are immersed in his powerpoints while actually you are texting your friend in the opposite corner asking "Which theatre do we go to?". Your boss must be thinking you are busy meeting your targets while actually you are watching videos trying hard not to laugh your ass off. Your wife back home must be thinking you are busy closing business deals, but little does she know that your are with your friends acting drunk and stupid like a teenager all over again. But we fail to realize that sometimes the real thrill is in planning for the deed than actually doing the deed, and sometimes the planning gives us more satisfaction than the end result.

The thrill lies in tiptoeing to your T.V while everyone is asleep, switching it on without making that "Click!" sound, hitting on the mute button as soon the screen flashes, inserting the dvd which has "Software" neatly written in a marker pen, and then hit PLAY and skip all the story and go to the meaty part, but there may come a time when the CD gets stuck and stops playing. It breaks your heart, but then it is in that process till where you insert the CD that the real thrill lies. If you think about it, all those heist movies would not seem worth a watch if they had not shown how they plan and execute it, how the cookie was actually baked before it was crumbled. Think "The Great Escape", would the escape have made that impact had they not shown Charles Bronson digging the tunnels away?, or good ol' Steve McQueen do a survey of the prison?, or how they all planned behind closed doors for *that* escape? The epicness in the movie lay in how the P.O.Ws planned their escape. And that's all we need, an escape from our daily life into that of hope, a brief moment of the day where we lived our dreams.

The idea had struck me two days back when I was sitting in my manager's cabin when he had gone out to attend a call. I looked at my calendar and saw a cricket match scheduled on the 24th of February. 

South Africa v/s West Indies it showed.

"I think I will bunk this Thursday" I whispered to my colleague sitting next to me, as if I were planning to steal the crown jewels.

"Why? What's on Thursday?" she asked aloud as I signaled her to bring down her voice.

"Okayyy, what is on Thursday?" she asked with a mock whisper.

"South Africa is playing the West Indies, it's their first game of the world cup. I need to see them play the first game." I said with a quiet murmur.

"It's just the Windies, South Africa will win it easily don't worry, you don't have to stay home just to make sure that they win." she said with a serious sarcasm.

"Don't say that! You will jinx them! they never had a good record with the Windies at the world cup. They lost once in India during 96 at the quarter finals, they lost once in 03' in their home ground at the opening game. You never know, the Windies are an unpredictable squad. They have Gayle, Pollard, Bravo....." I rambled on.

"Very interesting..." She cut me short impatiently, "but anyway if you know your team is so suspect why do you have to bunk?" she asked.

"That is because my mind will always be wondering what is happening at the stadium, and it's not like I can browse at work either. They have blocked almost all the sites that are worth browsing......."

It's true, almost all URLs that had cricket, tube, book, and boob(s) attached to it's name were blocked at my workplace.

 

".....no Cricinfo, no twitter. I wont be able to focus on work at all! You don't understand! It's like I am forced to marry someone when actually my heart belongs to someone else."

"So what excuse are you gonna use?" she asked.

"Need to think of one, and don't you dare go tellin' around everyone about my plan. I won't catch a seat for you in the train next time." I warned her.

                                             * * * * * * * * *


"so what excuse do I use?" I pinged my friend online.

"say you have to take your mom to the doctor, managers find it very touching and they cannot say "no" when it comes to mothers, even Hitler can't. It will actually win you some brownie points with chicks at work too, they always love guys who help out sick mothers and grandmothers"


"girls?... no one at work is worth the try, anyway what disease do I say my mom is diagnosed is?"


"disease?? are you crazy! planning to make your mom diagnosed over a stupid cricket game!? go for a mild disease like headache or fever, the ones that don't last long. Don't go for cancer or parkinsons. I've used that up and it really came back to bite me in my balls, you throw up big diseases then these managers will be up your arse every now and again askin "how is your mother? I hope she is fine,how much time has she got? what stage is she in? " and you are no Doogie Howzer to explain about stages of disease. You don't even know the symptoms of common cold."


"true that... but I am feeling guilty over using my mom, after all she has spent sleepless nights trying to teach me vertically opposite angles.. something I still don't understand by the way."


"oh! then you can say that you are coaching your brother for his board exams, a decent reason, you can take up thursday and friday off, that way you got solid four days with you! :-D"


                      *********


"So you are using me to get a couple of days off?" he asked.

"Yeah that's what siblings are for, I am gonna tell them that I will be coaching you for math, physics, chemistry and computer science, that way I can use up two days  - Thursday and Friday! I got Saturday and Sunday as a holiday anyway! Man am I glad that February has 28 days!"

"Yeah and while you are at it why don't you teach me molecular biology and astrophysics too?"

"You have those subjects in school too?" I asked.

"Sigh! look, I don't mean no disrespect to you and your job. But if you really were that good in school you probably would not be in a shitty job where you are dotting the t's and crossing the i's.And really, what's an arts student gonna teach me about integral calculus? they won't buy it and in an age where we believe the written word in solved out answer papers than the ones given out by our teachers, I feel you stand no chance in convincing your managers or your office receptionist about teaching me my subjects!"

"Why don't you tell them that you have a suspicious rash all over your body and you are going to meet the doctor?" he suggested.

"I want to get a day's leave, I don't want to get isolated from the team forever, I'll think of something else" I said.


"Do you know the country is loosing twenty one million dollars worth of production due to cricket, and also because of people like you?" he retorted. 

 

"I know, and I blame my company for that. Because had they installed a T.V at work place for score updates I would not be at home." I clarified my stance.

"Yeah, and while they are at it they should serve you beer and probably a lap dance to raise your spirits among other things."

"You have a board exam to prepare for don't you?" I asked.

                                                 *********

Marriages are made in heaven they say, but then marriages can also be made out of thin air, all you need to do is let your creativity run amok. When your parents and your sibling serve you no purpose it's your father's cousin's wife's brother's son who comes to the rescue. In short a distant relative of whom you have never heard and would have only seen in family functions. And as we have a plethora of traditions and customs, every once in a while there also comes a reason along with it to skip work, it's all about how you are going to use it. 

I walked in to work with a valid reason. I now need not have to get my mother sick, nor do I have to "coach" my brother for his exams, neither did I have to break a leg or have rashes on my body. I logged into my leave portal, and clicked on to the "Apply for Leave" page, as it guided me through the process. I typed out my reasons for taking leave and thanked my father's cousin's wife's brother's son and wished him a fictitious happy married life, if and when he crossed his teens decided to and get married.