A long day…(Memories-V)

It all began at a meeting which was held in connection with an art exhibition that was supposed to take place very soon. Usually whenever we plan to conduct an exhibition, all the participants meet up, decide on the various things, such as when should it be held, the theme for the exhibition if any, the size of the canvas, whether uniform size or any size of the participants choice, number of works, the amount which might be required to be contributed by each participant, and such other things. I had participated in four group shows and in most of them I wasn’t indulged in any responsible work as such, mainly coz I was very young. Yet I helped in whatever I could. So my activity in the meetings would mostly have been passive until now, but this time it was no longer so. I had got into college, so it was time i started taking on the responsibilities too.

Our sir, who helped us with most of the things said that this time, we had to do everything by ourselves, and he would just guide us whenever needed. Once most of the things were decided, it was time that we decided on invitation. We had built up a reputation of bringing out a unique invitation for each exhibition, so that was one of the most important task. Sir suggested that we would design it ourselves and would get it printed at Bangalore, coz the people in our place did the same. They would get the design and layout from us, go to blore, get it done and deliver it to us. We could save a lot on it and hence decided that we would do it that way. Now it was the question of who would do it, who would handle the responsibility. I thought this would be a right time for me to get work done by me, so I volunteered to do it. It was decided that I would be given the design and all I had to do was get it printed at a decided printers, and get it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I thought the same when I took it up, but it turned out that it was more complicated than it initially looked.

The other arrangements began and I did whatever I could. Finally, the design was handed over to me along with the proof print or whatever its called, to show how the print looked like. It was like I was given the design today and I was supposed to leave tomorrow night, reach the next morning, get the work done, catch a bus back the same day and be back the next morning. The materials reached me, but i still didn’t know where I was to be going!! Sounds ridiculous right? But that was how it was. I was told I would be given a person’s no. All i had to do would be call him, and he would arrange for the work to be done. But surprise!! I get a number of a person, who is just an artist in blore, who might be knowing such people. I realized how things were, when it came to reality.I just used to sit back and see how things were done, but now when it came to me, i realized how things could really be.

I called up one of my friend who stayed at blore and asked him if he knew any printers personally. Like it was necessary coz I just couldn’t walk in to some press and ask for the job to be done. He said he personally hadn’t got any works printed, but he had a few friends who did and told would check on them and let me know. It was in the evening when I called him, and he told there was a possibility that they might have left too!! Man!! What was i supposed to do if they had left? But thankfully, he called me back soon saying there were two places nearby to where he worked, and his friend knew those places. I thanked him and hung up.

I have one of my uncles staying at blore and initially I hadn’t wanted to disturb him, but now I thought it was best that I took his help. And guess what? he knew a person, who was working at a graphics shop, moreover his work place was situated nearby to my uncle’s factory. Uuf!! I sighed relief…

I left the following night, reached the next morning as scheduled. Reached a bit late, so I only had enough time to shower, freshen. I changed into new clothes and left along with my uncle. We had breakfast at a hotel on the way. I had masala dosa, and when one is famished it really feels good to be eating 😉 He had to open the factory on time, so we had to hurry, but we managed to reach in time. Once we settled down, he called up the concerned person and he said he would come in about an hour. He went about with his work, while I read the news paper. Then he took me around the factory, and it was perfectly as I remembered it from my last visit. When we went back to his office, the person had come. So it was work time. My uncle explained him about my needs, and asked for a rough price. He said he would have to check out on that and so would let us know in a little while. He took the materials to check them out. He called back in a little while saying it would cost this much. The cost was readily acceptable for us, but the problem was time. He said he could give it no earlier than in three days. Not again!! We said it was urgent and that I had come solely for that purpose. So he said if the cards would not have to be punched he would give them the following day. But again that was unacceptable, firstly coz punching those holes would be another work for us, and second, we couldn’t afford to wait. But it was election time and most of the press was engaged in printing ads, so obviously there was no place for a thousand prints.

I then decided that we would check out the person whose contact no I was given and it so happened that he was out of place that day. I couldn’t just help thinking if I could finish off the work in that day. But then he said we would have to go to the place and he would speak to them. Thank god 🙂 It was in Chamarapet, and even though my uncle had an expert knowledge of the roads around, we required a little while to reach and it was twelve thirty in the noon when we reached the place, Lakshmi Mudranalaya. We were waiting outside, while I looked around the place. It seemed to be a high level press which printed and published books in large quantities.I wondered if they would accept our order. After a few minutes of wait, which seemed like hours, we were sitting in front of the owner there. We placed our requirements and agreed to it. He said he could not arrange for the cards to be punched but he could arrange it to be delivered by the evening. WOW!! I was really glad it was finally into processing. He asked me to tell everything to the designers and I did the same, and it was set. He did the calculations and it came up to 12.5k and odd.. With a few words from the no I had obtained, it was settled to 11.5k. I paid it, and we returned back to the factory. Now the thing that worried me was, whether it was possible to get it by evening. From a previous experience I knew that once printed they were required to be properly dried, or else it would simply be a mess. But I was rest assured coz, he had said we would get it by evening.

We had lunch in some hotel. I had a kulcha and some gravy. It was a peaceful lunch, with the major part of the tension got over. After lunch, went back to the factory and were just chatting. We had a tea along with another colleague of his, whom I knew very well. She suggested that in the evening once everything was done with, we go to pizza hut and have a pizza.

In the evening we went home, watched TV for a while, then as suggested by his colleague, we went to pizza hut. Had a pizza, and I even had ebony and ivory, actually the only time I had it. By then it was time to collect the invitation. We went to the place in my uncle’s scooter and by the time we reached there it had already become dark. The package was there waiting for us. Now the problem suddenly came out of nowhere. How to carry it? I tried lifting it and my goodness it was so damn heavy. It weighed more than 50kg and that would be really tough to carry. We decided we would take it in the scooter itself and I carried it and all the way back home, I had it on my lap. The journey back never seemed to end at all.. My back was slowly starting to ache, but thankfully I was able to manage. My uncle’s house is in the first floor and as we had a lot of time until my bus was due, we carried the package all the way up. Guess it was total madness to be doing that, but we did it. For the first time I saw the invitations, it looked good. Gave a copy to uncle, and just sat back to relax…

As we both were filled with the food we had earlier on, we skipped dinner. Again we had to take the package down. This time in addition to that, there was my bag too. I didn’t know how I would manage, but I somehow did. But I really wonder how he managed. With that package it would have really been a tough ride for him. We went to some fresh juice centre and I had an orange juice. Had got a return ticket earlier in the day, so just had to wait for the bus. It was drizzling slightly. I hoped it wouldn’t rain. Thankfully it didn’t. But there was a little confusion with the bus. Initially we thought it would stop at one place but when it came, there was another bus and so it stopped a little ahead. He got the package loaded, while I got into the bus and bid him adieu. I really wished I could thank him profusely, but well taken into consideration my shy nature, even if I stood in front of him to do it, words wouldn’t have come out. So the thought remained only as a thought, as I slowly drifted to sleep, thus ending the long tiresome day.