When God Called....

Another attempt at writing a short story....

WHEN GOD CALLED
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I was in a deep slumber, when my phone rang. It was 2.30 am and for that one moment I wished I had Iron hands which could just crush the phone into frickin pieces. I woke up stunned and looked at the ringing screen. The name that flashed was a little shocking, it said 'GOD Calling'. But because i wasnt in proper senses, i decided not to think and pick up the phone. Yet in a span of some three seconds before I picked up and said a Hello, I realised that the only name that came close was 'Lord', my Tamilian Friend Aravaind's nickname which was stored.

After a groggy and agitated 'Hello' I asked, "who is this"?

"I am god, my son", said the queer voiced person.

"So am I", I said jokingly, trying not to sound rude and also parallely getting into my database and doing a look up on all the voices my mind could recognise. The response came back in .00000000000000000000009 seconds. No results found.

"I have no clue who this is. So who is it?", the inquisitiveness meter now rising a little from zero towards 0.5.

"I am who I told you I am. The sole bearer of all in this universe. I am God himself"

What crap I thought. The mind is an amazing machine. In fact it is phenomenal. Zillion thoughts running parallely. I was visualising the start of the T.V. epic Mahabharat where a baritonic voice saying "Main...Something...hoon". Chetan Bhagat's book came to my mind. I visualised plush "heavenly" meadows. Anyways I came back to senses and decided to get to business.

"Dood I am sleepy, no patience or mind to guess or figure out, please tell me who it is", I tried putting it across very softly.

"Okay, my son I know you would not believe me but I am God and this is real".

For the first time in my life I actually pinched myself just to check that I was not dreaming. I still knew it was a prank.

Like a small kid, I asked for evidence, rather a sign that verified his authenticity.

"What about levitating you?? Would you mind if I took you off your bed??"

Uh-oh!!, what if this was for real. I looked at my roomies and they slept like they had'nt heard a thing.

"Well okay, I am not scared and all", I said a little disbelievingly and a little shaken up.

And then the unimaginable thing happened. I slowly rose like Emily Rose. And then this thought that what if her name was Emily Slept, would she have risen??

Anyways, I was above everyone now. I did not even feel anything (like chords and strings). Luckily enough i came down before my mind zonked out of nervousness.

I quickly spoke into the mouthpiece. "Okay I believe you Mr. God, but why are you here and why me?"

"Look son, off late there are too many things happening. There are these usual devotees of mine who keep praying to me, then there these irregular ones who pray to me as per convenience and now in these recessional times, their numbers have increased. I am overloaded with work. I work 24*7 these days. So i needed to share my problems with someone."

That was a weird explanation I thought to my question. It sounded more like a ten liner stolen from Bruce Almighty.

" I have a question though", I asked. "How do you decide on whose problems to solve first, now that i know you exist, how do you do it? Is ther like an algorithm or a queuing systen based on certain categories and is there a priority handling system? How do you multitask with zillions of threads running parallely?"

"So many questions and that too complicated ones. Well, there are many people to share my burden. At the moment, Jesus is handling the USA and LATAM. Allah handles the EMEA region and I along with Krishna and Nanak and Buddha handle APAC because it is highly populated. We keep switching roles".

"That is a lot of work", I said. "Less people, downsizing up there also huh??", I smirked.

"Well, we have put a few people on sabbatical. Jesus has been threatening to leave us for a while because he has been handling a geography with the highest lay-offs and he has not slept for months now. I am worried about him."


It had been 5 minutes into the conversation. I was feeling so many things at the same time but then I thought not to think too much into it as I got this feeling that early morning I would not be remembering a thing (Hoping that this guy would surely use the memory erasing torch like the one in MIB).

"So why me?", I asked

" Well, no specifics here. You are a nice person. Even though you are one of those who pray to me diligently as per convenience, I like the fact that you still say your bed time prayes and sleep at 25. Also, the fact that as long as you were in a relationship, you always prayed for her well being as well. I found it..arrgh..what is that word you people use..ahem..cute...yes I found it cute"

Now I was a little embarassed. Okay I did say my prayers still. But why cute?? That was a girly thing to say. I wondered why he said that.

"Okay, but there are many like me I am sure, so why me?"

"Why do you think so much you bloke? Just be happy that it is you.", he sounded irritated now. "The problem with you is that you think helluva lot. Be cool."

"Hey, by the way, Thanks a ton for getting me the job opportunity. I was quite not myself when I was jobless", I said thankingly.

"That is okay. But be focussed. Do not lose it. You have the potential but you have too many other things on mind". he said with wry smile that I could sense.

"Yep, I know. Do you think I am getting too desperate about this singledom??", I asked.

"You are doing fine. Its just that you think about it too much. Also, the fact that there seems to be this dilemna about arranged marriage that you have and of course your parents."

"Yep, I think so too. Hey, tell me will I get a nice girl? You know what kind I want right?",I asked, somehow sounding like an MCP.

"Yeah, yeah. Just wait and watch"

"So what about you, do you guys marry and all. I mean are you allowed to date?", I asked sarcastically.

"Well, they all come back here dont they son. So, I flirt around too a bit. But then honestly, there is not much time that I have. The IT infrastructrure gets a little slow here at times. So slow processors bundled with loads of work, makes dating a difficult task."

" It just occurred to me. Do you do this often with may people??", I asked a little inquisitively.

"Well you would be surprised but you are the first one. The lucky one I should say.By the way I really liked your work on Polaris Day. Good job. You are a very good guy, but I still have a suggestion. Try not to become a man of success, rather be a man of value. So do not strive to impress others and make an impact. Impress yourself and eventually things will fall in place."

Some gyaan. But essential one at that I thought knowing myself.

"I have this huge doubt", i said. "Is it true that everything is pre-written and stuff and that all has been decided beforehand??", I asked.

"Well that is a tricky question. It is not true. My existence is a truth. Yet, I never appear because I want life to be a journey unknown to people so that they enjoy it. I have the powers to set things straight yet I never use them as I want you all to sort things out for yourselves. Yes there are times when truth and righteousness prevail, that is when i come in but even then it is Karma in action and hey Karma is not a bitch by the way. She is the bitch and the angel. Sadly enough, because people tend to remember all the bad things always thats happened to them, she remains a bitch."

"Okay, and what about my chances of being a writer?? Would I be able to complete my book?", the best question I had asked, yet i knew what was coming, the way he was answering questions.

"Well, you need to keep writing for that. To be honest, you are not confident about that yourself. The day you really think you are ready to write a book, noone can stop you. Not even me. I think it is quite late now. I have to get back to my shift. You sleep well. Catching a bus at 7.15 aint easy kiddo"

"Yeah, it was nice meeting you though. There is so much to ask and talk about. Hey, just one last question. Do you drink??", I asked.

"Haha. Yes we all do. I love Old monk and its sad you do not get any in Chennai."

Before I could say something, the call ended. Th next morning, surprisingly I remembered everything and I looked at my roomies still sleeping. Would anyone believe me if i told them? Why should I, after all I was the special one.

-Vikram