Dear Readers,
It was just another Tuesday. But it always is, isn’t it? Life doesn’t arrive with any sort of announcement, just the same dust in the air, the same bitter taste of yesterday’s tea in your mouth, the same God-forsaken buzz of reality knocking with a face full of questions and a heart devoid of answers.
The phone rang.
I stared at it for a moment. An unknown number. Some telecom circle. Could be anything. It could be someone dying. Or worse, someone pretending to care.
I didn’t want to answer it.
Not because I was busy. Not because I was angry.
But because I was afraid.
Afraid of another reminder. Another voice pretending to care.
Afraid that the world was calling again, not to help, but to haunt.Some days, even the sound of a phone feels like thunder.
Like someone knocking on the last piece of your peace, asking for what little you have left.
But!!!
I picked it up.
“Hello, sir. Good morning. I’m Priya, calling from The National Bank. Am I speaking with Mr. Jacob?”
There it was, the cheerful tone, manufactured politeness. I wondered if her voice came from her soul or her sales script.
“Yes, this is Jacob.”
“Hi, sir. Just checking in with you. How are you today?”
I paused.
How was I?
How was I?
I took a breath that hurt going in. That kind of breath. The kind you take when your ribs remember every failure you’ve swallowed.
“Why do you ask?”
“Sorry?”
“You asked how I was doing. Why?”
You want to know how I’m doing?
Ask me the real question,
Are you still alive?
Are you still breathing?
Did you survive the night without falling apart?Because that’s where we are now.
That’s the honest state of things.
Not living. Just… surviving.
There was a tiny silence on the other end. A glitch in the matrix. That moment when the illusion cracks.
“Well, sir,” she said, hesitating. “We just ask as part of our process. To make sure our customers are okay,”
“But you’re not really asking if I’m okay, are you?” I interrupted. “You’re not really interested in how I feel, what’s going on in my life, or whether I cried last night because I couldn’t afford to buy groceries.
You just want to know when I’m paying the Bank loan EMI.”
Her silence deepened.
“You want the money, not my mental state,” I said. “So let’s not pretend.”
“I… I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to upset you?”
“You didn’t upset me? I asked her, even after knowing the fact that she had already upset me, she still says that she didn't want to upset me.
I said, Life did. People did. Politeness did.”
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She wasn’t trained for this kind of honesty.
I hung up.
Then sat there for a long time in that cheap plastic chair by the window of my flat, watching dust particles float like spirits of forgotten dreams. I wanted to scream, but there was no one to scream to. I wanted to cry, but the tears had filed for bankruptcy years ago.
What bothered me wasn’t the call. It was the question. That sacred question: “How are you?”
Once upon a time, it meant something. Before it became currency. Before it became a line at the beginning of an email. Before it became a social lubricant to avoid the discomfort of silence.
I remembered when I used to ask it. Genuinely. Desperately. Asking my father on his deathbed, “How are you feeling, Daddy?” Asking my ex-wife during those cold, awkward dinners, “Are you okay?”
Even asking my own reflection sometimes, in the dim mirror of a bathroom I hadn’t cleaned in weeks.
But somewhere along the way, it lost its meaning. People didn’t answer truthfully. People didn’t want you to answer truthfully. If you said “I’m not okay,” you’d ruin their day. You’d become inconvenient.
So now, I don’t answer truthfully. And I don’t ask anymore either.
A few days later, I was walking past a Tea Stand. A young man was on the phone. I overheard him say, “Yes ma’am, I’m fine… yes ma’am, everything’s going great…” He hung up and whispered under his breath, “Bloody hell, I haven’t eaten in two days.”
It hit me like a fist in the soul.
The performance of normalcy. We’ve all become actors.
Every “how are you” is a curtain rising.
Every “I’m fine” is a lie applauded by silence.
That night, I sat on the floor with a cup of stale whiskey and stared at my ceiling fan. I imagined it as a judge above me, rotating slowly, watching me in a trial.
Do you think I’m a bad man for seeing through people?
Do you think I’ve become bitter?
Or am I just someone who can no longer digest this sugar-coated cruelty?
Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Cruelty. To ask a drowning man how the water feels.
Once, long ago, I had a friend. Daniel. He was the kind of man who would listen, not the “uh-huh” kind, but the real kind. He’d sit there while your whole soul collapsed and just nod, maybe squeeze your hand.
He died by suicide three years ago.
No one saw it coming.
Because every time someone asked him, “How are you?” he said “, Good.”
No one meant the question.
So he never gave the answer.
Now, I sit here. A middle-aged man. Bald. Bearded. Tired beyond words. And I wonder… what would happen if people actually meant what they asked?
What if that bank girl had said: “Sir, I know I have to ask about the loan, but genuinely, are you okay?”
Would I have told her about the debt, the loneliness, the nights I talk to God as if He's a friend who moved away? Would I have told her how I’m living on borrowed money, borrowed time, and borrowed hope?
Would she have understood?
Or would she have hung up?
We live in a world where kindness is scripted and cruelty is casual.
Where caring is a checkbox.
And real concern is buried beneath professional smiles and automated empathy.
So no… I don’t ask people how they’re doing anymore. I don’t give people the satisfaction of pretending to care. I’d rather they say:
“Sir, we know it’s tough. But we need the money.”
At least it’s honest.
At least it doesn’t lie with a smile.
Tomorrow, maybe another stranger will call.
Maybe they’ll ask me how I am.
And maybe I’ll answer:
“I’m drowning. But thank you for asking. Now, what did you really call for?”
– JacobM
A man tired of beautiful lies.