Chaoter: The Man Who repairs Too Much
Mumbai streets were soaked with rain.
The air was heavy with the aroma of marigolds, damp soil, and the smoke of incense spiralling out of Ganesh Chaturthi pandals.
Drums were loud, but Meenal barely noticed them. Lately, it seemed as though everything had stopped its existence as her mobile started giving trouble since last night.
The mobile screen kept rebooting and losing battery for no apparent reason.
She now stood in front of a small, dark shop, squeezed between a stationery shop and a pan shop. Overhead hung a hand-painted, worn sign:
Irfan Mobile Repair Service.
Time and humidity had eroded letters, the paint chipped.
A city that is supposed to be among the declared smart cities, it seemed as if it belonged to another decade.
The Google reviews, however, had been encouraging.
Inside, a young man--mid-twenties, perhaps--looked up from a phone he was using.
Trim beard, sharp jaw, eyes that lingered on you a beat too long. He didn't talk immediately. Just glanced at her with a sort of calm that caused her to unconsciously change her dupatta.
"Madam ji?" Standing, he eventually spoke in a low, courteous tone.
"Any problem with your mobile?"
Holding it out, she nodded. "It restarts constantly."
Their fingers touched for a second.
He picked up the phone carefully as if it were delicate.
"I will check it carefully. It could be because of battery overheating. I'll ensure it gets resolved."
His tone was quiet, almost careful.
---------
The next day, the rain was still there, but she managed to reach the shop anyway.
Irfan looked up and gave a subdued grin when she walked into the store.
Pushing her phone across the desk, he remarked, "All done. The battery had a problem of overheating, and he had to change a part."
She had mixed feelings of relief and uneasiness, but she gratefully accepted it.
He said softly, "Some data got wiped during the reset. But I got most of it back. Your data, photos, contacts... do check"
She started to scroll. There were contacts. The files were also intact. The photos seem to be in place.
But just as she was about to put the phone away, she noticed a folder named Private.
Her heart skipped a beat. That folder was not meant to be there. Months ago, she had personally deleted it, fearing that her growing son Aryan someday might come across this folder.
The folder contained photos shot during very intense moments, during their holiday trip.
With shaky hands, she tapped the folder to open.
In the very first picture, she was teasing the waistband of her pants, her fingers exposed far more than she had ever intended for anyone else to see.
The next photo- her blouse open, chest exposed, caught in the warm, reckless intimacy of being captured by a camera husband's camera.
Her face turned red. "You weren't meant to get these back," she whispered, almost under her breath, staring at the screen.
"They were gone,"Irfan kept staring. He murmured, "Sometimes deleted isn't deleted."
