Love Lorn Love Birds and Action Unlimited, Ethiopian Journey, Blog Post no – 59

Love birds:  Life in Ethiopia moves at an idyllic pace of its own (if it moves at all!).  It is like seeing a cricket test match being played for days without a break after getting used to the hectic hustle and bustle of the 20/20 internationals. Many, happily adjust and adapt. But sparks of excitement happen and these sparks can become raging fires in a place, starved for news and gossip.

So it was quite a sensation when an E-mail reached the Indian engineering faculty at POLY. The subject of the e-mail was a stunner. It said “help us in uniting love-lorn Indian Couple”. That itself was quite tacky but the matter in the e-mail was even more tackier.

That evening Bala brought the e-mail print out. It was sent by Indian teachers from another Ethiopian University. This is what had happened. Our Love lorn male bird (hence forth called LLMB), incidentally an engineering faculty from India had recently joined one of the premier Ethiopian Universities.

Like many over cautious Indians, he did not allow his newly wed wife to accompany him. After coming over to Ethiopia the reality socked him in the solar plexus. He could not bear the separation. So what did he do to relieve his pain and anxiety?

What he did became folklore among NRI community of Ethiopia and is one of the compulsory lessons in acculturation. Our LLMB started calling his wife from his Ethiopian land line phone. You may ask, so what’s the big deal?

Oh yes, It was a colossal deal way back in 2002. Each minute of tele-calling costed 72 rupees or 14 birr, which was a whopping sum for a talk time of one minute. So whenever some body in India said “wait for a minute” their relatives in Ethiopia on the other end of the phone had to be revived to a conscious state with the use of Smelling salts!

So without any care in the world LLMB talked away merrily with his wife and the telephone bills came in thick and fast. The initial sums were innocuous but quickly this piled up and then the shit hit the roof!

Ethiopian Telecommunication department had a shock of its life. LLMB had rustled up bills worth 2,40,000 birr. Brace yourself for the shock, that means 12,00,000 Indian rupees. Exactly the total sum that LLMB would receive in his entire two year contract!

An intense enquiry followed. LLMB gave a jaw breaking explanation. He said that he would talk with his wife continuously for hours together. He would ask her to wait and take a bath and in many cases both wife and husband slipped off to sleep without disconnecting the phone!

The entire incident was in extreme bad taste. Where was the responsibility of LLMB and his wife? What were his in-laws doing? Why were they not monitoring their daughter’s marathon tele conversations? And Ethiopian Telecom department also had a responsibility. They should have disconnected the line but choose not to do so.

The E-mail received was an appeal to the Indian teaching community to pitch in, donate some money so that LLMB could go back to India and get united with his wife. I for one, squashed the entire idea as preposterous. Why should we pay for somebody else’s idiotic behaviour? That was the stand we took and no one from BDU supported the crazy concept of condoning a stupid action of a person who did not think about the consequences of his ridiculous behaviour.

Later we came to know that his poor Father-in-law pitched in and paid 50% of the amount due and the Ministry of education was forced to renew LLMB’s contract so that he could pay back his dues and exit the country honorably. I am sure the Ethiopian Telecommunications department would have given him a non-functional land line phone as a memento for his contribution to the revenues of their department!

The standing joke after that in Ethiopia was that, all that you have to do to get an extension is to talk with your wife in India for hours, nay days together! That would take care of an extension of contract!

ACTION PACKED: Mansoor and I had entered into an agreement. We would take VCDs on rent and share the monthly rental among the two of us. One evening we went to the VCD rental shop. There were very few Telugu and Hindi movies on offer but had fair smattering of English movies. As we patiently waited for our turn there was a furious argument going on between two male customers and a very pretty lass (lady) who was manning the shop.

The argument was fast and furious. It was in Amharic and there was lot of shouting and finger pointing. The customers were insisting that they would not pay. We could only understand two words “No action, no action, no pay, no pay”. Rest was rapid fire Amharic.

Mansoor turned to me and said “apparently they were given a family sentiment movie when they wanted an action packed racy thriller”. With a face that was full of disgust, the pretty lass snatched the VCD and thrust it into VCD player and turned TV on.

What unfolded in front of us still brings goose bumps. It was not a normal masala family film. It was what is politely called an erotic movie or what in India is referred to a double X movie. These movies have lots of frontal nudity and fair amount of skin show.

The girl showed the four of us snippets of the movie and kept on fast forwarding. It was glaringly apparent that the movie had LOTS OF ACTION! The girl got up, aggressively thrust her jaw forward made eye contact and announced grandly ‘SEE LOTS OF ACTION, LOTS of ACTION, GIVE MONEY!”.

We recoiled as if we were hit by a speeding truck. As we hastily beat a retreat, Mansoor wiped the sweat off his brow and said “Thank god sir, we did not get our wives to the shop. I am not sure of your wife’s reactions but my wife would have nagged me for a life time”.

What was galling to say the least was the casual way, the girl handled the situation and won the argument with a demonstration that left us with no doubts about the veracity or the genuineness of the type of action the movie contained!