“Hello, I am Aparna from The Hindu. Is this Kamala Silk Emporium? Would you be interested in advertising your business?”
“No! This is not Kamala Emporium. I am Kamala Kannan, and I don’t sell silk sarees. You people keep calling and wasting my time!”
Aparna was desperately trying to meet her quarterly advertising sales quota at The Hindu. With the deadline approaching, every unanswered call felt like a missed opportunity.
“Oh, I am sorry! Looks like the Yellow Pages got your number wrong. Do you have another business, perhaps?” Aparna glanced at the 1997 Yellow Pages lying open on her desk. The number 523-1477 had caught her eye because the last four digits matched her birthday. She had taken it as a sign of karmic luck. So much for that.
“No business. I am retired.”
“I am sorry for bothering you. May I call you aunty? What did you do before retiring?”
Kamala softened at the apology. “I was a nurse. I retired five years ago.”
“A nurse! After all those years of looking after everyone else, you must be enjoying some peace and quiet.”
“At first.” Kamala paused. “My husband passed away last year.”
“Oh, I am sorry.”
“It’s been a year now. I still make filter coffee for two every morning.”
“How do you fill your days now, aunty?”
“Ah, this and that, there is always something to do in the house, and the other times I talk to people about selling sarees.”
Aparna smiled. Her pencil hovered over the next number in the Yellow Pages. She put it down. “Well, aunty, perhaps I can call you again sometime. Though, as a professional people-caller, I must warn you that talking to people is overrated! And some angry folks can be downright torturous.”
“Yes, just like my old job.” Kamala laughed. “Although I rather enjoyed looking after the torturous ones.”
In the background, Aparna could hear a blender whirring and Carnatic music playing softly. “What are you making for lunch today, aunty?”
“I am making sambhar saadham, rasam, and chow chow koottu.”
“Chow chow koottu! My favourite, aunty! I live in a PG. You have no idea how much I miss proper home cooking.”
“Don’t you have a cook in your PG?”
“We do, but you should taste her rasam, aunty!” Aparna chuckled.
Kamala laughed.
“Then you must come over! Where do you live?”
“West Mambalam.”
“Ah, that’s barely ten minutes away! Come at two. Do you get a lunch break?”
Aparna glanced at the clock. Twelve calls left, and her supervisor was already watching her desk.
“I would love to, aunty!”
“Thank you for calling me, Aparna. I will see you soon.”
They hung up. Aparna crossed out Kamala Silk Emporium in the Yellow Pages. Beside the number, she wrote, in her neatest handwriting, Kamala Aunty. Two o’clock.
Photo by Srinivasan Venkataraman on Unsplash
