It’s
almost a month now since I resurrected my life in Japan on Easter Sunday. On
April 1, I moved into this small apartment, a few minutes from the school where
my kids are enrolled. Japan is one place which teaches you that you don’t need
humongous space or thingies to be happy. All you need is … an electronic potty.
So, first things first, I went and got myself the cheapest electronic potty
available and installed it. Heated seat and warm water butt wash for the winter
months. With that done, we moved on to
other essential items - a table and few chairs, some home electronics items, a gas
table, a few futons, etc. – and we were all set to start our “minimalist” life.
There
were, however, couple of major items left. Mobile phones and Wi-Fi. In fact, I was
on the verge of experiencing withdrawal symptoms without access to the virtual
frikkin’ world 24/7. I missed the daily dose of inspirational doo-doo from bad
gurus. I wanted to read fairy tales that start with I’m not a bhakth, but*. My body yearned for fake news and memes. To
put it in a nutshell, I missed my Wi-Fi, something I never expected to happen
to me. You see, I have this habit of taking the phone to the potty in the
morning to catch up on the WhatsApp messages from the previous night. There are
usually a few of the aforesaid inspirational and other such posts in the list. These
messages, believe it or not, have a laxative effect because of the convulsions
you undergo while reading some of the gems, all the while trying hard not to fall
off the commode. It could be convulsive laughter or just plain epileptic ones,
but whatever it is, it smoothens the passage of doo-doo from your body. Plop! Things, obviously, were getting difficult. The
appi, as turd is called in some parts
of Kerala, was creating problems without WhatsApp. Dang! I had the dreaded WhatsAppi
syndrome.
So,
my wifey and I went shopping for Wi-Fi and mobiles. Now, in most countries, I’m
guessing, this should be a breeze. Not in Japan. We first went to one of the
top two companies, where a smartly dressed young man with a tablet (computer,
not pill) sat with us and explained, with the help of various charts and
diagrams, the stuff they have. Then he listened to what we wanted – two phones.
Well, with Google and WhatsApp, if possible. Here, in Japan, you can’t just buy a sim card and insert
it in your handset. You have to buy the phone/sim as a bundle. Anyway, the guy
gave us a few printouts of the quotes for the different plans he had, and then
escorted us courteously to the door.
Outside,
we walked straight to the competitor’s shop. Another well-dressed young man -could
have been the first guy’s twin brother or even the same guy- appeared and the
same routine was repeated. Deja-vu. We finally decided on this guy after he kinda
impressed upon us, with some convoluted logic, that we’re getting the handset
free if we use it for two years. He then passed the baton to another dude who
sat behind a counter. We were expecting him to produce a paper and show us the
dotted line to sign. Totally wrong. He started off by asking our address, and
was almost professorial in the way he went about explaining things. He printed
out certain papers, brought them to us, and explained the contents. In between
he was marking some crucial places with a yellow marker, perhaps for us to
study for the test he’ll conduct at the end of all this. Then he printed out
some more papers. The process continued. Did he just say “the Company reserves
the right to cleave off the left kidney of the user if he/she exceeds 2 gb data”?
Nah. Maybe I dozed off. When I looked up,
he was again printing out stuff. I was feeling guilty and personally responsible for
destroying a few hundred acres of Amazonian rainforest. Anyway, after a few
hours, my wife signed the various papers including the kidney one, I think, and
we were owners of smartphones. But…the Wi-Fi won’t come for two more weeks.
What?! After all the bureaucracy and signing and
stuff!
Contrast
this with India, where you can go into a mobile shopeee (the more ‘e’ s, the
better), flash your Maine Pyar Kiya
underwear tag (which, of course, is linked to your Aadhaar) as identification,
throw 500 rupees on the counter, get a SIM card, and before you can say “I’m-not-a-bhakth-but,” you’re a man with a plan.
All
thanks to the ****nis and ****jis who rule the country.
* - ”I’m not a bhakth, but” is a new genre of
fairy tale similar to the “Once upon a
time” stories. These tales have gained in popularity in the past three or
four years, and is especially popular during election seasons. Here’s a sample.
I’m
not a bhakth, but the other day I was talking to this dude who is the
illegitimate son of my grandfather’s brother’s, now-deceased wife. This guy - I
can’t reveal his name - so, let’s call him Jai, was employed as a senior
janitor with executive powers at the Exalted One’s abode. Another thing is
that, he and all his family members, legitimate as well as illegitimate, were
Biju Janata Dal voters for hundreds of years, even before Biju was born. So,
you can guess their dedication. That night Jai had woken up to go to the loo to
pee out the gaumutra he had consumed before sleeping. It was about 3 in the
morning. He saw a light coming from one of the rooms. Out of curiosity he went and
peeped in, and to his surprise he saw that the light was not coming from any
electrical light source, but the Exalted One was emitting an aura so powerful,
the entire room was lit up. Then, the Exalted One picked up the phone and
called this scavenger in Kendrapara and instructed him to clean up the sewage
in two hours. Great or what?
If you
agree, forward this to all the people, in particular to those with WhatsAppi
syndrome. 
