The Wolf of Salt Lake City, a burning satire

(Beware! This article is replete with vicious pen-portraits of my nearest and dearest. Well, not anymore nearest, not anymore dearest either. Far from it.)

Dramatis Personae...
Chabla Mama, the father – (alias The Wolf, Big Daddy, Master of the Grouse…House)
Kalindi, the mother – (alias Egyptian Mummy, the Vamp)
Chhokri, the sister – (alias Pussy Girl, Kathakali dancer)
Bulldog, the bridegroom son – (alias Buffoon, Skirt-Chaser, Womanizer, the Taliban-ic Boyfriend)
Tadpole, the bride-wife – (alias Kitten, Enthu Cutlet)

The Wolf of Salt Lake City...

Last time around when I went to Nicco Park to attend a relative’s marriage party of his beloved Bulldog with a hefty Tadpole, I had vowed not to visit it again. A hulking Bulldog loading upon a poor Kitten…chee! What a disaster!

As a matter of fact, I couldn’t even force myself to believe how Chabla Mama (a rabble-rousing skunk from Salt Lake City scheming, conniving, manipulating for commercial contracts in the Ganjarhaat area and squatting on gutters and pipelines) could stoop so low to give his mentally-hollow, perverted devil of a son a wedding reception that at once smacks something of an anxious psychosis he suffers from, apparently.

Frankly, I think he blew it. After cursing myself as to why did I just bother to attend the marriage/reception I took a quick stroll around the park to see if I can figure out my relative’s cornucopian show of material wealth and power play and his family’s complete deficit of love, kinship, and social morals and values that their hearts I suspect hardly knew anything of in the first place. Money - pots of it - has destroyed Chabla Mama’s family’s collective conscience beyond recovery. 

It is hardly surprising that the biggest relationship roadblocks are money-related, not to forget power play, ego, internal politics, and the cold war that can lead to relation-ruining behaviour.

Barring a few of my other wonderful relatives whom I happened to meet and greet there after a long time, I had plainly overlooked most of the other irritating bunch I caught sight of bumbling around the park; their eyes wide open in pretentious zeal and mannerisms generally suggesting bountiful affluence and treachery. Other than that in anticipation of free meals and flattering exotic drinks they still remained where they always were: the rank and file of what I call the crooked-class public, morally worse individuals all. But what a haggard night it was! Meant not for a king, but for a loveless pauper!

To most of us, the whole marriage circus conducted at the water park appeared to be a sham. Chronicled here is the scale and size of matrimonial monstrosities perpetrated by the upstart rogues of the World’s Most Foul Chatto Haramzada family, who we always knew were in the grips of never-ending neurotic behaviour and ridiculous conduct.

The Marriage Circus…

To all of us the whole marriage circus was a veritable 20-point mockery:

1. A complete lunacy (pagoler chyata); 
2. A shameless exhibition of wealth (that could have found better use really); 
3. No doubt funded directly from the Bulldog’s braggart father’s hush-hush deposits of black money; 
4. A typical marriage of convenience that smacks of the bridegroom’s family’s bulldozing and intimidating tactics over the bride’s underprivileged, bankrupt parent; 
5. No wonder that had it not been for the bridegroom’s father’s money and sweet parleys, no father in his proper mind would give away his daughter to this woolly mammoth: a chhokra (patli gali ka Launda) nearing 50 years of age with icy cold looks and puffed-up with self-importance; 
6. This guy looked like so many things: even a Buffoon bordering on being a fat-solid grizzly bear, ever ready to plunge a wealth-flaunting dagger behind your back. To me, the guy is exactly what Jim Carrey says in the film Liar Liar – “one worthless steaming pile of hot cow dung!” 
7. The show-off father, silly as he was in his Mr. Bean-like ill-fitting coat and pyjama-like pants, with his hair spiked up like porcupine quills, lumbered around the park like a spend-thrift Big Daddy would look for free ‘selaams’, ‘nomoshkars’, ‘hellos and Hi’s’, ‘huzoor-e-alaas’ and ‘mai-baaps’ to be able to appease his super-sized ego, which further boosted his air of superiority complex!; 
8. The cantankerous Kalindi, one of Egyptian origin, half-smiled and half-smirked at all guests present there for the occasion, who, after having one wink at her, was, in turn, beginning to look as fed-up as possible with the entire spectacle of the Egyptian mummy’s non-graduate, MBA-failed fraudster son’s hopeless marriage reception. Within minutes of her settling down on the stage accompanied by the newest Tadpole in town (the bride that is) and her own Bulldog son (the bridegroom), her warts-ridden dark red thump of a face had automatically put on a stern look of increasing irritation that never let up for the rest of the evening at the rackety Nicco Park. 
9. One last look at Kalindi’s abnormal, grumbling, ‘falling-short-of-good-behavior’ face and I knew we are going to feel sorry for her long and wasted life of open rivalry, antagonism, and raging hatred for those who are not her immediate family; 
10. This farty old haggard, otherwise also known as Mrs. Gaamla, was (and is) always vampish in her false sense of pleasure reeking of open bitterness and truckloads of negative attitude directed towards everybody with the convenient exception of her own family members. This shoot-your-mouth-off Pharaonic mother zealously kept guard over the whole circus in which her pot-bellied Bulldog chhokra (son) and her pussy little chhokri (daughter) crossed swords with other equally bloated egos of all their jingoistic kith and kin; 
11. These people wore gold over their elephant-like bodies as if it were cheap junk jewellery that would put even Dubai sheiks to shame, Hotel Burj Khalifa to shut shop and PC Chandra to slink out of the window!; 
12. Showroom mannequins wear so much gold on their bare black and white busty bodies, but these weird bunch of people who happen to be my relatives (hanglaas and rakkoshes all) took it so seriously upon themselves that, eventually, it became a devil-may-care game of one-upmanship between themselves: “Nobody could possibly have more f**king gold jewellery that I f**king do!”; 
13. A truly hideous and kinky girl, simply bitchy at everything else except at herself, had plentiful applications of bling and expensive talcum powder all over her body done up by a lecherous Tollywood make-up donkey in the fond hope to give her overall Hippo leather hide (her skin type!) a semblance of human texture; but he failed miserably. 
14. But this chimpy girl, a professional college bunker and mother of all sins, with bee-stung lips below her blubbery nose quacking away (quack quack quack!) in full glory, ended up looking like what my cousin described to me as a glistening white country bitch on a Halloween night out or a Kathakali dancer! Take your pick! 
15. All the year-round, this arty-farty quarrelsome sister of the Bulldog by the name: Pussy Girl is occupied with planning farty ladies’ parties well attended by local girly bores, hussies, pimply chicks, ducks, and ugly vixens of her godforsaken garbage dump of a town. These flashy chyablamo parties, generously funded by her satanic (shaitan) father’s ill-gotten black money are known to give out horrible smells to high heavens: of high flatulence and overindulgence and contributing to their local municipality’s uncollected garbage dump! 
16. Not to mention the simulated sea waves originating from one corner of the Nicco Park, debris-filled – possibly with all kinds of animal excreta, including ‘brown-brown’ human goo – washing up to the smelly, dog-shit spattered, goo-stained, spurious oil-stained food stalls and wetting up people’s behinds and their hungry double-wides through and through!; 
17. The thakella DJ, probably hired from some sleazy nightclub, lost his ‘musical’ marbles and ball-bearings (if you know what I mean) as soon as he saw the foul-mouthed hulk of a Bulldog and his newly married, so uncultured enthu cutlet: Mrs. Tadpole (reputed to be a voracious liar!), striding along and swinging their double-wide bums towards the make-shift dance floor, apparently to shake up their big stuffy bottoms! 
18. The poor DJ couldn’t believe his loutish eyes when he saw what he saw; how could he, they were clogged with vulgar-sounding, blood-curdling drinks such as Bloody Marys (substandard, to say the least!) and super-diluted cancerous Martinis, flavourless Vodkas and other rancid lots….even the mugs of filly-castrating, impotent-making beers, rum, and whiskeys flowed from the Bar manned by tightfisted, constipated and cheap-looking bearers; 
19. After finishing singing some vulgar songs the cheapo DJ dude and his paranoid, favours-seeking female keeper had smacked their lips in unison, moistening them in anticipation of partaking in the putrid home-made (un)cooked foods at the grungy food stalls, such as Galda Chingrir Ghyat, Bird-Flu Chickener Ghol, Kaajer Masir Biryani, Bahadurer Chosha Chaatni, Jhee Chakorer Mishti & gooey stuff such as Ghonto Goo-e-Bhora, Do Taalar Chorai Maudh, Geraajer Bhaja Pora, Mithu Pakhir Patla Gooer Maacher Jhaal, Chataaler Chatha Matha, Office Khanaar Moother Daal, etc., etc., etc.
20. No wonder the DJ’s music mixes went cranky and jarring, just about managing to sound irritatingly crass and full of neurotic nonsense.

I did not at all appreciate even the least bit of this nightly show-off circus; it was played out as if it was the end of the world and nothing would exist post the show of his uncouth son’s marriage. They think: "No world exists beyond ours; it is our world - our world alone - that matters. If you have the kind of money we have, we can even suck up to your ass. If you don't, buzz off." I thought I had cared a bit for my relative Chabla Mama – never cared for his grouchy wife or their nauseating brood of a son and a daughter – but during the two days when we were there at his house as ‘auxiliary guests' he fell off several notches in my personal regard for him.

His family doesn’t even count for me, for they don’t even come up to my expectations at all. They are all calculating dervishes better be discounted at once than feel sorry later in repentance. But we couldn’t make ourselves do that because that would straightaway amount to being what they are in turn known to be famous for, jealous, crabby, cynical, and acrimonious. Frankly speaking, the hurt feeling never really occurs when it matters to these worthless people, but we thought Chabla Mama would at least be welcoming enough for us to be comfortable during our stay at his house and, sadly, he wasn’t. He turned out to be a wolf in a sheep’s clothing. He was crass and half-dead. Never once did he come up or asked us how we are putting up when we use to meet him by chance downstairs; if the rooms were comfortable or the bedspreads were being used to our satisfaction; after all, we were his relatives coming from a far-off place to be present in his household celebrations. So tell me, what do we expect from a relative to another relative? After all, he invited us over; we did not force ourselves in. There was absolutely no remorse or penitent shame whatsoever on the part of his entire breed of grumpy relatives drunk with liberalized, post-economic riches and gross one-upmanship! They were all dead people –dead to moral consequences, dead to chokkhu lojja (conscience). Oh, God! What were we thinking!

While there is nothing new as far as Chabla Mama’s counterfeit mindset is concerned, money often ‘changes’ people to discard known behaviour and characteristics for weird falsities that people like him find themselves deep into and never want to come out of – I don't know for all time to come? Frankly, these people act as if they are ‘possessed’ with their new-found ga-ga wealth profited from the so-called wealth-giving Financial District of Ganjarhaat area; no doubt they are beyond any hope of salvation either. Oh good heavens! They are not even in the position to figure out the meaning of salvation! God help this scandalous lot.

Yeah…such people only know themselves, only care for themselves; for them, the others don’t exist, don’t matter even if at the risk of cutting off ties with long-standing, deep-rooted relations, which, at one time, were supposed to be solely based on love and affection. I can’t even bear to think about the whole mess of human relationships that don’t stand the test of time, without being reasonably sane that is. The entire thing is so unbelievably true that it really breaks my heart. We simply blame it on the ‘today’s day and age’ adage and stop thinking about it ultimately. Afterward, we never again met The-Wolf-of-Salt-Lake-City Chabla Mama and his breed of rowdy people at their piece of shit house in Salt Lake City and we will never ever do.

A Disgraceful Family…

All this hunky-dory marriage business of this ‘chatto haramzada’ family stank of their rabid sarcasm and idiosyncratic psyche that they usually suffer from. What bothered me was their crass sense of social standing in their own disgraceful upwardly mobile society; actually, all this was meant to be aimed towards those who cannot really afford such a beggarly fiesta with their hard-earned money. As if the cliché ‘have money will splurge’ was writ large over their wickedly proud foreheads like cheap graffiti, and they went on painting the town red with it, unmindful of any moral consequences.

This Chatto Haramzada family doesn’t live by logic or reason because they suffer from a terrible psychological complex called: “We are rich and we can do everything!” Now that’s almost medically untreatable if you ask me. It’s so strange that more than half of tumour-filled small intestine has been surgically cut and removed from Chabla Mama’s body and yet he doesn’t stop from sinning every day or fear almighty God! Have you forgotten the horrific memories of your near-death experiences at the hospital when you came running after me for help? You are unlikely to forget that, aren’t you Chabla? Can you deny the love and affection you received from us? Not to mention the time and wonderful facilitation I got on a platter for you and your good-for-nothing, mentally-blocked bugger of a son at the hospital here? You should be really ashamed of yourself Chabla Mama if you’ve forgotten the prodigious amounts of time and assistance I and my family have extended to you at our house. What with the grant of little health and strength these days in your decaying, crumbling body you’ve begun to think poorly of us and that nothing can happen to you ever again? You are wrong, Oldie. Okay, go ahead tell me what are you? What are you really? What do you think of yourself? You may have a little more money than perhaps most of us do: does that mean you have become invincible and the Master of the Universe, greater than God Almighty’s will? What a fool of an ass you are. I pity the type of self-centered person you are.

Never in my life have I seen or heard such a foul-mouthed and uncouth human being (not to forget his gutter-bred family rats) in the large group of our family friends and relatives. I dare say he is one of God’s unfinished businesses! Nobody is going to cry when you die; least of all me.

Such gruff mental make-up of theirs stinks to high heavens really. But who’s there to help these born-again dirty mongrels discard such terse behaviour they exhibit or even extend a helping hand for them to stay reasonable and rational? I wish they were good people, but unfortunately, they were all fools; totally blinded by the power that money can buy. Godforsaken people! That they need to spend obscene amounts of easy un-income-taxed black money to keep up their bogus social status higher up in the societal gang (moving around as if like ‘rich’ fellows), gives away their false sense of worth and merit as individuals. Every other member in the family has an eye on Big Daddy’s easily acquired green wads.

What a funky bedlam of an affair they had made out of their good-for-nothing imposter son who has only one thing in his pea-brained skull: “Everything is for my g(r)and masti”. (Remove ‘r’ from the word and you’d know what I mean to say!). Not to speak of this old ill-mannered liar fed only on chicken- and mutton-biryani (murgir jhol) Bulldog and his severely constipated attempts at making non-Facebookish, fistula-sized, piles-high, fissures-infested status messages all over the town about burning up Earth’s resources at Peter Cat, Oh! Calcutta or City Center. What a total dumbass prick he was, and all his out-of-shape, flabby, cash-stuffed ilk!

A Desperate Skirt-Chaser, a Womanizer…

The oversized Bulldog was (and still is) a desperate skirt-chaser, a womanizer, by his own admission to me once when we sat on the pavement behind the iNox cinema in the City Center mall. He had loved an uptight girl (and almost eloped before getting married to another such Tadpole) from the neighbouring town, apparently a low-caste wastrel with whom this dude did some ‘time-pass’ for some time before he caught another girl in his widely cast out maya jaal and made his day with her! Such was this inveterate Casanova’s tendency into enticing young innocent girls into his elaborate scheme of amorous things!

Even the Rehmannia restaurant’s incorrigibly wicked waiters stare at and even keep a lecherous eye on this well-known ‘item’. No doubt the waiters there expect the best out of these two lovebirds to sneak in at their usual corner in the restaurant and get blissfully smoochy-smoochy with each other. And they can happily record with their mobile and CCTV cameras! No wonder the waiters take inordinate amounts of time to get the ordered dishes to their table so that they can lecherously enjoy the pornographic spectacle unfolding in front of them, scene by scene!!!

Falling head over heels with every single girl is this Buffoon’s single-most specialty. City Center mall is his usual hunting ground; where this lust-filled lecherous youth (an incurable itch in his groin eggs him on with his oh-so-romantic missions!) prowls about like a dog in heat for his next target: a sexy hussy! No ‘stick insects’ for him please to satisfy his f**king carnal desires, but for ‘wholesome flesh’ he craves!

Pathetically, hardly had he any qualms ditching his poor girlfriend immediately after when his wolfish mongrel of a father began sweetly blackmailing and cajoling his own useless Bulldog of a son with wads of free cash reserves and other unheard-of perks and private properties! Needless to state, the innocent girl – apparently of humble family background – was simply reduced to being a pawn between a menacingly standoffish father and his in every which way a G**du son. The poor girl must have been devastated due to this disgrace on the part of her boyfriend she never could foresee coming her way and changing her life forever. She must have cursed her fate when luckily good senses prevailed on her and she came round to sense her lousy, municipal-standard Bulldog of a boyfriend’s real intentions: to use her to satisfy his carnal cravings, impregnate her and leave her to fend for herself! At least that was a saving grace for her, if at all when she escaped from the clutches of her uneducated Talibanic boyfriend!

Terminated All Family Ties With Them…

Bloody-hell. I am thoroughly pissed off especially with this chicken-mongering Bulldog, not to mention the head of the family: Chabla Mama. If I ever happen to see the Bulldog anywhere in the vicinity of my world where I move around, I wouldn’t have any qualms to plant a foot or two on his mouth and dislocating his biryani-eating jaws and making his puffed-up face so mercilessly bloody that his family members would not even recognize their own bloody lad. As for his chuhiya sister and his pathologically narrow-minded mother, I have my middle finger raised up!

…But I broke an old vow of mine and walked into Nicco Park as if on a mission to completely exterminate all familial ties I had with a bunch of constantly dissenting relatives of mine – subversive, fork-tongued, poisonous vultures all. Wish I had never met them or if I had just ditched this bizarre public in time to their own ruthless raakkoshi world of endless buying, eating, dining, drinking, splurging, and their disgusting showing-off of their latest tech toys and body wares.

Oh, thank God! This time around at Nicco Park everything appeared much better and calmer because not a single over-the-top, lousy marriage circus was in sight!

Before I finish, I wonder why Nicco Park lets out its otherwise pristine premises for organizing lousy marriage circuses such as the one I had to attend a year ago. Perhaps, it is not their fault. But if it is, then they should at least turn down such bad-mouthing ‘chatto haramzadas’ of the world from arranging their good-for-nothing sons’ marriage there, or else rename the park as, Nicco Marriage Park or Nicco Marriage Garage or Nicco Marriage Circus for Dogs and Bitches.

“Ghora Dingiye Ghaas Kheyocho”….. Two words in my response to that barb: My foot! On second thought let me butt in another two: Up Yours!

An Afterthought…

We have attended countless weddings and marriage receptions in elegant 5 Star Hotels and classy Restaurants, or even in fashionable Resorts and elite Clubhouses. Not to mention the ubiquitous Marriage Halls, Gardens, and Parks of our vast and overpopulated dreary country. But when it came to figuring out Chabla Mama’s and his degenerate family’s Nicco Park jaunt, it was as though the whole pack of cards fell like nine pins!

Not actually because of the Master of the Grouse…oops! House, Chabla Mama that is (who else!) – an identical twin of Osama Bin Laden (minus the flowy beard) – liked acting upon his opportune plans – howsoever dubious or otherwise it may sound to you or me – to suck up to his scandalous son’s pissing fancy, but by the whole objective of having to show-off his command and clout of what he could do with his pots of ill-gotten black money and what he is capable of to overshadow other upstart crows of Salt Lake City, where he lives and farts. And of course, about his incorrigible, almost insatiable, itching to get to be the king of the world is less said the better! Nobody really gives a damn about his riches anyway, but he hardly ever realizes that. Poor finch.

Salt Lake City is one boring sectarian colony crammed up with guests-repelling, run-of-the-mill matchbox-like houses (pyeraar basha) with overhanging balconies and gaping sit-outs. Unsightly cemented enclosures all – their owners account for sometimes banal sometimes oh!-touch-me-not perspective towards life. But balconies are everywhere there, like roving pests. Every house has its own one or more balconies, concretized to the extremes of design patterns. House-proud denizens slip into their wrap-around robes and outfits and park themselves on some overnight wicker chairs in their hot and muggy verandas and peek outside: hot air breathing out of their twisted nostrils and pale mouths puckering up in eager anticipation of the coming weekend’s promise of nonstop shopping and open dining. Almost all houses are practically unlivable, hot and dreadful, without proper air-conditioning that is.

Now I say chaps; the day is not far off when people like Chatto Harmazadas become beggarly outcasts. When misfortune strikes, it will break your back (borolok-giri) and mellow your criminal bent of mind for sure. Be ready, as it may even obliterate you and that’s inevitable! We have once-headstrong Mr. Potluck and his sweet little family standing in as good examples! Don’t you know his story, Chabla? History repeats itself and soon it will catch up on you too...you just wait, Oldie. Your time is up! Your worst nightmare is on the way.

Today, we might not (and will not ever!) have anything to do with you nasty people, but Fate has its own Machiavellian designs; don’t tempt it. If you do, you face the music of hell. So pull up your socks, you filthy animals. May your filthy little souls survive to eventually become civilized people or else the choice is entirely yours to make or break. Take your pick!

By Arindam Moulick

- Wrote (rather typed) almost entirely at our apartment in Kolkata between Feb-Mar 2014 on my Nokia mobile phone.

Word Count: 4,005

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, and characters portrayed in my story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead (even half-dead!) is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person (even animal or thing for that matter) either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.

CHAPTER 10 - Life as We Knew It at Satyam

Afterward, all throughout the month of August, Arinvan, Manpreet, and Savitha often found themselves huddled together in a group creativity technique called brainstorming sessions with Revanthi and Raufia, not to forget The Sensible-One Balzie Gigamorthy taking part in it.

On the multiple roles, one gets to do in the fabled department of roaming division, it came to everybody’s liking that we are a team of like-minded professionals assembled to act in the best interest of the goals and objectives of our division. Not a thing was found out of place, literally speaking. We were even collectively labelled as ‘billable resource’ of our own amply productive, money-making department. Roughly of the same age, we were not afraid to take chances and not willing to back down from anything, anything at all, we kept contributing. Everybody looked promising enough to deal with the rigors of GG-Howdy-harassed life in the fantastic, unforgettable roaming division.

Mind Here, Heart Elsewhere:

Most times – Arinvan mostly observed to himself – Savitha used to be companionable and tolerant if and only if the opposite person happens to be a like-minded individual or has some kind of shared college or school history to relate to; otherwise, she liked to remain aloof from anything that remotely suggested: “extra baggage” and must be kept at bay. She, as Arinvan saw it, was sociable no doubt, but she preferred not to mingle pointlessly with every Tom, Dick, or Harry or any Riya, Priya, or Shriya. Easygoingness was clearly not one of her character traits, fortunately, or unfortunately. She had got to learn a lot. Corporate life demanded flexibility and she was gradually seeking it in her own sweet way. At other times, she was found straightforwardly ‘serious’ and being self-effusive as most young girls of her age, one assumes, definitely are was not something she really cared to believe in. She seemed to be putting up with some kind of stress-related ‘concern’ or ‘issue’ that refused to budge from her preoccupied mind. She was a classic case of “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” 

Arinvan found nothing wrong with what her personality was made of because it was not of his business or botheration to get worried about. To each his/her own, he thought. God made all kinds; so who is he to judge her through the lens of his own set of preconceived notions? At one angle, Savitha was not to be blamed for rearing dreams to go to America. That was pretty natural. To be sure it was her prerogative. Perhaps, her friends and relatives have found a footing there and so wanted Savitha too to take the plunge and make a go at it! She must have said to herself: “Why the hell not?” and took the proverbial ‘leap-of-mankind’ step forward to go to that distant land. The well-known adage ‘I am going to America, baby!’ became a part of wider cultural folklore that, according to me it smacks of an unmistakable holier-than-thou attitude – a national epidemic suffering from a kind of ‘Because-I-am-worth-it-Loser!’ syndrome. Even to the extent that some of these people don’t mind extending their middle finger at the folks who come to drop them off at the airport!!! The kind of allure that such foreign-going people fall prey to often end up expecting too much from their own dreams of making it to the US, or any country for that matter. They easily forget their family and friends back home. In this particular scenario, often their counter-arguments would be that they wanted, by hook or by crook, to yank themselves away from the so-called “tight situation” they were finding themselves into all the time in their home country and therefore were forced to putting together their plans to be able to “push off to America” for good. 

If you happen to be a hard-working, coding master kind of software engineer then you are required to dump your ‘Indian way of life’ and for God’s sake! go away to America and seek your redemption! Therefore, “Going to America!" became the ultimate maxim to live by before you are actually even going that is. In terms of either showing off to your neighbours or whoever cared to know about you or garbing your secret longing to make good with the likes of making your career and earning handsome phoren money, were all eventually part of its, shall we say, side-effects? Never mind positive or negative effects – no one gives a rat’s ass to get concerned with any effects in the first place. All those who couldn’t go or disinclined to go are surreptitiously branded in one umbrella term such as: “LOSERS!”, “BIG LOSERS!” The tragic-comic story is quite similar everywhere. So to speak, in the post-liberalized global economy of our country, one will most definitely find almost in every home worth its salt one or more ‘American’ flatterer, a kowtower, a yes-man, an apple-polisher, an unqualified stooge, a self-gratifying name-dropper!

That was not entirely Savitha’s way of dreaming and longing about her future in the US – her right of way to the kingdom of the good life and phoren money. No, it was not. Savitha Tandavi had a fair bent of mind that might have unduly concentrated upon one thing and only one thing ever since she had come of age and was enough qualified to be seeking a US visa. Perhaps, she didn’t realize and she never will, and now it surely stands as a different story altogether, that making friends or being friends or the plain life as she knew it here, sadly, became none of her concern anymore. Post Satyam she had had invariably lost that part of History that will never come by; day after day, year after year, the plentiful beauty of one’s life was lost to the wilderness of Time, forever.

Monsoon rains; soaking wet skin; hot summer breeze; coconut water; sweat doused with inexpensive deodorant; bittersweet longing for anything that comes in between Hope and Misery; arranged marriages; relatives schooling into your house unannounced; eavesdropping and nosy neighbours; idling vehicles; pot-holed, crater-holed roads and gullies; smelly housing colonies and apartment buildings; visiting temples on Tuesdays and Saturdays; heart-tugging love affairs; ‘water’ problem; ‘current’ problem…and more.

…all that comes with leading an ordinary life that her country, her own motherland, could unconditionally provide her have been trashed. She permanently nipped such despicable Indian way of looking at things in the bud; knowingly or unknowingly, she scooped herself up with a new, as she thought, the way of life she had always wanted to possess. India: 0, America: 1 (to the power of infinity!). Therefore, America, here she comes.

For Savitha at least, it was an opportune time when many starry-eyed individuals like her made off with their hands-on computer experience and degree certificates to Visa and Passport offices to lay valid claims for a first US visitation, and then, of course, “settle down” there. H-1B was, and still is, the most prevalent non-immigrant Visa that one went after. The H-1B Visa permit is well-known among software professionals. Those who couldn’t go to the US just stayed back at home and “licked their wounds” and got themselves an unwilling chance at correcting their sense of right and wrong, and even tried to cease their personal incapacity to rearing clear conscience in their bemoaning hearts.

We Never Went To Denmark:

Unfortunately, Manpreet and Arinvan went nowhere; thanks to GG’s brand of dirty office politics and his idiosyncratic grudge against them; not even when there was a decent chance for them both to go to Copenhagen, Denmark on a TAP3 training assignment. Oh Yikes! It was grudge all right; now if it was not grudging what was it then? It sure was a grudge on the part of GG’s far-less-than-polite character! Previously, Manpreet and I were actually very excited when it was announced by who-else GG that the TAP3 training would take place in Denmark. That certainly meant this: an opportunity to meet our constant friends and consultants from Dann Natte Ms. Susanna Garlow and Spice-Girls’ Emma Bunton-lookalike Ms. Rossenberg. Now TAP3 training was got to have done ASAP. Since Manpreet and I were the primary stakeholders with regard to something as important as TAP3, we were naturally so expectant of our boss GG that he would make sure we went to Denmark and got trained in it. We were really looking forward to it. It would have been truly a ‘feather in the cap’ moment for us to have a chance to interact with the benevolent Susanna and twinkly-eyed fun-loving Ms. Rossenberg. But it was not to be so. Denmark remained an unfulfilled dream. GG, the Saddam Hussein of Satyam, for whom straitjacketing people’s aspirations was an everyday affair, preferred to arrange Renzo Anny Munny and the docile Guyana Pracash as candidates for the TAP3 training and they can in turn train Manpreet and Arinvan after their return from their trip to Denmark!

Renzo Anny Munny, a decent and likable friend, and the normally reticent Guyana Pracash had worked with us at the division. Renzo and Guyana were brought in later to handle managed services that primarily included client training, audits, and consultancy. Whereas our duties comprised real-time daily operational intelligence, including information analytics, client-specific financial reporting limited to roaming data, forecasting, dashboards, operating on the state-of-the-art data-specific synchronized web portal of Dann Natte’s and the works.

Therefore, the logic behind our little expectation to visit Denmark was: if we – Manpreet Singh and Arinvan Maliek – were supposed to make sure that clients implement the new TAP3 file formats at their end then why not get us trained on it first-hand? Agreed that Renzo and Guyana were equally responsible to keep abreast of TAP3 technology then what was so wrong with us not being taken up for the training? To be fair, why not send us both including Renzo and Guyana as a team to Denmark? Why the hell not?

No wonder, GG’s irrational bias and personal vendetta against Arinvan and Manpreet was writ large over his overall judgment on certain things that were rife with unconcealed animosity in the department. I wonder what Savitha Tandavi would have done about this Denmark fiasco. Understandably, she wouldn’t bother herself beyond what was required to do anything about it. Such was her resolve against the forever-irate GG’s care-no-hoots trouble-making tendencies; but at the same time, her feminine and fragile (by no means a derisory term) self did get tormented by such mindless atrocities we all put up with. No doubt she had saved herself from this nasty belittling because Denmark would have been surely denied to her too. It never bothers bossy abusers such as GG even if the reality speaks for itself loud and clear: that Arinvan and Manpreet on the one hand and Renzo and Guyana on the other were, after all, going to be the ultimate users of the TAP3 technology so why not train them all? Bias! What else? Bias! Bias! Plain-ass Bias!

Ms. Susanna’s and Ms. Rossenberg’s excellent awareness, especially on the state-of-the-art synchronized web portal exclusively developed by Dann Natte, compounded with their overall know-how would have been a great asset for Arinvan Maliek and Manpreet Singh to get effectively schooled on. We in all fairness looked forward to it. We sincerely hoped that may be the day is not far when we will be gratified with the joy of visiting them in Denmark; at least for once to meet them in person and regale ourselves with the bonhomie that was sure to ensue thereafter would just be too great an experience for us both. Sadly, that part of history was never made, it never happened. Thanks to GG the hatchet-job monger, it went kaput. Call it Fate; call it a victim of GG’s dirty rotten office politics, a chance to live our dream was nipped in the bud! Of course, we had a chance to make history, but unfortunately, and deeply so, we weren’t allowed to.

A self-introspection: What wrong did Savitha Tandavi commit when she was an aspirant blindly wanting to make it to the US? Needless to mention, Savitha’s hopes too would have been dashed asunder by GG the evil Rakshasha had she stayed with us. Good on her that she lobbed a cracker of an ‘I quit!’ bomb on GG’s neurotic face and walked off. He was deservingly gob-smacked! Bless you, Savitha! You slinked away! You did a great job! You should have seen GG’s face after you left your job. He sulked and huffed and puffed and harrumphed after your exit from the scene. (Obviously, he took the pending revenge on us poor souls and settled all kinds of scores, forever after!). So, therefore, if Manpreet and Arinvan had fervently desired to go to Denmark then Savitha too had aspired to go to America. What’s the difference between the two? Nothing you know that anything should weigh heavily on her or anyone’s conscience. As a matter of fact, Savitha’s single-minded devotion to the potential possibility of getting an H-1B Visa (even an offshoot of that thing was no problem procuring; so where is the problem in making a little hay when the sun shines high in the sky?) had held her in complete awe and her likely escape to that distant land. Sooner or later, she “pushed off to the US”, giving GG Howdy a ‘big hand’!

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Disclaimer: 

The views expressed here are written in jest! I don’t subscribe to any obscene, unlawful, defamatory, libellous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable writing; and therefore, the article is written just for arts’ sake - L'art pour l'art (French, translated as "art for art's sake"). Here’s hoping that it conforms to some kind of literary merit as I originally had intended it to when I started out writing it.

This short story is a work of fiction. All incidences and characters portrayed in the story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.