Sitting on the Mobile

Last evening, the telephone rang while my hands were in the sink. Shreya picked it up, and came to me with a puzzled face.
"Ask who it is and say I'll call back," I hissed.
"I can't understand anything," she said.
I took the phone from her and grumbled a hullo.
It was a newsreader's voice on the line. "In the southern Indian city of Ernakulam..." and the rest was garbled. "Hullo?" I shouted.
Deja vu Sept 11, 2001 when we switched on the television, speechless in the middle of a birthday party, to hear, "In New York..."
Yesterday morning, I had heard newscasts of bombs in Bangalore, bombs in Ahmedabad and seen TV grabs of police patrolling the railway platforms of Kochi. I was four hours away and seemingly safe from fear for myself.
Now the electronic voice brought blood stained visions of beloved family and friends in possible targets like Chennai and Ernakulam, trying to let me know what was happening to them...or friends calling to tell me of tragedy, while watching breaking news, words failing them....
A wavering female voice broke in on the newsreader's garble. "This is why I say you must always write it down."
Familiar aunty voice. Where had I heard her?
"Have you written it down?" It was the same insistent voice that woke me up at 7am Saturday to sell dinner tickets to the World Malayali Conference. I had acquiesced to her already. Now what did she want?
"Why are you going this way?" she asked.
One-sided conversation this. I tried to reply, "Aunty? This is me.."
Static crackle ensued.
The poor woman had either sat on her phone or was squeezing her bag to her side and had dialled my number unknowingly.
This was when I should have hung up and given her privacy. But there was something familiar in her tone. She was talking to someone who was not responding. Deja vu again.
Now I was curious.
"We are going to Chacko's house, you know," she ventured.
A guttural male grunt replied.
A minute later, a male voice said at last, "Where is Chacko's house." It was not a question. Heavy mockery underlined the sentence.
"I don't know," she said.
Guttural grunt again. Point made. Wife put in place.