As the mobile phone chimed, the name that appeared on the screen caused me an instant AI surge--well, I'm using this famously notorious symbol to mean 'Annoying Irritation' here, if I may! I immediately knew what that old fellow was going to ask me, from various such 'appearances' since he retired years back and I retired about two years later than him. But as always, I decided to take the call, for, after all, he'd been a colleague cum batchmate for several decades. So I answered in a familiar tone, "Hullo there?" And I anticipated his very first question, as always.
Hey mate! Where are you now?" His voice was high-pitch and sort of amused.
I thought for a moment as I always did on such occasions and then replied curtly, "in India!"
"Bugger, I know that, but where in India are you at the present moment?"
I informed him even as I anticipated his next question too.
"Not getting tired of paying rent yet, then?"
My AI rose to to level-2 despite my anticipation. Well, why should people like him go on asking that infuriating question? If you don't own a paddy field with two assured harvests a year, you're going to have to buy rice from the market; likewise, if you, for various reasons, fail to own a flat yet you have to go on paying the rent so that you get a roof over your head, and if for more sinister reasons you're forced to be in two places then it normally attracts attention from such nasty old guys like this one on the other end, considering the money factor. But in any case, I think this doesn't give him or the others enough reason to ridicule or even pull me up! Okay, I'm being caught in a twist of destiny making me suffer huge losses, but again it's my life and my money, if any, and I must never be scoffed at. On some previous occasions I did explain this logic to him, but didn't feel like doing it again this time.
"Obviously!" Was my reply.
"Why are your people there in that town now?" He knew it, but asked as he always did.
"I'm readying our own flat!"
His voice started ascending the octaves which I knew were his usual dramatics. "Oh dear, how wonderful! How big is your flat?"
He knew that too.
"Three BHK!"
"Wow! Then invite us there! We'll come to visit your big house!"
"Well, let it be ready at least so that we can move in first!" I said stiffly.
"Who are all there in the neighborhood?" He extended the unnecessary queries further.
"My mother, my sisters and other close ones!"
"Oh so nice! With whom does your mother live?"
"With my brother."
"Oh that means your brother already has his own flat?"
"Yes, obviously!"
"Then why on earth do you have to buy your own flat too?"
That upped me to AI level-3 as I couldn't quite anticipate the question. I growled into my phone slowly taking suppressive care to not make it obvious though.
"What are you talking about? I told you that it is my brother's flat and not mine. And tell me, how do you intend to barge into my flat if I don't have one?"
He changed the track now and at his next question my AI roared to level-4!
"How many children do you have?"
This time I made no effort to disguise my fury.
"What's wrong with you? After all these years you're asking that again! For the nth time I'm telling you we have no children!"
He was the last person to be interested in even the 'a' of an apology. And he asked, "Oh no! Not a single one?"
I kept mum. For me 'no children' means exactly 'no children'!
"Then why did you go for such a big flat? Whom you'll leave it to?"
My AI shot up uncontrollably to level-5! I grated my teeth, taking care though so as not to hurt my tongue, and hissed out, "We'll become ghosts and live in there and haunt it as long as we can!"
Now he burst out into his shrill-pitch laugh which seemed to me to be genuinely AI generated! 'Ha ha ha!' 'Ha ha ha!' he let it linger on for quite some time,
I know this has always been his time-pass tactic, a pastime many senior citizens are notorious for! Let him indulge in that as long as he's capable of, I thought even as I struggled to rollback my AI to a normal amiable level!
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