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.