GAME THEORY (Short story)

GAME THEORY

“What is life? Is it only the short span of time in between birth and death?” Sumangala was deep buried in thoughts, trying to analyze her life based on some interesting happenings of that day. Every day, I get up at four… Cook for my small family… Iron clothes for my husband and children… Wash the boys and get them ready for school… Serve food for my husband and get his bag ready for office… While sipping hot coffee while lying lazy on easy chair, he reads newspaper up to “printed and published”… That is the only duty of my sweet hubby in the morning! Hubby!

Even I too have to go for job… but, not even a single day; I get time to wash myself. I can go to my college by train… but, not even a single day, I can catch it… Then traveling by bus through the guttery roads… O… my poor backbone disks… In college… there, I have to fight with the numb-skulls destined to become future engineers!

Again back in home… my husband eats only Chapattis… younger son Dosais with Kuruma and elder son rice and Sāmbhar… Is it a house or star hotel? Then, it’s the time for teaching the boys and helping them to complete their home works… finishing their stupid projects… When they sleep, I try to prepare something for my next day’s class…

‘Sumangalaa….” Then, the invitation for his “rollercoaster ride” through the bumpy roads of passion!

“Beauty and the beast,” the same movie is running in the life’s theater of almost every woman! Woman is the derivative of “woes” from man and her life is its integration! What a strange revelation!

♠

Even-though Sumangala is a very beautiful woman, she didn’t give any care for neat dressing. She has expensive Saris, but where is the time? She is notorious among colleagues and students for her absentmindedness. How can one blame her being so? Her true friend is her expensive Nokia mobile phone, always hanging around her neck. She purchased that particular model, with large keys, only to concentrate in playing SUDOKU while traveling by Bus and during free time…

Satheesh, her husband, used to get her a lot of Gold ornaments. As a ritual, she used to keep her heavy, long gold chain inside her purse before getting into any bus because she had a bitter experience of losing one during her college days. Then a black pearl chain appears… She didn’t have many friends in our college. The reason is quite simple: only very few people matched her wavelength: she is a super-brain! Luckily, I am one among them.

“Sumangala… Why do you waste so much time for this silly game? Please register for a PhD program,” I suggested.

“Premji… SUDOKU is not a silly game… those who find it silly are numb-skulls… understand… See… the vertical lines… horizontal lines… and the 3x3 matrices…. ,” she started educating me showing the photocopies of SUDOKU puzzles taken from the newspapers of that day.

Earlier, she used to tear them off from every newspaper in the library. Principal warned her not to and from then onwards “the specially paid” peon gets her those photocopies every day!

“Suma… enough… I had to stop that discussion there… “But, life is not SUDOKU,” we laughed.

♠

Sumangala repeated her ritual before entering into the bus in that afternoon. It was a straight bus to her home town and luckily she got a side seat too. She opened a puzzle of SUDOKU in her Nokia Mobile Phone. It was a tough one and she got deeply immersed in the permutations and combinations of numbers. Only ten members remained in her tiny world… nine numbers and the game… her soul was fused into them and they became one… absolute concentration… She was not at all aware of things happening around her… The private bus was running very fast through the guttery roads. “If your backbone is broken, then it is your personal problem,” this is the basic attitude of every private bus driver. Sumnagala had disk complaints, but who cares!

“I lost my gold chain,” a woman around forty cried aloud she fainted down suddenly. Her bare neck proved it right. There was a huge confusion inside the Bus and the driver decided to take it to the Police station.

“Bastards, we may lose one trip… that too in this festival season,”he murmured while driving very fast Sumangala completed the SUDOKU puzzle and by that time the bus crossed through her stop.

“Stop…Stop… I have to get down,” Sumangala started shouting. Who cares! People started staring at her. She didn’t understand, why?

♠

The complainant rested unconscious on a table in that Police Station. Sumangala watched the men and women leaving the Police station after the completion of checking by Police. The thief might be very cunning, Sumangala thought, he or she would have escaped earlier with the mother of all quarrels… Gold… At last her turn appeared and she was very confident enough to face the Litmus test. The Police woman started checking her handbag.

“Are you a College lecturer?” she asked.

“Not exactly… I am an Assistant professor,” Sumangala smiled while reading the name of the Policewoman in her nameplate. Maya, the Policewoman didn’t like her sense of humour and she continued her search.

♠

“Sir… we got the culprit,” Maya told the Circle Inspector while handing over a purse with humble pride. “Sir… unfortunately, she is a college lecturer…”

“Call her now…”

Sumangala appered before him as if nothing had happened. She didn’t have even the least element of doubt or fear.

“Sir, Is there anything important? You know, it’s already getting late,” Sumangala asked the Circle Inspector quite coolly.

“Yes,” he said while taking out the chain from her purse.

“That’s my chain”

“Everybody will say that dialogue only… Madam… Your problem is called kleptomania… Some rich women have this sort of disorder… But, you are caught ready handed… We are helpless… Are you not ashamed of yourself?”

“Mind your words Mr. Officer… This is my chain… I can prove it anywhere,” Sumangala got angry and that anger transferred to him also.

“OK… You will leave here only after proving that,” he challenged her arrogantly.

She tried to take her mobile phone kept on his table along with her bag. He stopped her from that move.

“No…”

“I have to call my attorney,” she said. “I think… you know, better than anyone, about the rights of women in this nation”. Her anger would not quench soon.

♠

I was standing there, in front of that huge jewellery shop, along with my brother-in-law. Our wives were grazing inside… Golden leaves… Platinum also Ok!

“These jewelry owner bastards are inventing newer and newer auspicious days… See… today is “Akshaya tritiya”…. If you buy Gold today, more and more gold would be accumulated into your house, it seems! Stupid!”

“Yes… Stupid husbands we are! Sure, they will advertise about “Panchama tritiya” soon…”

“What is that?”

“If you buy diamonds on that day,” he started laughing, “we can eat them and end up our plight named married life!”

Suddenly my mobile started ringing.

“Premji… Where are you?”I could hear the panicked voice of Sumangala.

“I am in Trivandrum city. Why?”

“In which Police station is Vinod, your brother-in-law, working?”

“He is on leave today… Why?”

♠

She was standing there as the center of attraction, in horrible tension and insult, when we reached there after a long drive. Maya, the Policewoman, didn’t allow me to talk with her. Vinod went straight into the Circle Inspector’s office. He gave a quick salute and discussed the matter with him. Vinod started laughing after listening to the whole story and he told some other stories of insults caused by her absentmindedness.

“OK…Vinod… Whatever it is, she has to prove it as early as possible… Then only, I will allow her to leave,” the Circle Inspector was adamant on his stand.

“OK… Sir,” Vinod said.

♠

The other woman was sleeping peacefully on the long table. If I had knife, I would have made different types pickles with her brains… Sumangala thought…

“Where is your husband?” Vinod asked her.

“Attending a writer’s workshop,” she said in a passive mood.

“Did you call him?”

“What is the point in calling him… his mobile phone is always switched off… Let him try to get a Nobel Prize!” she was so desperate.

Vinod walked near to the unconscious woman and whispered something in her ear… And on the third attempt, she came back to her senses.

“Is this your chain?” he asked her showing the one he collected from the Circle Inspector.

“No… This is not my chain,” she fainted again.

♠     

“Problem is solved... What did you understand from all these?” I asked her while getting out of the police station.

“Life is not SUDOKU,” Sumangala replied happily. “I will be on indirect kitchen-strike from today onwards.”

“Great! You too deserve a decent life!” we laughed.

♠  

Premji