Monotony of a close-cut lawn

The classifieds were the first he reached out to. Politics, he was impervious to, Sports, was beyond him, Classifieds was a compelling necessity.He scavenged through the papers , the unassuming not so ostentatious ads, when a strange little ad caught his baffled eye.

NO SKILLS REQUIRED
EXTRAORDINARY COMMITMENT EXPECTED
PAY NEGOTIABLE AT ALL LEVELS

Such uncanny ads always founds a way to entice him,inexplicably. Nevertheless, 2 years of waiting at long queues at the unemployment office had made him innately desperate.
The next morning, he arrived a couple of minutes before the time mentioned in the Deccan and found himself waiting for the next 90 minutes with a couple of men, he'd often seen at the unemployment office. He mysteriously felt like he was being watched. Beautiful women and jobless men have this uncanny sense, he thought. He felt important; after a long time . A man clad in a tight suit, seemingly in his mid forties led him into a shabby little chamber where 3 men awaited,all with a look of morbid senility showing a long discontented past life. They were neatly clad in finely pressed and meticulously tailored suits. The interviewee felt intimidated and vulnerable,yet unassumingly secretly confident. "Have a seat " said a stoutly balding man, pointing with a cigarette to a cushioned chair. "So tell us about yourself, Mr....."
"Mr.Desai " he quickly retorted,shifting nervously in his chair. " Well there's nothing much to tell really. I finished my schooling in Nagpur. My grades were neither too high to be noticed nor too low to be conspicuous. decided to pursue sciences which i dropped realizing it is not my calling. I moved to Mumbai seeking a job. And just yesterday , I noticed this queer ad in the newspapers and thought i would check it out." A pause later " OF course, the commitment wouldn't be an issue. I have no family, few friends and no bindings. As of now i have no job and no fixed income. " A pause later and with an embarrassed yet curious look on his face he asked " I beg your pardon but i 'm not quite aware of the job description.What sort of skills are expected? What's the scale of payment? All this has not been mentioned at all?"
"Why then are you here Mr.Ravikant Desai?" asked a man in a firm tone giving an impression he did not seek an answer.It sent a chill down his spine because never once had he mentioned his first name.
"That shouldn't be a problem Mr.Desai" the big man said in a hoarse voice. He cracked his knuckles. " You are required to leave behind your entire life for a minimal period of 2 years and stay in a house provided by us and do simple ordinary things told to you. Things an average man on the street is capable of." The bald man intervened " The pay is an extraordinary 12 lakhs per annum which i am sure you would certainly find appealing and pleasing. If you may; regard this as a sort of an experiment, which is rendered to cause no foreseeable harm physically, and perhaps every other which way. This affair, assuming you will agree upon it, will go on for 2 years by when a sum of 25 lakhs will be credited to a bank account opened in your name." He was stunned and dismayed by the change of events in the last minute, the inanity of which gripped him as much as the fluency of the interviewers. He noticed that a small looking man was intently staring at him, failing to utter a single word through the interview. A bell was rung and the man clad in the tight suit outside entered the room and led Desai to a secluded room that looked abandoned for days. They passed through the waiting room where he noticed that the 2 men waiting outside were made conspicuous by their absence. Desai was told by him that he had an hour to decide about the "job offer" and was strongly advised not to trust reason and logic and not bear instincts. In solitude,Desai mulled over the dramatic turn of events which he sensed held a potential of immeasurable peril. But, Desai was a gambler, a risk taker, a believer of destiny and fate , and hence was not reluctant to take up the offer, which he acknowledged not with much delay, to the interviewers great surprise and delight. He was told that he would immediately be deported to the house and instructions will be provided which were to be followed strictly. Lest a day, a moment, should arrive that he failed to obey, an immediate collapse of the agreement would effect.
The house he was to live in was perhaps the most extraordinary he had ever seen. It boasted of a large living room, a filthy bathroom and 2 bedrooms, although only one of them had a bed. But what surprised him most was the presence of an inexplicable colossal ground right by the house. The terrain,mysteriously seemed familiar to him, but Desai couldn't quite place it in his head. His instincts warned him and his conscience. And yet like so many of us,in dire need, he suppressed them. The instructions given to him were succinct and precise. He was to awake at 730 every morning, was to eat the same meals everyday at the same time at the same place. He was made to sleep at a precise unaltering time. His whole life seemed to be programmed and controlled,every moment of it, even the time he would empty his bowels. But perhaps seemingly the focal point of the extravaganza was that he was made to enter that bizarrely placed ground by the house at 10 in the morning every single day and a life sized portrait of a discerningly familiar figure appeared in quick motion. He was given instructions in immense brevity to lift a gun placed by him and shoot the portrait with precision, and was warned of slackness . It hardly bothered his intelligence and he went about life;if that's what one can call it; as per the script. The frequency of exercise of shooting the life size portrait was gradually increased to several times a day, which never went beyond 5 in the evening.In gore loneliness, it hardly mattered to him and he remained impervious of the consequences, if there were to be any. This bizarre monotony perpetuated for 2 years, at the end of which he was offered a deal "he could not refuse". His agreement was to be extended for 2 more years, with an increased pay, with the same exercises perennially undertaken, which he would gladly accept. His life became an epitome of monotony,and slavery. At the end of the fourth year, his employers thanked him amiably for his services,the purpose of which still baffled him; and offered to show him around the town, since he had totally remained aloof of it for the past few years. They rode him into a car,which surprisingly had no windows, eventually led him to a ground which he instantly recognized,which was strikingly similar to his previous home. The atmosphere gripped him and he felt a sense of hypnotism and submission that he had felt so many times in the past four years in the house. It seemed to be a political rally, but it didn't seem to bother his intelligence. After a few minutes, as the clock struck 10, entered a person whose portrait he had shot countless times for the past 4 years. And ironically, Ravikant Desai, the lad from Nagpur,a firm believer of destiny , was scripted and handed over his destiny, as he picked up the gun pre-arranged, pre-ordained, and shot him several times in the chest like the way he had done so many times in the past, because he knew not a life without it. The Prime-Minister of India after enjoying power in corruption for 3 years was shot down in broad daylight even as Ravikant Desai was shot in the head several times by several snipers above him. His destiny, he discovered, was monotony, of subservience of thought, of living in a closed box, in absolute slavery, to an automatic life he was programmed to live, not too unlike from our monotonous lives which we have blindly accepted.