Jokes Apart | A food inspector, a reservoir and a phone: How to find a needle in a wet haystack

It was a scene straight out of the family-friendly version of Gangs of Wasseypur: The merciless sun beating down on a parched Chhattisgarh landscape, a food inspector, a reservoir, a diesel pump, a bunch of local villagers and a runaway phone.

To be fair to Rajesh Vishwas, the phone was no ordinary phone — it was a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which costs about a lakh. It fell into the reservoir while Rajesh was trying to take a selfie. He then rented a pump and drained three feet of water, enough to irrigate 1,500 acres of farmland. Reportedly, the cows and goats in the area are sitting on dharna since their only source of drinking water is severely depleted.

Miracle of miracles: the phone was recovered, the needle found in the haystack. But of course, it wasn’t working. One wonders what the food inspector would have done if he’d dropped the phone in the sea. Turned the Arabian Sea into the Arabian Desert? And what would he have done if his wife had run away from the mandap?

While I am generally a peace-loving person, when terrible things, including death, happen to stupid selfie-takers, it gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction. Call it schadenfreude. In this case, while the inspector survived, the phone didn’t (serves him right), or maybe it did. We shall soon find out.

Selfie deaths are an epidemic in places like Goa. Groups clamber on to rocks in search of the perfect selfie, ignoring the ‘No Selfie’ signs, and are knocked over by waves, washed away. The situation is so bad that the Goa administration is now deploying sniffer dogs and AI robots to track down silly selfie types.

This story has two elements. One, our obsession with taking precarious selfies. Two, babus and netas deploying state resources for the most selfish of reasons. We have been here before, many times. There was the case of two missing jackfruit from an MP’s bungalow on Tughlaq Road. Then seven buffaloes of a UP cabinet minister went missing, followed by another MP’s dog, a Labrador called Kalu. In all these cases, police teams were pressed into action. There was also the case of the stadium in Delhi, where athletes were evicted so that a bureaucrat could walk his dog. Seen in this light, the food inspector’s actions do not seem out of line, more like part of a grand tradition.

I once went to a small municipal pool in the heart of Dehradun. The pool is open to everyone. I was told that a top police official was learning to swim, so the pool was shut to the general public for an hour and a half.

To be honest, we have all misused power and access to locate things we have lost. Last month, I called up Joe (Biden) because the American embassy in Delhi had been sitting on my visa for months. The visa arrived the next day, along with the morning papers. Then there was the time I misplaced some pot in my house. I immediately called up Inspector Wankhede. He kindly came over and located it under my bed. Or when I dropped the new Rs 75 coin in my garden and made the maali shave every blade of grass in the lawn. Or the time I lost my ATM card, when I called up Nirmala (Sitharaman) and asked her to shut down every ATM in the country.

It should be noted that all lost things cannot be recovered. There is something called vanishing into thin air. Let me tell you a story. I once had two house guests over who spent a night in the guestroom. The next day, my mother said that she couldn’t find the keys which were hanging from an almirah in the room. Now why would someone steal keys? Maybe there are people in the world who collect old keys, or have some kind of key fetish. Whatever it is, the keys were never found.

Meanwhile, the national and international press has been trying to contact the food inspector but, apparently, his phone is switched off. Being an intrepid reporter, I quickly booked myself on the next flight to Chhattisgarh. I asked around for directions and was guided to the inspector’s house. I staked it out and when I was sure there was no one inside, I made my way in through an open window. My heart was pounding. The recovered Samsung phone was sitting on the dining table. What I got next was a world exclusive.

I was walking past the dining table when I heard a voice saying ‘hello’. I got the fright of my life. Was the inspector back? I looked around, no one was there, except the phone. “Yes, it’s me,” said the phone, “Don’t be afraid. Please tell my story, the story of a true subaltern.”

“But I thought you were dead!” I exclaimed, sitting down at the table, gathering my wits. The phone replied, “We have a crap life, us phones, overheated and overworked. Always transmitting other people’s voices. Today what you are hearing is my own true voice. I know you came here looking for the man who emptied a reservoir for his phone. Now the phone is talking to you. Crazy, right?  Let me tell you my story:

“First things first, the food inspector suffers from chronic indigestion. I guess he eats all the food samples he collects for testing. Ever since he bought me, I’ve had to listen to him burping into the mouthpiece from morning to night.

So when the opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands. As I was slipping through his fingers, I took a deep breath and dived straight into the reservoir. I just had to escape.

I sank straight to the bottom of the reservoir. So cool and wet and dark. For company I had shoals of small fish and a taciturn old turtle who allowed me to take joyrides on his back, when he was in the mood.

On the second day, when they were still looking for me, I bumped into a beautiful old Nokia, which had been lying on the reservoir bed for years. She was surprised to see me there. She marvelled at how much phones had evolved.

See, in the phone world we fall in love quickly, something like what you humans call, ‘Chat GPT mangni, pat byah.’ In hours, we became inseparable. Psst. I’ll tell you a naughty secret. We also mated. We’ve decided to name our progeny, Sokia. They found me on the third day, but not before I’d held my baby in my arms. Sokia will grow up in a single parent family, but I’m sure Miss Nokia will do a good job.

Honestly, it’s nice to take premature retirement, even though there was no golden handshake. Now I just sit on this table and do nothing. I can see the inspector but he can’t use me anymore. I am in a more restful space now. That man never charged me fully; I was eternally exhausted in my life with him.

Imagine if I hadn’t slipped away into the water. I’d have spent two years listening to his burps, before being refurbished and sold to another buyer — it’s a thankless life. And dangerous too. People are known to throw us around when they are angry.”

It was getting dark outside. I thanked the internationally famous (and horny) Samsung handset for his insights, and took my leave. I expressed the hope that Sokia would grow up to be a beautiful hybrid, one of its kind.

It was only on the chugging train on the way back to my hometown, that I realised what I’d done. In a moment of swirling panic it dawned on me that I’d left my own phone on the food inspector’s table. Oh well, as they say, Que Sera Sera, baby. Who knows, there might be another Sokia on its way.

The writer is the author of ‘The Butterfly Generation: A Personal Journey into the Passions and Follies of India’s Technicolor Youth’, and the editor of ‘House Spirit: Drinking in India’. Views expressed are personal.  Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .