10 AM - Metro Corporation
Section : Birth/Death Certificate Issuance
A small room which has a Issuance Officer - Arumugam (18 years of servicing)
StenoTypist - Radha got this job via employment exchange (10 months of service)
Arumugam is one among the category of the old people way of using sa martphone.
His son from US got him a Samsung galaxy and when he comes in at 9:30 AM right away he switches on
Ayarpadi Maligayil(over the speaker phone)
and his office turns divine.
A very big queue of ppl storm in this place every day.But Arumugam and Radha work on their own pace.
Radha did not clear her Typing Grades and bribed to get on this job.
You feel dyslexic reading her typed content.
Arumugam waved his hand to attender boy Pandi to send in ppl one by one.
First entered was a old man and middle aged lady.
The lady was crying
"Hey stop crying.This is not the place to cry" yelled Arumugam
Pandi explained that they are here to get the Death Certificate of their daughter Priya who recently died in a road accident.
And they need to claim the insurance money 2 lacs that she was insured for .
"hmm..where are the death report,FIR,hospital certificate" questioned Arumugam
Pandiyan spoke on behalf of them saying that no FIR was filed and
only hospital D.O.A record is there and that their friends took the body to their home.
"Ok no problem .we can issue one but will cost 50,000 rs"
"We don't have that much of a money" pleaded the old man.
"Anyway's you are getting the insurance amount.You can give that when u get the money but till then have the lady hand over the chain she is wearing and then pay the money to get it back"
The illegal 'not in the records' transaction was done.
"Radha! !can you type a Death certificate letter on a Metro corporation letter head.We can give the original certificate after the money.I know Insurance will accept the letter"
Song changed to om-jai-jagdish-hare..Arumugam was deep listening on to it
Radha fiddled on for 30 min's and came up with a letter.
Handed it over to Arumugam to seal/sign the letter. Arumugam was shocked to see that she had actually typed the Name section of the person died as Arumugam and Death Date as Today,
instead of typing his name at the bottom in the signing section.
He threw the letter away "Hell.How much did you pay to get this job.Even a 10 th class student will do better "
and shouted to himself "Ithellam vechukitu,unnkellam evan vella kuduthan"
Then he himself sat near her and completed the letter and handed over to the Priya's mother.
He addressed few more cases and made 3 Lacs in a day it was 4:50 PM
he packed his bags and started heading home on this Toyota Innova.
It started to rain as he crossed the city limits.He turned on samsung galaxy to sing "jai jagadish hare"
Was shaking his head listening to the song and suddenly felt a heavy pressure in his chest.
And he couldn't control and Innova drifted off the road and hit a nearby tree.
His bag was thrown away and all the cash and papers started to fly in the air.
Within minutes a nearby police patrol came and found that he was dead on spot
And a patrol officer found a A4 size sheet below Arumugam's feet and was terrified reading it as it read
Death Certificate
Name : Arumugam . Date of Expiry :"Today's date"
and the samsung galaxy was still singing "om jai jagdish hare..."
6 comments:
Hey
Welcome back after a long time , good to see you :)
Your story is amazing!! Very well narrated.. that twist in the end was the best!
Thanks for dropping by Me
Machi ..this is a decent one from u...I don't see any "Wow" moments...may be because u set the bar so high with ur other posts...however i shud say the narration is typical of u...and I was wondering what inspired u to post this? Is that the song?
so When is the next one coming by?
This is the very first post I read on your blog, and all I know is I am goin to be frequent reader here. It was a classic story that revolved around base and principals of life may be thats what we call Karma
Loved it
@ Madrasi
Welcome here.And thanks for the lovely comment.
Nice one Anna...
- Ammu
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