APPUSWAMY AND ATM MACHINE

Bhagyam Ramaswamy is a Tamil writer, who writes regularly in Kumudam. Appuswamy and Seetha Patti were the centre characters, and incidents involving Appuswamy's "Asattuthanams" provided the main theme for the stories. Here is one imagined by me, with Appuswamy as usual, playing a significant role. This piece was written about 5 years back.

"Appuswamy had always been harboring a small, unambitious desire – to operate an ATM machine using his wife Seetha’s card and count the crisp currency notes. Seetha knew it for certain that Appuswamy, in his early seventies, was unfit even to gently tap an electric switch and drive away the darkness and an ATM machine for him would be as unintelligible as Aero Dynamics. To keep Appuswamy’s attempts at bay, Seetha always carried a small pouch and the ATM card inside it and like Mary’s lamb, it remained inseparable from her.

Appuswamy sent signals to Seetha, seeking the ATM card, deputed emissaries, recalled how even Rasagundu, his friend in distress and delight, claimed that he could rally his fingers to touch the buttons and enjoy the thrill. Appuswamy’s appeals were turned down with indignation and indifference. Reference to Rasagundu failed to be a remedy. ‘I shall end Seetha’s surreptitious affairs with ATM and Pentium’, Appuswamy avowed. ‘Trained terrorists should torpedo the machine’ he planned. ‘I shall empty her bank account through ATM, Appuswamy thought to himself, as he lacked the courage to communicate.

Summons to Rasagundu were sent and secret parleys held. ‘First you need the plastic ATM Card and four digit Code’, Rasagundu reported, what he had experienced. Appuswamy knew only ration card and ATM card was anathema to him. The only Code he knew was postal code having been asked to run errand for Seetha for post office priorities. When Seetha was not around, Appuswamy summoned courage and ransacked her hand bag and looked for the plastic card, but could lay his hand only on a post card, preserved by her for participating in an impromptu competition. Appuswamy started loosing heart as Seetha proved to be smart. Old wretch! She is sixty seven and thinks that she is Sheetal Malhar, he started hurling abuses. Rasagundu’s fingers, which carassed the ATM buttons, looked like relics.

Appuswamy suddenly remembered the small pouch in Seetha’s hands. To snatch it away by force, meant, summarily being sent out seeking alms in street corner. Flattery would be of no use, on this female, he realised. P.C.Sircar type magic would work perhaps, he considered his options. He waited for her patiently, plotting a plan, which his limited intelligence permitted, in a Sircar canvas. Seetha returned home hours later, after attending the women’s council meeting. Appuswamy’s eyes were riveted only on her hand and was waiting for her to relax her attention a little. The destined moment came and instantly the Plastic Card was in Appuswamy’s pocket and an old business card of his friend Bangaru, found solace in the pouch. As his trips outside were restricted as a cost control measure, Appuswamy had to devise an ingenious means to sneak out and seek shelter in the ATM Machine. He offered to bring vegetables, unsolicited, in the company of Rasagundu and did’nt wait for her response.

Appuswamy was eagerly looking at the ATM machine, as two others were standing at the queue ahead of him. Appuswamy looked intently at their movements, summoning all his intelligence and waited for his turn. His earlier experience was only dropping an one rupee coin in the telephone booth and railway weighing machine and when his turn came at the ATM Machine, he dropped his card at the slot, recalling his experience. As the screen remained blank and he did not get his card back, he almost breathed his last, tormented by images of Seetha’s fierce looking eyes. Appuswamy started saying his Prayers. Bewildered, he looked for a rescue measure. “Ask and it shall be given”, Appuswamy repeated the Biblical words. When he looked around, he saw an old familiar face. Appuswamy scratched his head and realised that Rasagundu’s distant uncle was readying himself to help him. Feeling relieved, Appuswamy narrated his tale of woe and the Divine Messenger being an official of the Bank, soon Seetha’s card was restored. And Appuswamy was in the eighth Heaven. He promised the Lord that he would break hundred and eight coconuts, in front of the street corner temple, to be bought from the ATM money, should he succeed.

Appuswamy attempted again. This time he was asked by the machine to give his Code number and he realised his folly. The mere thought of approaching Seetha for the four digit code drove him to despair. ‘Seventy years and yet no turn around in a tight situation’, Appuswamy cursed himself. “When sorrow comes, it comes not in single spies, but in battalions’, he remembered Seetha quoting Shakespeare. Helpless, he allowed his imagination to run riot. He suddenly recalled Seetha asking his birth date a fortnight back. Elementary school arithematics now came to his rescue. To Seetha’s birth date he added his own and arrived at the four digit code. Staking his chance, he soft-touched the buttons with the four -digit code. Appuswamy was thrilled when the Machine asked him, Cash or envelop payment? Appuswamy started soaring high, like Shelley's Skylark, ‘singing as he soared’. “Cash”, he enthusiastically pressed the button and was asked the amount, a question which Seetha never asked him in fifty years. This time, his arithematic failed him. Whether a thousand has four zeros or five zeros, he asked himself. ‘Rasagundu would be of no avail, in such situations, given his limitations’, he mumbled, resigning to his fate. Appuswamy started scratching his head with the edge of the ATM Card, when an apparition snatched away the softening instrument. Appuswamy rubbed his eyes and looked nonplussed as his Sahadharmini Seetha was around, with a menacing Mahishasura Mardhini look and it almost froze him to death. A timely, mobile call from Madhar Sangam ( women’s club) reminded Seetha about her appointment with the minister for demanding ATM facilities for all pensioners and a training camp for teaching them and in her hurry to aid the pensioners, the one at hand, Appuswamy, was brushed aside to give way, leaving him to nurse his injuries and ignominy and feel remorse for his impudence. Appuswamy started cursing his mate and fate, and looking at the sky for his next rendezvous. In the distant dingy and dilapidated hotel, the cinema song blared – “Chinna Chinna Asai (Chotisi Asa).

( With an apology to Bhagyam Ramaswamy, the original creator of the characters
Appuswamy, Seetha and Rasagundu ).