Chapter 1. The Cacophonous Plight
It all began with high expectations.
I couldn’t believe at first that Sage Mangal, our esteemed master at the ashram, whose personality I can’t promise to make you very familiar with, had trusted me with a task of such ambition.
“A lack of emotional engagement in the affair affirms higher credibility,” Sage Mangal had explained when asked why he chose me, Sesha, over many others, for pulling the pieces of Coinman’s story together after the latter’s departure from the ashram.
In short, it was the lack of my prior acquaintance with Coinman that had won me this prize.
His Politeness also bestowed me with the divine power to find almost everything that I needed to find. Such was this power that I could enter invisibly into past situations, could be at multiple places at the same time, and could even float in someone’s mind without their discovering. Before you ask, Sage Mangal did meticulously bar my access to certain activities and places—for example, the bathroom where one of the main characters in our story spent a major part of his life. The sage agreed in advance to bear with any compromises that my lack of full access might potentially introduce to the story.
I could ramble on forever, but this is all I wish to convey to you about me and my job. I will assume that you wouldn’t want to know more than that either; not only will it make my job simpler, but it will also fulfill my wish to remain largely invisible. Honestly, with the kind of story I am about to embark on, I know you couldn’t care less about me. So let’s get to the story without further ado.
Jangle jingle! Clink clatter! Ding-a-ling! Ring-a-ding!
The mind-numbing sound of relentlessly jingling coins was something the people of the office, the center stage of this story, hadn’t quite learned to live with yet. Not only when the possessor of the busy coins, Coinman, walked, but also when he stood talking—or engaged himself in doing anything else, for that matter—his left hand constantly fondled the coins with tenderness.
The coins occupied an eternal place in the left pocket of his trousers and, regardless of where he dwelt or what he did, constantly slithered through the narrow spaces between his fingers.
Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy Description:
Coinman, a junior level office worker in India, has a number of eccentricities. The laughingstock of the office, he finds no relief at home; his wife Imli, an obsessed actress, completely vanishes into each role. When tough bully, Hukum, beautiful enchantress, Tulsi, and the office sage, Ratiram, unite the office to conspire against Coinman, they have no inkling of an apocalypse looming inside the office.
“A funny, unusual read …”
~Kirkus Review
“This articulate, wryly amusing creation focuses on simple situations that often have an unexpected, almost magical, twist.”
~IndieReader, 5 Stars
“A quirky, heartfelt novel about finding your identity – and keeping it. In Pawan Mishra’s oddly charming novel, readers are welcomed into the strangely neurotic, passionate, and unfulfilled existence of Coinman. The author raises the banality of normal life to new heights within this novel, and does so in an amusing and thought-provoking way. The story is uniquely enjoyable, and Coinman is a character that will be hard to forget.”
~SPR, 4 Stars
