Spiders
“Can I come in?” he asked politely
She pulled the pencil off her messy bun and retied itdistractedly “Oh yes” she looked toward the inside
“There is no one at home” she spoke into the empty hallway
“Oh” “Umm” he refused to leave
“Why don’t you sit down?”
She removed her leather tote and the mountains of papersand a dupatta and a scarf out of the way from the visitor sofa
Her glasses fell on the papers, she wore it again… with a “uff”he would hear that for the first time
A soft.. but packed with frustration “ufff”
She retied her bun and went inside
“Kaun hai betu?” Bua murmured
“Just work friend I guess”
“kiska?”
“Matlab… Fa ke friend hain shaayad”
“Naam kya hai?” she sat up making a face
“Doctor ko bulaoon bua?”
“No beta… main theek hoon… mujhe kal raat ko who besan ki gatewaali karhi nahi khaani chahiye thi”
“Yeh baat aap mujhe 5 baar keh chuki hain”
Her phone rang in the living room
“Ek second Bua… kya karoon us aadmi ka”
She began to laugh weakly though cheerfully
“Kya hua?” Viveka demanded
“Tumhare sawaal se mujhe Hindi pikchar ki yaad aa gayi…tumhe yaad nahi hoga ek Prem Chopra hai”
Viveka looked confused… as always
“Piyush Harsha kab aayenge?”
“Pata nahi” Bua got up to go throw up
Viveka sprinted to the visitor room
She turned on the fan and increased the AC power
“There is no one home” she said
“You told me that you didn’t have to check”
“So yeah…” she sat down
And picked up her laptop
It had a picture of a tiny gold Ganpati
He did notice it the day she visited his house
But he had to say something today “That seems very rational!”he smirked waving towards it (making the popular joke about “Economics is allabout making rational decisions)
“Economists aren’t sworn to a life of rational decisions”
“Oh?” “No?” he mocked gently
He found arguing with her enchanting
“There is a model by Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler about BehavioralEconomics, you know the bitten by a spider thing” she waved her hand
“Oh? Whats that?”
He had taken many Econ classes he knew…
“Suppose you are bitten by a spider the chance of death is1 in 100k?” she paused
“Oh? And then?”
“How much would you pay to receive the antidote of spidervenom?”
“Nothing” he said looking at her deeply
“Lets say there is a study and you get recruited where theywill inject spider venom, you have to sign a consent form, with a 1 in 100kchance of dying, how much would you want the researchers to pay you toparticipate?” she smiled joyously proving her point
“Ah”
“Exactly!” she gushed breathlessly
She was way out of his league he realized…😳
comment:
p_commentcount