A short story : DE-TAALI

DE - TAALI

A young Tantrik meditating in a long distance train is suddenly disturbed by the rude clapping of Eunuchs, who are extorting money from young men, by touching and teasing them. A young beautiful eunuch freshly inducted in the trade, is too excited to prove her worth. She chooses her target meticulously, and tastes success at every attempt. The young Tantrik is the next one. As she approaches him, she looks at his long hair, flowing beard and full eyebrows almost covering his closed eyes. With a stern look she asks the passenger sitting next to him to get up and seats herself. Positioning herself properly without disturbing him, she brings her hands together in a flash, resulting in a sharp clap close to his ears. As the tantrik gets startled, the co-passengers burst out in a laughter.

The tantrik's eyebrows twitch, and pull apart big eyelids, to reveal glaring red eyes spitting anger. The cabin noise dips into a resonating silence, as the eunuch feels a cold shiver running down her spine. "DE TAALI !" commands the Tantrik. "DE TAALI !" The sound resonates, as every eye turns at them, and other eunuchs in the group rush towards them. Shaken by the sudden loud command, the eunuch looks around and finds everyone expecting her next move.

Mustering all courage, she brings her hands together as fast as possible. But.....barely 3 inches away from each other, her hands stop on their own, as if they were repelling each other. She tries again....with the same result. "Are Bajaa na jor se" egg the other eunuchs. Twice, thrice, again she tries, but fails. As the tantrik's eyes close back for meditation, tears roll down the eunuch's eyes. Barely months into the trade, she was mature enough to know what was coming. The older eunuchs would mock her, cook up various stories, and make her the subject of discussion everywhere. That was the best way to get even with her and her fast paced success.

The eunuch rushes into the train toilet, as other eunuchs laugh at her. There she closes her eyes, and tries bringing her hand softly together. "Ah! Thank God" she heaves, as her palms touch each other. Trying again not too hard, but to result in a soft clap, she brings her hands together. Barely 3 inches away, they stop again. A thought rushes through her mind: Will she not be able to clap ever again? What will happen to her newly found identity? Will the group keep her with them? Tears gush out as she struggles with her identity crisis. "Arey nikal, agle bogie mein chalna hai" a fellow's voice followed by a loud knock on the toilet door startles her from the trance. A splash of cold water wipes away all her tears, as she composes herself and joins her team.

"Aa gayi TAALI?" mocks a fellow eunuch, "Chal ab".

Back at the home, as the story unfolds to the Guru (Chief), the young eunuch is assigned a new job. Finding out houses of new born and marriages, and preparing the daily route chart. This meant, that now she would not accompany the group on their daily errand, nor would she get to deck up herself, and have a low profile in the family.

Brooding over her fate that changed with that incident, she cursed the tantrik. Some said only he can reverse his curse. But where can she find him, and will he forgive her? The next day's route was made. Now the Guru had to decide who would go where, depending upon the locality, the family, their beliefs, and most important their pockets.

This was such a complicated exercise. So many parameters affected the group's composition, to result in maximum earnings. "How do you do it?", she asked the Guru, as the Guru signalled her to sit beside her. This Guru was soft and authoritative and commanded everyone's respect. Her ability to take right decisions in groups formations had resulted in high earnings in the recent past. As the young eunuch spent weeks with the Guru, she picked up the trick. Now she used to suggest and also argue with her at times. On some instances, the Guru made the group composition as per her young assistant's recommendation, and it had worked well. The other eunuchs were aware of her growing proximity with the Guru, and did not take it well. The young eunuch had also overheard some mumblings about her, in the family. Sensing trouble again, she googled to search for other eunuch groups around. 

A fast blinking icon on the right did not let her concentrate on the search. An angry tap on the blinking icon popped up a window that said 'Share information and earn commission'. "What was this?": she pondered, as she clicked to find more. This site was paying her for sharing addresses of people. In fact all the data she was handling for the eunuchs. She shared some data just to check and pressed 'enter'. A 'Thank you' screen asked her whether she would like an online transfer or a cheque. With the cheque option clicked and a friend's address given, she closed the site as she saw a fellow eunuch cross her bed. She had bookmarked the site and deleted all history too.

"Hey I received an envelope in your name today": screamed a WhatsApp message from the friend, after a week. Dressed as a man, she went to meet her friend. After everyone had slept, she pulled out the envelope and slowly opened it. In the bright light encased under the blanket popped out a cheque of Rs 200/-. "Wow! 20 Rs for each address": she exclaimed, as she started foreseeing the extra income with 500 new addresses every month. But still skeptical, she deposited the cheque next day at her bank. 2 days later an SMS confirmed the deposit.

The young eunuch had discovered a new earning opportunity. Convincing her Guru that she needed to move out, to find houses of new born and marriages, she started venturing into the outside world. Dressed as a man, she started changing her walking and talking style too. Observing professional corporate men behave in style, she too started imitating them. The eunuch within her was evolving. Noticing the change, the Guru sent her spies after her, but found her getting information for planning the next route for eunuchs. Little did they know that under the blanket, the same information was also being sold to the company, and commission trickling directly into her bank account.

With family planning and baby products in its product line, the company found all the leads given by the eunuch ending in sales. They increased her commission to Rs 25 per new address, and also gave her added responsibility of verifying addresses given by six other guys in the area. The young eunuch was now not only verifying but also advising the company on which families to target. Not knowing the background of the eunuch, the company found every advise of her, convert into sale. The year end sales had a prominent chunk marked in the young eunuch's name.

That day the envelope that came through the friend, was a bit hard, as it contained an invitation card of a felicitation event of the company. 

Dressed as a corporate professional man, the eunuch for the first time in her life, walked into a five star hotel with her friend, for the event. On introducing herself, she was guided to the second row. As she settled down, unknown faces started coming and shaking hands with her. Her changed character had no glimpses of her past. She had learnt to dissolve in both extreme roles perfectly, without giving either any hint of the other.

After a sequence of performances, the felicitation ceremony began. After the best managers, employees, distributors, retailers, stockists, came the best sales guys. The Managing Director after handing over the trophies to all, took the mike and said: "While everything ends with sales, and everyone honours the best performers, today I would like to honour the ones who start the process: the Leads men". He went on to describing how the company had experimented with paid leads, resulting in higher sales and lower costs. And today he wanted to honour one person whose leads had more than 90% conversion into sales. "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Mr Sangeet, our Leads performer of the year". The entire audience stood up as Sangeeta (her eunuch name) walked up the stage as 'Sangeet'.

When the MD handed over the biggest Trophy, the entire audience resounded in a loud and long clap. The MD said: "Mr Sangeet, we have heard so much about your work. Tell us how do you do it". Clearing up his throat to sound like a professional, Sangeet said: "Without any achievements, life is spent in clapping with your hands for others. My past was just the same. Until someone told me that a clap is louder when you clap with other's hands". Saying that he held a hi-five to the MD, and said "DE-TAALI". The MD responded back with a loud hi-five and held his hand high. The entire audience roared into a clap again. For the first time in her life, others had clapped for her. Somewhere in the sea of heads, Sangeet could see the faint outline of the Tantrik whose curse had changed him from eunuch Sangeeta to professional Sangeet, and gave him a wink.