Buffering Love Page 4

  ‘I asked Papa what to get you for your seventieth, and he mentioned that you used to be an avid quizzer in your college days.’

  ‘Not just college, darling,’ Shankar said in a bid to correct her.

  ‘So I got to know. Anyway, what I have put in this iPad for you is this app called Quiz-Up, where you can play quizzes all day long.’

  ‘Quizzing is no fun without a partner,’ Shankar mused. ‘Not that I don’t like it.’

  ‘But that’s the cool thing about Quiz-Up, Appa. You can play it with anybody,’ an excited Navya proceeded to open the app. ‘See, here you can select the topics, and once you have done that, each topic has seven questions. You attempt to answer each question in the least possible time. The faster you answer, the more points you get. See, this is the leader board for Bengaluru. As you play against other people and get points, you keep climbing up the ranks here.’

  Shankar peered into the screen and saw a certain ‘Fiery Granny’ ranked as #1 in Bengaluru under the category of Movies. That irritated him a bit already. Surely, getting to the top of the Bengaluru leader board was worth living for, he pondered.

  For the next couple of hours, Navya spoke about her school and her football classes and Shankar couldn’t take his attention away from her. Once she retreated for a nap, he started fiddling around with the iPad in general and the Quiz-Up app in particular. Nayva had already set up a user name for Shankar: Dr Cool.

  While the app was full of topics that ranged from specific episodes in famous TV series to Wars to Sports, Shankar went for a personal favourite: ‘Movies: General’. The DVD player in his room had been put to good use in the recent months.

  His first opponent was a Luke Wilson, whom he dismissed with arrogance with a dominating score. The next was a lady called Demon555 who came his way. No problem dispatching her either.

  His next opponent was Fiery Granny, the top-ranked quizzer in Bengaluru as per the app.

  Shankar was able to beat her with a 200 to 180 score. This was the closest anyone had got to Shankar’s score in the last ten minutes. He pushed for one more game.

  Shankar was on the money for the first three questions. But so was Fiery Granny. The score was tied at 60 each.

  And then Fiery Granny zoomed ahead on the next two questions to be at 100 while Shankar, in spite of being right, lagged behind with 84. The next question was one that Shankar would never forget since he had reviewed it for The Hindu.

  Who essayed the role of Chief Judge Dan Haywood in the war classic Judgement at Nuremberg?

  A) Spencer Tracy

  B) Gregory Peck

  C) Montgomery Clift

  D) Burt Lancaster

  The app rewarded users with extra points if one answered quickly. This is where Shankar could race ahead if he clicked on Spencer Tracy in time. He smirked at the thought of bridging that gap of sixteen points with a click.

  Right then, thanks to Shankar’s poor Internet connection, the app hung. It just wouldn’t move. He involuntarily let out a sheepish shriek, careful enough to not wake up Navya.

  He couldn’t load the next two questions either. While Shankar fiddled around to check what was wrong, the next screen that came up announced that Fiery Granny had won the round. Shankar asked for a rematch with the same opponent but got a notification that Fiery Granny had left the game.

  Shankar tossed aside the iPad and spent the rest of the evening playing carom with Navya and taking a long walk around the lush colony of Sadashivnagar with her.

  ‘Why don’t you come to Mumbai and stay with us, Appa? Papa tells me you don’t want to,’ Navya mentioned in passing while feasting on her masala dosa later that evening.

  ‘I can’t leave the city. I would much rather leave this world,’ Shankar mused with a smile.

  ‘Why would you ever say that?’

  ‘I am kidding. But really, this is where I grew up. And this city gave me my friends and my wife. I almost feel like I would be betraying them if I left.’

  ‘What about me? Don’t you think we can have a good time together if you stay with me? Don’t you miss me?’

  ‘I do. Every single day. You have no clue what your visit meant to me this time. I was really missing you, but you have your life there, your classes, your dancing and football and friends. You are at an age where you should be spending more time with them, not me.’

  The next morning Navya left for Mumbai and Shankar once again felt that biting loneliness in his gut as he came back to his room. Yes, Damodar and the rest of the residents here were all fond of him, and he was nothing less than a ladies’ man, but he had started viewing every social interaction as a pain.

  He wanted to evade negative thoughts so he let his hand wander over to the slick iPad that lay beside him. He swiped over the first couple of screens and his eyes rested on Quiz-Up. There was a little number that hung over the icon. Having never received a notification before, Shankar wondered if it might be an extra point from the games he played yesterday.

  As he opened the app, it turned out to be a message from Fiery Granny. And it read: ‘Chicken!’

  Shankar fumed. He understood this as a reference to his battle of wits with her yesterday when he couldn’t finish the game because of the Internet connection. But what cheek the woman had to call him ‘chicken’. It particularly hurt Shankar when he saw that Fiery Granny’s profile picture was that of an eagle.

  He pressed the reply button and sent a rather confrontational message: ‘11.30 a.m. Best of 5. Let’s decide this once and for all.’

  He immediately received two messages from Fiery Granny. One said: ‘Done.’

  The other said, ‘Catch you soon, chicken.’

  Shankar hated this reference but knowing that the best comebacks are those saddled with action, he thought of dealing with this insult after the game. If he defeated her, he would have a much larger share of the bragging rights.

  Never in the last one year that he had been at Gratitude did Shankar seethe this intensely. He was a man on a mission to annihilate Fiery Granny. Little did Fiery Granny know that his first job was to write film reviews for The Hindu. It might have been a couple of decades since he wrote about the likes of Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth, but Shankar very well knew his Mila Kunis from an Ashton Kutcher even to the day.

  On the dot at the allotted time, Shankar sent a message to Fiery Granny that he was all set to play.

  ‘How do I start this?’ his message read.

  In exchange, he received an invite to play a round of Movies: General with Fiery Granny. For the next twenty minutes, the two sparred at each other like veteran combatants fighting for their respective lands on opposing sides of World War III.

  There was subterfuge, confrontation and bitter rancour as, question after question, Fiery Granny and Dr Cool kept their fingers busy, falling back on every ounce of what their memory could recall about films. At the end of four rounds, each had won two rounds, and in the fifth round, Dr Cool had edged past Fiery Granny with 115 points versus 85 points.

  The last question, however, had double points. So, technically while Shankar had a solid lead, he could potentially lose if Fiery Granny gave the right answer and bagged 40 points straight up. On the other hand, all Shankar had to do was answer in time to get 11 points or more. This meant that even if Fiery Granny got a clean home run of 40 points, with his existing lead of 30 points, Shankar’s 11 points on this question would be just enough to nudge past her.

  The dice was loaded, one would have to say, in favour of Dr Cool.

  The last question stared at them:

  Which of the following Woody Allen movies did not win an Oscar?

  A) Interiors

  B) Hannah and Her Sisters

  C) Annie Hall

  D) Mighty Aphrodite

  The clock started ticking down from twenty seconds and Shankar was in a real fix to choose between Interiors and Mighty Aphrodite. Of course, the whole world knew that Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters
had won Oscars. His first reaction was to go for Mighty Aphrodite because a strong voice from his memory told him that Interiors was nominated for a whole bunch of Oscars. The probability that Interiors would’ve won was high. Except that Mighty Aphrodite was the weakest film of the lot, so it was plausible that it didn’t win any Oscar.

  The seconds counted down to sixteen. Whatever Shankar wanted to pick as the right answer, he had to make that choice in the next five seconds. He also had no way of finding what Fiery Granny had chosen. His mind said Interiors and his heart said Mighty Aphrodite.

  The seconds went down to thirteen and with frenzy gripping him, Shankar went for Interiors and hoped against hope that he had sailed through.

  The quiz closed with a gentle sound of a ‘ting’. It was a good sound. It meant his answer was right. Shankar’s eyes darted towards the top right. If she had got it wrong, he was through.

  But she got it right too. In fact, she bagged the full bonus for it because she answered it in the shortest possible time. That got Fiery Granny a full forty points. And that meant that Shankar had to score a minimum of eleven points. He looked up at his score. He had scored ten.

  It was a tie.

  Shankar banged the table on which the iPad was kept. It thudded on to the floor. When he picked it up, he saw a thin crack on the screen. But he couldn’t care less.

  ‘Chicken, my foot! I almost had her. Bloody Interiors. Couldn’t come to me earlier, could it?’ Shankar muttered under his breath.

  He heard another ‘ting’ on the iPad. It was a message from Fiery Granny.

  ‘You did well, champ.’

  Shankar wasn’t expecting this. It helped calm his raging nerves. And then a string of messages thereafter almost shook his world.

  ‘Coffee tomorrow?’

  ‘Sorry, I assumed that you are from Bengaluru too.’

  ‘Not that I am chickening out of this. But, hey, no pressure.’

  For the next five minutes, Shankar paced up and down his room not knowing what would be an apt response. If anything, Fiery Granny turned out to be quite graceful. And forward thinking.

  Shankar looked up his picture in the profile and gave himself some credit for the perfectly greying hair combed back, which might have melted this Granny.

  He composed himself and went all over the messages again. He had run out of quiz partners at the Quiz Club events anyway. Maybe, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He smiled to himself thinking of that famous line from Casablanca.

  Suddenly, this iPad had opened up a world of opportunities. He put the device back up on the table and framed his reply.

  ‘Thanks, champ. You were great too.’

  ‘Yes, I am from Bengaluru and will be happy to come down to wherever you are for that coffee or whatever your vice maybe.’

  He heard back from her.

  ‘Starbucks, Koramangala, Saturday, 8 p.m. I know how you look from your profile picture here. I will find you in the coffee shop if you put yourself up to this.’

  ‘Of course, I will,’ pat came the reply.

  On the eve of the meeting, Shankar dragged Damodar along to buy himself a crisp new shirt and paired it with an old blue denim. He had once overheard Navya speak to someone over the phone, ‘You can never go wrong with a blue denim and a white shirt.’ And God knows that Shankar didn’t want to go wrong with this.

  At 8 p.m., Shankar seated himself at a corner table in Starbucks and awaited his date for the evening.

  At 8.15 p.m., a young lady member of the staff approached him and asked if he wanted anything.

  Shankar felt uncomfortable to order anything here. It was his first time in this fancy coffee shop. He politely declined and said that he was waiting for someone.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a Fiery Granny, I suppose,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, I had to close some bills before ending my shift for the day,’ she continued.

  Shankar took a moment to realize that Fiery Granny was this little kid strutting around in the café as a waiting staff. He let that sink in, perhaps slightly disappointed that his date for the evening wasn’t a sultry grandmother.

  But she had a delectable smile and eyes darker than chocolate. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but this is me. I just had to meet someone who came so close to beating me on Quiz-Up. I suppose you were expecting a dignified lady your age, but I have been known to be a prodigy at quizzing. Especially when it comes to films.’

  Shankar absorbed all the news coming his way and extended his hand, ‘I am delighted to meet you, Fiery Granny. May I take the liberty of saying that you remind me of my granddaughter? What’s your name, young lady?’

  ‘You absolutely may,’ she said. ‘I have been searching for quizzing partners all year long and everyone seems a little short of my standards. My name is Avantika. Can I take you as my partner for Quizzing Association’s round-up next week? They have a special round on films.’

  ‘You absolutely may,’ a delighted Dr Cool retorted.

  I have extensively used Quiz-Up and pride myself on a winning track record in the Movies: General section of the app. Last year, I lost five times in a row to a lady from Austin, Texas. When I gave up and finally congratulated her on her winning streak, we started chatting on the app. That’s when I found out, she was fourteen.

  Or so she said. We’ll never know.

  Smart Lass and Daft Watch

  ‘Hey, watch it,’ said the sassy metallic black smartwatch to the clunky silver HMT watch.

  They were settled right next to each other on two economy class seats, each caressing the wrists of their respective men. The younger man, Jason, was assiduously at work on his laptop. One by one, he was going through all the mails that he had labelled as important from the day before. As a busy hotelier, he could accomplish a lot of work during these flights. The other older gentleman was absorbed in the sports pages of the New Indian Express. They were both oblivious to the simmering tension between their respective watches.

  It wasn’t HMT’s fault though. Daft Watch just happened to occupy more elbow room on the common armrest between the economy seats on that flight between Bengaluru and Mumbai.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Daft Watch yawned in response. ‘I haven’t shed any weight in the last five decades I guess.’

  ‘I am surprised you are even alive,’ said Smart Lass.

  ‘Me too. I thought I could just live the rest of my life sleeping. I was suddenly yanked out of a trunk this morning. I don’t even know where I am going,’ Daft Watch said disinterestedly.

  ‘You’re going to Mumbai, you idiot. I see on my GPS that’s where we are tracking towards.’

  ‘Oh, is it? That’s where Damodar’s daughter stays. Maybe he is going to meet her. What about you?’

  ‘I have meetings that my man has scheduled. Important meetings all day long. It’s just another day in the office to be honest. We have big deals to sign. I know his calendar only too well.’

  ‘Really, what is this schedule?’ Daft Watch was yet to fully wake up.

  ‘We land. An Uber comes up. He makes calls on the way to the meeting, then he orders a protein-rich breakfast through his secretary, Stella, and then I remind him every now and then about his next meeting. Occasionally, he checks how many steps he has taken through the day and multiple other things. Too many things to detail. Oops, wait a second.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Smart Lass said, going all serious.

  Smart Lass hushed him and lifted her eyes with complete attention on her master and commander, Jason. Just then, an air hostess approached the aisle to take orders for tea and coffee.

  ‘Ooh, I see. He likes her. He is getting excited.’

  ‘Well, how do you know that?’

  ‘His heartbeat. I keep a track of his heartbeat every second. I know exactly when his BPM rises.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Beats per minute, you dunce. Where were you living all these years?’

  ‘I don’t
remember the last time I was on Damodar’s wrist. You could say I have been under the rock. He took me out today from that trunk under his bed. What else has changed in the last twenty years? I see the planes are pretty much the same with one armrest in between. Why couldn’t they change this all these years?’ Daft Watch slurred. He could barely get the words out of his mouth.

  ‘Look, it’s been only a year since I was born. I have what you call a fast life. I get replaced every two years. I don’t know what’s been going on for the last twenty years, but I’ll tell you this. I ain’t seen a thing as clunky as you on anyone’s wrist in the last year I have been around. I can’t make any Yo Momma So Fat jokes on you because you are the Fat Momma.’

  ‘So, you live for only one more year?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it, baby. And then I get an upgrade, a Version 3.0, if you will. Inevitably we become more powerful and thinner as the years progress.’

  ‘Yeah, about that—I wanted to check with you. I am seeing all petite things on everyone’s wrist now. What’s wrong with people?’

  ‘They have taste and class now, sir! That’s what’s wrong with people now. You don’t fit in here any more. You should go back to dying.’

  ‘There was a time when men liked their women, wine and watches full-bodied. Not any more, I guess,’ Daft Watch rued.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, bruh.’

  ‘What’s bruh?’

  ‘Never mind. Look, I am gonna get a power nap, okay. Could you find someone else to talk to?’

  ‘Umm . . . there used to be a time when thick, broad watches like us used to be in vogue. It was mad, the nineties, I tell you. Bappi Lahiri used to be our brand ambassador. He was so good. You heard of him?’

  ‘No. No clue. Look, I wanna get some sleep here before the flight lands in another twenty minutes. Mind if you just shut your trap?’

  HMT felt a little humiliated. No one had ever spoken to him like that, and he wasn’t going to let this newborn lass take him for granted. He tried to speak up coherently. ‘You don’t get to talk to me like that. Where are you getting all that attitude from?’