Sick (Verb) and Leave

On one of the super duper bench days, our manager was sponsoring a small party at the outskirts of the city for 15 of his favorite subordinates and I was one of them. He had got married and that was the cause for the expensive partying. Like all the Punjabi women, his wife was pretty and extremely sweet. We had all the three meals of the day together. All men drank and women partied and danced. When we were dropped to our houses by our manager at 10:00 PM we were dead tired. I went and threw my bag and buried myself in the bed.

After half an hour of deep sleep, I realized I had two missed calls- one from mom and other from a close friend. I called mom and to my shock, I had promised to visit my cousin’s wedding the next day which I had brutally forgotten. The wedding was in a different city. It would take 3 to 4 hrs to reach there which meant I had to start at 5:30 in the morning to reach there on time. Feeling sick as a dog, I called the other number – a friend whom I told I had to take sick leave but without reason. We started debating the points that could reason enough to grant me sick leave without much questioning by my manager with whom I had caroused for the whole day. I being sick was definitely not a good reason. I was not even drunk to let him think I was hung over.

So we decided to let someone die. First we thought we will let one of the uncles die and I would attend his funeral. My friend suggested the reason is common enough not to believe it. So he suggested we shall let someone commit suicide. We thought fast to makeup a story.

We thought about the names of the victims. The name should be a familiar one like Arun.. Sagar etc. We settled for Sagar. Then the motive for the suicide. My friend suggested, one sagar was writing his notes and he didn’t have ink in his pen, so he got frustrated and committed suicide. Or he was riding his bike on Chamundi hills and he ran out of fuel and felt the best way to reach the petrol bunk was to jump from there.

In the next round he suggested, one Prabhakar was walking on the road and a buffalo hit him from the back and he and the buffalo both died on spot. He said if my manager asks me who Prabhakar, I should tell its Tiger Prabhakar. Sad of Tiger Prabhakar, He died of a road accident with a buffalo.

Then we thought of the Munnabhai reasons like my cousin had lymphosarcoma of the intestine and died. None worked. So we decided we will stick to my unknown uncle die of some cancer. I felt that was best because the next day when I go to office again I dodn’t have to mourn much as death with cancer-ed people is much expected than any teen cousin dying in the road accident.
When we finished finding the reason for sick leave, I was way too tired and I was speaking as if in dreams. My friend made me recite the lie that I would tell in the morning. I made my attempt like this:

My cousin’s suffering from lymphosarcoma of the intestine and he tries to write his biography in a diary but finds there is no ink in his pen so goes out to get ink. On the way to the shop on chamundi hills he finds his bike running out of fuel and jumps in to the air where he meets Tiger Prabhakar. He gets seriously injured and is admitted to the hospital. Hearing this, his father gets a heart attack and dies. And so I am attending the funeral of the father and not the son.