The Crank Caller 2012

Last year, I was repeatedly fooled by a crank caller. The voice of a lady whom she pretended to know me well time and again phoned me.

The episode of this nuisance embarked on when I was at my colleague, Mr Sherab’s sweet home. Mrs Ugyen Dema was already a registered guest there.

No sooner did I arrive there, they were done with the showcasing of a mixture of menus on the table. I was, in any way, asked to grab my share. A bit of Chaangkaey, wine, Aezay and more.

Our brains ran down to discover other amusing topics because our talk ended up being like a presentation. Each one of us had a separate distinct focus that garnered heated debates. A wide range of stuff stuffed that joyous moment.

It was 10:37 PM and we heard a beep sound of a mobile. Sherab detected to be mine.

It was a new number. Before I punch the receiving button, I yelled a NEW number????:               1 ..7..3..6..9..4..8..1.

“Hello, who’s this?” I began.

“I am your secret admirer” it responded.

“Oh, thank you for being one. I am busy at the moment”, I cut off the call.

“Who’s that? Your misses?” curiously asked Sherab.  I giggled for a moment and gradually confessed, ‘A stranger who presumes to be my Secret Admirer’.

‘Oh’….they nodded with some mischievous and dubious looks.

The beep sound appeared again. “There’s call again”, screamed Ugyen.

“Let it be. Ignore those crank calls”, I firmly asserted.

“Tune it to a loudspeaker. Let us hear all together and detect the sound. We might make it if that caller is somewhere from here in our locality”, insisted Sherab.

“Good idea”, Kuenga consolidated.

 On repeated beeping, I received the call in a loudspeaker mode.

“Why are you so demanding? I didn’t ask you to call me. It’s me who does” angrily expressed the caller.

I was frozen with my lower lips out and two hands questioning my friends what to say. But she continued.

“I know you well. I saw you driving a red car…and Blah…blah…..blah…..”

“How did you get my number?” I interrupted.

 “I got it from my sister who happened to be in your class”

‘What’s her name? I immediately asked.

“I promised her not to say”.

And again she recapitulated the same phrase.

“I am your secret admirer. Do you love me?”

“Are you mad? How can I love an invisible lady?” I mocked her.

At the back, my friends were almost losing control of the pressure of their laugh. The cushions of the sofa worked like a cork to stop the outburst of their chuckle by covering over their mouth.

“I am all alone at gewog ADM’s (Gewog Administrative Officer) shop. Please come soon. Accompany me. I am afraid to walk alone”. Saying these, she suspended the call.

My friends and I lost the track of our amusement. We shifted our talk on this crank caller then.  

“I found the voice fairly familiar to my ears” disrupted the floor by Ugyen. “I guess, it was ADM’s wife”.

“But, she has a husband?” I questioned her.  

Suddenly my phone tooted again.

“Are you coming? I don’t see you coming?” said the girl.

By then it was six minutes to eleven. Mrs Ugyen who’s quarter was on the way to mine, suggested that she will spy while I can proceed to call her to come.

I waited on the spot. I waved the powerful torchlight in the direction of ADM’s shop. But still, she claimed that she can’t see the light. I insisted she come down near the school gate which she grossly refused.

So finally, Mrs Ugyen followed me in the darkness. I headed towards ADM’s shop. The door was closed. The lights were kept on. I can hear ADM’s wife making calls inside.

I waved the torchlight to Mrs Ugyen, signalling her to follow me immediately.

“I already said to you, she must be the one”, whispered Ugyen. “Recall the voice and it matches”.

“Yup, it seems so, but….”

“I heard through friends that many of them encountered similar incidents of its sort”

She helped me devise another plan then.

“Make a call to the same number. If the number remains busy, the culprit is definitely here” said Ugyen in her low voice.

As instructed, I did but I could only hear: The number you are trying to call cannot be connected, please try after some time.

“She must be having dual sims” I proposed.

“That might certainly be”

We waited for her to end the call. After about thirteen minutes, the talk was complete. I tried to call but still heard the same message.

It was 11:43PM then. Ugyen and I agreed to leave the scene. We were equally afraid for TWO reasons:

1. If the people see us near the shop at this hour, they might classify us as thieves.

2. If they see us walking together on the road at this hour, it might ignite catastrophic reactions to our relations because both of us were married.

The next day, during the morning recess period, I skipped the campus to ask the ADM’s wife. I pretended to buy something that was not available in other shops. In the midst of shopping, I managed to surface the incident that took place yesterday.

And with a smile, I eventually began, “The voice was like you. So, I suppose you were the one who called me”

“Sir, do you think I am a girl of such kind?” she angrily said. “I wasn’t the one who made a call. There was a girl, whom I may recognize if I see her face but do not know her name, came to my shop, took my cell and called”

I turned a deaf ear to what she said. It seemed both funny and irritating when she said that she might know that girl it happened to be seen in person but doesn’t know her name. What a total bullshit.

With frustrations, I warned her that if I happen to know this girl and the associates, I will leave no stones unturned to create havoc in her life. Having said this, I fled the scene.

A year has almost passed. I scanned through the calendar tool present on my cell phone. There I spotted, “The Crank Caller 2012” with the number, on the date of 8^th October 2012. 

I scribbled the number on the piece of tissue paper and dialled the number.  Somebody picked.

“May I know where it is” I began softly.

“Bumthang la. Whom do you want?”

“Is it really Bumthang? I doubt this is somewhere in Kabesa”

Then, she suddenly revealed her identity and questioned me.

“Sir, who gave you my number? Do you think that I am a girl of such kind?”

I was dumb to answer after she threw the second question more seriously. But, I managed to say, “Nobody gave me the number. But, last year, I happened to receive multiple calls from this number. So, I am in the process of finding the person”. Then I added, “By the way what do you mean by the second question?”

“I am not like any other girls who make calls and entertain every man as they like”

“But, did I say that? Why are you being so negative?” Scared that my purpose be defeated, I immediately shot her the question: “Last year, you angrily roared at me saying the caller was another girl. How come, this number still belongs to you?”  

She tried to convince me again that it was the other girl who used her cell to call me. But, she didn’t take interest in naming her. As I questioned her for being rude last year upon the interrogation and sealing her identity, the spark of misunderstanding began. She named a few other girls, whom I don’t exactly know, and compared how they entertain men. Since my intent wasn’t to pick up a quarrel, I hung the call.

She then, repeatedly made my cell phone toot. I didn’t pay even the slightest heed.

The next day, as I was busy with the children in the class, I had another call from a new number. This time it was her husband, the ADM, who accused me that I have emotionally disturbed her wife and has termed her as “PROSTITUTE”.

I swore and promised him that I made neither defamatory remarks nor anything insulting. “She was the first to call me and all that began”, I reiterated.

He remained shut. I didn’t take it as my prerogative right to heat our talk. I convinced him by borrowing the words of our Lynchhoen Jigme Yoezer Thinley, who once in an interview said, “Don’t believe in whatever others say. You are educated. You have the education. So, it is your responsibility to use that education as a tool to evaluate”.

But he still insisted with an arrogant tone, that we will meet one moment and clarify the stuff. I agreed to his proposal but that did not happen to date.

It will not happen because, “If a thief like his wife does not steal, a dog like me would not bark”.