“Shyam,” a voice cranked on the other side of the phone.
“Let me take a look at it,” I responded, deciding to ignore the complaint. My leg was hurting badly, so much that I could barely get up. A good hike up the nearby mountain had brought about the cramps.
I was sitting on my regular duty for the evening. Through the open door of my house, I could see the village boys who had finished playing their daily game of cricket. They were sitting in front of the dilapidated school building chatting about the game. Crickets had started chirping in the bushes nearby and the occasional sound of the hens had already died down. I could see the lamps in the village temple as the aarti had just concluded. Everyone had started retiring to their homes.
Of course, it was the Marathi Mega Serial Marathon on a TV channel. 5 serials, 1-hour episode each, that too on a Sunday night! Considering this was the offseason for cricket, the village had nothing else to watch.
Sundays were just like any other day for most of the villagers – the crops needed the same attention while hundreds of other small occupations needed due diligence even on a Saturday or a Sunday. Only a few villagers had the luxury of taking the weekend off.
For me, a weekend only meant added pressure. The villagers still wanted their daily dose of television. The nearest theatre was a three-hour drive away, which meant most of the people could not go there, even over the weekends. My internet connection was the only respite for the village’s cravings of entertainment.
This put a huge responsibility on my shoulders. Because of the plethora of movies that had released last month, it was on me to make sure all the movies were available for my viewers. It took hours of downloading on my slow internet connection before I could programme the movie to be shown to viewers on the local TV channel. But it was a dream of mine to watch movies all day and night. To earn money doing this meant a happy life.
People used to call me up to schedule and demand movies. I had three mobile phones now, each ringing from time to time. Although I never charged extra money for scheduling movies at their preferred time, the sudden increase in new releases convinced me that I had a reason to ask people for more money.
My father had retired from the business and handed me the reins six months ago. He believed that television cable would never be out of business. Today, as the only cable operator in the village, I had control over what the village saw or didn’t see. This elevated status had helped me buy a car for myself, which tonight stood right in front of my open door. I could happily brag about being one of the richest youngsters in the village. Thank you, father, for the pivotal position in the village.
“Haan, haan, mausi dekhta hoon,” I responded on hearing the complaint again and again from the woman. Her cable connection was not working. Usually, connection errors resolved automatically after some time without my intervention.
On my side, everything seemed to be working perfectly. The network cable had no chance of failure as I had inspected it just the previous month. I had already programmed the sequence of movies on my own channel so that I could enjoy a good night’s sleep. My legs desperately needed the rest.
I had another complainant call. Then another one. I could no longer ignore the complaints. I turned my eyes to the computer to check if there was any network issue if at all. Not a single light was red. The transmitter that received the signal from the dish antenna had the power supply. The fan was still running over my head, assuring me that there was no power cut.
Assured that all was working well here, I decided to go into the transmission room behind my computer desk. My knee made a popping sound as I stood up. The transmission room was buzzing with servers as computer cables ran like snakes from one box to another. All of them passed through a small hole in the roof to an electricity pole from where the cables went to the whole village.
Every time I had to squat to check the 300 boxes in this room and check their wiring, I found it difficult to stand back. My knees no longer wanted to bend. An hour into checking the wiring, my eyes spotted no fault. This left one other place where the connection could fail. If the cable that carried the signal from this transmission room to the houses was broken somewhere, it could lead to a failure. Repairing such a big issue was practically not possible tonight. I would have to let the villagers sleep dissatisfied.
"Thud, thud," I heard someone banging at the transmission room door. My heart skipped a beat and then started thudding at the same rate as the banging on the door. This was the first time I was experiencing the angst of villagers around me. My father was not in the village currently otherwise I could have called him up. The banging continued as I raced towards the door, my feet hurting with each step I took.
“Kya ho gaya bhai?” Three men stood at the door. Unlike the scary images that fleeted through my mind, these were people who I had known for a long time. “The whole village seems to have lost TV connection. Please fix this!” Though the tone was not acerbic, I could feel their irritation. If not fixed, these people would abuse me, thrash me and not let me run the business. From a king, I would turn into a sheep over the course of hours.
If the whole village was not receiving a signal, this meant that the issue was not with the cables that ran to the TVs. In that case, at least one TV would still be receiving signals.
“I am working on fixing it. I cannot find the problem.” I said looking at the men expecting an explanation.
They squatted in my computer room while I closed the transmission room door. I had no idea how to fix this situation. In the last six months of running this business, I had seen why the business was a cash cow. Everyone loved watching television, and when I started downloading and showing the latest movies to them, everyone was happy. Everyone was a friend of mine.
The same people who were sitting on the other side of my computer today were the ones who had adulated me. Today, if they missed even one episode of the serials, not only would my business suffer, people would start looking at me every morning with such rage that my eyes would automatically shy away from looking at them.
Village politics was a complicated affair, indeed. Only now did I come to know the pressure that people had to overcome while running a business in a village.
I decided to give all the equipment another round of inspection and began checking all the equipment thoroughly once again. Fifteen minutes later, I concluded that there was no problem here. I decided to do something I had never done in my life till now. Climb up the ladder to take a look at the dish antenna that received the signal.
Before that, however, everything had to be switched off. There was a risk of electrocution if I did not. I went back to my computer, not making eye-contact with any person sitting in the room, even though they fired questions at me. I looked up only once to hit the OK button when the computer asked me if I was sure to shut down the transmission.
I hopped back into the transmission room with my right leg now limping. There was a ladder in the transmission room that ran to the top of the roof from where a makeshift door exposed the terrace where the dish was hosted. It took me a while to get the bamboo ladder in place, whose high steps were painful to climb up. I opened the door to notice the sky marred beautifully by patterns of twinkling stars. It was time to get to work.
From behind, the dish looked alright. It was at the right angle to receive signals from the satellite. As I stepped on the terrace and went closer to the dish, the darkness didn’t allow me to see much. But my face was filled with disgust.
I switched on my phone’s flashlight. So many birds had decided to defecate on the dish. It was the third year of its non-stop operation. Neither my father nor I had replaced the dish. If we decided to shut it down for cleaning, that would mean the village would lose transmission. As a result, the only maintenance the dish would get was a quick look at the dish– when we only checked the position of the dish. There was no reason to look at the front of the dish. It had always worked perfectly, until now.
Parts of the dish were corroded because of the excessive exposure to bird waste. But I couldn’t attribute this to be the reason for the failure. There was enough surface on the dish that would reflect signals onto the receiver.
“Aha!” I uttered. The receiver which was held on the dish was cracked. Its upper half had fallen on the ground. I could see a red cricket ball lying on the terrace.
I turned around and came to the edge of the roof, furiously looking to see if I could see any of those boys from earlier still lingering about. Not surprisingly, they had run away. Now that the problem had been determined, fixing it was another challenge. On a careful glance, none of the wiring or the soldering inside the receiver seemed to be disturbed due to impact. The cable coming out of the transmitter was firmly in place. It was only the upper shell that had broken.
Does it not work without the upper shell? I wondered, seeing that the wiring was in place.
Nevertheless, I breathed a sigh of relief seeing a possible solution in sight. Gluing it might fix the problem.
“Chacha!” I called, opening the entrance to the terrace, asking if someone had a tape in the village. I was sure that my computer room didn’t have any. The villagers were happy to help, considering the urgency of the situation. It took me around fifteen minutes to tighten the wiring and fix the receiver's shell.
Televisions across the village got their connections back once I flicked the switch on my computer and enabled the transmission once again. I made a note to myself to replace the dish antenna as quickly as possible.
An eventful night in my life came to my end. I realized that a dream life existed only for a few moments. There cannot be a dream job without problems.