One Sunday morning, as the unsuspecting
Popley Jewellers on the corner of Turner and Waterfield Roads were opening up
for business, a young woman walked in and showed them her middle finger. It
didn’t help that she was wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon Veerappan operating a
Sony “Betascam” camera with the words “Daku-mentary” written below.
Then, as all the cleaners, polishers,
shelf-arrangers, etc. looked on, the woman sheepishly confessed to the
friendly-faced woman at the first counter, “meri ring ungli se utar nahi
rahi hai, aap ring kaat sakte hain?” That’s when Bineesha noticed a
multi-band ring clamped onto a rather swollen (actually, a rapidly-swelling
finger). “Arre, soap dalo, nikal jayega!” she assured. The young
woman glared at her and thought “What do you think I’ve been doing all
morning?!”
Let’s rewind a few hours, shall we?
Anando woke up at 7 am to find his wife
sitting on the floor, her right arm resting on the bed, the hand soaking in a
large bowl of ice water, which in turn sat on the fattest pillow she had found.
That’s because WikiHow had told her (after a frantic 6 am Google for
“removing+stuck+ring”) that she needed to soak her hand in ice-water while
restricting blood flow to it – that would cause the swelling to subside, the
ice-water would further shrink the finger, and the ring would just sliiiide
off.
Hmpf.
Rewind some more.
She had already tried soaping it. Failure.
She then tried slathering on mustard oil.
Failure and a strong smell. (That’s what woke Anando.) No, thank you,
Google Search, page 1 results.
She then read that she should try inserting
sellotape under the ring, and push the ring back to create a tape-ring of
sorts, and then slide the ring over the tape (which would offer minimal
friction), and voila: ringless hand at your service. Ermmmm, no. Not
working.
By then her right hand looked like she was
wearing a puppet hand over her real one, or at the very least those foam
fingers sports fans wear on American TV. Her right hand was also rather
confused – should it shrivel up in dry protest at all the soaping, or swell up
in a shiny, unmissable kind of way at all the mustard-oil massaging? Time
for another left-handed Google search.
Of course her husband had slept blissfully
through all the angst. And so when he woke up and suggested several of the same
nuskhas, and even smirked a little, she thought of some violent act of
revenge – something she could perpetrate with just one hand of course, without
disturbing the ice bath.
Picture this girl then. Her hand has
throbbed since last night because she wore a ring that once fit her middle
finger (but obviously no more). She has gone off
to sleep, convincing herself, Scarlett O’Hara–like, that tomorrow is another
day. But tomorrow (today) she has woken up with a definitely swollen hand and a
useless set of Google suggestions.
So it was that at 10.50 am, when she walked
into Popley Jewellers and gave them the finger, her demand was simple: “Cut off
my ring and give me my freedom.”
Bineesha swung into action – she escorted
the woman to a tiny washbasin at the entrance to the staff toilet. Then,
pumping huge amounts of soap from the dispenser, she proceeded to soap the poor
hand and work up a rich lather.
Dear reader, you already know how that
works out (not)! The woman protested – just cut it, nothing will work, I know
it.
Industrious (and strangely reluctant
to give up), Bineesha called “Maneeeees, idhar aa.” When the 6-foot
tall, burly shop assistant walked up to the washbasin, she said “Tu ring ko
kheench, main inka haath ulti taraf kheenchti hoon.”
Whattay plan,
thought the young woman, and feebly protested, “Arre, yeh mera haath hai.”
Thankfully, Manish was the silent, non-violent type. The woman pulled her
hand back and hid it behind her back, demanding a ring cutter or nothing.
Pramod Babu came up, with a pair of
scissors that cut metal. As he angled the woman’s hand, she noticed two things
– they were far from a light source, and Pramod Babu was in his fifties and
missing his spectacles.
Eeps.
As he short-sightedly held the scissors
close to the ring and looked for an entry point, she suggested meekly (never
offend a man holding scissors and your hand) that they move closer to the
light. By now he had positioned the scissors and was reluctant to move them, so
they moved, like Siamese twins joined at the hand, to stand under the light. Pramod
Babu brought the scissors’ handles together, and snip, snip, snip, snip, snip,
snip, snip (the ring had seven slim bands held together by one clasp).
Lighter in mind and body, our young heroine
walked out of the door, resisting the urge to hug Pramod Babu or ask the price
of the diamond ring that winked at her from the counter near the exit.
