This Translation Tuesday, Sri Lankan author and Toronto resident Appadurai Muttulingam recounts one person’s mischief at the expense of the impassive Canadian bureaucracy. When the narrator, in search of a human connection and the money he is rightfully owed, is rebuffed by automated mails and call center robots, a solution presents itself in the form of voicemails: whimsical, garrulous ones sent directly into the heart of the system, intended to flush out human beings hidden behind the machinery. Will the issue be resolved? Read on to find out.
Canadian $0.23. Its currency value amounts to 15 Sri Lankan rupees, 8 Indian rupees, 333 Italian liras and 20 Japanese yen in their respective denominations. That is not what is important. The Canadian government owes me these 23 cents. For many years, the government has been confused about how to return this amount to me, and I also don’t know how to get it back. Canada, a member of the world’s important group of countries known as the G8, has been cheating me for 23 cents.
This is how the problem started. For cooking my food and running the furnace, the Canadian government’s natural gas company supplied the gas, which saved me from hunger and cold. I am grateful for that.
Every month, they would send me a statement of account. Along with it, other monthly bills would arrive as well. I would review the bills on a Saturday morning and write the cheques to settle the accounts. These cheques would then be placed in window envelopes and mailed with appropriate stamps pasted on them.
At one time, the natural gas company sent me a bill for the amount of $199.77. For the sake of convenience and also because the amount in my account was in zeros at the time, I sent them a cheque for $200.00, meaning that I had remitted 23 cents more.
That’s how the blunder I made started.
After that, I had moved out of that house to another one. I completely forgot all about that bill, but, every month, a monthly statement for the amount of 23 cents would be delivered to me. This amount was not the money that I owed. It was what the Canadian natural gas company owed me. Yet, the mail they sent me would include a return window envelope and several pieces of promotional material. Every month, this mail would arrive promptly like a healthy woman’s period.
I wrote a letter to the company explaining the situation. No response. I sent them a fax. Again, there was no response. I recounted all the details in an email without omitting anything. “I don’t need these 23 cents, so you keep this amount to yourself. I’ve moved to another house. Thank you. Please don’t bother me anymore. The government wouldn’t be interested in their money being wasted, and the same goes for me, so please do not send me this monthly statement anymore. I beg you, rolling on the floor.”
Yet, the mail arrived on the fourteenth day of the following month as well in an envelope monogrammed with the curved letter E in yellow. Inside the envelope was the same letter, but there was a slight change in the content. When I looked at it closely, I noticed the following text printed in the size of a pinhead at the end of the letter. “You do not need to send us a cheque for an amount less than a dollar. If we owe you an amount less than a dollar, we too will not send you a cheque.”
Aha, the issue hung suspended in mid-air like the poison held in Lord Shiva’s throat. They wouldn’t send me the amount owed, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. This statement would keep coming to me for the rest of my life.
Once, after considerable difficulty, I managed to talk to an officer. He was sympathetic, and he thought about it for a long time. Then he said, “This amount is less than a dollar. Computers generate these bills every month, and they are sent out. Human hands are not involved in this process, so there’s no way to stop this. Only a computer technician can fix this issue. He will take care of it soon and erase the credit amount of 23 cents from your account. After that, the monthly statements will stop coming, so please be patient.”
Several months passed by like a film reel set at fast forward speed, but the fourteenth day statement didn’t stop coming.
My friend gave me a suggestion that sounded fantastic. As per his suggestion, I sent the company a cheque for $1.00. Now that the credit amount in my account had increased, once they issued a cheque for this amount, the account would be closed. Then the monthly statements would no longer arrive, and I could remain happy and content. Even that hope fell flat. Because there was no debit entry in my account, the gas company sent me back the cheque at double speed.
It was at this point that I came up with the idea of sending messages by voicemail. I dialed the customer call number starting with 1-800. A female voice rang out on the machine. “Press one to speak in English and press two to speak in French,” the voice instructed. I pressed one.
The same female voice was heard again. “You have four options to choose from. Press one if there is a gas leak and you smell gas. Press two if you want to purchase gas products. Press three if our services are required, and press four if you have any complaints.” I pressed four. In the next round, there were four more choices, and in the following round, there were three to choose from. In the round after that, again there were four options. I pressed the appropriate number for filing complaints related to accounts. I had hoped that at least then I would be talking to the voice of a human in flesh and blood.
Now a new female voice came on the machine. “Thank you. Please be patient. A customer service representative will speak with you soon.” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony music rang out on the telephone. Holding the receiver, I waited. A minute went by, and I heard the same voice again. “Thank you for your patience. You are a valued customer to us. Please stay on the line. A customer service representative will be with you shortly.” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony rang out for a long time until it looked like the Tenth Symphony was about to start.
Eventually, I got connected, but, even then, it was not a human voice but only the machine voice that came on the phone. “Record your complaint after the beep,” the voice instructed. I waited accordingly till the sound of the beep, and left a long complaint for their ears. Even after that, there was no response.
It was only after this incident that I fell in love with the desire to send messages by voicemail. Feeling quite certain that they would not listen to my messages nor would they respond to them either, I began to have regular conversations with the machine. One early morning after the winter season ended, I sent them a message.
“Spring has arrived. I cleaned my doorstep today. The first flower of the season bloomed in my garden. Listening to this information, how does your heart feel, my friend? There should be a little compassion in it. The monthly statement showing the credit for 23 cents still keeps coming. You can fix this if you put your mind to it.”
As expected, no answer came, which made me a little more audacious and daring. Once I slipped and fell down in the slushy snow and sprained my leg. Even then, unmindful of the trouble, I crawled across the floor like the old script form of the Tamil letter ‘லை’ and sent them voice messages on the phone.
“This morning I ate the French bread plaited like a woman’s braid, tearing off a piece of it with my hand, but last night turned out badly. My friend and I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant reputed for seafood. A whole fish, the full length of it, fried to golden colour was served on a wooden platter. I don’t eat anything that looks at me. This fish was looking at me until the restaurant closed.”
“Your breakfast would have been satisfying. On your way to work, you would have eaten a donut with a hole in the middle and had a strong coffee at Tim Hortons. May your day begin well! Let it turn out to be even better with the resolution of my 23 cents credit issue.”
Some days, I even left two messages instead of just one. It seemed like they were waiting for my messages, and I felt as if I shouldn’t disappoint them by not leaving a message. Once, I woke up with a start from my nap, and only after I left them a voice message, I could go back to sleep peacefully.
“Today is a clear blue day. I saw the sun twice today, and I’m sure I’ll see it once again before the day is out. Barometric pressure is registered at 101.8, temperature, 19 degrees, wind speed, 15 km east, humidity, 55, and visibility, 2 km. Light drizzles may fall, but no thunderstorm, for sure.”
“Black-necked Canada geese are getting ready to go back south. Today two of them landed in my garden. They quacked like a brass ensemble. They were searching for something for a long time as if they were looking for an item they had left behind. Then they flew towards the south. I don’t know whether they will get down here and rest again when they return next year. What do you think?”
Several weeks after this had happened, I got a phone call in the middle of the night, and the female voice on the phone sounded unfamiliar. It had been many years since sweet voices had called me. Even then, women never ever had called me in the middle of the night.
“Your name appears to be fairly long, starting at the left margin and ending on the right one. Are you a male or a female?” She laughed.
“I was a male until yesterday evening. I haven’t had a chance to test it since then. Is the information urgently needed?” I asked.
“Only by letting out all my breath, I am able to pronounce your full name. You have to do me a favour,” she said.
“Are you a female?” I asked. This question was unnecessary, but it was very helpful to extend the conversation.
“Yes,” she said and laughed. Or perhaps she laughed and then said, “Yes.” I can’t remember.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Is it necessary to say that?” Her voice turned thinner and more hesitant.
“You must of course tell me. You know my name, and you also know the intimate details of whether I am a male or a female. You have my telephone number. Therefore, you have an unfair advantage over me. Disturbing the peace in the middle of the night, you call me, and then ask for a favour. I never do a favour to anyone in the middle of the night, and that too to a female person whose name I do not know.”
“Shirley.”
“Is your name Shirley? Beautiful name. There are no such beautiful names in our country. They have exported all the beautiful names from our country. The sediments are all that are left: the ugly ones.”
She laughed again.
“Shirley, in the middle of the night, what can I do to help a beautiful young woman whose name I know but not the face?”
“Wrong, very wrong.”
“Was it very wrong?”
“Yes, middle of the night is correct, whose name you know is correct, but how could a young woman whose face you do not know be assumed beautiful?
“She would be. Based on the voice, I can even tell the age. In my country, they draw the face based on the big toe, you know?”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Your face is not triangular or square, nor is it oblong.”
“Aha! Good speculation.”
“Your eyes are long like a locust’s feet, with wide open eyelids.”
“It takes a lot of practice to come up with something this incorrect”
“Not really! There is no young woman more beautiful than you on this side of the Ontario Lake.”
“Excessive praise. Let’s see. Can you tell my age?
“Exactly eighteen years and three months.
“Very wrong, absolutely wrong.”
“Did you eat ice cream today?”
“No.”
“That’s where the error happened. You should have eaten ice cream.”
“Your excuse is pathetic.”
“How many months were missing?”
“Six months. That’s okay. I forgive you. Can you at least tell my height? “
“That is also included in the voice science.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Exactly?”
“Exactly.”
“Your height is exactly 170 cm above sea level.”
“Very wrong. What, should I have eaten ice cream for this also?”
“Not that. Where are you?”
“In the room.”
“Where is that?”
“In the bedroom upstairs.”
“I see now. Stand on the beach and measure yourself. That would be very accurate.”
“Very clever indeed. Would you ask me at least now what favour I need from you?”
“For a seventeen-year-and-nine-month-old young woman.”
“For a beautiful young woman.”
“For a seventeen-year-and-nine-month-old beautiful young woman.”
“Wrong again.”
“What have I done wrong this time?”
“Isn’t a seventeen-year-old female a young woman? Don’t you know that it is a repetition?”
“You came to a quick conclusion. In our literature, this is called meemisai, meaning using multiple words to denote the same thing. Poets have this privilege. This is the first time I talk to a seventeen-year-and-nine-month-old beautiful young woman in the middle of the night. What can I do to help you?” I asked.
“I listened to your voicemail.”
“Voicemail? Mine? Where did you hear that?”
“The black-necked geese that landed in your home garden will come back again to your garden when the next spring arrives.”
“Thanks. How did you get this information?”
“I forgot to mention. I work for the natural gas company. I’ve got this job in the voice mail division on a temporary basis. If my work is satisfactory, my job will be made permanent.”
“How long have you been working there?”
“It has been just two weeks. I work the night shift for eight hours. My job involves sorting out all incoming voicemails and sending them to the appropriate divisions for processing. Although your voicemails were amusing, I didn’t know what to do with them. I made a blunder.”
“What blunder? You don’t seem like someone who would make blunders!”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s also a form of voice science.”
“The blunder I made was destroying your last three voicemails. This was a very serious error. I didn’t know where to send them. I may lose my job.”
“So what should I do?”
“Please don’t send voicemails anymore. Your voicemails about the geese, about the pope’s refusal to grant the Apostolic Pardon through e-mail, and about the critics, like vultures, tearing your poetry apart confuse me. What do you expect me to do with them?”
In the months that followed I stopped sending voicemails. I left no messages about the buttered bread toasted in the electric oven, about the woman in a tight dress that stretched like rubber, and about the sad story of my backpack’s torn-off left shoulder strap. That seventeen-year-old young woman never again in the middle of the night or any other time, for any reason whatsoever, called me, who lived by the telephone.
Every month, I would receive a letter, precisely on the fourteenth day. Carrying this letter would arrive a mail van painted in red and white with blue lines. A stout postwoman would bring the letter and put it in through the mail slot in my front door. It will drop down with a plop sound along with many other letters. Inside that mail, there would be a monthly statement of account showing the credit amount of 23 cents, along with a return window envelope and many promotional pieces. Nowadays, I don’t grind my teeth when I open these mails. I examine them patiently, and then I put them in the gray recycling box designated for paper waste. They would be collected the following Wednesday morning for saving the environment.
Because of the unresolved credit issue, the government and I have incurred a loss that has exceeded several hundred dollars. Included in this amount are the cost of hundreds of documents the government had sent me and the cost of postage. On my part would include the cost of hundreds of letters, faxes and emails I had sent and the cost of telephone calls. This account does not include the many wasted hours of my labour and those of many government officers, not to mention the hours of labour dedicated by a seventeen-year-old young woman who spoke on the telephone in a hesitant voice at midnight.
On top of the above, the hours of musical labour that went into the Ninth Symphony composed by the musical genius Beethoven who passed away in 1818 are not included in it either.
“23 சதம்” © 2003 by A. Muttulingam from A. Muttulingam Kathaigal (2003)
English translation © 2022 by Thila Varghese
Translated from the Tamil by Thila Varghese.
Appadurai Muttulingam, a recipient of numerous literary awards in Sri Lanka, India, and Canada including the Sri Lankan Government Sahitya Academy Award, is the author of 15 short story collections, 2 novels, and 10 collections of essays in Tamil. Originally from Sri Lanka, Muttulingam, who lives in Canada, is the founder/director of the Tamil Literary Garden, a charitable organization in Toronto that promotes literary excellence. He is also the founder/director of Tamil Chair Inc., a charitable organization registered in the United States for the establishment of Tamil Studies at Harvard University.
Thila Varghese lives in Canada, where she works part-time during the academic year as a Senior Writing Advisor at Western University. Her translations of Tamil literary works have been published in World Literature Today, Modern Poetry in Translation, National Translation Month, Metamorphoses, Asymptote, Indian Literature, and Columbia Journal.
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