Hello All. Off late whatever I am writing is turning controversial whether it is the last story or even a simple facebook message against snobbery and hypocrisy.
So, I decided to go back to writing stories involving Varun Shyamak, the character which has become mine and I hope a lot of yours’ favorite. In case you don’t know him, you can read about him in the previous stories “Weird, Weird Varun Shyamak” and “Varun Shyamak and his theory of job satisfaction”. However this story is an independent one except the characters. So it is not mandatory to read them but in case you want to know the characters better. Ghosts, supernatural beings etc. are some things we often discuss, but with Varun Shyamak it can go weirdly wrong. Writing about ghosts is more difficult than seeing a horror movie. Reading a little about para science led me to such case studies that virtually had me terrorized and tormented. I won’t spoil the story with more details. So, read the story and leave your comments. (And if somebody’s name is Varun or Arun or Tarun, etc. I am very sorry to use a similar name and please do not expect any more apologies).
It had been more than three weeks since something weird has happened, which is like an eternity if you happen to have a person like Varun Shyamak living in your house. Everything was just going normal, except for at times, Varun will suddenly smile at some strange object or laugh all of a sudden (it was still normal for most of us) but mostly he looked disconnected as if living in a different world and had to be constantly pulled out of it by someone. But then no one was complaining. “Sometimes monotony is better than adventure” Saurav had said when I notified him of the time that has passed since Varun’s last antic. But deep down inside we all knew that it was just the lull before the storm, and in fact the more time that passes like this the bigger the storm will be, and thus we were not surprised at all when we were woken up in wee hours in the morning to the harsh cries of Varun.
The IPL 2 season was on at that time and on that night Mumbai Indians had famously choked against Warne’s Rajasthan Royals and lost the game by 2 runs despite needing just 4 of last over with three wickets left and as expected we had started to smell things fishy. It is strange and funny that how amazingly good we are at conspiracy theory. We kept on talking for hours about the game. Varun had been silent this far, looking outside the window at some strange object and intermittently smiling. We ignored him as we had got used to it. We did not realize that it had been 1 A.M. and all of a sudden Varun said “Guys!”, and then he paused for some 10 seconds. Looked outside the window again then looked in and said “Its 1 in the night. Don’t you people have office tomorrow?”
“Yes, it’s better to catch up with some sleep. Guess it’s time we say good night” I said as I got up to head to my bedroom.
“Wait Jeet! I’ll come too” said Ramesh as he too got up and walked towards me and added “Good night all. Sweet Dreams Varun!” and winked back.
Harpreet, Ramesh and I had our rooms on the first floor, while Varun, Rachit, Saurav and Vikash lived on ground floor. We all moved to our rooms after wishing each other good night.
I went to my room, cleaned some mess that was lying on my bed and went to sleep. I had hardly slept when I heard a loud shout from ground floor. It was Varun crying out frantically. I initially thought I was hallucinating and tried to go to sleep again but then I heard him again. I got up, put on my shirt and rushed downstairs and on way I also met Ramesh who did not even cared to put on his shirt and rushed in his vest. When we reached Varun’s room we saw Varun sitting on the edge of his bed, his back to the wall, breathing heavily and carrying a horrified expression on his face. Vikash was sitting by his side looking sleepy and weary. Saurav and Rachit were standing nearby simply looking at Varun. Saurav was yawning while somehow Rachit looked fresh and he had got enough time to get his spectacles on. After a while Vikash asked “What happened, Varun?”
“Don’t talk to me. Please, don’t talk to me” yelled Varun, all the while having the most animated face and moving his head vigorously in to and fro motion.
Ramesh and I looked at each other, and to say the least, Ramesh looked irritated. Harpreet joined us soon. All of us were confused, as to why Varun was shouting. Even though he was Varun Shyamak, one always believed that there may be a limit to his weird activities, and then this whole thing looked like a mystery. His vocal cords may have just woken up the whole colony and now he wasn’t willing to talk. Harpreet picked up a bottle of water and passed it to Varun who gulped it down in no time. After some 5 minutes of utter confusion and heartburn Ramesh asked “Dude, what’s wrong?”
Varun looked fixedly out of the door for some fifteen seconds and said, “Well let’s go to sleep. Let us talk about this tomorrow.”
If I had a camera I would have captured everyone’s expressions at that precise moment. Everyone had a different expression to show the frustration. Saurav simply frowned and shrugged his shoulder and looked away. Ramesh looked as if he had just been robbed of some prized procession. I clenched my teeth and could feel my body get stiff with anger. Harpreet nostrils blew out a fume of anger and his eyes looked blood shot red and wide. Vikash simply placed his hand on his face and shook his face suggesting a “no, not again”. In all this Rachit had not forgot his sense of humour, he was desperately trying to hold back his laughter. He somehow managed to see the lighter side of everything, a quality which eludes majority of this world’s people.
After waiting some time Ramesh said “For fuck’s sake Varun, you woke all of us at …” he looked at wall clock and continued, “3 A.M. and now say you will talk about it tomorrow. Tell us what happened.”
“Seriously, you don’t want to hear it now” Varun replied.
“What is it? Tell us” I said.
Varun shivered slightly, he looked towards the door and after some 10 seconds said “Our house is haunted!!!”
When he heard this Rachit started laughing as if he got possessed by some witch craft and by god he laughed loudly. I don’t know what funny thing he found in ghosts but he continued “He He He He” despite all of us signaling him to keep quite. Saurav slightly pushed him and told “Shut up!” all the while trying desperately to hold back his laughter. Rachit paused, pulled a stool and sat down and to our horror started laughing again. He finally stopped after some 2 minutes. His laughter had suddenly lightened the environment. All of us were struggling to hold back our laughter. Ramesh had drawn his lips inside and curved his mouth slightly to cover his expressions.
After Rachit had stopped, Varun said “It’s not funny. I swear our house is haunted. It has ghosts of two girls.”
Suddenly Rachit started laughing again and this time even Vikash and Saurav can’t hold back. Harpreet was smiling, while Ramesh and I were chuckling silently. It continued for some time till Varun said again, “Guys, it is not funny. I swear there are two spirits in our house. Believe me, I saw two girls who came and were knocking my door and then they walked towards Vikash’s door and knocked them too” He shivered again and sweat beads were forming on his head.
“Were they hot?” Ramesh asked and Rachit was about to laugh again before Vikash gave us all a stern look and somehow Rachit controlled. Vikash then place his hand on Varun’s shoulder and said “You must have dreamt it”
“No I saw them. They were chit-chatting and laughing. One was tall and the other was short.” Varun said.
“Varun, in all fairness, why would the girls come to you and Vikash? Vikash is already married and you are well … Varun Shyamak, and also when there are people like me, Saurav and Jeet, already in the house. What say Jeet?” Ramesh winked and put out his knuckles towards me and even though he mentioned me last in list I still bumped my knuckles on it.
“Shut up!” Vikash told us and said “Varun, you must have dreamt. You are reading all these parascience journals for all past week. It has got cluttered up in your mind”
Parascience is a branch of study that aims to define the paranormal activities using scientific tools and techniques. Ghosts, spirits, witch-craft and black magic are some topics which have been beyond any human reasoning and logic. There are people who simply accept it, some simply deny it and then there are people who simply question it. The work of dealing with these was mostly left to mystics and godmen till the previous century, but then some scientists with the help of some research universities (Stanford University is believed to be the first one) decided to make a living out of it and thus started the study of these phenomenon sometimes in late 19th century. However many scientist still question the methods and basis of these research and even the status of parascience as science has also been disputed as there has been no conclusive evidence despite of over a century of research. But then people often find discussions over these activities very enchanting.
Over the past week Varun had got very much involved reading about parascience. He was picking up journals and web-postings of such experience and each day he will come to haunt us with a new scary story ranging from a unfinished love to a brutally killed young girl. He had once given us 10 ways in which one can see ghosts. None of us ever tried it. One of the weirdest ways however was the one he told for girls and he claimed that it always works and had been accepted by discovery channel as well. It was like “take a big mirror. Exactly at midnight, light the room with very very dim light. Light a candle in front of the mirror. Sit infornt of it and comb your hair and say three times "BLOODY MARY" while gazing into the mirror and u can see a girl with blooded clothes in it”. I asked many of my female friends to try it but none of them did. I once asked him “Why it is that only a few can see the ghost while some cannot?” and Varun gave us all a detailed explanation. He said “You see human sense organs are imperfect. We can see only certain frequencies”, he gave some more details about what frequencies we can see and what we cannot and added, “Now these paranormal sightings emit certain frequencies which our brain cannot decode. However with some people and in under some circumstances, as in some disease or abnormal condition our brain is able to see and decode these frequencies. Some people have trained their brain to decode these, while some parasychologists have certain equipments to measure these frequencies. There are ways by which you can train your brain to decode these”
I hated talk about waves and frequencies as these very concepts had almost stopped my degree but then that is getting away from the story. The point is Varun had for some reason got too much involved in this topic and now he was claiming that he has seen not one but two ghosts. I don’t know whether he had just managed to decode the frequencies or he was just hallucinating or he was simply doing this to attract attention. Knowing him any possibilities could not have been ruled out.
“Guys I did not dream. There are two spirits in our house” Varun was pleading.
“Ok! Let us talk about this tomorrow. I suggest we move on to our rooms. And Varun if you are still afraid, you can sleep with the lights on” Vikash suggested.
I wanted to ask “How come sleeping with lights on going to help. You can just see something more clearly with lights and I don’t think one will want to see ghosts more clearly” but I did not.
We moved back to our rooms to catch some sleep. It took some time for all of us to go to sleep. Even though it came from Varun Shyamak the idea of having two ghosts watching over your shoulders is a scary one. I don’t know when I managed to go to sleep but when I woke up to my harsh alarm clock my head was spinning and I had a strong desire to go to bed again. However, I got up and went to work but was unable to concentrate the whole day. But then it was a Friday, and no one noticed it. On a Friday everyone looks in a mood to not work. Some are plain tired after four grueling days; some are overwhelmed with the thought of a great weekend ahead, while some are grumpy as they might have to work in weekend. I don’t know which category I belonged to that day. May be I was just worried that this may be the beginning of another Varun drama and as it turned out I was not entirely wrong.
I hung around with some other colleagues for some time after the office and finally returned home around 9 P.M. only to find Varun sitting on his bed while others surrounded him. He was still looking scared and there seemed to be a heated conversation going on. I ignored them and went to my room changed and then came back and pulled a stool to sit besides Ramesh who was looking bored and disconnected. I asked him what had happened, and he said “Same old crap, this asshole is still saying he saw the apparitions and saw them again in early morning at around 4:30. Now he had also found out from neighbors that some 6 girls used to live in this house some 10 years ago. Two of them named Pinki and Preeti had died as a bus had rammed their scooty from behind while they were on way to work, following which others had left the house. Now he says that their spirits are in this house”
“When did you find out all this?” I asked Varun.
“Last week. I am telling you this house is haunted”
“Now that settles it. You found about this before you claimed to see them. You are just a victim of chemical imbalance bole to chemical locha of Lage Raho Munna Bhai. You have been thinking about this all long and then you’re over obsessed with paranormal activities. You just saw what you wanted to see.” I said
“No, I am telling you I did see them not once but twice.”
“FFS Varun, we are living in this house for almost a year now, and a lot of people have lived in this house in the meantime. Why do you think their spirits will come back all of a sudden to haunt us?” I said
“Maybe they were always there and we did not feel them. We might have felt them but our ignorance comes in way of fact. If your cup is always full and if you try to add a little more liquid into it, the liquid will leak out. To understand or learn something you first need to empty your cup. We would simply have thought that we are dreaming or hallucinating and slept. And you know I told you about imperfectness of our senses. First you need to get the doubts and pre conceived notions out of your mind to understand this.” Even though he was scared he was still at his intellectual and philosophical best.
“In that case ignorance is bliss. I would rather not understand something which makes me scared and miserable.” I said.
“Jeet I think what Varun is saying may be not totally baseless” said Saurav and added “Now that I learn it I realize how many times I have heard footsteps or my stuffs getting misplaced and sometimes I have even heard sounds of giggling and at times even sound of payal. But each time I dismissed it as some random noise coming from outside or to my dreams.” Said Gaurav
I had heard something called ‘mass hysteria’ but I believed it happened only with masses but now I was seeing a completely different picture. Till now we were happy in our house and in fact had a lot of fun in that apartment but now with a little knowledge people had turned apprehensive. Suddenly Rachit also said he had also heard all this and, probably for the first time since I had known him, Varun Shyamak had got a lot of support.
“Let’s go for a walk. We’ll talk it over.” Said Harpreet.
We went out for a walk. Varun was behaving erratically and Rachit and Saurav remained silent. I pulled Ramesh aside and asked “What is wrong with them? They are over reacting. I hope they don’t ask us to change the house.”
“Abe yar, even I don’t get it. We have lived here for so long. How come all of a sudden this?” he said.
“Varun has got hallucinating and now somehow he has got everyone believing stuff that might not even exist” Harpreet added.
I repeated Harpreet’s comment to Vikash, who was anyway about to vacate this house once he got his family in town. He said he had not felt anything but he could not rule out the possibilities.
We were back to square one when we reached home. I tried to talk them out of it “See guys, even if their spirits are there it is pretty sure that they don’t want to hurt us. We have lived here for almost a year and had the time of our life here. Nothing wrong has happened. So let’s just live as we used to” I knew this would not work and it did not. No one will like to live in a haunted house even if the ghost are that of Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln.
“No man! We never know whether they want to hurt us or not. It’s very risky to take a chance.” Varun said.
“Get your head out of your ass Varun. Just because of your baseless fear, you are willing to leave the apartment. And I don’t even believe that there is a ghost or rather two ghosts in our apartment.” Ramesh said.
“I am not saying that we leave the apartment, but we can at least work to get the spirits out of our house” said Varun.
“What? Are you serious? Varun, if the ghosts are there do you think you will go and say them to leave and they’ll leave” Ramesh said.
“They must be here for some purpose. If we can find that and do that for them they will leave the house and go to their world”
“First of all I don’t think there is any ghost in house, and then there is no way to find out” said Harpreet.
Varun looked around and said “Yes there is.”
“What?” I asked
He waited as if he wanted to have some build up to his answer. He looked out of window as if asking some divine answer and looked back and said, “PLANCHIT”
There was a moment of silence. Perhaps no one wanted to comment. Planchit or Planchette is a technique to interact with spirits. I had seen it in movies where some college kids try it out just for fun, lighting some candles, placing their fingers on a coin and chant something to call a spirit, finally spirit comes and coin starts moving. In each movie something goes wrong and tragedy follows.
Finally Saurav said, “No we are not doing that. It is very risky. I don’t want any black magic here”
“This is not black magic Saurav, it is science. I have read about it and I can do it if some of you help me” said Varun.
“No Varun! Saurav is right. It is very risky. Bad things can happen. I will not advise doing this.” Said Rachit and this time he did not laugh. I had not seen him serious any time before this.
“But guys, this is the only way out. We have to solve this problem, we just cannot wait and watch” Varun was not in a mood to let it go. I had a wild thought that Varun had conjured up all this just to make us do planchit but knowing him I didn’t think he could have strategized so much for it as he would simply had talked us into it. I was still not sure whether something was really wrong and to me it still seemed it was Varun’s figments of imagination, his tired brain was showing him what he wanted to see. Ideal thing to do would have been to take him to a psychiatrist, but now he had also infected Saurav and Rachit.
Saurav said “No. No such stuff here. Why don’t we just leave this house and look for another one? I am afraid and I am not ashamed to admit it. I don’t want to come in way of spirits” all the while he looked agitated, something which none of us had seen before. This idea of leaving the house led to one of the most bitter and biggest arguments our group had ever had. After some time I think we also lost track of time and space. While Harpreet, Ramesh and I were firm that there was nothing wrong in this house other three except Vikash, who was not willing to take sides, were convinced that house was haunted. I don’t know how long it went on when finally Harpreet said “Well let’s do it then. Let’s do the Planchit. Varun I will help you.”
There was some silence, following which Ramesh said, “Ya I’m with you too. What say Jeet?”
This question had left me stumped. I had no intention to get involved with spirits. I was afraid but admitting it was going against what I was standing for, and moreover it would not have gone with my ‘dare it all’ image which I had worked so hard to obtain. I was sure same was the case with Ramesh. Most people who are fearless are not actually fearless but just that they don’t want to show their fear to lesser mortals who look upon them. Rachit and Saurav had silently given their consent but they made it clear they will not be a part of it, but they will just sit and watch. And it was on…
Varun had now turned instructive. This was the moment I am sure he would have cherished. He had wanted this feeling of importance for a long time now. He wanted a moment when he can instruct us and we would actually listen to him. Many a time he had tried and failed, miserably, as whenever he had tried to overrule us in any field there would come out someone better than him in that. But now no one was interrupting him and he was continuing in a very serious and stern tone. As he went “Listen, this is a very high risk technique, so I need all of you to concentrate. Please don’t take it lightly as it may lead to something horrible. This act has to be performed between 1 A.M to 2 A.M as that is the time when air is at its calmest. Now its 12:00 A.M, so we can start in one hour. All we will need is few candles, a few incense sticks, a plain A4 (I don’t know why he mentioned A4) sheet of paper, and a coin. We can make the board only just before we start it. We need to cut down all light and close all doors and windows. No fans as the technique required absolute calmness of air. Is everything clear?”
“What will be on the paper?” Rachit asked.
“The paper will contain a circle in center, two circles marked “yes” and “no” on two sides of it. And then there will be segmented concentric circles which will contain all English alphabets and digits 0-9. Something like this” He went on to portray the design on a piece of paper.
“Hey what if the spirits are illiterate” said Ramesh and let out a laugh putting his fist out in a high-fi position towards Rachit, but he stopped almost instantly after realizing that no one was in mood of jokes and very quickly he put down his hands.
Varun continued, “Now there are three important facts to keep in mind. A)..”
“Seriously Varun, why the hell are you talking as a professor?” I don’t know why I interrupted him.
“This is important. A) Your concentration on this is very important. If ever your mind wanders to anything bad or evil, that’s it. You have to concentrate and only call the correct spirit.”
“How do you know the spirit is correct, it may just act to be correct” Ramesh again interrupted and though he made a valid point, he still laughed. Different people have different ways to deal with nerves and perhaps laughing aloud was his way.
“Please listen, this is important. B) Once the spirit comes, never ask the question as to how it died. This pisses them off”
“Oh man! Pissed off spirit!!!” Ramesh mocked and was about to laugh again but stopped as Harpreet and I gave him stern looks.
“And most important C) If you see the candle flicker, it is time to say good bye. Just don’t waste time and say good bye because it means the spirit has just got mad”
“But this can also happen due to air” finally Vikash had said something.
“No it can’t. Remember fan is off and all windows and doors are closed” Varun said and this time we had to agree.
“Let’s get started. We need to make a circle with candles at regular intervals and big enough to seat all of us inside it. One candle needs to be in the center. Also burn the incense sticks all around the room” Varun had suddenly seemingly lost all fear and looked rather enthusiastic. He was shouting instructions like an army chief now and for the first time we were actually following.
He drew a giant circle on the floor. He called it some name as in circle of something which I don’t remember. “We need to light some 8 candles and incense sticks are a must. Now listen to me carefully” he paused, and then after some haunting 20 seconds said, “Whatever happens, don’t leave the circle between the procedure, and also do not remove your finger from the coin.” He paused again and then said, “Any mistake can prove fatal” and then he gave a seriously comic pose of seriousness mixed with fear.
Well, I had been chased by cops for breaking traffic signal; I had been chased by dogs when I entered a protected area; I had sat behind Ramesh on a bike, but never ever in life before this I had felt this scared. I had just said a silent prayer, “Oh Bajrang Bali!!! (I don’t know why I chose his name), if I get out of this, I will live my life differently”, I also made a lot of other promises. Ramesh was nervous too as was evident from his 'out of context' laughters. “Where do we get candles and incense sticks from, I have one or two, but not so many.” said Harpreet. “Don’t worry, I have them” said Varun as he opened his cupboard and took out a packet containing all those stuff. Some piece of paper fell down; Harpreet picked it up and slipped it in his pocket after examining it. Varun slowly started placing candles at regular intervals and I could not help noticing that despite all of us being agitated he looked rather calm and composed, and I appreciated it at that time. Ramesh wanted to light the candles but Varun stopped him saying “No not now! Just before the act and after all lights are out. It is 12:30 now and we will start in another half an hour. Try to relax as we all need to concentrate very hard.”
“I will join you, I need to make a call” said Harpreet and left out. I wondered whom he wanted to call, his parents, his brother or a girl friend about whom we had not heard yet, but I did not ask him. I was feeling suffocated so I too took my leave and went to my room, washed my face and lay down for a while. I still did not want to do it but I could not pull back now as it would have made me a laughing stock for the time to come.
Finally I got up and went to Varun’s room. When I reached there the whole setting looked very gory. Lights were out and Ramesh and Varun were slowly lighting the candles. Harpreet joined us soon. Vikash, Rachit and Saurav were sitting a little away scared but interested none the less. Harpreet walked to them and said “If you are not doing it please don’t sit here. It may be risky. I just asked someone, people who are not in circle may get possessed. So you people go to first floor lock every door and window. Also, while we are doing it you may hear a lot of noises may be of some of us yelling and calling you, but remember, it is a mirage. Don’t even think about coming back here before morning”
They looked disappointed but still followed what Harpreet had said. Varun had finished setting up the candles and incense sticks and was working drawing symbols on a sheet of paper. Finally he said “Now enter the circle.” We were about to do it but Harpreet said “Wait! Varun, would you mind explaining this?” and he took out a piece of paper and passed it towards us. I took it and read it by getting it near the candle light and soon Ramesh joined too. We got it. Varun reluctantly came out of the circle and took a look and after getting it looked stumped. It was the bill of one dozen of candles and a packet of incense sticks, but the important part was it was dated a week back. Harpreet took Varun by his collars and lifted him slightly up and asked “You bastard! You set this up. Didn’t you? Just because you wanted to do this weird act you made this whole thing up.”
“What? Nooooo!!! I did not do it” said he.
“They why in the world did you buy so many candles in a city, where power seldom goes? A miser like you spending money on such stuff” Harpreet said.
“What? No! I just bought this for …” before he could complete Harpreet said “Shut up! Guess what! I just called Vijay and found out that in this house a family had lived for past 12 years, then it was occupied by some students for some 1 year and now we are here. No mention of girls.” Vijay was the son of house owner.
Varun was stammering now. A small piece of paper had brought down his empire. He was trying to come up with something convincing and said “He lied ..” but before he could complete Harpreet said "and I had asked about this from the neighbors’ son who FYI is an Engineering student and is awake till now"
Varun was running out of ideas and now out of a fit of depression said “I am not lying. I really saw th..” before he could complete I pulled his collars and landed a tight slap on his right cheek with my left fist. I don’t know what had happened to me as I repeated it two more times and said “You asshole!! Just because you wanted to practice this weird act you made this up. What the hell did you think, it is some kind of a game”
Ramesh had also had enough, he pulled him up by his hair and smashed his fist in his rib cage and followed it up by a series of resounding slaps on both his cheeks, all the while saying “You bitch, I will kill you today”. Varun’s horn rimmed spectacles had been thrown away. He shouted and I am sure others listened but no one dared come down as they had taken Harpreet’s warning seriously. Harpreet Singh may be a sardar but he was awesome with ideas like these. Varun finally freed himself from Ramesh’s grip who was bent on slapping the crap out of him and tried to run towards the door, but Harpreet stopped him and landed another slap on his face and this was probably the hardest and loudest one coming from a well over 6-feet and weighing around 100 Kgs sardar. Varun collapsed and fell down on the ground. Harpreet picked him up by his collars again and asked “Tell the truth or die” Harpreet’s face looked red with anger and his eyes burning with rage and Varun had no plans left. He said “Yes I made it up. I wanted to try this out but I needed at least 2 more to try this so I tried to talk you all into this. I am really very sorry”
As soon as he heard this Ramesh went berserk. He ran towards Varun and punched and slapped him multiple times. I finally had to pull him off Varun and he said “Asshole! Bastard! Just because of him we had a fight. What the fuck did he think he was trying?” He again freed himself from me and charged towards him and kicked Varun hard on his buttocks and I again had to pull him off.
Varun’s face looked aghast and tears rolled to his cheeks. He had made an excellent plan but just a small mistake had made it go all wrong. Had he just been careful enough to confirm some details and buy the candles on the same day, we might just have done the act and then things could have been completely different. But then Titanic was sunk by a small hole.
Next day we told the others that there we did call the spirits and they told that they came here just once in a year and have no intention of hurting us. Saurav called Varun, who had left early morning to spend weekend in his home town, and he confirmed that our house was no longer haunted. We lived there for another year before we all left the city and nothing remotely scary happened in that house again, in case you don’t count Varun Shyamak and his weird activities. Noone else came to find out what had happened on that night. They considered us their heroes for all that time, a fact which I am not sure I am really proud off.
Well I don’t know if ghosts and spirits do really exist but then I don’t really want to know. Just let’s say I am neutral about them. I have neither intention nor courage to dwell in this unknown world of paranormal activities. Perhaps it is just fitting that some things just remain a mystery which never gets unfolded.
Footnote: Never try Planchit. It is a dangerous act and need to be handled expertly. I have tried it and had a bad experience and I don’t want anyone else to try out. In case if you really need it get in touch of an expert.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Unforgettable Trip to Pondy --- Alok, Beer, Confusion and a Lesson
Hi All. Thanks for all the following you people had given me. A lot of you had taken time to read my story and replied back with comments or e-mails.
Well this story is not about Varun Shyamak, my favorite literary character. It has again been written in one night. Just going through my college photos when I went home in Holi, I saw a folder named Pondicherry and it reminded me of some weird incident that happened on that day. The story has been inspired from that incident, but then I am not a reality writer and I don’t want reality to spoil an interesting story. I have always maintained that never let truth come in way of an interesting story. So no characters are real here and all characters have been exaggerated to suit the story, so if any of my college friends read this, please treat this as a work of fiction, as otherwise you may end up finding many inconsistencies. So enjoy reading and give me your feedbacks
Danger can be fun at times. Rebelling against higher authority, breaking rules and making your way out of a troublesome situation created by none other than you and moreover escaping a trap and giving a piece of your mind to a person who dislikes you are some things that have an inherent attraction. Just that these little moments of indiscretion and a little slip-up here and there may just redefine your whole life, it can destroy careers, destroy lives and at times finish lives. But in case you manage to wriggle out of it unscathed, it becomes a memorable story.
A similar thing happened to our back-bencher group sometime into the middle of second year of our Engineering in Vellore Institute of Technology. Supposed to be an industry visit to give us some idea on how the industry works, it ended up being one of the most unforgettable days of our college life. It all required a set of confused faculty members, our group of nonchalant students, a girl bent on driving attention not of boys but of an old man sitting in the office of Coordinator of School of Computing Sciences, some beer and above all the tenacious and strategically brilliant display of leadership by my good friend Alok who managed to pull everyone out of trouble and in the meanwhile also had a sweet revenge, something, which I am sure of, he is still proud of.
Things were going normal before that fateful day for all of us back-benchers, Alok, Akshay, Begu(Amit Singh), Riks(Amit Agarwal), Devesh, Manjeet, Amitosh, Nishant, Captain(Amit Kumar), Anand and me(Abhishek). We went to college, bunked when possible, gave proxies of each other, were always late to classes, played computer games, watched movies, talked crap, slept a lot and studied as and when absolutely required. Off course, being back-benchers we didn’t have reputations to keep and all of us silently followed our goal while we also enjoyed life. In the coming time we will end up surprising all of those front row people who when they read this will be rubbing their wounds. Things could have changed drastically that day if it was not for Alok.
It all started when during the break between classes Alok came into the class and announced, “ This Wednesday, Mar 15, 2007, we will have an industry visit to Whirlpool factory located in Pondicherry. Please give me your names and 250 bucks if you are interested”. Lest you may get confused what branch of engineering we were studying, let me clarify, we were in Computer Science and Engineering and lest you may get more confused, what washing machine factory had to do with Computer Engineering, the answer is nothing, but this simple fact was never understood by our department but that is how that department worked and I’m sure still works with all incorrect people in incorrect places. Alok was our class representative and took this job very seriously. He may look weak and his frame may look of only skin and bones, but behind it lay a person with steely determination and extraordinary capability to get things done. He loved taking responsibility and he understood the difference between representative and leader. He was practical, he never idealized situation and always put others before himself. Unlike the other representatives who pushed for attention by being the idealists and acting a puppet into the hands of management, Alok simply got the attention and was a person highly popular without having to seriously try for it. None of us were really excited about the trip but still we decide to go as it might be the only time in college. The despos were highly excited with their prospects as our branch still had a lot of single girls, due to the fact as Riks used to say that all the best guys are back-benchers who don’t give them a damn. I still like to agree with him.
The trip was supposed to start 3 A.M. in the morning and three buses were booked. Smriti Tripathi, the Class rep. of other class had turned at her instructive best. She was shouting orders, giving behavioral guidelines and explaining how seeing washing machines being built will be helpful for soon to be software engineers.
“Make sure all of you when you reach there, move in line”
“Please, don’t smoke and don’t disappear to other place without informing faculty members.”
“Don’t laugh and talk loudly in the industry as it is the reputation of the college which is on stake. … bla …bla …bla …bla”
Alok disliked Smriti and he had his reasons. Smriti with her influence and reach had managed to alienate Alok from all important decision making process concerning event organizing and other such stuff. Despite being zero in these abilities as compared to Alok, she managed to become important by using her charm and beauty (only on some people’s scale) to attract influential persons. The college being situated in South India, she turned friendly with most influential South Indian students who were innocent enough to do all that she wanted and got nothing in return. Her closeness with some of important faculty members including the dean and event the program coordinator were exemplary. Most students who used their brains to think hated her, but this number was way too small in comparison who thought from one foot below the brain. However, Alok will have his revenge and she will finally be shown the door unceremoniously from the post of rep. in final year despite heroic efforts by program-manager himself but then that is another story.
We managed to reach the campus gate, where the buses were supposed to arrive, by 2:45 A.M on that day. Some people had pulled out their best clothes and looked like they were prepared to do a ramp walk. The buses were standing in a row. People were speculating as to which bus all the girls will go in and thus were reluctant to enter any bus and waited till girls arrived. Rohira was dressed like a peacock. He was wearing a red T-shirt with flowers on it, a blue faded pair of jeans with two skeletons drawn on the back pockets and a belt which had a large fan in place of buckle which somehow managed to ensure that his pants didn’t slip a little more low. Alok had said, “What if…. The fan starts rotating dude?”
We chose not to wait and we got into the last bus and all of us filled last couple of seats. After some 10 minutes a bus carrying girls arrived among a lot of cheers from a lot of guys. They got down looked here and there and then suddenly some girl entered our bus and others followed. Smrit entered last, and then began most humiliating 150 seconds of her life. Just as she entered she realized that Akshay was in that bus. Akshay was the guy whom most girls hated as he often got under their nerves with his witty and at times even indecent remarks. He let out a volley of very hilarious comments and also composed a funny song with help of Riks. Smriti realized her mistake. She got down went to the faculties and requested to change their bus as that bus had discipline problems and took all the girls to other bus, which was full of despos. They cheered as if they have won a war. We too hooted as we had won round 1. Alok gave a high-fi to Akshay and Riks, some others joined in and we had a good laugh. Some despos were sitting in front in our bus too. They felt infuriated. Ranjan especially looked devastated, but didn’t have the balls to say anything. Suddenly we realized that Anand and Devesh have disappeared silently and went to bus in which girls went. After the trip got over they were given a lesson but then that is also another story.
We were about to get started after a head count and an attendance, and with it started some confusion. The faculties assigned to the trip were inexperienced and all were given different directions from their seniors. There was some miscommunication regarding path to take and the timing and even which faculty gets into which bus. They kept on discussing for quite some time without any decision being made. All of us were getting impatient as the heat and humidity levels in Vellore were very high and sitting on a stranded bus was like sitting in a hot oven. Sweat was pouring and slowly all girls were beginning to look more ugly with the fading make up and thus they were turning impatient too. Captain had had enough and he got down and went towards the faculty. Captain had a strange urge to be the leader, and we all thought that he is going to get into trouble, but then Alok pulled him back in time. Then he went to the teachers and suggested his ideas. Smriti cut him short and gave some very impractical and idealistic ideas according to Alok. Well I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the ideas were and what the discussion even was, but however we started in another five minutes. Later Alok came and told us that the industry had given permission for only 100 students but there are 180 students on trip. As Alok told me that Smriti wanted to make it first come first serve basis, then she told make it on CGPA (knowing full well that it will eliminate most of our group). Alok had better idea, he suggested that once we reach Pondy make an announcement that whoever is not interested can go roam the city and come back by certain time and in most likeliness there won’t be more than a 100 left. Smriti however was not convinced, she had said “Some people will get drunk and misbehave with girls after that”, something which had never happened before that and never happened any time in those four years, but then somehow some girls seemed to have form an opinion about some of us as to our only motive in life was drinking and misbehaving with them, although there was no such precedent and now most of them only agree that they had wrong opinion of us. However, that is another story.
However, the faculty members finally took Alok’s advice and imposed one condition that no one informs that this had happened to any higher authority. The trip started, and every bus had a different journey experience. The despos had the time of their life singing and dancing, the other bus with mostly Andhra and TN people in that simply listened to songs and slept. In our bus we simply cracked jokes and planned what to do next, while some guys took a puff or two, and most of the time we slept through the journey. There were some more confusions in the way but was sorted out and we finally arrived at Pondy at 11:00 A.M.
Swathi Ma’am made the announcement that those who are not interested can go away but they must be back at same spot by 5 in the evening. Swathi Ma’am was one of the few faculty members who have earned the respect of all the students including all of us. Her fresh approach to teaching and her impartial ways along with her student friendly attitude had made her very popular among students. As soon as announcement was made the students started disappearing and in some time all left were all the despos and almost all the girls, except a few who chose to go away. Smriti’s face had turned red and she felt humiliated. Among us Alok, Anand, Manjeet and me were the ones who did not drink and chose to take our own path to city, Devesh chose to stay with the despos and go to the industry, while Akshay, Riks, Begu, Nishant, Captain and Amitosh chose to go the beach and have some drink and also catch a glimpse of skimpily dressed French girls on the beach of Pondicherry.
We were still uncertain of what to do. Anand wanted us to join the others to industry visit and so did Manjeet as he had already had one visit here before, while Alok and I wanted to go to some beach and also visit the local market place. We decided to discuss it over lunch and as we were about to finish the lunch when Alok got a call from Swathi Ma’am. He went out to talk and when he came back he said, “Smriti had informed Kalyan Raman (the class co-ordinator) of what has happened here on phone. He has instructed the faculty-members to call us all back and take us to industry while he will negotiate with Whirlpool people over the number. So we need to be back at the place by 1 P.M. She is a pain in the ass.”
“Whaaaaat the Fuckkkk!!! What’s her problem?” I said.
“She is such a bbb….”, before Anand could complete, Manjeet said, “So what do we do now?”
“Let’s go back. No other option” said Alok making a frown on his forehead.
“Ya, that’s right.” I said and added “Did you inform the others?”
“I called Akshay, he told that they can’t come by 1 as they have gone far and thus I told them to come to the industry directly. I will tell the faculty members that they could not be reached” said Alok. Alas! If that could be so easy!
We returned to the place by 12:45 P.M., slowly a lot of people started coming still fuming and pissed at Smriti at spoiling their plans. It had turned very hot and sun was beating down giving a burning sensation to the uncovered parts of the body. Smriti looked happy and content and she had an emphatic smile on her face. On seeing Akshay and others have still not returned, she started getting restless. She was seeing an opportunity of a life-time to get our friends expelled or at-least suspended. Alok and I were sitting on a footpath nearby. Suddenly she came to us, and asked “Where are your friends?”
We did not know whether the question was addressed to me or Alok so we simply looked at each other and turned our gaze away from her.
“What happened? Where are they?” She seemed irritated.
“They cannot come now. They will come directly at industry” Alok said.
“Why they can’t come now? What is such a big deal? They have come here for an Industry visit and they must be here.”
I wanted to say “Go mind your own business” but before that Alok said “I have informed this to Swathi Ma’am about this” and turned his gaze away. Alok had informed this to Swathi Ma’am and also convinced her that none of our friends name would go to the Dean. Smriti was getting all the more restless. She hung there for sometime looking at Alok for one instance and me the other but both of us kept silent. Frustrated, she went to one of the faculty members and told her the details. This person with some unpronounceable name was in his mid-twenties and may have just completed his education. He had no intention to get involved in such a situation, but since a girl had told him, he had to do something. He walked to us and asked Alok, “if they will take time we can wait for another half an hour”.
“No need Sir! I have told them to come to the industry and they may have already started, if they don’t come here then you can complain or do whatever you want.” Alok was just too good for him. He went back discussed something with Smriti who did not seem to agree, but still they once again decided to take Alok’s word. Smriti had just lost another round.
We reached to the industry around 3 P.M. and found that our friends have still not come. Alok was panicking now. He moved aside and made a call to Akshay. I could see his expression change suddenly and he looked concerned to say the least. After he had completed the call, he pulled Manjeet and me aside and told us “Goirala had met a minor accident. Akshay, Nishant and all had joined Ankan, Mrigang and Goirala on the beach and Goirala and Mrigang had drunk too much beer. Then they had hired a bike, which while driving Goirala had met a small accident. Mrigang had also drunk too much and he is lying and vomiting at the beach. No way, they can come here now and if they can’t they and also we are in trouble for supporting them.”
I was thinking what to say when Swathi Ma’am came to us from nowhere. She asked
“Where are they?”
“On the way. Stuck in traffic.” I lied.
“Make sure they are here at least before we leave from here” she instructed as she walked away.
Smriti had smelled something fishy. She walked to me and asked, “Is there any problem? Tell me, I can help” she said.
I was not to fall in this trap, “No, no problem. They are on the way, stuck in traffic.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Ya. Thanks for the concern.” I mocked but very subtly.
“Ok” She walked away.
“Let’s hope that this industry visit takes a long time, we will need every minute” said Alok.
As luck had it, a problem surfaced. As expected there was another goof up. The permission was for only hundred and Kalyan Raman had promised he will negotiate to get all the students in, a promise which he had failed to keep. Now the industry was willing to allow in only 100 to their campus.
Some faculty members were in negotiations with some industry people when Smriti started, “Since we already knew that this may happen let’s face it. Let’s 100 of us go in while others can wait outside. Let’s make it on a CGPA basis”
Alok had reached his combustion point. The sun was blazing and it was really hot at that place, he was already in tension and now this stupid theory of Smriti, even an angel could have lost it and Alok was only human. He broke out, “It’s because of you that these people have come here and now you say they can’t go in. Either all go or no-one goes”
“What can I do yar? I though it will be negotiated. Now that it hasn’t it will be better if at least some of us more deserving should go in” Smriti said.
“Oh great! And what is your scale of deservingness?” Alok was getting irritated.
“Let it be on CGPA basis. That’s the best scale”
“Oh so is it like the caste system? So higher castes can go in the temple and lower castes cannot, similarly, higher CGPAs can go in the industry and lower cannot.”
“Why are you…”
Before she could complete Alok fired “Shut up! Just shut up! Who the hell do you think you are that you are passing your judgments? Don’t forget you are just a student yourself and you have no right and no business to comment who deserves and who does not. You are just a representative of the class and not a representative of the college management. Who has given you the authority to decide what we all need to do? Better hold your tongue and if any decision is to be taken let the faculty members take it, if any announcement is to be made let them make it and not you.”
Smriti had just been given the dose of her life. Alok had just told her everything that every one of us wanted to say to her for a long time. A public chiding to her was Alok’s dream and finally he only fulfilled it. Most of students were delighted, they clapped and hooted. Gaurav Thaddani came to Alok and said “Well done dude!!! Keep it up” Swathi Ma’am was chuckling silently. Everyone whom Smriti considered her friend were either laughing or smiling silently except may be a few. Her beautiful eyes were filled with tears. One or two hot tears rolled down her cheeks which she quickly wiped off. I admit that had I not known her for past one and half years and if I was one of them who don’t think with their brains, I would have beaten the hell out of Alok for making her cry. Two of the male faculty members looked sympathetic but they didn’t dare reprimand Alok publicly as now suddenly he was the star of the show, but they had made a note in their diary to reprimand him whenever an opportunity arises which did not arise in future.
Now this incident remains to be a legend and people still talk about it. Alok is still proud of it and I feel Smriti still longs for revenge. But there was a small incident after that one which very few know. Smriti had been reprimanded; people had congratulated Alok and dispersed here and there. Alok was trying to reach Akshay or Nishant and I was standing there by myself not sure what to do. Smrit walked up to me that moment. Before this Smriti and I were on good terms even though we were not exactly friends. She looked straight at me and asked “Don’t you think having 100 people with higher CGPA’s in will be the best thing to do in such circumstances? Do you have any better suggestion?”
I don’t know, to this day, why she had walked up to me. Maybe she felt she could divide Alok and me, or maybe I being the one in our circle (only one as Riks and Ankan were away) who could make into the industry with my CGPA will support her theory. But, then I had had enough of her that day. I didn’t shout back, I simply replied “I have a better idea. You see a pit over there” I said and pointed a big pit probably used for dumping some industrial waste, and added, “shoot the 80 people whom you don’t want to take in and put them in that pit and then take the rest of them in.” I was walking away but she followed me and shouted right at my face “How arrogantly are you talking? How badly? Is this the way a second year Engineering student should talk to a girl?”
Now I don’t know whether it was a trick or she was serious but I just replied “Just go away. I don’t want to shout at you now. Just go off or let me be off” and walked away and after that day we did not talk to each other for quite some time and we talked only on the last day of college after this and that too was a simple “All the best” and “Good Bye”
Smriti stood there looking furious and finally walked to Anand and Ishaan who gave her a patient hearing but uncharacteristically chose to keep quiet after this.
But our problem was still not solved. The confusion had given us some time but the issue was far from over and now the wounded tigress in form of Smriti wanted revenge. One mistake and she would end up with the upper hand. Our friends were in trouble and there was no option seemingly available. One option was to take one of the faculty members into confidence and seek his help. But that would be too risky as most of them were very wary of management. Another way was to save our ass and tell them that we tried to contact them but we could not. But this was not what we wanted to do.
Suddenly Deepak Joshi came to us and asked Alok, “Alok, shouldn’t we ask them to go to the beach for some time. It’s no point coming to Pondy, having our lunch and going back. At least one hour there and then we can have our dinner there and go back.”
This was a Eureka moment. Alok had just found the way out. He went to Swathi Ma’am who meanwhile was busy negotiating the entry of 180 students into the campus and asked “Ma’am the students want to go to rock beach after the visit even for one hour. We had come here and just going back after lunch won’t be good. And you see every other branch which came here went to the beach. So please one hour.”
“Ok let me see.” She said. Smriti heard it but she was in no mood to go against the students’ wish once again. A few more guys joined and started requesting. Finally she said “Ok! But one hour only. We leave at 6:30 max.” Some students cheered while we just breathed a sigh of relief. Alok had once again become the hero of the masses.
Finally a deal was struck with the industry people and they allowed visit in two batches. First batch went into the industry at 4 and came by 4:30 P.M while the second batch went in and came back by 5:10 P.M... Manjeet, Alok and I did not go in. We contacted them and told them all to reach at the Rock beach by 6:15 sharp. As the beach was near to place where they were stuck, chance was optimal that they may make it. Before leaving for the beach Swathi Ma’am asked us “Where are your friends?”
“They were stuck in traffic, not getting a vehicle and so I told them to come to the beach. Don’t worry they will be there.” Alok affirmed though his face told different story. Smriti was just seeing a glimmer of hope. She smelled something fishy and she was alert.
We reached the beach by 5:45 P.M and clear instructions were given to leave latest by 7:00 P.M. While everyone joined the fun on the beach Manjeet, Alok and I stood near the bus making frantic calls to our friends who were always saying in the way. Our impatience grew every passing moment; all sort of negative thoughts were clouding our mind. We were hungry but did not feel like going for food. It was nothing short of the climax of a bollywood movie when they all arrived sharp at 6:50 P.M. Mrigang and Goirala were still under effect of alcohol. We pushed them on back seat and covered them with blankets. We covered the wounded face of Goirala with the blanket carefully and sprayed some deodorant to mask the smell of beer.
All the students slowly filled the bus by 7:10 P.M. Smriti came near our bus to confirm and looked hugely disappointed to see all of our friends have arrived. She was once again given an unceremonious see-off as Akshay once again let out a volley of hilarious remarks to send her off. Our hearts skipped a beat when one of the faculty members while taking attendance came very close to Goirala but then walked off without further inspection. As the buses started we allowed ourselves to let out a huge victory cry despite our tiredness.
We reached Vellore in 5 hours drive and we have just pushed ourselves to the tunnel and came back. It was a day that none of us will ever forget. We had given ourselves a lot of memories to laugh about in future and a big lesson to people like Smriti.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge ever since. But even today whenever I am reminded of this day I am filled with a sense of admiration for Alok. Putting your ass on line for protecting your friends even when you know they are wrong requires courage and resolve. Alok may not have won a war but he had saved many careers. The day, 15th of Mar 2007, on which we laugh and have fond memories may have had been a day we would have regretted our whole life had it not been for him. I haven’t met Alok and neither met Smriti after we passed out. But I’m sure wherever Alok is he is still proud of the fact that he moved Smriti to tears and wherever Smriti is she still longs for revenge for that day, if only life gives give her another chance. I just hope it never happens but if it does it would be another memorable story.
Well this story is not about Varun Shyamak, my favorite literary character. It has again been written in one night. Just going through my college photos when I went home in Holi, I saw a folder named Pondicherry and it reminded me of some weird incident that happened on that day. The story has been inspired from that incident, but then I am not a reality writer and I don’t want reality to spoil an interesting story. I have always maintained that never let truth come in way of an interesting story. So no characters are real here and all characters have been exaggerated to suit the story, so if any of my college friends read this, please treat this as a work of fiction, as otherwise you may end up finding many inconsistencies. So enjoy reading and give me your feedbacks
Danger can be fun at times. Rebelling against higher authority, breaking rules and making your way out of a troublesome situation created by none other than you and moreover escaping a trap and giving a piece of your mind to a person who dislikes you are some things that have an inherent attraction. Just that these little moments of indiscretion and a little slip-up here and there may just redefine your whole life, it can destroy careers, destroy lives and at times finish lives. But in case you manage to wriggle out of it unscathed, it becomes a memorable story.
A similar thing happened to our back-bencher group sometime into the middle of second year of our Engineering in Vellore Institute of Technology. Supposed to be an industry visit to give us some idea on how the industry works, it ended up being one of the most unforgettable days of our college life. It all required a set of confused faculty members, our group of nonchalant students, a girl bent on driving attention not of boys but of an old man sitting in the office of Coordinator of School of Computing Sciences, some beer and above all the tenacious and strategically brilliant display of leadership by my good friend Alok who managed to pull everyone out of trouble and in the meanwhile also had a sweet revenge, something, which I am sure of, he is still proud of.
Things were going normal before that fateful day for all of us back-benchers, Alok, Akshay, Begu(Amit Singh), Riks(Amit Agarwal), Devesh, Manjeet, Amitosh, Nishant, Captain(Amit Kumar), Anand and me(Abhishek). We went to college, bunked when possible, gave proxies of each other, were always late to classes, played computer games, watched movies, talked crap, slept a lot and studied as and when absolutely required. Off course, being back-benchers we didn’t have reputations to keep and all of us silently followed our goal while we also enjoyed life. In the coming time we will end up surprising all of those front row people who when they read this will be rubbing their wounds. Things could have changed drastically that day if it was not for Alok.
It all started when during the break between classes Alok came into the class and announced, “ This Wednesday, Mar 15, 2007, we will have an industry visit to Whirlpool factory located in Pondicherry. Please give me your names and 250 bucks if you are interested”. Lest you may get confused what branch of engineering we were studying, let me clarify, we were in Computer Science and Engineering and lest you may get more confused, what washing machine factory had to do with Computer Engineering, the answer is nothing, but this simple fact was never understood by our department but that is how that department worked and I’m sure still works with all incorrect people in incorrect places. Alok was our class representative and took this job very seriously. He may look weak and his frame may look of only skin and bones, but behind it lay a person with steely determination and extraordinary capability to get things done. He loved taking responsibility and he understood the difference between representative and leader. He was practical, he never idealized situation and always put others before himself. Unlike the other representatives who pushed for attention by being the idealists and acting a puppet into the hands of management, Alok simply got the attention and was a person highly popular without having to seriously try for it. None of us were really excited about the trip but still we decide to go as it might be the only time in college. The despos were highly excited with their prospects as our branch still had a lot of single girls, due to the fact as Riks used to say that all the best guys are back-benchers who don’t give them a damn. I still like to agree with him.
The trip was supposed to start 3 A.M. in the morning and three buses were booked. Smriti Tripathi, the Class rep. of other class had turned at her instructive best. She was shouting orders, giving behavioral guidelines and explaining how seeing washing machines being built will be helpful for soon to be software engineers.
“Make sure all of you when you reach there, move in line”
“Please, don’t smoke and don’t disappear to other place without informing faculty members.”
“Don’t laugh and talk loudly in the industry as it is the reputation of the college which is on stake. … bla …bla …bla …bla”
Alok disliked Smriti and he had his reasons. Smriti with her influence and reach had managed to alienate Alok from all important decision making process concerning event organizing and other such stuff. Despite being zero in these abilities as compared to Alok, she managed to become important by using her charm and beauty (only on some people’s scale) to attract influential persons. The college being situated in South India, she turned friendly with most influential South Indian students who were innocent enough to do all that she wanted and got nothing in return. Her closeness with some of important faculty members including the dean and event the program coordinator were exemplary. Most students who used their brains to think hated her, but this number was way too small in comparison who thought from one foot below the brain. However, Alok will have his revenge and she will finally be shown the door unceremoniously from the post of rep. in final year despite heroic efforts by program-manager himself but then that is another story.
We managed to reach the campus gate, where the buses were supposed to arrive, by 2:45 A.M on that day. Some people had pulled out their best clothes and looked like they were prepared to do a ramp walk. The buses were standing in a row. People were speculating as to which bus all the girls will go in and thus were reluctant to enter any bus and waited till girls arrived. Rohira was dressed like a peacock. He was wearing a red T-shirt with flowers on it, a blue faded pair of jeans with two skeletons drawn on the back pockets and a belt which had a large fan in place of buckle which somehow managed to ensure that his pants didn’t slip a little more low. Alok had said, “What if…. The fan starts rotating dude?”
We chose not to wait and we got into the last bus and all of us filled last couple of seats. After some 10 minutes a bus carrying girls arrived among a lot of cheers from a lot of guys. They got down looked here and there and then suddenly some girl entered our bus and others followed. Smrit entered last, and then began most humiliating 150 seconds of her life. Just as she entered she realized that Akshay was in that bus. Akshay was the guy whom most girls hated as he often got under their nerves with his witty and at times even indecent remarks. He let out a volley of very hilarious comments and also composed a funny song with help of Riks. Smriti realized her mistake. She got down went to the faculties and requested to change their bus as that bus had discipline problems and took all the girls to other bus, which was full of despos. They cheered as if they have won a war. We too hooted as we had won round 1. Alok gave a high-fi to Akshay and Riks, some others joined in and we had a good laugh. Some despos were sitting in front in our bus too. They felt infuriated. Ranjan especially looked devastated, but didn’t have the balls to say anything. Suddenly we realized that Anand and Devesh have disappeared silently and went to bus in which girls went. After the trip got over they were given a lesson but then that is also another story.
We were about to get started after a head count and an attendance, and with it started some confusion. The faculties assigned to the trip were inexperienced and all were given different directions from their seniors. There was some miscommunication regarding path to take and the timing and even which faculty gets into which bus. They kept on discussing for quite some time without any decision being made. All of us were getting impatient as the heat and humidity levels in Vellore were very high and sitting on a stranded bus was like sitting in a hot oven. Sweat was pouring and slowly all girls were beginning to look more ugly with the fading make up and thus they were turning impatient too. Captain had had enough and he got down and went towards the faculty. Captain had a strange urge to be the leader, and we all thought that he is going to get into trouble, but then Alok pulled him back in time. Then he went to the teachers and suggested his ideas. Smriti cut him short and gave some very impractical and idealistic ideas according to Alok. Well I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the ideas were and what the discussion even was, but however we started in another five minutes. Later Alok came and told us that the industry had given permission for only 100 students but there are 180 students on trip. As Alok told me that Smriti wanted to make it first come first serve basis, then she told make it on CGPA (knowing full well that it will eliminate most of our group). Alok had better idea, he suggested that once we reach Pondy make an announcement that whoever is not interested can go roam the city and come back by certain time and in most likeliness there won’t be more than a 100 left. Smriti however was not convinced, she had said “Some people will get drunk and misbehave with girls after that”, something which had never happened before that and never happened any time in those four years, but then somehow some girls seemed to have form an opinion about some of us as to our only motive in life was drinking and misbehaving with them, although there was no such precedent and now most of them only agree that they had wrong opinion of us. However, that is another story.
However, the faculty members finally took Alok’s advice and imposed one condition that no one informs that this had happened to any higher authority. The trip started, and every bus had a different journey experience. The despos had the time of their life singing and dancing, the other bus with mostly Andhra and TN people in that simply listened to songs and slept. In our bus we simply cracked jokes and planned what to do next, while some guys took a puff or two, and most of the time we slept through the journey. There were some more confusions in the way but was sorted out and we finally arrived at Pondy at 11:00 A.M.
Swathi Ma’am made the announcement that those who are not interested can go away but they must be back at same spot by 5 in the evening. Swathi Ma’am was one of the few faculty members who have earned the respect of all the students including all of us. Her fresh approach to teaching and her impartial ways along with her student friendly attitude had made her very popular among students. As soon as announcement was made the students started disappearing and in some time all left were all the despos and almost all the girls, except a few who chose to go away. Smriti’s face had turned red and she felt humiliated. Among us Alok, Anand, Manjeet and me were the ones who did not drink and chose to take our own path to city, Devesh chose to stay with the despos and go to the industry, while Akshay, Riks, Begu, Nishant, Captain and Amitosh chose to go the beach and have some drink and also catch a glimpse of skimpily dressed French girls on the beach of Pondicherry.
We were still uncertain of what to do. Anand wanted us to join the others to industry visit and so did Manjeet as he had already had one visit here before, while Alok and I wanted to go to some beach and also visit the local market place. We decided to discuss it over lunch and as we were about to finish the lunch when Alok got a call from Swathi Ma’am. He went out to talk and when he came back he said, “Smriti had informed Kalyan Raman (the class co-ordinator) of what has happened here on phone. He has instructed the faculty-members to call us all back and take us to industry while he will negotiate with Whirlpool people over the number. So we need to be back at the place by 1 P.M. She is a pain in the ass.”
“Whaaaaat the Fuckkkk!!! What’s her problem?” I said.
“She is such a bbb….”, before Anand could complete, Manjeet said, “So what do we do now?”
“Let’s go back. No other option” said Alok making a frown on his forehead.
“Ya, that’s right.” I said and added “Did you inform the others?”
“I called Akshay, he told that they can’t come by 1 as they have gone far and thus I told them to come to the industry directly. I will tell the faculty members that they could not be reached” said Alok. Alas! If that could be so easy!
We returned to the place by 12:45 P.M., slowly a lot of people started coming still fuming and pissed at Smriti at spoiling their plans. It had turned very hot and sun was beating down giving a burning sensation to the uncovered parts of the body. Smriti looked happy and content and she had an emphatic smile on her face. On seeing Akshay and others have still not returned, she started getting restless. She was seeing an opportunity of a life-time to get our friends expelled or at-least suspended. Alok and I were sitting on a footpath nearby. Suddenly she came to us, and asked “Where are your friends?”
We did not know whether the question was addressed to me or Alok so we simply looked at each other and turned our gaze away from her.
“What happened? Where are they?” She seemed irritated.
“They cannot come now. They will come directly at industry” Alok said.
“Why they can’t come now? What is such a big deal? They have come here for an Industry visit and they must be here.”
I wanted to say “Go mind your own business” but before that Alok said “I have informed this to Swathi Ma’am about this” and turned his gaze away. Alok had informed this to Swathi Ma’am and also convinced her that none of our friends name would go to the Dean. Smriti was getting all the more restless. She hung there for sometime looking at Alok for one instance and me the other but both of us kept silent. Frustrated, she went to one of the faculty members and told her the details. This person with some unpronounceable name was in his mid-twenties and may have just completed his education. He had no intention to get involved in such a situation, but since a girl had told him, he had to do something. He walked to us and asked Alok, “if they will take time we can wait for another half an hour”.
“No need Sir! I have told them to come to the industry and they may have already started, if they don’t come here then you can complain or do whatever you want.” Alok was just too good for him. He went back discussed something with Smriti who did not seem to agree, but still they once again decided to take Alok’s word. Smriti had just lost another round.
We reached to the industry around 3 P.M. and found that our friends have still not come. Alok was panicking now. He moved aside and made a call to Akshay. I could see his expression change suddenly and he looked concerned to say the least. After he had completed the call, he pulled Manjeet and me aside and told us “Goirala had met a minor accident. Akshay, Nishant and all had joined Ankan, Mrigang and Goirala on the beach and Goirala and Mrigang had drunk too much beer. Then they had hired a bike, which while driving Goirala had met a small accident. Mrigang had also drunk too much and he is lying and vomiting at the beach. No way, they can come here now and if they can’t they and also we are in trouble for supporting them.”
I was thinking what to say when Swathi Ma’am came to us from nowhere. She asked
“Where are they?”
“On the way. Stuck in traffic.” I lied.
“Make sure they are here at least before we leave from here” she instructed as she walked away.
Smriti had smelled something fishy. She walked to me and asked, “Is there any problem? Tell me, I can help” she said.
I was not to fall in this trap, “No, no problem. They are on the way, stuck in traffic.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Ya. Thanks for the concern.” I mocked but very subtly.
“Ok” She walked away.
“Let’s hope that this industry visit takes a long time, we will need every minute” said Alok.
As luck had it, a problem surfaced. As expected there was another goof up. The permission was for only hundred and Kalyan Raman had promised he will negotiate to get all the students in, a promise which he had failed to keep. Now the industry was willing to allow in only 100 to their campus.
Some faculty members were in negotiations with some industry people when Smriti started, “Since we already knew that this may happen let’s face it. Let’s 100 of us go in while others can wait outside. Let’s make it on a CGPA basis”
Alok had reached his combustion point. The sun was blazing and it was really hot at that place, he was already in tension and now this stupid theory of Smriti, even an angel could have lost it and Alok was only human. He broke out, “It’s because of you that these people have come here and now you say they can’t go in. Either all go or no-one goes”
“What can I do yar? I though it will be negotiated. Now that it hasn’t it will be better if at least some of us more deserving should go in” Smriti said.
“Oh great! And what is your scale of deservingness?” Alok was getting irritated.
“Let it be on CGPA basis. That’s the best scale”
“Oh so is it like the caste system? So higher castes can go in the temple and lower castes cannot, similarly, higher CGPAs can go in the industry and lower cannot.”
“Why are you…”
Before she could complete Alok fired “Shut up! Just shut up! Who the hell do you think you are that you are passing your judgments? Don’t forget you are just a student yourself and you have no right and no business to comment who deserves and who does not. You are just a representative of the class and not a representative of the college management. Who has given you the authority to decide what we all need to do? Better hold your tongue and if any decision is to be taken let the faculty members take it, if any announcement is to be made let them make it and not you.”
Smriti had just been given the dose of her life. Alok had just told her everything that every one of us wanted to say to her for a long time. A public chiding to her was Alok’s dream and finally he only fulfilled it. Most of students were delighted, they clapped and hooted. Gaurav Thaddani came to Alok and said “Well done dude!!! Keep it up” Swathi Ma’am was chuckling silently. Everyone whom Smriti considered her friend were either laughing or smiling silently except may be a few. Her beautiful eyes were filled with tears. One or two hot tears rolled down her cheeks which she quickly wiped off. I admit that had I not known her for past one and half years and if I was one of them who don’t think with their brains, I would have beaten the hell out of Alok for making her cry. Two of the male faculty members looked sympathetic but they didn’t dare reprimand Alok publicly as now suddenly he was the star of the show, but they had made a note in their diary to reprimand him whenever an opportunity arises which did not arise in future.
Now this incident remains to be a legend and people still talk about it. Alok is still proud of it and I feel Smriti still longs for revenge. But there was a small incident after that one which very few know. Smriti had been reprimanded; people had congratulated Alok and dispersed here and there. Alok was trying to reach Akshay or Nishant and I was standing there by myself not sure what to do. Smrit walked up to me that moment. Before this Smriti and I were on good terms even though we were not exactly friends. She looked straight at me and asked “Don’t you think having 100 people with higher CGPA’s in will be the best thing to do in such circumstances? Do you have any better suggestion?”
I don’t know, to this day, why she had walked up to me. Maybe she felt she could divide Alok and me, or maybe I being the one in our circle (only one as Riks and Ankan were away) who could make into the industry with my CGPA will support her theory. But, then I had had enough of her that day. I didn’t shout back, I simply replied “I have a better idea. You see a pit over there” I said and pointed a big pit probably used for dumping some industrial waste, and added, “shoot the 80 people whom you don’t want to take in and put them in that pit and then take the rest of them in.” I was walking away but she followed me and shouted right at my face “How arrogantly are you talking? How badly? Is this the way a second year Engineering student should talk to a girl?”
Now I don’t know whether it was a trick or she was serious but I just replied “Just go away. I don’t want to shout at you now. Just go off or let me be off” and walked away and after that day we did not talk to each other for quite some time and we talked only on the last day of college after this and that too was a simple “All the best” and “Good Bye”
Smriti stood there looking furious and finally walked to Anand and Ishaan who gave her a patient hearing but uncharacteristically chose to keep quiet after this.
But our problem was still not solved. The confusion had given us some time but the issue was far from over and now the wounded tigress in form of Smriti wanted revenge. One mistake and she would end up with the upper hand. Our friends were in trouble and there was no option seemingly available. One option was to take one of the faculty members into confidence and seek his help. But that would be too risky as most of them were very wary of management. Another way was to save our ass and tell them that we tried to contact them but we could not. But this was not what we wanted to do.
Suddenly Deepak Joshi came to us and asked Alok, “Alok, shouldn’t we ask them to go to the beach for some time. It’s no point coming to Pondy, having our lunch and going back. At least one hour there and then we can have our dinner there and go back.”
This was a Eureka moment. Alok had just found the way out. He went to Swathi Ma’am who meanwhile was busy negotiating the entry of 180 students into the campus and asked “Ma’am the students want to go to rock beach after the visit even for one hour. We had come here and just going back after lunch won’t be good. And you see every other branch which came here went to the beach. So please one hour.”
“Ok let me see.” She said. Smriti heard it but she was in no mood to go against the students’ wish once again. A few more guys joined and started requesting. Finally she said “Ok! But one hour only. We leave at 6:30 max.” Some students cheered while we just breathed a sigh of relief. Alok had once again become the hero of the masses.
Finally a deal was struck with the industry people and they allowed visit in two batches. First batch went into the industry at 4 and came by 4:30 P.M while the second batch went in and came back by 5:10 P.M... Manjeet, Alok and I did not go in. We contacted them and told them all to reach at the Rock beach by 6:15 sharp. As the beach was near to place where they were stuck, chance was optimal that they may make it. Before leaving for the beach Swathi Ma’am asked us “Where are your friends?”
“They were stuck in traffic, not getting a vehicle and so I told them to come to the beach. Don’t worry they will be there.” Alok affirmed though his face told different story. Smriti was just seeing a glimmer of hope. She smelled something fishy and she was alert.
We reached the beach by 5:45 P.M and clear instructions were given to leave latest by 7:00 P.M. While everyone joined the fun on the beach Manjeet, Alok and I stood near the bus making frantic calls to our friends who were always saying in the way. Our impatience grew every passing moment; all sort of negative thoughts were clouding our mind. We were hungry but did not feel like going for food. It was nothing short of the climax of a bollywood movie when they all arrived sharp at 6:50 P.M. Mrigang and Goirala were still under effect of alcohol. We pushed them on back seat and covered them with blankets. We covered the wounded face of Goirala with the blanket carefully and sprayed some deodorant to mask the smell of beer.
All the students slowly filled the bus by 7:10 P.M. Smriti came near our bus to confirm and looked hugely disappointed to see all of our friends have arrived. She was once again given an unceremonious see-off as Akshay once again let out a volley of hilarious remarks to send her off. Our hearts skipped a beat when one of the faculty members while taking attendance came very close to Goirala but then walked off without further inspection. As the buses started we allowed ourselves to let out a huge victory cry despite our tiredness.
We reached Vellore in 5 hours drive and we have just pushed ourselves to the tunnel and came back. It was a day that none of us will ever forget. We had given ourselves a lot of memories to laugh about in future and a big lesson to people like Smriti.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge ever since. But even today whenever I am reminded of this day I am filled with a sense of admiration for Alok. Putting your ass on line for protecting your friends even when you know they are wrong requires courage and resolve. Alok may not have won a war but he had saved many careers. The day, 15th of Mar 2007, on which we laugh and have fond memories may have had been a day we would have regretted our whole life had it not been for him. I haven’t met Alok and neither met Smriti after we passed out. But I’m sure wherever Alok is he is still proud of the fact that he moved Smriti to tears and wherever Smriti is she still longs for revenge for that day, if only life gives give her another chance. I just hope it never happens but if it does it would be another memorable story.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Check out Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar
Title: Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=-257432413361779920231
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=-257432413361779920231
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Varun Shyamak and his Theory of Job Satisfaction
Hi all. This one comes after a long time and has been written in only one night. I got a response from a lot of you that you will like to read a lot more of Varun Shyamak and the other characters. However, this story is completely an independent story but with same characters. Still I would like you to read the story http://bakwaswani.blogspot.com/2009/10/there-are-strange-people-then-there-are.html to know the characters better.
Many of us has a philosopher inside us and love to give a lecture now and then, but with Varun Shyamak things can only get weird when he decides to philosophize job satisfaction and theory of Happiness. Well this is a more of a spontaneous story that I have written so there may be a few mistakes here and there, but I still hope you will like reading it.
Also I would like to thank all of you who read the last story which was one of the most challenging piece I had written. Before you read this piece I will appreciate if you cast your vote in the poll I have created which you can see on the right hand side of the blog.
Waiting for your comments.
“What do you know about frogs?” Varun asked me.
“Frogs?” I repeated. I had no idea, why I listened to Varun or so as to why do I even hang out with him.
“Yes, Frogs. You know if you take some water out of a pond in which frog lives and put it in a jar and place the frog in it, what happens? The frog will happily live in it, even as you slowly start heating the water. It will not retaliate and it won’t try to jump out. Slowly the water will start boiling and still the frog won’t jump out. And finally it dies fat and happy. Interestingly if you had placed the same frog in already boiling water it would have straightaway jumped out and escaped.” Varun explained. This was Varun at his philosophical best. Off course this line might not has been his own but from one of the numerous magazines that he had read.
“So?” I asked.
“So I want to say that even we are a little like the frog. I mean most of the time we don’t realize that we are in the jar and we smartly develop an attitude of adjustment, and before we realize our lives are messed.” Varun was disturbed and mentally unstable, but it was totally understandable. If someone has to work from 6 A.M. in morning to 6 P.M. in the evening and add to that the office being on other end of the city which takes 2 hours to commute, even an angel would have turned grouse and Varun was no angel. Add to that the sleep deprivation and excessive pornography and you have a perfect recipe for insanity which Varun Shyamak was. “Just look at us. We all are stuck in jobs that we don’t like, we are away from our families and living in a real mess but we have just got so accommodating that we happily accept it. We are not really happy.”
“Yes. Right.” Said Rachit, but this was more out of a habit rather than agreement. Rachit had a habit of saying yes to anything without thinking. He would say “no” only to plans of a fun weekend or to a better dinner that would make him move his ass out of the building and more often than not it was only because of him our plans would get rachited. He was a geek in his domain but outside it he was just someone who either had no opinions or never wanted to express his opinion. If you say him Domino’s is way better than Pizza Hut he would say “Yes. It really is” and just then someone would walk in and say Domino’s Pizzas taste like chapattis in comparison to Pizza Hut he would again say “YES!!!! Dominos Pizza is really bad.” Someone had once told me that people who always agree to everyone are really dangerous for they are masters at manipulating people and will often end up getting everybody to do what he or she wants. It didn’t seem to apply at all to Rachit but slowly as we started hanging out together more, I had silently realized that the advice was totally right for I had often seen all of us landing in exactly the same restaurant or movie which he wanted despite the fact that the initial verdict for that place being 1:9 and what was more surprising that no one would ever notice it.
“I think you are going overboard with it Varun. It’s true that we don’t like working but then you don’t need to like your work for after all it is work. It doesn’t really matter that how much you like your job as long as you are good at it and if they pay you well, I think it is fine. At the end of the day you have to do some work to earn a living even if it is not to your liking.” Vikash explained. Vikash had started his career as a lecturer in an Engineering college and had moved to corporate world very recently, but he still loved to give a lecture now or then.
“Yes! That is right Vikash Bhaiya” Rachit said. In my opinion Rachit had the most satisfying job among us, but still he didn’t seem to be happy with it. He was working for Intel and was into chip design, something which is a dream for every two out of three computer engineers. But for him his problem was nostalgia, rather than a dissatisfying job. Being a Mommy’s boy staying away from the family was haunting him and though slowly he had resigned to his fate, he still wished to go back.
Ramesh had just walked in. The clock showed 8 P.M. and this being a Friday night all of us were quite relaxed. Ramesh pulled a stool and sat beside me. Rachit sat down on Vikash’s bed with Vikash leaning on his pillow at 45 degrees. Saurav was standing by the wash basin preparing to shave and has been uncharacteristically quiet till then. “What are we talking about Abhijeet?” Ramesh asked. I narrated him the story of the Varun and the metaphorical frog. Strangely none of us remembered why we started discussing this out of the blue.
“Seriously yar! We are not totally happy with our lives; we just go on accommodating with it. Recently there was a study to find out which are the world’s happiest countries and India was as low as 71, while some really small country Vantau was number 1.” Varun was not letting it go.
“Ok! So what is the great Varun’s definition of Happiness?” I had had enough of his speech.
“Happiness in my view is living the life on your own terms. If you do what you want to do and not what you are supposed to do, then you will be happy with life. What say Rachit?” Varun continued.
“Yes. You are right.” Rachit said.
“This is the most ridiculous definition of happiness I have ever heard. You are linking job satisfaction with happiness? This is insane. There are millions of people in the world doing menial jobs, many are unemployed, many of us don’t exactly end up getting what we truly deserve and according to your definition no one is happy.” I couldn’t take it longer.
“Yes! Right” Rachit repeated.
“Shut the fuck up” I shouted at Rachit. “Do you ever cross anyone? Why are you so much in love with being so diplomatic?”
Rachit started laughing without any reason and continued for some time. Very few people knew that Rachit was a white collared criminal. He would make fun of everyone behind him but in front of him he would be a sage. I bet if at that time I had told Varun that Rachit once told us that Varun eats like a rabbit Varun would never have believed me.
“No I am not saying Job satisfaction is only prerequisite of happiness but….” Before Varun could finish, Ramesh shouted, “Shut up! Enough of the frog and rabbit metaphors. You know you are sick. You just want importance and this is why you want to sound intellectual. Just because you think you are not happy with your life, you want to make sure that everyone else starts feeling so.”
Well, Ramesh was right. Varun Shayamak wanted everyone to be like him. He had bouts of depression which he tried to cover up by making everybody feel miserable or by turning into an intellectual philosopher and then he had this never say die attitude no matter how much stupid it gets.
He was still not willing to lose this conversation, so he still continued “It is not only about me. Are you people happy with your lives? What say Jeet?”
“Of Course, I am” I said, “I work for one of my dream companies even though I don’t quite love the work I do, I get a good salary. I have a girlfriend who though not exactly hot, is very beautiful and I have parents who understand me. What more do you want to be happy?”
“But, what about your dream project? Your plan to change the world and to make this world a better place. And what about you Ramesh? You wanted to be the opening batsman for Indian team? Now are you really happy working for a Bank?” Varun said shaking his head to and fro in simple harmonic motion aka the Simple Pendulum we studied in school. Varun for some reason had decided to get under our nerves that day, and he is sort of person who only has a start button, and there are no buttons for pause or stop, and the only way to stop him is to pull the plug.
Saurav did exactly that. “Let’s leave it for later. Let’s go out for dinner tonight. How about Pizza Hut?” Saurav said. He had carefully chosen the expensive hotel knowing full well that Varun, the miser will defeat Varun, the philosopher.
“Ya. Let’s go” I said getting up and Ramesh followed suit. Vikash sir also agreed.
Varun looked crestfallen. He looked out of the window for 10 seconds, smiled at some strange object for some time and then added “Well let’s go to U.S. Pizza no. At the same price you can have more Pizzas.”
“Yes. U.S. Pizza is also near. It has also started Pizza buffet. Pizza Hut is very far. Too much of a walk.” Rachit said. Now, one fact that often went unnoticed was that if Varun rated 9.9 out of 10 in miser rating scale, Rachit was also around 9.88 but he very subtly managed to cover it in a veil of laziness and nerdity. Very few people noticed that Varun despite being proclaimed miser always ate outside more than once a week, the same being more than a month for Rachit and Varun may had had watched more movies than Rachit. Finally decision was made. All of us, except Rachit and Varun, left for Pizza Hut while leaving them to go for cheap Pizzas, which we even doubted they would.
While walking to Pizza Hut Saurav asked, “Why do you people even get into argument with him? This guy is a jerk, he should be ignored.”
“I don’t know why I do it or why do I even hang out with him.” I said.
“Same here” Said Ramesh.
“However the example of frog in boiling water was classic” Vikash said.
“Totally!!!!” I replied.
“What about Harpreet? Haven’t seen him tonight.” Saurav asked.
“He was in room man. His job sucks big time. He had to make some presentation and thus is working whole nights.” Ramesh replied.
“Then maybe, Varun should have approached him with his Shayamakian school of Happiness” I added.
“Exactly!!!” Vikash added.
We cracked some more jokes as we went to Pizza Hut, had some Pizzas roamed around in the mall some time and returned to home around 10:30 P.M. We did not find Rachit and Varun and we were surprised that they actually went.
“Strange. Varun actually did go.” I said.
“Maybe he remembered the hot waitress at U.S. Pizza” Ramesh winked.
“Anyone wants to watch a movie? I have some CDs” Saurav said as he passed us a bag of CDs. We were checking the CDs when my cell rang. It was Rachit. I picked up “Hey!” I said
“Where are you?” he asked, as I heard a lot of noise in the background.
“We are at home. Why?”
“Come to U.S. Pizza. Fast”
“Why? What Happened?”
“Varun Shayamak and his job satisfaction theory. Come fast I will explain you here” he hung up.
“Let’s go. Emergency” I told all. We rushed to U.S. Pizza only to find a lot of people surrounding some table. I asked one of them what had happened. That man, well in his fifties, gave me a ‘you young people’ look and told “Someone misbehaved with waitress”
“What?” we all called together. Well Varun was desperate but we could not believe he could have done this. We forced ourselves through the crowd, to see Varun being manhandled by two waiters, his shirt spoilt with salad and Rachit standing at a little distance and to our amazement he was inconsolably laughing.
I approached him and brought him to the side and asked “What happened?”
“He He He He He……” he went on laughing.
Ramesh pressed his neck and told “What happened? Tell us.”
“He asked the waitress… He He He He”
“What did he ask?” Saurav asked.
“Are you satisfied… Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
“Then. Whats’ with that?” I asked.
“He kept staring at her….ha ha ha ha….at her….ha ha ha ha” we understood and he added “and asked ‘Are you SATIS…FIED ... haaahaahaahaaa…all the while staring at her….ha haha ha he he he he. She smashed the salad bowl on his … ha ha ha ha …head..he he he he” he continued to laugh.
I had to do something. I and Ramesh went to the waiters and asked one of them what has happened. He recounted what Rachit had already told us and they told that they are going to call the police. Varun said “Are yar, I just asked …” before he could finish, I took him up by his collars and said, “Shut up! Is this the way to talk to a lady? She is doing a job here” and I gave a sympathetic look to the hot waitress standing in the corner with her beautiful eyes moistened. “Go and apologize” I pushed him.
“But…”
“Shut up” Ramesh shouted, “Just do as he says” and he pushed him again
“Just apologize and run from that door, run as fast as you can and don’t stop before you reach home”, I whispered in his ears as we pushed him to the waitress.
Varun went near her, looked as far as possible from her and said, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and then he suddenly ran and by god, he ran fast. He disappeared in moments.
Ramesh went towards the waitress and said “We are sorry. Our roommate is insane, we can’t help it” He deliberately didn’t refer to Varun as friend.
“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s totally fine” she said clasping her hairs.
Ramesh looked at her and said “You, however, did the right thing by hitting the bowl on his head. I like this attitude. You should rather have hit the hot Pizza Pan on his head or drop that melting cheese into his... ears.”
She laughed and before Ramesh could continue, I whispered in his ears “Enough of the flirting. Now run before something else goes wrong and she puts the melting cheese in your ...”, I didn't complete.
“Hey! We need to go. Catch you sometimes later Miss ...” I said.
“Komal…” she replied.
“Ya, Miss Komal, see you then”
“Sure. Thanks” she said.
As we walked back, Saurav said, “Jeet, you people are too much man. You pulled Varun out of an embarrassing situation and then went to flirt with that furious waitress”
“Forget it! Just some fun” Ramesh said and winked.
“Well I hope Varun will never talk about job satisfaction again” Vikash said.
It turned out that he was sadly mistaken. When we returned home, we heard Varun shouting frantically and the sound was coming from Harpreet Singh’s room. We rushed to his room and the last scene we saw was Harpreet slapping Varun repeatedly and finally pushing Varun into the bathroom and locking the door from outside.
“What happened?” Rachit asked him.
“I haven’t slept from last three nights working on this fucking presentation and on top of this, this asshole comes and asks me if I am happy and he talks about some fucking frog, a lizard or something and asks me if I am satisfied with my job” he said as he switched off the bathrooms light, “Noone, takes him out of here tonight or I will kill him”
Varun started crying and shouting frantically, banging the door and calling he is afraid of the dark and something something in Kannada. Vikash tried to open the door but Harpreet was in no mood and he stood in front of the door and said “Sir! No! I respect you but you don’t.” His eyes were red, his nostrils fuming with anger and he looked dangerous to say the least and we knew that no one can dare stand up against him and we rather reluctantly returned to our rooms. Varun shouted some more time before Harpreet told him that if he shouted once more he will come in and thrash him again.
So Varun had to spend that night in bathroom and we learnt two very important lessons of our life. One, never mess with a hot waitress no matter how cute she looks, and two, never screw up with an already screwed Sardar. And then I thought about it, that why did we hung out with him. Things never went as planned when he was around. Plans got spoilt, Bizarre things happened and you didn’t always end up at the place you had wanted to be, but still we had no idea why we even hung out with him. To this day I don't have an answer.
Many of us has a philosopher inside us and love to give a lecture now and then, but with Varun Shyamak things can only get weird when he decides to philosophize job satisfaction and theory of Happiness. Well this is a more of a spontaneous story that I have written so there may be a few mistakes here and there, but I still hope you will like reading it.
Also I would like to thank all of you who read the last story which was one of the most challenging piece I had written. Before you read this piece I will appreciate if you cast your vote in the poll I have created which you can see on the right hand side of the blog.
Waiting for your comments.
“What do you know about frogs?” Varun asked me.
“Frogs?” I repeated. I had no idea, why I listened to Varun or so as to why do I even hang out with him.
“Yes, Frogs. You know if you take some water out of a pond in which frog lives and put it in a jar and place the frog in it, what happens? The frog will happily live in it, even as you slowly start heating the water. It will not retaliate and it won’t try to jump out. Slowly the water will start boiling and still the frog won’t jump out. And finally it dies fat and happy. Interestingly if you had placed the same frog in already boiling water it would have straightaway jumped out and escaped.” Varun explained. This was Varun at his philosophical best. Off course this line might not has been his own but from one of the numerous magazines that he had read.
“So?” I asked.
“So I want to say that even we are a little like the frog. I mean most of the time we don’t realize that we are in the jar and we smartly develop an attitude of adjustment, and before we realize our lives are messed.” Varun was disturbed and mentally unstable, but it was totally understandable. If someone has to work from 6 A.M. in morning to 6 P.M. in the evening and add to that the office being on other end of the city which takes 2 hours to commute, even an angel would have turned grouse and Varun was no angel. Add to that the sleep deprivation and excessive pornography and you have a perfect recipe for insanity which Varun Shyamak was. “Just look at us. We all are stuck in jobs that we don’t like, we are away from our families and living in a real mess but we have just got so accommodating that we happily accept it. We are not really happy.”
“Yes. Right.” Said Rachit, but this was more out of a habit rather than agreement. Rachit had a habit of saying yes to anything without thinking. He would say “no” only to plans of a fun weekend or to a better dinner that would make him move his ass out of the building and more often than not it was only because of him our plans would get rachited. He was a geek in his domain but outside it he was just someone who either had no opinions or never wanted to express his opinion. If you say him Domino’s is way better than Pizza Hut he would say “Yes. It really is” and just then someone would walk in and say Domino’s Pizzas taste like chapattis in comparison to Pizza Hut he would again say “YES!!!! Dominos Pizza is really bad.” Someone had once told me that people who always agree to everyone are really dangerous for they are masters at manipulating people and will often end up getting everybody to do what he or she wants. It didn’t seem to apply at all to Rachit but slowly as we started hanging out together more, I had silently realized that the advice was totally right for I had often seen all of us landing in exactly the same restaurant or movie which he wanted despite the fact that the initial verdict for that place being 1:9 and what was more surprising that no one would ever notice it.
“I think you are going overboard with it Varun. It’s true that we don’t like working but then you don’t need to like your work for after all it is work. It doesn’t really matter that how much you like your job as long as you are good at it and if they pay you well, I think it is fine. At the end of the day you have to do some work to earn a living even if it is not to your liking.” Vikash explained. Vikash had started his career as a lecturer in an Engineering college and had moved to corporate world very recently, but he still loved to give a lecture now or then.
“Yes! That is right Vikash Bhaiya” Rachit said. In my opinion Rachit had the most satisfying job among us, but still he didn’t seem to be happy with it. He was working for Intel and was into chip design, something which is a dream for every two out of three computer engineers. But for him his problem was nostalgia, rather than a dissatisfying job. Being a Mommy’s boy staying away from the family was haunting him and though slowly he had resigned to his fate, he still wished to go back.
Ramesh had just walked in. The clock showed 8 P.M. and this being a Friday night all of us were quite relaxed. Ramesh pulled a stool and sat beside me. Rachit sat down on Vikash’s bed with Vikash leaning on his pillow at 45 degrees. Saurav was standing by the wash basin preparing to shave and has been uncharacteristically quiet till then. “What are we talking about Abhijeet?” Ramesh asked. I narrated him the story of the Varun and the metaphorical frog. Strangely none of us remembered why we started discussing this out of the blue.
“Seriously yar! We are not totally happy with our lives; we just go on accommodating with it. Recently there was a study to find out which are the world’s happiest countries and India was as low as 71, while some really small country Vantau was number 1.” Varun was not letting it go.
“Ok! So what is the great Varun’s definition of Happiness?” I had had enough of his speech.
“Happiness in my view is living the life on your own terms. If you do what you want to do and not what you are supposed to do, then you will be happy with life. What say Rachit?” Varun continued.
“Yes. You are right.” Rachit said.
“This is the most ridiculous definition of happiness I have ever heard. You are linking job satisfaction with happiness? This is insane. There are millions of people in the world doing menial jobs, many are unemployed, many of us don’t exactly end up getting what we truly deserve and according to your definition no one is happy.” I couldn’t take it longer.
“Yes! Right” Rachit repeated.
“Shut the fuck up” I shouted at Rachit. “Do you ever cross anyone? Why are you so much in love with being so diplomatic?”
Rachit started laughing without any reason and continued for some time. Very few people knew that Rachit was a white collared criminal. He would make fun of everyone behind him but in front of him he would be a sage. I bet if at that time I had told Varun that Rachit once told us that Varun eats like a rabbit Varun would never have believed me.
“No I am not saying Job satisfaction is only prerequisite of happiness but….” Before Varun could finish, Ramesh shouted, “Shut up! Enough of the frog and rabbit metaphors. You know you are sick. You just want importance and this is why you want to sound intellectual. Just because you think you are not happy with your life, you want to make sure that everyone else starts feeling so.”
Well, Ramesh was right. Varun Shayamak wanted everyone to be like him. He had bouts of depression which he tried to cover up by making everybody feel miserable or by turning into an intellectual philosopher and then he had this never say die attitude no matter how much stupid it gets.
He was still not willing to lose this conversation, so he still continued “It is not only about me. Are you people happy with your lives? What say Jeet?”
“Of Course, I am” I said, “I work for one of my dream companies even though I don’t quite love the work I do, I get a good salary. I have a girlfriend who though not exactly hot, is very beautiful and I have parents who understand me. What more do you want to be happy?”
“But, what about your dream project? Your plan to change the world and to make this world a better place. And what about you Ramesh? You wanted to be the opening batsman for Indian team? Now are you really happy working for a Bank?” Varun said shaking his head to and fro in simple harmonic motion aka the Simple Pendulum we studied in school. Varun for some reason had decided to get under our nerves that day, and he is sort of person who only has a start button, and there are no buttons for pause or stop, and the only way to stop him is to pull the plug.
Saurav did exactly that. “Let’s leave it for later. Let’s go out for dinner tonight. How about Pizza Hut?” Saurav said. He had carefully chosen the expensive hotel knowing full well that Varun, the miser will defeat Varun, the philosopher.
“Ya. Let’s go” I said getting up and Ramesh followed suit. Vikash sir also agreed.
Varun looked crestfallen. He looked out of the window for 10 seconds, smiled at some strange object for some time and then added “Well let’s go to U.S. Pizza no. At the same price you can have more Pizzas.”
“Yes. U.S. Pizza is also near. It has also started Pizza buffet. Pizza Hut is very far. Too much of a walk.” Rachit said. Now, one fact that often went unnoticed was that if Varun rated 9.9 out of 10 in miser rating scale, Rachit was also around 9.88 but he very subtly managed to cover it in a veil of laziness and nerdity. Very few people noticed that Varun despite being proclaimed miser always ate outside more than once a week, the same being more than a month for Rachit and Varun may had had watched more movies than Rachit. Finally decision was made. All of us, except Rachit and Varun, left for Pizza Hut while leaving them to go for cheap Pizzas, which we even doubted they would.
While walking to Pizza Hut Saurav asked, “Why do you people even get into argument with him? This guy is a jerk, he should be ignored.”
“I don’t know why I do it or why do I even hang out with him.” I said.
“Same here” Said Ramesh.
“However the example of frog in boiling water was classic” Vikash said.
“Totally!!!!” I replied.
“What about Harpreet? Haven’t seen him tonight.” Saurav asked.
“He was in room man. His job sucks big time. He had to make some presentation and thus is working whole nights.” Ramesh replied.
“Then maybe, Varun should have approached him with his Shayamakian school of Happiness” I added.
“Exactly!!!” Vikash added.
We cracked some more jokes as we went to Pizza Hut, had some Pizzas roamed around in the mall some time and returned to home around 10:30 P.M. We did not find Rachit and Varun and we were surprised that they actually went.
“Strange. Varun actually did go.” I said.
“Maybe he remembered the hot waitress at U.S. Pizza” Ramesh winked.
“Anyone wants to watch a movie? I have some CDs” Saurav said as he passed us a bag of CDs. We were checking the CDs when my cell rang. It was Rachit. I picked up “Hey!” I said
“Where are you?” he asked, as I heard a lot of noise in the background.
“We are at home. Why?”
“Come to U.S. Pizza. Fast”
“Why? What Happened?”
“Varun Shayamak and his job satisfaction theory. Come fast I will explain you here” he hung up.
“Let’s go. Emergency” I told all. We rushed to U.S. Pizza only to find a lot of people surrounding some table. I asked one of them what had happened. That man, well in his fifties, gave me a ‘you young people’ look and told “Someone misbehaved with waitress”
“What?” we all called together. Well Varun was desperate but we could not believe he could have done this. We forced ourselves through the crowd, to see Varun being manhandled by two waiters, his shirt spoilt with salad and Rachit standing at a little distance and to our amazement he was inconsolably laughing.
I approached him and brought him to the side and asked “What happened?”
“He He He He He……” he went on laughing.
Ramesh pressed his neck and told “What happened? Tell us.”
“He asked the waitress… He He He He”
“What did he ask?” Saurav asked.
“Are you satisfied… Ha Ha Ha Ha.”
“Then. Whats’ with that?” I asked.
“He kept staring at her….ha ha ha ha….at her….ha ha ha ha” we understood and he added “and asked ‘Are you SATIS…FIED ... haaahaahaahaaa…all the while staring at her….ha haha ha he he he he. She smashed the salad bowl on his … ha ha ha ha …head..he he he he” he continued to laugh.
I had to do something. I and Ramesh went to the waiters and asked one of them what has happened. He recounted what Rachit had already told us and they told that they are going to call the police. Varun said “Are yar, I just asked …” before he could finish, I took him up by his collars and said, “Shut up! Is this the way to talk to a lady? She is doing a job here” and I gave a sympathetic look to the hot waitress standing in the corner with her beautiful eyes moistened. “Go and apologize” I pushed him.
“But…”
“Shut up” Ramesh shouted, “Just do as he says” and he pushed him again
“Just apologize and run from that door, run as fast as you can and don’t stop before you reach home”, I whispered in his ears as we pushed him to the waitress.
Varun went near her, looked as far as possible from her and said, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and then he suddenly ran and by god, he ran fast. He disappeared in moments.
Ramesh went towards the waitress and said “We are sorry. Our roommate is insane, we can’t help it” He deliberately didn’t refer to Varun as friend.
“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s totally fine” she said clasping her hairs.
Ramesh looked at her and said “You, however, did the right thing by hitting the bowl on his head. I like this attitude. You should rather have hit the hot Pizza Pan on his head or drop that melting cheese into his... ears.”
She laughed and before Ramesh could continue, I whispered in his ears “Enough of the flirting. Now run before something else goes wrong and she puts the melting cheese in your ...”, I didn't complete.
“Hey! We need to go. Catch you sometimes later Miss ...” I said.
“Komal…” she replied.
“Ya, Miss Komal, see you then”
“Sure. Thanks” she said.
As we walked back, Saurav said, “Jeet, you people are too much man. You pulled Varun out of an embarrassing situation and then went to flirt with that furious waitress”
“Forget it! Just some fun” Ramesh said and winked.
“Well I hope Varun will never talk about job satisfaction again” Vikash said.
It turned out that he was sadly mistaken. When we returned home, we heard Varun shouting frantically and the sound was coming from Harpreet Singh’s room. We rushed to his room and the last scene we saw was Harpreet slapping Varun repeatedly and finally pushing Varun into the bathroom and locking the door from outside.
“What happened?” Rachit asked him.
“I haven’t slept from last three nights working on this fucking presentation and on top of this, this asshole comes and asks me if I am happy and he talks about some fucking frog, a lizard or something and asks me if I am satisfied with my job” he said as he switched off the bathrooms light, “Noone, takes him out of here tonight or I will kill him”
Varun started crying and shouting frantically, banging the door and calling he is afraid of the dark and something something in Kannada. Vikash tried to open the door but Harpreet was in no mood and he stood in front of the door and said “Sir! No! I respect you but you don’t.” His eyes were red, his nostrils fuming with anger and he looked dangerous to say the least and we knew that no one can dare stand up against him and we rather reluctantly returned to our rooms. Varun shouted some more time before Harpreet told him that if he shouted once more he will come in and thrash him again.
So Varun had to spend that night in bathroom and we learnt two very important lessons of our life. One, never mess with a hot waitress no matter how cute she looks, and two, never screw up with an already screwed Sardar. And then I thought about it, that why did we hung out with him. Things never went as planned when he was around. Plans got spoilt, Bizarre things happened and you didn’t always end up at the place you had wanted to be, but still we had no idea why we even hung out with him. To this day I don't have an answer.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Hunter and the Hunted
Hi All. Before I start to continue I will like to thank all of you who took their time out to read my previous story "Weird Weird ..." and also left your comments whether via mail or comments. A lot of you have requested a change in my writing style. Someone even branded me a male chauvinist as my stories never have a female character, so I have decided to give it a try. This one may not make you laugh like my previous ones. It is my first attempt to try a sort of serious story, so You may not like it specially if you have been accustomed to my previous writings. But still give it a patient read and let me know your rsponse. Regd. the previous story, I got a lot of mails that it was not as good as some previous ones. Thanks to all who have actually taken the pain of comparing the stories, and I will take your feedback into the account next time.
Life it is said is a great settler. Nothing could have been closer to the truth now for Praveen Sarkar. Some time back he had nothing except a few friends for whom he would have given his whole life and a dream to make it big in his life. It was with these dreams and some money he had earned that he had moved from a small town in West Bengal to the glamorous city of Bangalore to try his luck in a small enterprise. If Mumbai was the city of dreams for every small town Indian few years back, this place is now slowly being taken by Bangalore especially for the budding entrepreneurs. Praveen had never liked the concept of working under someone and he always wanted to start a business. His father didn’t like the idea but still he supported him by providing him a sum to start up his venture. Once he came to Bangalore his luck has soared. Whatever he touched had turned to Gold. He started with a small coffee shop and soon turned it into a restaurant. He tried his hand in a travel agency and soon that too hit success due to the IT boom and the increasing number of Call Centers and BPO’s in the city. After 3 years he also tried his hand in the construction business and that too worked. In a matter of mere four years he had made himself quiet a name. While his restaurant chain named “Swad” had become a hit among large number of north Indians living in the city, his “Sarkar travels” boasted of more than 20 cars and provided pick up and drop services to some of the Top MNC employees in the city.
But today all his employees were finding him unusually quiet and lost. He sat himself down on a small bench outside his restaurant placed conveniently on the always busy ITPL road. It seemed he desperately needed to talk his heart out to someone but then everyone realized that he actually has no friends there. He had never felt the need to have one. He didn’t realize till now that he has become a loner. That is the dark truth of this city. It can give you everything you want, but for all that it will take away your life. But that generally is a small price to pay for most people. He looked down on the rushing traffic below. He vividly remembered that this was the place where he first opened a small coffee shop and hired four persons. A person who made the coffee, one who took the order, one who did the cleaning and the fourth one was he himself, who managed the accounts and the markets. The other three were nowhere in sight now and the small coffee shop named “Relish” was also nowhere to be seen. The sun had set and dusk had fallen over the city. He at times showed a strong urge to go back to his home town, but soon he rejected the idea, as he knew that was not an option. He had disagreements from his parents following his decision to try his luck in travel business and he hadn’t talked to his parents since then. He remembered it had been more than 1 year. He stood at the railing and looked into the far horizon. It was beginning to get dark and rush to his restaurant was increasing. Friday night always was one of the best days of business. Husbands and Wives, Small families, a group of friends or a boyfriend and girlfriend and at times an occasional loner visited his restaurants and seemed to speak their hearts out over meal. Although he had four restaurants in Bangalore, he preferred to spend his evenings at this one for it always reminded him of his roots. He wanted to take a puff but he could not break his own rules. He took out his cell phone to look at the time. He didn’t prefer to keep a wrist watch and even his phone was a primitive model. He had once tried a Nokia N97 but found it too complicated and he had gone back to his good old Nokia 1600. There are some people who take to new technology like fish to water. He certainly was not one of them. It was 18:45. He took a corner seat on the restaurant and took out his balance sheet with a hope that it will keep him engaged. It didn’t. His staff mostly consisted of waiters from different corners of North India and only one female was her manager Reema. Reema had been his best hire whom he had hired last year following his last manager’s Deepti’s decision to quit the job. Her skills of dealing with uncomfortable and embarrassing situations were exemplary. Just some time ago a man in a black suit had walked in complaining that why has his table not been booked. Once again she dealt with the situation nicely. She went and politely asked a couple sitting on a table to move to a smaller table in corner, which they agreed and then got two tables joined to meet the black suit’s requirement and all the while she managed to keep smiling. Someone had once told Praveen that this skill was called interpersonal skills and for sure Reema Sahay had it in her. He was initially skeptical about hiring her for this job. But as it turned out, it was a great decision for she was highly efficient and even some rowdy customers behaved better in her presence. Reema was also beautiful and her cheeks formed a naughty dimple when she smiled and there were many customers who came to hotel only to get a chance to fall in those dimples. But her boss never seemed to notice her. Reema had also noticed his boss looking glum since last day as if he was still thinking about what transpired the last day.
It was around the same time on previous day that a person wearing a light blue shirt and cotton pants had walked to his restaurant and got seated in a corner. He was talking to a waiter that he had reserved a table for two here. On asking his name he had replied “Deepak. Deepak Gupta.” Hearing this name had ringed a bell in Praveen’s ears. He looked at him intently. It was unmistakable; he was his old friend Deepu. Reema saw Praveen walked straight to him and said, “Hey Deepak! Good to see you. Remember me?” She was privileged enough to overhear all their conversations.
Deepak had looked lost. He strained his eyes and wrinkled his forehead, and after some time said, “Praveen? What the hell? Where had you been?” They embraced each other and sat down at a table.
“How come you are here?” Deepak asked.
“I should ask you that, for I own this restaurant.” Praveen said.
“Stop Kidding”
“I am not kidding. I am the owner of Swad restaurant chains” Praveen said with an air of pride in his voice.
“Unbelievable man!” said Deepak as he brushed his hairs and added “So I and my wife get some discount tonight.”
“Wife? You got married.”
“Yes. 6 months back. Love marriage” he replied.
“Asshole. You did not even call me?”
“What the hell. No contact of you was available with anyone. You had disappeared after college. Neither are you on Orkut.” He said.
“Orkut. What’s that?”
Deepak looked stunned. It seemed as if he couldn’t believe that Praveen has still not heard about the Social Networking site that had around 100 million users, despite living in the IT Hub but he did not want to go into detail and Reema knew that Praveen may not even know what social networking was.
“Forget it. You tell me why you didn’t get married or you have?” he said
“Cut the cliché. You tell me the name of the unlucky girl.” Praveen joked.
“Wait for it. She will be here in some time. You will be surprised as you know her. She has just left office, will be here in 5 minutes.” Deepak said.
“Oh where does she work? And do you work as well?” He joked again.
“For sure I do. I work in Flextronics and she is in Tata Consultancy services” he replied.
“Great” said Praveen. He didn’t want to talk more about technical things for his knowledge was severely limited in this field. Reema had noticed that Deepak looked much younger than Praveen but she was sure that Deepak’s salary would be no way even near to what Praveen makes in a month. They talked about their home town Asansol and their college and relived some forgotten moments until Deepak suddenly looked over to the gate and exclaimed, “Hey! Here she comes” and waved his hand. Praveen turned back instantly and once he saw her, Reema saw Praveen’s eyes froze as if some lightning had struck him. A lady entered the Restaurant. She was wearing a white chiffon kurta and blue jeans. She was slim and tall and her eyes were twinkling and she wore a mischievous smile on her amazingly beautiful face. Her hair was straightened and fell elegantly over her shoulders and some of it covered the side of her left cheek, and those eyes, well, they were just beautiful. Deepak got up, took her hand in his and placed his left hand on her back and said, “Hey darling! Meet him. Do you remember him?”
She looked at Praveen closely and her eyes got wider as she said “Praveen! Unbelievable.”
“You know my name, Priyanka? I thought you didn’t” Praveen said, trying to look away from her.
“Of course I do. The back bencher right?” she said and winked and both of them sat beside him. Praveen hadn’t bothered to get up all this while.
“You know Priya! This chain of restaurants is his.” Deepak informed.
“Is it?” Her eyes went wide again “You must be kidding” she said and giggled.
“I am serious.” Deepak confirmed.
“That is great. You really made it big in life. Congratulations” she said as she extended a hand to Praveen.
“Thanks!” he told as he took her soft hands in his and added “and of course, congrats to both of you too. You look great together.” Reema understood he didn’t mean it. This was the way he was. It was very difficult for him to give complements. “So what do you suggest we can have in your restaurant? And I hope it’s free” Deepak said.
Reema wanted to kick Deepak out of her restaurant and show everyone how wretched this guy was to use his friendship to have a free meal.
“Hey!!! Where is your attention?” said Priyanka as she waved her hand in front of his eyes.
“Nothing” he said and smiled and suggested them some items. They dined together and talked about their past, but all the while Praveen remained mostly silent, just adding a word here and there. Reema noticed it but she found it rather usual as he had always been of a reserved and soft-spoken personality. After a sumptuous dinner they got up to leave and Praveen watched fixedly as Deepak put a hand on Priyanka’s waist as they walked out of restaurant.
Praveen went to the rather empty open air restaurant on the roof top and sat down in a corner. He wanted to smoke and for an instance decided to do it. After all it was his restaurant, and he can break the rules at least. He took a cigarette and placed it into his lips. He was about to reach for his lighter but just then he saw some people looking at him and also the No smoking sign behind him. Off course they did not know that he owned this place for going by his appearance, he was wearing a cotton shirt, black terry coat trousers and old fashioned sandals; he looked no more than a small broker. He took the cigarette out of his lips and threw it aside.
He took out his mobile again and looked at the time. It was showing 20:02. Two persons sitting at the near table had broken into a discussion about how his restaurant has increased prices.
Well, he had to increase prices as the price of all commodities had increased. One of them wondered how a poor person will afford food if food prices keep hitting sky high. Other end of the roof consisted of a noisy group of seven friends probably fresh college grads celebrating their first salary. They seemed to be having some real fun and some dirty jokes. He looked at them for some time and then looked down at the traffic which seemed to be settling down now. He took a magazine from the magazine stand, ordered the waiter for a tea and started reading some article. The rush was slowly decreasing in his restaurant. There were more empty tables to be seen. The staff looked more relaxed now. The noise levels had decreased. He looked at his cell again which was showing 21:32. In half an hour he would have to close the orders and 22:30 he will have to close according to some stupid government rule which wanted to stop dinner at a time when one should ideally have dinner. He roamed around a bit and finally stood at the railing again looking at the darkness.
After some fifteen minutes, he felt someone came by his side and said “Sir, Should we close early today? I don’t see anyone coming now.” He turned and looked at Reema standing beside him. She had taken off her coat and was now wearing the white shirt and knee length black skirt. The top button of her shirt was too low for his comfort and for the first time he looked into her eyes, which actually looked weary as expected at the end of the day.
He looked around and said “Yeah! I think so. Mubarak! Closed!” he said to his gatekeeper signaling him to change the label on door. He remembered all his staffs’ names.
“You will like to have dinner?” Reema asked him.
This was not the first time Reema had asked him. Every other time he will say yes and Reema will ask some waiter to give him food and take her leave. But his reply this time was “Yeah! I think so. Why don’t you join me for dinner? I will drop you to your house today.” It was then she realized that how desperate he was to talk to someone.
“Are you sure sir?” Reema asked.
“Yes! And stop calling me sir now. Work hours are over now.”
“Ok sir, I will get the food.” She said and went in and after some five minutes returned with a waiter carrying some food in a trolley and some plates. She sat down opposite to Praveen and the waiter served some food in plates.
“Bahadur! You can have food and leave now. We don’t need anything else.” Praveen said to waiter.
Praveen looked uncomfortable. Reema realized that it might be because it was the first time he was having dinner with a girl. He looked at Reema who was serving some curry on his plate. Her white satin shirt revealed her chiseled figure and her face glowed in the candle light. She had undone her hair which now blew loosely all over her face and covered the better part of her left cheek. He tried to look away from her but something made him look at her legs, nicely rounded and waxed. He turned his gaze quickly realizing Reema might be looking at him. Reema had finished serving and was waiting for him to start. He took the fork and spoon and signaled her to start.
Reema ate slowly, as her mind was working fast. She had finally got the opportunity she had been looking for quite some time now. Belonging to a small town in U.P, she always dreamt of money, and to her the shortest way was to marry someone rich and famous. Right from the time she had joined the Restaurant she has been trying to get her boss’ attention but the person seemed to be a jerk, not picking any of her signals. She had almost given up, but today seemed different. Her boss appeared perplexed and it was in this time she had to pick her spot. She had to seize this moment. She had caught him looking at her body and she knew this was the time. But she had to be very careful.
“Don’t you think we should also start serving some south Indian cuisines? It will bring us more customers.” Reema knew she had to start conversation.
“No way! Have you seen the way they eat? They will piss off north Indian customers and anyway most of them never visit restaurants. They are the biggest misers on earth” said Praveen. He had his disliking for the food and life-style of south which had accumulated over the past, but this was the first time he had expressed it openly.
“Is everything ok, Praveen?”said Reema in very measured tone and the ‘Praveen’ was spoken even slower to leave some effect, which sir couldn’t.
“Why?”
“No you look very disturbed today? I haven’t seen you so dejected before.” It was going according to her plan now.
Praveen thought for a moment. It seemed he desperately wanted to speak out his heart but said “Nothing serious. Just a mood swing.”
“Come on! You can tell me. Consider me your friend.” She said, all the while looking very sympathetically and invitingly into his eyes.
Reema had played her move perfectly. Praveen seemed to have been caught off guard. Just half an hour ago, Praveen had been his boss, now he has become a friend. “Give a troubled person a good listening and then he can give you everything”, someone had once told her and that is what she did for other ten minutes as Praveen opened his life story in front of her. He told her everything about Priyanka. She had been love of his life but he had never dared to tell his feelings. He had fell in love with her right from the first day in college, but had never dared to approach her as he was an introvert who loved sitting on the back bench while she was the glam queen, popular and always in demand. He had hung around her many times hoping to get a word from her. But as fate would have it, she never quite noticed him. Every day he used to plan of a way to start a conversation from her, but as soon as he went near her, his diffidence got better of him. She never noticed him in all three years. There is a strange thing about girls, on all social networking sites and in every slam book they will enter their perfect match as someone who should be honest, mature, genuine and not fake things, but in reality they will never notice these guys and will often fall for guys who are loud mouthed snobs and pure attention seekers. Even after coming to Bangalore he kept thinking about her during the lonely nights. He would consider calling her, but he kept on procrastinating it, always planning to be a little more successful before he calls her. For some mysterious reason in the world he had imagined that Priyanka would still be in that small city waiting for him. But today it had struck him like a bolt from the blue. He told her about Deepak and their marriage. He told her about his parents to whom he was not talking anymore. He told her how lonely he was in the big city. He told her about his hate for this place and his longing to go back home. Reema heard it all patiently all the while not believing her luck. She had struck the iron just when it was red hot.
Praveen suddenly seemed much better as if a monkey was off his back. Reema knew that sometimes a patient ear works more wonder than soothing words. He relaxed down and Reema had noticed it. She just needed to get some soothing words out now.
“Why do you think you are wrong? Couldn’t you see that that girl did not even notice you in college? You say you didn’t call her but did you not notice that even she didn’t call you. She is a loser and she didn’t recognize your value. She fell for a man just because he is more suave. She just wasn’t cut out for you. You are worth much more.”
These words seemed to put things in a new perspective for Praveen. He seemed to just have realized that Reema was right. “Thanks! I think you are right. I didn’t think about it this way” He finally smiled and Reema had noticed that he slowly looked down at her again. Then they started talking about a variety of things. Reema told her a lot of things about herself that he did not know. They talked on every subject over the dinner regarding how he started an enterprise, how she came to Bangalore and lot more. Praveen seemed to relax more each passing moment and also it appeared as if he was getting more enchanted with Reema. Reema looked beautiful, she sounded childish and her ever inviting smile could have caught anyone off guard. He just didn’t take his eyes off her for all this while. Reema knew this had gone well. Now only one final nail in coffin was needed, that was SEX. This was going to be tricky and may well backfire. She was sure once they had sex Praveen would propose her next day and even if he doesn’t she didn’t lose anything as she had already lost her virginity when she was just 19. The problem was how to get him into that situation. Reema had thought her plan. She excused herself for going to washroom, and very silently called her roommate Deepti to spend the night somewhere else tonight as Deepti had often done with her whenever she brought her boyfriend home. Then she touched up her makeup, pulled her shirt a little lower and walked back to her boss who looked more relaxed now.
She saw Praveen had just washed his hands and looked much cheerful. She walked towards him and said, “I’ll leave now. You don’t worry I will take an auto.” This was another one which could have backfired, for knowing Praveen, he could well have said yes. She was relieved when he said “No no! I’ll drop you. It’s late now. You wait on the gate, I’ll get the car”
She waited on gate as he went to get the car. She felt nervous and could almost hear her heart beat. She had set this up perfectly. Her prey was in range now, but she knew just one mistake and that would be it. He got the car in front of her and opened the front door and signaled her to sit. To many people’s amazement Praveen still preferred to drive a Maruti 800 despite the fact that he could have afford at least Tata Indigo. But Reema knew he was down to earth. She sat down and fastened her seat belt. She reached her house in fifteen minutes drive. He hadn’t spoken much on the way but she had caught him looking at her from the corner of his eye on many occasions.
She got down and asked, “Would you like to come in and have some coffee?”
“At this time?” Praveen looked surprised.
“Ugggggghhhhhh!!!! How dumb?” Reema thought but added, “Yes! It’s rather cold out here.”
He took out his mobile, looked at time and said “It’s rather late.”
“Come on! It will hardly be 10 minutes” she said. As it turned out it took more than 10 hours before he left.
Reema lay triumphantly in bed after he had left in the morning. He had not proposed her and had looked rather embarrassed over what conspired the last night. But she knew it had gone well and there was no reason to panic. He was just like that. It would take some time for him to accept that he had fallen in love with her. She would help him do it. Moreover, he hadn’t been bad at all considering it might well have been his first time. She got up and took a pill, drank some water and looked at herself in the mirror. It had taken time but her plan had finally worked out. She stood some time before the mirror and admired her masterpiece of a figure. All those hours in the gym, the strict diet regimes had finally been worth it. She realized that she didn’t need to rush to her work now. After all, the restaurant will soon be hers in a few days. She went back to bed, pulled her blanket over her face and went to sleep totally at peace with herself.
Praveen drove back home and opened the door and sat down on a chair in his balcony. He felt tired but content. He took out his cell and dialed a number. After some time he heard a “Hello”
“Hello Deepak! Good Morning” Praveen said.
“Hey !!!Good Morning, Praveen. I didn’t expect you to call back so soon” the voice came.
“Just wanted to tell you something”
“What?”
“You know what! The Deepak and Priyanka story worked once again, for the third time in third year. 100% success rate.” Praveen said.
“Don’t tell me! So you had her?”
“Yes. Money has been transferred to your account.”
“Thanks man! Praveen, Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s bizarre man! You could have done that an year ago without any such long drama but you chose to set her up. I still don’t get it”
“It’s just a nice sport man. All the while she felt that she had set me up. It’s a great hunt when all the while the hunted feels that it is the hunter. She will feel that she had earned me. She will feel that she had pushed me into this, but in reality I just let her push me into it. Now, she will never be able to blame me for this and after some time she’ll rather feel guilty about it. She will again and again plot a similar night each time with the hope that I will give her that coveted ring and in course of time she will realize that I am rather dumb and will move on still unable to blame me. So while she will still believe that she had hunted a dumb rabbit the reality that she had been hunted stupid cow.”
“You are too wicked man. Riya, Deepti and now Reema. I wonder what’s next or rather, who is next?”
“I am not wicked. I just enjoy showing the schemers like Reema how much do they really suck, It’s they who plan and scheme and finally get trapped into it.”
“Ok buddy! Next time at least do find a better Priyanka, this one was a headache to train”
“Sure. Bye and take care” he said and hung up.
He made himself a coffee and just for a moment thought what Reema must be thinking now. He couldn’t help himself having a nice laugh.
Life it is said is a great settler. Nothing could have been closer to the truth now for Praveen Sarkar. Some time back he had nothing except a few friends for whom he would have given his whole life and a dream to make it big in his life. It was with these dreams and some money he had earned that he had moved from a small town in West Bengal to the glamorous city of Bangalore to try his luck in a small enterprise. If Mumbai was the city of dreams for every small town Indian few years back, this place is now slowly being taken by Bangalore especially for the budding entrepreneurs. Praveen had never liked the concept of working under someone and he always wanted to start a business. His father didn’t like the idea but still he supported him by providing him a sum to start up his venture. Once he came to Bangalore his luck has soared. Whatever he touched had turned to Gold. He started with a small coffee shop and soon turned it into a restaurant. He tried his hand in a travel agency and soon that too hit success due to the IT boom and the increasing number of Call Centers and BPO’s in the city. After 3 years he also tried his hand in the construction business and that too worked. In a matter of mere four years he had made himself quiet a name. While his restaurant chain named “Swad” had become a hit among large number of north Indians living in the city, his “Sarkar travels” boasted of more than 20 cars and provided pick up and drop services to some of the Top MNC employees in the city.
But today all his employees were finding him unusually quiet and lost. He sat himself down on a small bench outside his restaurant placed conveniently on the always busy ITPL road. It seemed he desperately needed to talk his heart out to someone but then everyone realized that he actually has no friends there. He had never felt the need to have one. He didn’t realize till now that he has become a loner. That is the dark truth of this city. It can give you everything you want, but for all that it will take away your life. But that generally is a small price to pay for most people. He looked down on the rushing traffic below. He vividly remembered that this was the place where he first opened a small coffee shop and hired four persons. A person who made the coffee, one who took the order, one who did the cleaning and the fourth one was he himself, who managed the accounts and the markets. The other three were nowhere in sight now and the small coffee shop named “Relish” was also nowhere to be seen. The sun had set and dusk had fallen over the city. He at times showed a strong urge to go back to his home town, but soon he rejected the idea, as he knew that was not an option. He had disagreements from his parents following his decision to try his luck in travel business and he hadn’t talked to his parents since then. He remembered it had been more than 1 year. He stood at the railing and looked into the far horizon. It was beginning to get dark and rush to his restaurant was increasing. Friday night always was one of the best days of business. Husbands and Wives, Small families, a group of friends or a boyfriend and girlfriend and at times an occasional loner visited his restaurants and seemed to speak their hearts out over meal. Although he had four restaurants in Bangalore, he preferred to spend his evenings at this one for it always reminded him of his roots. He wanted to take a puff but he could not break his own rules. He took out his cell phone to look at the time. He didn’t prefer to keep a wrist watch and even his phone was a primitive model. He had once tried a Nokia N97 but found it too complicated and he had gone back to his good old Nokia 1600. There are some people who take to new technology like fish to water. He certainly was not one of them. It was 18:45. He took a corner seat on the restaurant and took out his balance sheet with a hope that it will keep him engaged. It didn’t. His staff mostly consisted of waiters from different corners of North India and only one female was her manager Reema. Reema had been his best hire whom he had hired last year following his last manager’s Deepti’s decision to quit the job. Her skills of dealing with uncomfortable and embarrassing situations were exemplary. Just some time ago a man in a black suit had walked in complaining that why has his table not been booked. Once again she dealt with the situation nicely. She went and politely asked a couple sitting on a table to move to a smaller table in corner, which they agreed and then got two tables joined to meet the black suit’s requirement and all the while she managed to keep smiling. Someone had once told Praveen that this skill was called interpersonal skills and for sure Reema Sahay had it in her. He was initially skeptical about hiring her for this job. But as it turned out, it was a great decision for she was highly efficient and even some rowdy customers behaved better in her presence. Reema was also beautiful and her cheeks formed a naughty dimple when she smiled and there were many customers who came to hotel only to get a chance to fall in those dimples. But her boss never seemed to notice her. Reema had also noticed his boss looking glum since last day as if he was still thinking about what transpired the last day.
It was around the same time on previous day that a person wearing a light blue shirt and cotton pants had walked to his restaurant and got seated in a corner. He was talking to a waiter that he had reserved a table for two here. On asking his name he had replied “Deepak. Deepak Gupta.” Hearing this name had ringed a bell in Praveen’s ears. He looked at him intently. It was unmistakable; he was his old friend Deepu. Reema saw Praveen walked straight to him and said, “Hey Deepak! Good to see you. Remember me?” She was privileged enough to overhear all their conversations.
Deepak had looked lost. He strained his eyes and wrinkled his forehead, and after some time said, “Praveen? What the hell? Where had you been?” They embraced each other and sat down at a table.
“How come you are here?” Deepak asked.
“I should ask you that, for I own this restaurant.” Praveen said.
“Stop Kidding”
“I am not kidding. I am the owner of Swad restaurant chains” Praveen said with an air of pride in his voice.
“Unbelievable man!” said Deepak as he brushed his hairs and added “So I and my wife get some discount tonight.”
“Wife? You got married.”
“Yes. 6 months back. Love marriage” he replied.
“Asshole. You did not even call me?”
“What the hell. No contact of you was available with anyone. You had disappeared after college. Neither are you on Orkut.” He said.
“Orkut. What’s that?”
Deepak looked stunned. It seemed as if he couldn’t believe that Praveen has still not heard about the Social Networking site that had around 100 million users, despite living in the IT Hub but he did not want to go into detail and Reema knew that Praveen may not even know what social networking was.
“Forget it. You tell me why you didn’t get married or you have?” he said
“Cut the cliché. You tell me the name of the unlucky girl.” Praveen joked.
“Wait for it. She will be here in some time. You will be surprised as you know her. She has just left office, will be here in 5 minutes.” Deepak said.
“Oh where does she work? And do you work as well?” He joked again.
“For sure I do. I work in Flextronics and she is in Tata Consultancy services” he replied.
“Great” said Praveen. He didn’t want to talk more about technical things for his knowledge was severely limited in this field. Reema had noticed that Deepak looked much younger than Praveen but she was sure that Deepak’s salary would be no way even near to what Praveen makes in a month. They talked about their home town Asansol and their college and relived some forgotten moments until Deepak suddenly looked over to the gate and exclaimed, “Hey! Here she comes” and waved his hand. Praveen turned back instantly and once he saw her, Reema saw Praveen’s eyes froze as if some lightning had struck him. A lady entered the Restaurant. She was wearing a white chiffon kurta and blue jeans. She was slim and tall and her eyes were twinkling and she wore a mischievous smile on her amazingly beautiful face. Her hair was straightened and fell elegantly over her shoulders and some of it covered the side of her left cheek, and those eyes, well, they were just beautiful. Deepak got up, took her hand in his and placed his left hand on her back and said, “Hey darling! Meet him. Do you remember him?”
She looked at Praveen closely and her eyes got wider as she said “Praveen! Unbelievable.”
“You know my name, Priyanka? I thought you didn’t” Praveen said, trying to look away from her.
“Of course I do. The back bencher right?” she said and winked and both of them sat beside him. Praveen hadn’t bothered to get up all this while.
“You know Priya! This chain of restaurants is his.” Deepak informed.
“Is it?” Her eyes went wide again “You must be kidding” she said and giggled.
“I am serious.” Deepak confirmed.
“That is great. You really made it big in life. Congratulations” she said as she extended a hand to Praveen.
“Thanks!” he told as he took her soft hands in his and added “and of course, congrats to both of you too. You look great together.” Reema understood he didn’t mean it. This was the way he was. It was very difficult for him to give complements. “So what do you suggest we can have in your restaurant? And I hope it’s free” Deepak said.
Reema wanted to kick Deepak out of her restaurant and show everyone how wretched this guy was to use his friendship to have a free meal.
“Hey!!! Where is your attention?” said Priyanka as she waved her hand in front of his eyes.
“Nothing” he said and smiled and suggested them some items. They dined together and talked about their past, but all the while Praveen remained mostly silent, just adding a word here and there. Reema noticed it but she found it rather usual as he had always been of a reserved and soft-spoken personality. After a sumptuous dinner they got up to leave and Praveen watched fixedly as Deepak put a hand on Priyanka’s waist as they walked out of restaurant.
Praveen went to the rather empty open air restaurant on the roof top and sat down in a corner. He wanted to smoke and for an instance decided to do it. After all it was his restaurant, and he can break the rules at least. He took a cigarette and placed it into his lips. He was about to reach for his lighter but just then he saw some people looking at him and also the No smoking sign behind him. Off course they did not know that he owned this place for going by his appearance, he was wearing a cotton shirt, black terry coat trousers and old fashioned sandals; he looked no more than a small broker. He took the cigarette out of his lips and threw it aside.
He took out his mobile again and looked at the time. It was showing 20:02. Two persons sitting at the near table had broken into a discussion about how his restaurant has increased prices.
Well, he had to increase prices as the price of all commodities had increased. One of them wondered how a poor person will afford food if food prices keep hitting sky high. Other end of the roof consisted of a noisy group of seven friends probably fresh college grads celebrating their first salary. They seemed to be having some real fun and some dirty jokes. He looked at them for some time and then looked down at the traffic which seemed to be settling down now. He took a magazine from the magazine stand, ordered the waiter for a tea and started reading some article. The rush was slowly decreasing in his restaurant. There were more empty tables to be seen. The staff looked more relaxed now. The noise levels had decreased. He looked at his cell again which was showing 21:32. In half an hour he would have to close the orders and 22:30 he will have to close according to some stupid government rule which wanted to stop dinner at a time when one should ideally have dinner. He roamed around a bit and finally stood at the railing again looking at the darkness.
After some fifteen minutes, he felt someone came by his side and said “Sir, Should we close early today? I don’t see anyone coming now.” He turned and looked at Reema standing beside him. She had taken off her coat and was now wearing the white shirt and knee length black skirt. The top button of her shirt was too low for his comfort and for the first time he looked into her eyes, which actually looked weary as expected at the end of the day.
He looked around and said “Yeah! I think so. Mubarak! Closed!” he said to his gatekeeper signaling him to change the label on door. He remembered all his staffs’ names.
“You will like to have dinner?” Reema asked him.
This was not the first time Reema had asked him. Every other time he will say yes and Reema will ask some waiter to give him food and take her leave. But his reply this time was “Yeah! I think so. Why don’t you join me for dinner? I will drop you to your house today.” It was then she realized that how desperate he was to talk to someone.
“Are you sure sir?” Reema asked.
“Yes! And stop calling me sir now. Work hours are over now.”
“Ok sir, I will get the food.” She said and went in and after some five minutes returned with a waiter carrying some food in a trolley and some plates. She sat down opposite to Praveen and the waiter served some food in plates.
“Bahadur! You can have food and leave now. We don’t need anything else.” Praveen said to waiter.
Praveen looked uncomfortable. Reema realized that it might be because it was the first time he was having dinner with a girl. He looked at Reema who was serving some curry on his plate. Her white satin shirt revealed her chiseled figure and her face glowed in the candle light. She had undone her hair which now blew loosely all over her face and covered the better part of her left cheek. He tried to look away from her but something made him look at her legs, nicely rounded and waxed. He turned his gaze quickly realizing Reema might be looking at him. Reema had finished serving and was waiting for him to start. He took the fork and spoon and signaled her to start.
Reema ate slowly, as her mind was working fast. She had finally got the opportunity she had been looking for quite some time now. Belonging to a small town in U.P, she always dreamt of money, and to her the shortest way was to marry someone rich and famous. Right from the time she had joined the Restaurant she has been trying to get her boss’ attention but the person seemed to be a jerk, not picking any of her signals. She had almost given up, but today seemed different. Her boss appeared perplexed and it was in this time she had to pick her spot. She had to seize this moment. She had caught him looking at her body and she knew this was the time. But she had to be very careful.
“Don’t you think we should also start serving some south Indian cuisines? It will bring us more customers.” Reema knew she had to start conversation.
“No way! Have you seen the way they eat? They will piss off north Indian customers and anyway most of them never visit restaurants. They are the biggest misers on earth” said Praveen. He had his disliking for the food and life-style of south which had accumulated over the past, but this was the first time he had expressed it openly.
“Is everything ok, Praveen?”said Reema in very measured tone and the ‘Praveen’ was spoken even slower to leave some effect, which sir couldn’t.
“Why?”
“No you look very disturbed today? I haven’t seen you so dejected before.” It was going according to her plan now.
Praveen thought for a moment. It seemed he desperately wanted to speak out his heart but said “Nothing serious. Just a mood swing.”
“Come on! You can tell me. Consider me your friend.” She said, all the while looking very sympathetically and invitingly into his eyes.
Reema had played her move perfectly. Praveen seemed to have been caught off guard. Just half an hour ago, Praveen had been his boss, now he has become a friend. “Give a troubled person a good listening and then he can give you everything”, someone had once told her and that is what she did for other ten minutes as Praveen opened his life story in front of her. He told her everything about Priyanka. She had been love of his life but he had never dared to tell his feelings. He had fell in love with her right from the first day in college, but had never dared to approach her as he was an introvert who loved sitting on the back bench while she was the glam queen, popular and always in demand. He had hung around her many times hoping to get a word from her. But as fate would have it, she never quite noticed him. Every day he used to plan of a way to start a conversation from her, but as soon as he went near her, his diffidence got better of him. She never noticed him in all three years. There is a strange thing about girls, on all social networking sites and in every slam book they will enter their perfect match as someone who should be honest, mature, genuine and not fake things, but in reality they will never notice these guys and will often fall for guys who are loud mouthed snobs and pure attention seekers. Even after coming to Bangalore he kept thinking about her during the lonely nights. He would consider calling her, but he kept on procrastinating it, always planning to be a little more successful before he calls her. For some mysterious reason in the world he had imagined that Priyanka would still be in that small city waiting for him. But today it had struck him like a bolt from the blue. He told her about Deepak and their marriage. He told her about his parents to whom he was not talking anymore. He told her how lonely he was in the big city. He told her about his hate for this place and his longing to go back home. Reema heard it all patiently all the while not believing her luck. She had struck the iron just when it was red hot.
Praveen suddenly seemed much better as if a monkey was off his back. Reema knew that sometimes a patient ear works more wonder than soothing words. He relaxed down and Reema had noticed it. She just needed to get some soothing words out now.
“Why do you think you are wrong? Couldn’t you see that that girl did not even notice you in college? You say you didn’t call her but did you not notice that even she didn’t call you. She is a loser and she didn’t recognize your value. She fell for a man just because he is more suave. She just wasn’t cut out for you. You are worth much more.”
These words seemed to put things in a new perspective for Praveen. He seemed to just have realized that Reema was right. “Thanks! I think you are right. I didn’t think about it this way” He finally smiled and Reema had noticed that he slowly looked down at her again. Then they started talking about a variety of things. Reema told her a lot of things about herself that he did not know. They talked on every subject over the dinner regarding how he started an enterprise, how she came to Bangalore and lot more. Praveen seemed to relax more each passing moment and also it appeared as if he was getting more enchanted with Reema. Reema looked beautiful, she sounded childish and her ever inviting smile could have caught anyone off guard. He just didn’t take his eyes off her for all this while. Reema knew this had gone well. Now only one final nail in coffin was needed, that was SEX. This was going to be tricky and may well backfire. She was sure once they had sex Praveen would propose her next day and even if he doesn’t she didn’t lose anything as she had already lost her virginity when she was just 19. The problem was how to get him into that situation. Reema had thought her plan. She excused herself for going to washroom, and very silently called her roommate Deepti to spend the night somewhere else tonight as Deepti had often done with her whenever she brought her boyfriend home. Then she touched up her makeup, pulled her shirt a little lower and walked back to her boss who looked more relaxed now.
She saw Praveen had just washed his hands and looked much cheerful. She walked towards him and said, “I’ll leave now. You don’t worry I will take an auto.” This was another one which could have backfired, for knowing Praveen, he could well have said yes. She was relieved when he said “No no! I’ll drop you. It’s late now. You wait on the gate, I’ll get the car”
She waited on gate as he went to get the car. She felt nervous and could almost hear her heart beat. She had set this up perfectly. Her prey was in range now, but she knew just one mistake and that would be it. He got the car in front of her and opened the front door and signaled her to sit. To many people’s amazement Praveen still preferred to drive a Maruti 800 despite the fact that he could have afford at least Tata Indigo. But Reema knew he was down to earth. She sat down and fastened her seat belt. She reached her house in fifteen minutes drive. He hadn’t spoken much on the way but she had caught him looking at her from the corner of his eye on many occasions.
She got down and asked, “Would you like to come in and have some coffee?”
“At this time?” Praveen looked surprised.
“Ugggggghhhhhh!!!! How dumb?” Reema thought but added, “Yes! It’s rather cold out here.”
He took out his mobile, looked at time and said “It’s rather late.”
“Come on! It will hardly be 10 minutes” she said. As it turned out it took more than 10 hours before he left.
Reema lay triumphantly in bed after he had left in the morning. He had not proposed her and had looked rather embarrassed over what conspired the last night. But she knew it had gone well and there was no reason to panic. He was just like that. It would take some time for him to accept that he had fallen in love with her. She would help him do it. Moreover, he hadn’t been bad at all considering it might well have been his first time. She got up and took a pill, drank some water and looked at herself in the mirror. It had taken time but her plan had finally worked out. She stood some time before the mirror and admired her masterpiece of a figure. All those hours in the gym, the strict diet regimes had finally been worth it. She realized that she didn’t need to rush to her work now. After all, the restaurant will soon be hers in a few days. She went back to bed, pulled her blanket over her face and went to sleep totally at peace with herself.
Praveen drove back home and opened the door and sat down on a chair in his balcony. He felt tired but content. He took out his cell and dialed a number. After some time he heard a “Hello”
“Hello Deepak! Good Morning” Praveen said.
“Hey !!!Good Morning, Praveen. I didn’t expect you to call back so soon” the voice came.
“Just wanted to tell you something”
“What?”
“You know what! The Deepak and Priyanka story worked once again, for the third time in third year. 100% success rate.” Praveen said.
“Don’t tell me! So you had her?”
“Yes. Money has been transferred to your account.”
“Thanks man! Praveen, Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s bizarre man! You could have done that an year ago without any such long drama but you chose to set her up. I still don’t get it”
“It’s just a nice sport man. All the while she felt that she had set me up. It’s a great hunt when all the while the hunted feels that it is the hunter. She will feel that she had earned me. She will feel that she had pushed me into this, but in reality I just let her push me into it. Now, she will never be able to blame me for this and after some time she’ll rather feel guilty about it. She will again and again plot a similar night each time with the hope that I will give her that coveted ring and in course of time she will realize that I am rather dumb and will move on still unable to blame me. So while she will still believe that she had hunted a dumb rabbit the reality that she had been hunted stupid cow.”
“You are too wicked man. Riya, Deepti and now Reema. I wonder what’s next or rather, who is next?”
“I am not wicked. I just enjoy showing the schemers like Reema how much do they really suck, It’s they who plan and scheme and finally get trapped into it.”
“Ok buddy! Next time at least do find a better Priyanka, this one was a headache to train”
“Sure. Bye and take care” he said and hung up.
He made himself a coffee and just for a moment thought what Reema must be thinking now. He couldn’t help himself having a nice laugh.
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