CHAPTER 16 - The Strange Case of Miss Lady Scootywali, part 3

Arindam Moulick

Well, in the society of people, you meet several kinds. Some of them make a difference in your life, others don’t. It is from the latter part of reality that a person like Neetu Scootywali hails from, unfortunately. Miss Lady Scootywali was less than usual a person. She remained unflinchingly torpid. Even a little presumptuous and it wouldn't be a very hard-hitting word one would use, never mind carefully or not carefully, to describe her. Clearly, she was a far cry from her glory days of Satyam high-high.

On account of making such a critical comment about her (and I mean this in a positive way) she was never ‘taken’ as a friend, not by Arinvan Maliek at any rate. I figure she never wanted or needed to be one. But why this lamenting account here? Let me then explain further…

One wanted to be friends with Neetu but she was so straightforwardly aloof that one didn’t, after a point, take the trouble. Several times when I had interacted with her – with an open mind (seriously!) – during those young and dreamy days, each time, to my surprise, I found her as unfriendly and impassive as she ever was; symptomatic of being needlessly distant, rigid and uninitiated teenybopper. I never thought poorly of her and I took her uninitiated-ness in my stride and told myself: “That’s life. Get over it.”

Making hearty conversation was really not a part of her personal characteristic so why the heck should I fret about it; I didn’t really, but I genuinely liked the way she used to shake her head in a diplomatic way and smile away minimally whenever spoken to or spoke in monosyllables. I bet you wouldn’t know for a reason if the typical head-shake of hers would mean a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’! That was one good thing to behold of her. It goes this way that way!

Exchanging friendly emails with her was a task best left out of your list of dos; better drop it off to the don'ts section and stay happy. Her email replies were short, stark, and obtuse. Emails composed (perhaps with great difficulty) came with a line or two at the max. This surely dampens your spirits when you kind of expect something forthcoming from her; some good lines when you know the other guy is no less than a friend. In all fairness, you send her an email and she feels a bit troubled and compelled to reply back to you. I mean, don’t I get it? Stupid me! Now I know. It’s: ‘Back off! Will ya!’

Eventually, I couldn’t help but rest my personal judgment against her inertness as only just another person I happen to have been acquainted with (never mind how many years we know each other’s family) and so beyond that nothing should vex me. I should mind my own business and stop being overly critical about her; after all, history speaks for itself – an unfriendly girl who believes in her own scatterbrained ways should at best be left alone. That is all there is to it. Not a penny more not a penny less.

Fresh out of college and getting a job was fine on her part, rather a good start, but having an all-the-year-round preference for being incurably introverted is in my opinion crudely off-putting and forbidding and that doesn’t give her any reasonable credibility at all, does it? If she thinks it does, then she’s greatly mistaken in her way of thinking.

Demure, Deadpan, and Smutty

Ms. Scootywali had a fine smile and I had, without ever bringing myself telling her about it, given her 4 on a scale of 5 every time when there was a talk about it. There was nothing great about the beauty score so I kept it at that just in case, secretly fearing her infamous Catty Purrs!

Gawd! She doesn’t even know how much I’d had adored that typical twinkly smile of hers! She was good looking no doubt: let’s say a Dimple Kapadia look-alike? Even her long flowy hair seemed to have taken off in large chunks after Dimple Kapadia’s well-known scalp full of gossamer-thick twirls and curls. She had a great dress sense which I particularly liked and gossiped about with my friends sitting on the cemented culvert almost every evening below one of my close friend’s apartment building by the main road. 

(Admittedly, she wasn’t the only one we gossiped about; in fact, there were a dozen others....no no no... not a dozen, but just a couple more. During our daily evening rendezvous on the culvert, we were really 'preoccupied' with her for some time).

During my early days, I used to think that not many girls from our area could have had that fine dress sense as she had. I was right in my personal assessment of her. I thought her smile on her face was a saving grace, never mind her overall flawed personality. (I suppose we are all flawed in our own way).

The only hitch was her inertness! I’ve often driven myself to a wall wondering how she could manage a great smile like that on her face and being passive and stiff as a starch at the same time. Is it really so thoughtful of her to be like that? It beats me really even to this day when thoughts of my friendly rapport (superficial, to say the least) with her come down on me like a terrible flash of lightning.

I burnt my fingers in such hopeless confusion that it brings me no joy thinking about the days when I used to know her and her ever-smiling mom and their brief visits, mostly on evenings, to our house. Be that as it may, what if Neetu’s been deliberately complicated with me? Was there something I missed to know about her? Was I missing something? Maybe, but even today I am not sure about it. She sure was not ‘with’ others and so that odd feeling still remains within me like a ruse. It must be mentioned here again that her smile complimented her innate dress sense, which was an urbane and well-thought-out affair.

A Visit to Her Office

I knew Neetu worked with Satyam Computers at Marsh Mellow Building and so went to meet her once with a fond hope that she will receive me at her office in right earnest. That was not to be. Within minutes into our hopeless conversation that ensued at her office’s reception area, I realized that I probably made a mistake taking the trouble all the way to come over and meet her. I shouldn’t have bothered. Sitting on the plush sofa with her sitting at a fair distance away, I was discomfited. She sat ram-rod stiff and in the next instant, her patent dimpled smile disappeared from her face like a sudden power outage! In its place came a wallowing nonchalance that hovered over her fairly-haired reddish-brown head. What else could I do sitting there talking to a person who is simply not interested to talk? That piece of the dismal behaviour of hers was so off-putting to bear; remembering some other reason about her I suddenly took to feeling totally dejected. That was not expected of her. Bidding a curt goodbye and good luck to her I bolted out of her office area immediately after that, then I went swiftly walking down the flight of stairs as fast as my legs could carry, and out of the building into the parking lot! Phew!

After my induction into Satyam’s Tesser Towers branch, the first time ever I ran into her here was when she was walking, almost sashaying, down the corridor to grab a cup of coffee. Yes, her smile was back in place and her casual indifference lurked somewhere about her. You know not being gross but insouciant. Forgetting everything that happened before, I leaped with joy to see Neetu Scootywali on the same 5th-floor precinct of Tesser Towers. I didn’t know that she was transferred out to here. Before I knew it, she was already somewhere behind me waiting for her turn, smiling away in all glory to other associates; may be smiling for me too, if and only if, I have the proper nerve to catch a glimpse of it! And this time it drove me to think: if her ready smile was really instinctive in nature or a result of some kind of nervous anticipation of the facial muscles of her cheeks at a ready to face me. After exchanging a few pleasantries, I grabbed my coffee and sagely went my way and dropped the idea of even thinking about her.

“Ek zindagi guzar gayee,

Zindagi samajhne mein,

Ek umr aur chahiye

Ab tujhe samajhne mein.” 

(Ha..ha..ha..!!!)
The Nescafe machine in the airy passageway became, quite inadvertently, a chatting point where you share a ‘hi’ or a ‘hello’ and then head back to your cubicle with the frothy coffee in your paper cup. Nothing may be so special about the ‘sound’ of a coffee dispenser makes when you press a button on it; all dispensers probably make the same sound, or more or less the same. But I still remember, even as I write this memoir, the ohyyaaannnnng sort of whine of the 5th floor’s Nescafe coffee dispenser was hard to forget – N.E.S.C.A.F.E. written in bold font across the container case, truly marvellous. In the green-marbled passageway, no other sound was as loud as the familiar coffee machine’s. No doubt it was a necessity, even the sound of it. Nobody could do without a good cup of wholesome coffee/tea.

Anyway, coming back to my story, I did not really socialize with Neetu as I thought I could, especially during the lunch hours or coffee breaks with other communicative folks who come up to grab a cuppa in the green-marbled passageway. We consciously avoided each other unless we unexpectedly happen to get face to face sometimes in the corridor or near the coffee machine. A curt ‘hi’ or a smile reciprocated best described our clumsy association and non-existent friendship. Oh hell! It was not even a friendship thing that I keep mentioning here; it was more or less an I-am-just-aware-of-you kind of thing for her. Well, I too am bound to think likewise.

And I can’t believe I’ve composed a poem of no less than seven stanzas for her (two of them I give here). Of course, I never put her, as they say, ‘in the loop’ that I wrote a few archaic and obnoxiously obtuse verses for her. It must also be said that she never came to know, and I never ever told her considering how she was, that I wrote, of all things, a poem on her.

"Of an elegantly ornate origin

Is your romantic piece of smile.

Drive your glimmering limousine

Speed past by this juvenile.

Those *sweetest words you spoke

On the day we first met.

You caught me marveling at your cloak

And that blue scarf around your neck…"

(*Correction: not really "sweetest words" as mentioned in my floriated poem!)

Mysteriously Aloof

Our team hardly found the time (Chichcha GG had made sure of that!) to meet people to discuss something. That is not to say one could not go for a break and have a cup of coffee at least. Thank god for that. Constant bickering of work schedules was high on the list of our daily problems to solve. Even for a chance of cracking a conversation with the affable Pavan Bommaraju or Tanya Bhatroy for that matter hardly ever came by, except maybe exchanging a ‘hi’ or ensue a quick small-talk between ourselves whenever we happen to cross each other in the corridor or chancing upon at the coffee machine to get some coffee. One should take the cue from such things that friendship doesn't come easy. Needs working upon.

Neetu was not a conversation starter; her inertness showed on her general being, loud and clear. No, ‘relationship’ was not on my mind, oh Gawd, far from it. In fact, I had no idea if her mind was teeming with archaic suggestive references to ‘friendship’ turning into ‘relationship’ issues, otherwise, I’d have gladly intervened by telling her that it is certainly not the case, so just chill babe. Whatever grey matter you have in your head, lady? Was she philosophizing on one of those age-old rigmaroles of mankind that pronounces: A Man and a Woman can never be ‘friends’, without getting into a ‘relationship’ eventually. Is that some kind of small-mindedness that stinks to high heavens? As I said, I had no idea. I couldn’t help her line of thinking; no doubt, I would if I could. It is indeed pitiable that Neetu simply chose to drift away regardless of the fact that we knew each other right since our college days. I was amazed then, I still am amazed now: our common background; those happy college days, the same protected commune where we stayed together never came into her scheme of things. She used to secretively watch when we boys and girls played our hop-skip-and-jump games and tennis-ball cricket, but she by no means took part in the games we amused ourselves playing. To me at least it’s a matter of infinite sadness: Why oh! why couldn’t we salvage our little but well-meant association we have had over the years from getting doomed? Or save it from getting ignominious? Our friendship (non-existent though it always was) could have been just so noble, even cared for and nurtured, but, lamentably, it wasn’t. I came to realize ultimately that Neetu was neither capable nor could ever be entitled to her own share of ‘a great friendship’ with me. Of course, it’s her choice and inclination to make friends with whomever she wanted to. However, I suppose, she was simply not tuned into or familiar with things such as friendship and its other affiliations. A good part of her heart and mind simply couldn’t catch the undercurrents of one’s anticipation or straightforward expectation. Guess she was not one among us lesser mortals; she preferred to live her life her own way as…demigod?

Neetu was not the one you would like to be friends with either. But then, I truly have hoped that had she been a little more helpful and sociable than she was, then life in those early years at Satyam would have been far far better knowing a friend who not only had a trendy smile but also an innate dress sense. Alas! That was never to be. It was not easy for me to reconcile to the life of my earlier years spent in Satyam; not because she wasn’t concerned about me but because why doesn’t it trouble her at all? She was not what I thought she was. I had contemplated that perhaps with experience and age she might mature up, ease up a bit and soften her dogged stance towards her own frenetic life, but oh! What was I thinking! Never has Ms. Scootywali come to anything near to what I call uncompromising obstinacy! What a pity really! In a sense, it was such a waste that she never got to see the true picture nor did she even realize what she had missed in her life. Maybe, I am hamming a little about this, but truly what a squander of a life; missing out on life’s small things that mean so much should really have hurt, but who knows what kind of sane mind she has to live her life on her own sweet terms! Today I am compelled to believe that she is and ever was, perhaps, not really keen to be friends with anyone. I think it’s really hard to pass on a judgment like that, but to be sure she was not being sensitive to life’s store of pleasant surprises. She simply abdicated herself from it. Well, as far as I am concerned, the word ‘aloofness’ that I had so conveniently inflicted upon Neetu did, above all those unexplained things, acquire a terrible meaning all those years ago! This is not to make a thoughtless judgment of her, but she sure was a sweet girl after all.

Afterward

Afterward, after her boss got moved out to another branch-office, we completely lost touch with each other and never talked ever since, not even occasionally or accidentally. If you believe in ‘coincidence’ or ‘happenstance’ for her ever to come in contact with me, well, it never happened and I wish it never happens. I wish her well and her ever-smiling pillion riding grand lady: her mom.

Some things are better left unsaid, not talked about like this perhaps. Maybe not, but they will certainly die their own natural death one day and fritter away as Time passes, and no one would ever come to know of them that these heart-aching miseries had once existed in someone’s restless heart. Time will heal us all.

In the intervening years before my woeful exit from Satyam in the early 2000s, many significant events had begun to take place at our beloved roaming division that went on to change our lives forever. By the end of the year 2001, everything was beginning to end. There was no roaming division left; and our oh!-so-beloved worth-dying-for corner cabin of almost 3 and a half years, our high-flying life of working, living, and longing began to recede its magic, and one by one they disappeared into the Blue Horizon never to return.

Manpreet, Savitha, Balzie, Arinvan, Shiva, Dilnawaz, Devee, Suraj, and all others left Tesser Towers one by one. Afterward, I never saw Neetu ever again there. She shifted out. By the time when the world began to be weary and lost, I too had to move out of Tesser Towers to another branch of Satyam, never to come back.

END OF PART 3, Concluded.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Click here for PART 1 of the story.
Click here for PART 2 of the story.

Song courtesy:
"Ek zindagi guzar gayee..." - song lyrics from the film Jaanam (1992).

- This article has also been published on ezinearticles.com. Following is the web link:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Strange-Case-of-Miss-Lady-Scootywali,-Part-3&id=8723621

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, 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.

CHAPTER 15 - The Strange Case of Miss Lady Scootywali, part 2

Arindam Moulick

Leaving Trishule Park

Leaving Trishule Park residence was imminent and when it was time to leave I had heartbreaks. I never recovered from the shock of shifting out of my beloved homestead. The fact that we have to leave one day was unimaginable to me. I took it to heart and broke down many times when the dreadful day came and we found ourselves in the act of relocating to nearby Paliwall Estate. It was inevitable. We were about to lose our living garden of Eden.

Guess what is supposed to happen will happen; no matter whether your life as you know it remains the same or will never be the same again. Hard done by the whole business of actually relocating to someplace else, I became an emotional wreck forthwith. The shifting choked me even as I realized to my great misery that Trishule Park residence was so important to me, psychologically and emotionally. I got everything to lose. It felt like I was being duped for life. 

With Trishule Park gone, I had lost my fair share of living my reclusive life. Nobody from the God’s Abode above in the all-blue still-born April skies bothered about my great personal loss. Now, who'd that be? Am I kidding myself that God will descend down or something? Do you see it now? Ain't I a wreck for real? The loss of a life I had lived long ago took my heart aggrieving a great deal. Shifting to Paliwall Estate was inevitable and Oh God! there was no escaping it. Trishule Park will forever remain my soul beloved.

Whither the Starry-Eyed Teenybopper?

In the autumn of the year 1997/98, just within days after Neetu completed her graduation and shifted to Paliwall Estate from her Trishule Park residence, an incredible thing happened. She fetched herself a job at none other than the great Satyam Computers and bought a nice new metallic-green two-wheeler, a Scooty. And I thought that was a brave thing to do, getting a job at Satyam that is. This was a few years after the infamous The Dopeynath Pundy Affair.

Getting a job at Satyam was considered as a major feat and for the first time when Sunel and I had heard that Miss Lady Scootywali had indeed landed one there recently, we found ourselves looking at each other rather in disbelieving wonder. Sitting on our favourite culvert we wondered if it was really possible for her to find a job so quickly or the entire thing might be plain bullocks. I had not opined on anything just yet.

Strong Selvejar and Sateesh Eloor were hardly willing to avert their gaze fixed firmly on the much-frequented local bakery store even as they listened – uninterestedly, it seemed to me – to what Sunel and I were chatting about. Then Sunel just said pointlessly, “Woh scootywali…? Aho!”

It was my turn to treat them all at the locally-famous Ganesh Bakery, including the sulkiest of our group Sunel Goan-Kalay. Needless to say, Strong and Sateesh were giving me impatient looks! Helloow…. A bottle of manly Thums Up and a solid rock of black chocolate coffee cake for each of our lads here, please!

Not that we doubted Neetu’s abilities or anything…, but she was barely a just-out-of-college grad riding her Scooty – by now she’s become a pro – into many a hearts of Dopeynaths-in-waiting! One knew for a reason or two that it needs a proper elapse of time, not to mention always-in-short-supply Dame Luck before one gets something of value. No, it seems not. In Neetu’s case, we were clearly mistaken. Her lady luck smiled more often on her.

Neetu pulled off nothing short of a miracle; we kept kidding about it – What did she do to get a job like that? Wasn’t she, till yesterday, roaming around with her mom pillion riding on her deep metallic-green Scooty her father bought for her just a few days ago? So Miss Lady Scootywali grew up already? And her kid sister? Wasn’t she still supposed to be doing her Bachelor’s degree? O Krishna! How fast the world moves!

Neetu rode on like a typical starry-eyed teenybopper with not a care in the world; she’s seen always astride on her Scooty with her jovial mother like clockwork, who (her mom) I am sure used to keep prodding her beloved child to achieve just a bit more in life. Her mom, as every loving mom, knew what’s best for her daughter, and that was the end of it all. Many a time she gave the impression that ‘naturalness’ was not a facet of Neetu’s life; if it were there we didn’t see it, and for that reason, we jumped to a convenient conclusion: that her life was tightly packed with some kind of inescapable ‘mechanical artificiality’ that she – luckily for her mother to feel proud of with this apparently a character trait of her daughter’s – almost always was found excelling in. Neetu’s life was close to being a mechanical doll that talks when talked to, smiles its plastic smile as if plastered on its face, and is permanently on a leash/key which her mom had a tight grip on. Neetu’s life… was always about her mother than it was her own.

Miss Lady’s High High

To keep up the tempo of one’s aspiration is, I think, tantamount to getting half of the life’s existential problems solved: whatever the problem might be, the other half can perhaps being in the act of smiling about it, regardless of whether the circumstances are dire or not dire. Strict aunties like her mother knew better when firing such salvos of wisdom at their own promising wards. Never mind Neetu’s sinewy bike almost disappearing under her pillion-riding mom’s majestic proportions of terrestrial grandiloquent weight. And that’s that.

The fact Neetu had excelled in professing her capabilities and got herself a particularly prime placement must have been a highly rewarding experience for both Neetu and her over-protective mother, and why not. But for us to acknowledge an ‘OK’ for what was nearly as good as Neetu being a True Professional was that she made no bones about her great ‘Satyam feat’. The fact that she exuded one of confidence and being perennially 'systematic’ to achieve what she wanted to achieve does make for a case of much appreciation and lauding from us; it doesn’t really matter whether she got a job at Satyam or anywhere else. If she had any ill-sounding high high feeling, she didn’t know and she didn’t show. She was dexterous in her own way and it makes a lot of sense for anyone to get appreciative of it. Okay, okay, maybe a weary semblance of an innocent girly vanity cat was now and then let out of her bag, but that was quite OK. Nothing apart from what we already knew good things about her could deflate the wind out of the sails of her professional triumph altogether. She was found enjoying her success to the hilt and therefore should be left alone to do so, we figured.

Neetu Scootywali was unmistakably a little high high about the fact that she had a great job at Satyam. But we culvert-squatters, appreciation givers, were amenable to her ways because we have been appreciative of her uncommon career-orientated, personal 'systematic' femineity. Not being overly critical about any high high issues was our group’s way of life; we as complete outsiders, merely bystanders, even appreciative spectators, didn’t mind poking around a little for some harmless fun at the cost of Neetu’s Satyam feat. But that was that. Not a penny more or not a penny less. We took it as they say – lightly. After all, a Satyam job (back in the late 1990s) was considered cool, and yes no less than an achievement. Therefore, where’s the harm in throwing a little high high at the world and make merry at the cost of other people’s (read us) amazement. Tables turned! That was so cool.

I remember my friends looking at me and saying, “When’s your turn, Arinvan?”

Well, at the outset, I wasn’t really keen to do a ‘job’ and Satyam was not even on my list of things I was considering at that time. It was as though my job aspirations were keeping a low profile and I couldn't be bothered much about it. I had other ideas, never mind whether I could depend on them or not, to bring into fruition or foray into some more academics if I could as I had always wanted to. Getting a job is fine enough, but it inexorably brings an end to all other interminable, lesser-known altruistic subjects of life such as deep and desultory afternoon siestas and day-dreaming in my own little ivory perch/lair, among many others.

A Friendly Banter

Sateesh Eloor, Sunel Goan-Kalay (aliases Saadu, Tom Hanks), and Strong Selvejar were not exactly in awe of Neetu Scootywali – but only as far as her chic ability to secure a job at Satyam was concerned, they were. While Strong and Sunel, both clever geniuses in their own right, did make it a little too obvious with a show of their phony sounding 'wowww’ when this girly loveliness in the form of Neetu zoomed past astride on her famous Scooty (and yes with her mother hauled at the back), I was deeply blushing away for no reason at all. Their nitter-natter continued for quite some time until it was time to bid goodbyes for our Dinner Departure to our homes and while we were at it I, Arinvan, continued to sit there mysteriously blushing away in the midst of their full-blown ha ha has and ho ho hos.

Sateesh showed no intimate concern with their overtly friendly banter that issued forth from out of nowhere. Instead, with a smirk-like grin on his bulbous face, he continued to look the other way towards our good old meeting-point Ganesh Bakery, and began salivating hoping to swish down a bottle of cold Coke or a Thums up, with a sinfully satisfying chocolate Cake-Rock thrown in! Meanwhile, Sunel and Strong went on regardless of whether it would be possible for them to treat Sateesh to a bottle of cola today. Whose turn is it to treat today?

Just for the record: Of course, Strong was already a working professional in a financial division of a large multi-state business house. Same as Strong, Sateesh too had a Commerce educational background and handled financials at a different company. Sunel having started quite early in life, immediately after graduating in Botany, Zoology, and Chemistry subjects went on to work as a medical rep, and he was doing well in a pharmaceutical company. So, that leaves me; I was the odd one out as far as the job department was concerned. I was yet to find my foothold as a ‘working professional’ as I was still educating myself: up to the brim, near-about collarbones!

One evening, when we met at our usual watering hole, Sunel immediately began exclaiming in his inimitable colloquial lingo that only he can manage to mouth and no one else:

     “Satyam mein karri naukri? Aisah kya? Arre mast hai re!”

I knew where this was going. Starting off a discussion on Neetu’s new job at Satyam, he turns to me and says in chaste Hyderabadi lingo replete with hilarious hau’s, kaiko’s and merekoo’s:

     “Tu kab Satyam jata mama?”

To which I playfully retort:

     “Kaiko re? Light le, main nahi jaatoon” and laugh lightheartedly by imitating his style of Hindi slang. Oh yes, I was not as good as he was. I could never manage that hulloo-hulloo style of speaking.

     “Are yaar Satyam jaa re, kya karra tu…? Kaiku neyee jata tu? Mast rahitah! Main bolroon teroku soonn. Dekh logaan jaare. Scootywali jaree na. Tu bhi jaa,” said Sunel. He made it appear as if Satyam was a tea vendor where one can go have tea.

Sateesh Eloor speaks up suddenly as though waking up from his usual slumberous quietness to self-importantly eject from his mouth something that means to save the world from some impending catastrophe.

     “Jata re jata... Uskoo kya hai... Uneh pakka jata.” 

Then turning towards me he said, “Arinvan, tu apply toh karr miltah tereko. Main bolroon tereko milta,” commanded Sateesh.

After a round of his dialogue-baazi, he sagely announces to every one of us sitting on the culvert – on which some naughtier-than-you-and-me youngster had charcoal-marked with ‘Ass-Parking Only’! – an evening of high-tea, egg puffs, and some bindaas gupshup.

When impatience gets the better of him, Strong Selvejar butts in with gusto that only he can muster.

     “Haun haun…Tum logaan sab Satyam mein ghoosoh re! Ek potti kya gayi ki tum bhi shuru ho gayeh yaron!” said Strong. For a long time, we reeled with laughter. The way he ferreted his stock of colloquial lingo at us was hilarious. But it has to be said that Sunil still is the undisputed king of colloquists.

Afterward, the evening slowly wore into the night in Paliwall Estate. It was an evening to remember.

END OF PART 2

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Click here for PART 3 of the story.
Click here for PART 1 of the story.

- This article has also been published on ezinearticles.com. Following is the web link:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Strange-Case-of-Miss-Lady-Scootywali,-Part-2&id=8723588

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, 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.

CHAPTER 14 - The Strange Case of Miss Lady Scootywali, part 1

Arindam Moulick

The story goes like this: I knew Neetu Scootywali and her happy-go-lucky family from the days when I was doing college. It was really pleasant to know them. 

Neetu was most likely at least three to four years younger than me. She appeared to be a Lone Ranger sort of person: self-restraint and happy in her own world of long auburn tresses of hair; cheeks dimpling a little when a rare smile spread nicely over her oblong face, very rarely though; locally-sourced nicely tailored frilly frocks or salwar outfits that she liked to wear; and later, much later, her ascension to her alter-ego, name-altering, personality-changing, her very own personal coupé – a two-wheeled Scooty. And mention must be made of the fact that she didn’t have a Scooty then!

Back in the halcyon days of the Trishule Park residential suburb of the early nineties, her way of life was, as far as I could tell, idyllic and ‘systematic’. The latter part was representative of strictness-personified life; a regimented, secluded, something like military-oriented, thinking of which makes you go just speechless in humble dread and it somehow makes me think how valiantly self-disciplined she must have been in her life; most of it was needless though. She never played even with other girls or boys, who I am sure, had been expectantly seeking the company of hers, which they never got. She hardly ever hobnobbed with friends of hers; preferring instead the fantastic company of her own mom and her equally besotted familial-type sister.

Her evening walkathons around Trishule Park is a strict daily regimen she shared with her mom and her enigmatic sister. Aspiring to be a grown-up woman than being happy as a teenager enjoying the time of her life was for many of us a riddle mighty hard to believe. One knows that everybody aspires to be a grown-up someday but hers was the fastest aspiration you'd know – the kind one could never get a hang of, least of all me. That was not to say that she was unpleasant and wily owing to her besotted-with-oneself nature and all those perfunctory accusations one would have reserved for such seemingly Plain-Janes but visibly beautiful people coming forth at you with a Cloak-and-Daggers knowingness, no, far from it. Such was never the case. She wasn’t ‘not nice’ for sure either, neither was she wily for that matter. I am not even suggesting it. But who knows she must be having a blast at her home every passing day sparsely populated with her sister, mother, and father; no wonder then a happy close-knit bunch of four inordinately disciplined souls of the military kind that lived forever happily!

Of Love and the Catty Purrs

Neetu was a motivated girl, but the sorts who are decisively gritty, determinedly upbeat, and come-hell-or-high-water-I-get-what-I-want kind of girl. This was quite a thing to know about her. No matter how much ever I tried to get my head around that old archaic feeling that had, as I realize now, never really let go of me, I still begin to wobble at the thought of her alacrity, understated at its best, with which she carried forward in her personal life. I was merely a self-effacing observer of people and sometimes their unmistakably distinct halos around their personas often drove me to think about them as rationally as I, as a young adult, possibly could. And it just occurred to me the other day that how I knew quite a bit of her earlier life at Trishule Park residence, where I, Arinvan, and Strong resided at.

Neetu's tall and lissome self can make your head turn a second time and that’d be enough to make you a distant admirer. She had looks that went far and wide. Of particular importance to me was her laundry list of talents: her kind of knack, power, flair, and even her kind of specialty which made her a little hypothetically ‘different’ compared to you and me. Life at the leafy Trishule Park enclave was cool and wonderful; in fact, it was nothing but a privilege to be living in one of the best communes of the Paliwall Estate area. Trishule Park was my life's lucky memory-pack. 

Grand expanse of copious spaces; vast open grounds laden with nebulous green grasses ideal for playing Cricket; sinewy cycle tracts; a couple of children’s playing fields; big Peepul, Neem, Gulmohar and Mango trees and hedges dotted the residential landscape; omnipresent park benches; and what not. 

Alas, I knew that one day I shall have to force myself to leave all this unforgettable treasure behind and my life shall take a different often unknowable direction, away, far away from my beloved Trishule Park residence.

Strong Selvejar dropped by pretty often and he and I'd take long leisurely walks around the Trishule Park campus and talk endlessly. Often we'd cross Neetu and her ever-so-jovial mom out enjoying leisurely strolls too. Sunel Goan-Kalay, a John Grisham fanatic residing at Paliwall Estate couldn't ever seem to have enough time off of Mr. Grisham's excellent thrillers 'The Firm' and 'A Time to Kill', and Sateesh Eloor, also from Paliwall Estate, used to drop by on most evenings and we'd proceed to 'take over' our favourite park bench to sit and gossip to our heart's content. All four of us often used to have a jolly good time making merry sitting on the park bench. Once a typically-chunky gentlemanly guy going by the name of Dopeynath Pundy who, as it was later known, resided at Old Paliwall Estate route located opposite to our enclave Trishule Park came to visit our friend Strong when Neetu was out cycling. Then slowly things began to change. 

A guy going by an altruistic-sounding narcotics-laced name as Dopeynath Pundy deciding to 'represent' a locally-abhorred and enough derided about pigeonholing: 'Twisted Bunch of People – T.B.P.’ could start off on a wrong footing with a girl like Neetu is terribly surprising indeed. He didn't even realize the clear import of this local branding exercise that was so prevalent during that time, and apparently, this was one of the reasons that straightaway plunged him into the Shark Jaws of howling heartache! This guy threw our “ill-advised" caution to the winds and met with a disaster of his own making! Not that we were better advised ourselves, one can never be enough; but in this Catty Purrs case, we certainly were. Dopey was at his perilous best, risking even his self-worth, to go hankering after this ‘different’ girl. Now that’s gonna hurt!

If that was being brave then what was being ‘not brave’; I’ll tell you: PURE BLISS and happiness intact! But still, I feared for Mr. Pundy.

As if in tow, Strong Selvejar and Sunel Goan-Kalay (aliases: Saadu, Tom Hanks) admonished Dopey not to go any further with his ‘idiotic idea of his’ but he never listened. Sateesh, our mutual best friend, who just happened to be visiting me that evening just looked on amusingly at Dopey’s touchy-feely conflagrations of thoughts twisting up his face a tad-bit laconically. In the blind hope of 'getting his love Neetu', Dopeynath was committing a surefire blunder, and considering Neetu’s hapless not-for-love pedigreed, queenly individualism any T.B.P.-branded guy will falter at the altar! That evening Sateesh sagely refrained from saying anything useful to him.

As a matter of fact, Sunel GK too, with a face akin to a sizeable copy of the Hollywood super-actor Tom Hanks and an able-bodied young man, couldn’t make a dent in Neetu’s stubborn shield of self-imposed refrain and 'systematic' lifestyle, which by now was known to all. Far from any suggestion of such blind love-at-first-sight love or its sultry prick of Goosebumps that entraps your mind, body, and soul with frightful love-sickness that never fetches anything of human value, he secretively developed cupidity for a girl from a medical shop. A fitting case of a Medical Rep falling for a medical shop girl! Oh no not again! We already had Dopey and here comes another one: Johnny-come-lately SUNEL going bonkers.

You are not far from digging up your own grave, while you are still alive! Love makes you a genuine fool of a kind that never recovers from its chronic stupidity! Sunel appreciates these facts but still, he insists, Love is a sweet mistake everybody should make at least once in a lifetime!

Love, a No-Go Territory

Dopeynath, the poor lad, a Walnut-wooden Flintstone-faced lumpy fellow, believed in his “terrific ways” that he'd get instantly friendly with Neetu and sweep off her feet and “settle down” with her. I had hoped he was being just jocular about his open declaration, but guess what he wasn’t joking. He began sounding as olden-day comedian Rajendranath, the person who was always shown as afflicted with sheer over-confidence and vulnerable tomfoolery that goes nowhere to fetch anything of value. I couldn’t help but feel that his (Dopeynath's) words “terrific ways” sounded like yesteryear's screen-villain Shakti Kapoor drooling in wretched Aawooos and Uuwaas over female prospects, never managing to follow communal convention but utter indifference to it that always spelled doom for him, in the end – his self-styled magic charm never worked in his favour ever.

Alas, Neetu, she wasn’t tagged Scootywali yet, rather turned up her nose at him and looked away already bored as an upscale, expensive, chic girl would when things don’t match up to expectations or, yes, this is important, anything of value to her. Sensing that nothing but her utter insinuation is reserved for him, Dopeynath became seriously mortified and was seen quite distressed about his, what he slowly began to confess, failure to get to talk to her. Neetu clearly wasn't interested in him. Hard done by love was far more hurting than hard done by some failure in competitive exams, it seems! That was expected: to say the least, given Neetu’s classic high-nosed reputation. He never showed up ever again near the cool leafy environs of Trishule Park suburb where we lived our secured, carefree lives. His “terrific” proposal for her had pulled a fast one on himself! In cricketing parlance, it is called HIT WICKET!

Dopeynath Pundy, reduced to a poor gadfly, never came hither ever again. Not even to try another time at another age. Maybe, he kept thinking, Neetu would relent someday, understand his feelings, and unbolt her iron-grilled heart slowly and surely to our lover-guy. No, that was wishful thinking; it’s never going to happen, come what may. The steely reserve with which Neetu carried herself was solidly unbreakable and Dopey, the poor guy should have known that beforehand before venturing into the snake pit of puppy-love. As any good unrequited love-smitten boy Dopey crashed, and burned for a long time in an awful misery that had never let go of him; it struck him to the core where it hurts the most, even as he nursed his brought-on-himself wounds that boiled over in his heart through and through. That was the end of the love story of Dopeynath Pundy.

But still, I used to feel…I don’t know… it kind of switches off something in you and you could never get around switching it back on! How does that help you? It doesn’t. Neetu was that kind of girl. In fact, the most difficult part of her nature had invariably given rise to a lot of mixed feelings about her in me too; with Dopeynath’s case in sharp focus here, it seems to have confirmed it.

Love Spells Doom, Again

Dopeynath, I distinctly remember, wanted to make amends with Neetu; probably aiming at a fresh start or something was in performance somewhere in his mind, but she adamantly never let him come closer, not even to hear him out once for goodness sake than was necessary for a person to talk to another person in the full public gaze. Again, that hurt him as a bullet shot from a house gun; no not a house gun, a military Howitzer! Last heard he never recovered from the blow he received for the second time in full shove from his Evita’s, Neetu’s that is negative response. He took it to heart.

Vowing never to bother again with ‘this thing called love’ he moved on, perhaps in the hope to help atone himself from any such trace elements of love left in him that in a way still deeply yearned for her. That was really bizarre to have happened with poor Dopey. But one cannot possibly blame Neetu even for what she did to Dopey. Maybe that was not the way to rebuff anyone who is in love or something like love with you. There’s always a way to say ‘No’ to someone who you just don’t happen to like or love. Dopey knew how to fall in love, but he never knew how to handle rejection in love. Who knows that anyway? Are girls better off in this matter? Of course, one doesn’t fall in love by telling oneself (or knowing full well) beforehand that one might have to handle rejection as a consequence when the person you profess your love to may not really have the hots for you! Dealing with rejection is always hard, more so when you have an unchangeable, unyielding, and unrequited ‘NO’ to live with the rest of your life.

I had always found Neetu an intriguing combination of both a typical teenybopper and a girl already grown-up while still in her teens! By all means, she was a rugged combination that never really worked for the Flintstones look-alike Dopeynath Pundy’s worth. Today when we: Sunel, Strong, Sateesh, and I look back in introspection at those younger days when there was a Dopey-Neetu Love Affair, frosty as it ever was, doing the rounds at the Trishule Park in the suburban town of Paliwall Estate, we feel vindicated; not because Dopey couldn't get his girl but because there's an odd comfort in the fact that both Dopey and Neetu had ended their not-really-a love story and moved on.

I had heard that ‘a girl is a half-formed thing’, but I still remain skeptical and unconvinced by the seemingly escapist almost self-serving adage that labels the female species these days.

END OF PART 1

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Click here for PART 2 of the story.
Click here for PART 3 of the story.

- This article has also been published on ezinearticles.com. Following is the web link:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Strange-Case-of-Miss-Lady-Scootywali,-Part-1&id=8714039

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, 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.