On Ekta Paneri

After that open letter to Ekta and some amount of desperate pleading she agreed to give me her number. What did i want the number for? I am not sure. Maybe I wanted to talk to the Voice of God from ON@CC. She had said once that I have to ask nicely for the number and maybe I had finally asked nicely. That was realization number one this new god has given me. I after all can ask nicely.

I resisted the thought of calling her up for sometime. Why I was afraid to call her, maybe it’s the same old of feeling of what she will think. I am not sure I worried about that much. These are situation where I fail to understand myself. But logically I should have been.

I went up to the roof of my office. And dialed the number and strangely I cannot remember if there was a ring tone or sing tone at the other end. Maybe my mind was just yearning for a voice to answer at the other end.

“Hello” it was a female voice. Damn so Ekta is a female after all. But then the voice broke so much of my imagination. It was not croony, it was not husky, It was mature. Far more mature than I could ever imagine. Now don’t ask me what I mean by mature. The only answer I will have is mature is mature.

She asked me “who”. I was a bit confused. Did I dial a wrong number or was I given a wrong number in first place. Hesitation on my part and then I said,

“Err this is Renjith. Remember u gave me your number in the morning”.

I couldn’t make out what her reaction was to my call. She must have been neutral. Because the job she is currently in is attending calls. So she can take calls minus emotions.

I said “ I am calling office from the roof of my office”. That was a real foolish thing to say. What difference does it make if I was in my bed or I was in a busy street or I was on the beach. That was just filler. The kind of thing that you say when you have nothing else to say.

And didn’t she make me look like a fool. ”Hey you office is on the roof” . That made me realize how silly I must have sounded. I don’t regret it because it brings smile to my face when I think of it. And anything of that sort shouldn’t be regretted. It sometimes feels good to feel like an idiot.

She controlled the entire conversation. Its amazing how in transactional relationship one of the operators firmly put forward ‘ I am the boss here”. And then she asked the question. I expected her to ask that. I wasn’t prepared for it though. “ You called me to check out if I am female right”

At that moment I denied it. But yes maybe that was one of my intentions. But then again I did want to listen to her voice because I am as much of a realist as I am a romantic. Means I can imagine wildly but then I need physical evidence to imagine. And I am a very ‘touchy” person I need to touch a person to express my feeling towards him/her. This has made some of my guy friends even wonder if I was ‘gay’. I think that in itself is food in itself for another blog.

After this phone episode there has not been much contact with Ekta. Except for her blogs in the last two days. And that too a reply to some forward. I for one, hate forwards. But this one did make an interesting reading. And I was just wondering about her patience to fill up the damn big questionnaire.

There was this comment by Alex on her reply to my letter. He proposed that people can be different in their online identities from their actual identities and Ekta says she may be writing what she want to be rather than what she actually is. Both of these are very interesting propositions. I have always believed writing helps you get to some plateau not achievable in real life and yes I am different person as a writer, I have different cyber personality that is definitely bolder than my actual self