All In a Day's Work

Eraniyan Govindswami, or ErGo, as he was fondly called by friends, fans and the fairly-well-wishing-public, woke up in excellent spirits that Monday morning. He had had a satisfying weekend, a fun one at that, not very different from his weekdays. However, unlike on weekdays where his durbar was confined to the studio, this weekend, he had held court at a homestay around 50 kms off the NH420, at his team’s offsite. And, he had come back with fodder that could potentially last him an entire month.

ErGo took pride in being a news channel anchor with a difference. Unlike his colleagues who ran boring shows and debates on political unrests, socio-economic challenges and public policies, ErGo was ahead of his time. His target audience was Young India, those soldiers of the future who thrived on hashtags, twitter rages, change.org petitions and Whatsapp selfies. He knew exactly what this audience wanted and delivered on it with a vengeance.

Only last week, he had conceived a debate on why the Indian passport department had not started accepting selfies in their application forms. The debate had been a raging success, with TRP ratings hitting the ceiling and screeching through the roof to outer space (as reported by Mangalyaan from Mars). The hashtag “#WeWantSelfiePassport” trended on social media for almost 12 hours, the maximum achieved by a hashtag since the birth of Twitter. That episode had also been one of ErGo’s best debates in his news-shouting career, with his decibel levels impairing the hearing of at least 3 of the senior spokespersons on the show (who had been lured to the debate by the prospect of hot samosas and jalebis).

While still in bed, ErGo rubbed his hands gleefully as he reveled in the genius of what he was envisaging for this week. The weekend homestay had been rewarding. The debate topic for this week would be “Homestay – should the word have a hyphen in between or not?” and the hashtag, “#HyphenateHomestay”. What ErGo liked best about this week was the alliterative nature of the hashtag. He believed this would make a statement against all those dissers who gave little thought to the intellectual nature of ErGo’s shows. He would show them how intellectualism should be fed to Young India, and he would make it a roaring success at that.

Just then, ErGo’s mobile phone rang. He picked it in his hand and saw “#Wife” flashing on the screen. That was his wife, calling from her mother’s place. She usually spent 15 days of the month with him, and the other 15 away from him, to rejuvenate and recover from the abuse to her ear drums. She was calling him to wake him up, as was agreed upon in their marriage contract. She was actually due back today, as per the contract, and ErGo had a good mind to wave the huge sheaf of contract papers at her on a video call that morning.

As ErGo pressed the Answer button and said “Hello”, he could hear a whiff of air escaping his throat. And. Nothing. More. He thought he was in a dream and pinched himself. Ouch! That hurt. But, even his scream didn’t produce a sound. ErGo panicked a bit, but then convinced himself that it must just be a temporary throat infection. He cut the call, sent a hurried text saying “Busy, will speak tomorrow” to his wife and got himself to the kitchen. After 3 hours, 10 glasses of warm water, 15 lozenges and multitudes of nasal clearances, the situation hadn’t got any better. There were no words coming out of his mouth anymore.

He had read a spoof a few days ago, where a jobless moron had written a mock-news titled “ErGo loses voice; country in celebration”. He had initially thought of suing the moron, but, employing better judgment, decided to just create a debate topic out of it, “#shameonspoofs”. Now, he feared the spoof had come true, partially at least, and he could do nothing about it, without creating a public caricature of himself.

It was already noon and ErGo was being hit by calls from his show producer, assistant and team members. He texted back saying he was caught up with personal work and that he would do the show impromptu that night. He slowly and deliberately got ready and texted his driver asking him to give him the keys and take the day off. By the time ErGo reached office, it was early evening. He got into his office, avoiding conversation with anyone on the way, while his team wondered with trepidation the reason for this unusual silent treatment.

He buzzed for his assistant and signaled for a cup of tea, pointing towards his throat as if to say he had a sore throat. As he took a few sips of his tea, he felt a bit rejuvenated and tried testing his voice with an “Umm”. Instead of the whiff of air that had been emanating from his throat all day, he could hear a sound. He couldn’t believe himself and wanted to dance with joy. Could he make a debate topic out of it, he wondered, as the words “#voiceovermind” formed in his head. But, he controlled himself and called for a quick team meeting. There was too much to catch up on.

Strangely, in the meeting, he couldn’t bring himself to talk too much, let alone drive home his points of view with uninhibited aggression. It was as if he was scared he would lose his voice again if he tried to stretch it too much. That night’s debate was strange too. The participants who turned up in the hope that they could get away with some hand gesturing, some sad drooping of jaws, and angry eyes, to focus on the refreshments and excellent apple-cinnamon tea, were in for a surprise. Shock, rather. ErGo started off the debate and then let people talk. He actually seemed to be listening, while absently patting his throat every time he spoke a few words. Like  camels trying to participate in a swimming contest, the participants had a harrowing time trying to provide inputs on alliterations, Hindi poetic references and figres of speech, the power of home-stays and what not, while silently cursing ErGo for pulling a fast one on them.

Meanwhile, ErGo’s assistant surreptitiously sneaked out of the studio floor to send a hurried text. “Success! Great find with the pill, and excellent idea. Let me know when you want me to do it next.” In another part of the city, ErGo’s wife looked at the text with a satisfied smile.