CHAPTER 30 - Saving All My Love...For You

I called on Una’s office no. first thing in the morning the following day to speak with her. Arriving at Ground Zero, my 5th-floor office cubicle, to do my afternoon stretch, I became stiff with nervous tension and head-pounding anxiety thinking about what I should do with the world, namely Savitha, tightening its noose around me. I was in jeopardy; the meaning of which I never knew or thought ever had existed.

Savitha was at the office. Her morning stretch, thankfully, was over and done with and she ran off home with a disco spring in her step. Before she went scot-free, she had to brief me about the tasks she’d completed so that it enables me to carry out whatever needs special attention and stuff like that. Fortunately, she didn’t bother about that. I didn’t give a damn either, for I knew how to manage without her unhelpful, vague, disorienting prognostications that were better to be avoided, if possible; so I didn’t press her to bring me up to date with “issues” if there have been any at the workplace. I watched her go, disco spring and all, for a few seconds before swiveling my chair to pick up the damn phone to dial-up my love Una’s workplace landline no. I was dying to reach her and I knew that the sooner it was the better.

A big cheese (apparently!) from her office had picked up the phone at the other end and growled: “She’s unavailable at the moment and can’t make time to reach for the phone!" Sensing that the damage had already been done, thanks to my handicapped-with-suspicion office co-worker Savitha Tandavi and her potent pleasure-seeking rumour-mongering pastime, I left it at that trusting Una to answer my phone call whenever she could ‘make time’. I continued to wait all morning for her call but her call never came. Just not about to give up, not me, biding my time I called again…nothing.

In the afternoon the prospect of reaching her at her office turned to be another dampener, as I was told that “she went lunch outside. It’ll be an hour before she comes back in.” Still, I didn’t give up. I had to... no, I will call back again.

I called back again late in the evening for the third but not last time. Someone informed me, probably a female or a male voice, my mind wasn’t exactly registering anything at the time, he/she said, “the lady is not here…. I mean she’s not at the office”

“Well, she’s supposed to be in by now. Last time when I called I was told she went to lunch and will be back in an hour or so. Hasn’t she returned yet?” I said politely.

“I can’t find her here. Who knows where she is. She’s not here…. I am sorry”, he/she said. I suspected he/she was probably acting on cue.

“Please don’t be sorry,” I said nodding my head with the receiver in my hand. I didn’t press for more.

Before I hung up I said, “I understand, and thank you. I appreciate it.”

After putting down the receiver, I sat down in my chair because one stands up and looks here and there for help when one is in nervous anxiety if that could bring any help. It didn’t. It never does. I didn’t know what to do next. I felt miserable, and I was left standing!

How cruel Savitha is? My God! What is Una thinking about all this? I can’t believe this is happening! She should call me by now. I longed for her to just give me a call. It was only a matter of a phone call to speak with each other and tell everything…. O Una, where are you?

The conversation I had with the person at her office had got me into some serious conjecturing: What could possibly be so wrong about things?

She normally leaves the office at around 7:30pm daily and I had called at 5:30pm again at 6:30pm to make sure I get through to her. For the first time amid this heartbreak, it struck me that Una, after all, had totally believed her friend Savitha’s bundle of lies and for that reason, she was cross with me. With Una being incommunicado; I was not able to reach her in spite of calling her several times on the office phone, and Savitha’s wicked grin on her face – all this were crisscrossing in my head sounding the death knell for our relationship to come to an end.

I had surmised that much and felt painfully defenseless against Savitha’s formidable treachery. I didn’t fall in love with Una just because she was Savitha’s close friend. One doesn’t choose love, love chooses you. You cannot control whom you fall in love with. Love just happened to us. It was pure. It was all we had between us. We had nurtured it for several days, even months, before we first met at the underground coffee shop on SD road. Our countless emails and phone calls bear testimony to the fact of our experiencing passionate feelings and falling in love eventually. Una was so critically important in my life and she too felt the same way about me. So why did we not speak with each other when we found ourselves trapped in the cold-blooded cruelty meted out by our common friend passing mendacious references about our love? I think it was my fault. No, far from trying to accumulate neither sympathies nor am I trying to be self-righteous about this long-forgotten incident that occurred a long time ago in my life, maybe 17 heartbreaking years ago, all that I am attempting here is to check for truth: with reference to what would have happened if I had countered it in a specific way. If only people like Savitha had some brains in their buffoonish heads, all that has happened needn’t have happened. Otherwise, the story would have been somewhat different.

Be that as it may, Una never made that telephone call I was so anxiously waiting for her to make; nor did she come over to the phone when I’d called her throughout the day, especially that day in the evening, to talk this through. From that point on we never got talking with each other. Our Love got trampled – stepped all over – under the footfalls of hearsay!

Yet I have saved all my love...for you.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

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 29 - Bonfire of the Vanities

I had often wondered what Una Artoran would have said – in words and actions – about Savitha Tandavi’s hitting-on-all-cylinders verbal match with her in relation to her continuing interest in Arinvan. I, Arinvan Maliek, have never known that.

Certain psychic factors on Savitha’s person were palpable enough for anyone to make out that her acid ego was running riot day after day. I had noticed that in her, unfortunately. Una had been blind enough to trust in what Savitha was saying to her that day on the phone; post which Una just disappeared without, I am certain of this, thinking it over properly and logically if you will. Obviously, if there was someone who she lovingly called “Arin” was made to get out of her way or left out of her troubles, then it was an impecunious me, Arinvan, who, during those days of passionate longing and emotions running high, he thought Una was all he had.

I had mistaken Una’s love to be the end of all things; I had foolishly thought that even Savitha’s habitual ranting would peter out once Una put her foot down and really had her writ boldly written for Savitha to take the cue and back off. But it didn’t work out that way. Una chose to throw out the baby with the bathwater!

Una Artoran was lost and never found again. By the time I thought I could get to Una and explicate my side of the story and she hers, she had already preferred to move away and never looked back since; not even once for old times’ sake. I had likewise wondered, ineluctably, what were Monami Roy’s feelings about Savitha’s Boa Constrictor-like hold on Una, the svelte figure of my dreams? And what couldn’t she really articulate – if it all she could bring herself to some botheration – on the impasse?

Hard to Believe

I was unfamiliar with that side of Una who simply said nothing and had just disappeared without a trace. No farewell mail, no goodbyes, not even a harmless phone call. Even those sweet rendezvous over coffee didn’t mean anything to Una? I can’t believe it didn’t. Just can’t. Hard to…no impossible to believe. That was not my Una. Maybe she wasn’t the same person anymore that I had known all along. She’s indeed Savitha Tandavi’s naive brainwashed Una, certainly not for Arinvan to lay claim on. The Una that I felt I knew will always be mine all the same; bad Savithas of the world will be vanquished, inevitably.

Afterward, when I realized that she wouldn’t make a telephone call to talk to me, I had resolved why not write to her; at least my email will reach her inbox and she most certainly would open it and read it. I thought perhaps it was perfectly alright for her to stay away for a little while to think this through. But in light of Savitha’s vice-like grip on her, I could tell she would never be able to come round and talk to me or let me talk to her. Forget about bringing herself to the task of writing an email to me, she didn’t even say goodbye. I think it may have burdened her heart with a tricky task such as saying good-bye. She must have thought: how does one say it to the one I’d been in love with? But she thought she may as well deny me the comfort of her true feelings when she knew that things are not going to work out between us. Not even to get irate with me; if at all she’d fancy that. I was left in the lurch. Fend for yourself, Arinvan. Weeping all those foolish tears for my love to come back to me may not mean anything to the world, but not to Una herself? Hard to believe. What was wrong with her...? (Because, apart from one or two folks, no one knew about our relationship, no one.) It beats me.

Even thinking of it is sacrilegious to the beautiful, mesmeric feeling I have of her.

A friend in need? Not really

Monami Roy didn’t bother to speak with Arinvan either; perhaps, getting to be an Agony Aunt is not her style. Just not her thing I suppose. The Fish Sketch was so hunky-dory, but ask her to... oh forget it! Her personal laws consist of the vignettes such as:

Not my share of trouble so why bother.
When Trouble is well-neigh put as much distance as possible between you and Trouble!
Look the other way but be generally nice!
Trouble is not my cup of noodles! Go get Aunt Maggi!
Me? Agony Aunt? Only in your dreams, baby!
Gotcha! Now cut to the chase!
Gosh! I was so pissed off!

She too had gone the Una way – lock, stock, and barrel.

Miss Roy was always poised to stay away from anything that comes near to mentioning, “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” She petered out from the scene sooner than you could blink! Outstanding for her, I guess! Placing a quick tap on the proverbial Esc key is her style. Where are all those incredible character traits and the easy-going zeal and enthusiasm that most girls naturally tend to possess and have the natural benefit of? Have they washed their hands off ‘em? All my keen familiarity with those things had gone bust. I suppose it was too early too soon to offer my allegiance to these younger ‘uns and I know I burnt my fingers in the bonfire of their vanities!

I felt very unfortunate that day when I happened to eavesdrop on what Savitha was saying about me to Una on the phone. Maybe I am making a huge issue out of this. But so be it. I believe in my instincts than someone like Savitha’s indirect way of making known to me her strong disapproval of my love for Una.

Sitting ram-rod straight with the white-coloured receiver to her right ear, she said to Una, “Kya kar rahi hai Una tu!”

I instantly smouldered within when I overheard that offending sentence blown into the telephone receiver; the import of its meaning hitting me hard. I sat on the side-desk for a couple of minutes and tried to figure out just what her problem was! Why should I put up with her evident revolt against me? How to handle this mess she was so hell-bent on creating for Una and me? I simply could not decipher the way out of this morass. It was most offending when she turned around before keeping (or throwing?) the receiver into its place and did not care to say anything when she caught sight of me sitting there on the desk behind her. A benefit of the doubt: She couldn’t see me that I had already arrived for my post-noon stretch! I figured this much, eventually: The woman’s back-biting (against me) has just taken place right in front of my eyes (and ears) and is going full blast. Never have I come across such a noxious, unfriendly, back-biting snake, a snitch, who coiled around Una, like a vicious trap in my life. Now I know why people say: “Life is a bitch!”

I had thought to yank the phone out of her wretched hands and bang the rattling telephone, not on her head, no, that would be unfortunate, but to thrash some human sense into her! And in fact, I couldn't bring myself to do that not even on this bratty serpentine female; I wanted to speak to Una right then and tell her not to believe in any of Savitha’s bakwaas that she was tossing up!

It was such an absurd thing on the part of Savitha to say to one’s own supposedly ‘best’ buddy against someone you don’t even know properly lest form an informed opinion of him. That was Savitha Tandavi for you – A Vampire of our Times. Why would Savitha become such a lunatic twerp to believe in some hearsay that was, what, going around in our 5th-floor office? What kind of ocular eyes does Savitha have in the frontal sockets of her head that are not hard-wired to her brain? A lot of things ‘go around in an office setting’ damn you!; you don’t go around and make a Holy Bible out of it and live with that forever to ruin people's lives!

Goodness Una, love, Savitha has gone mad, she’d lost her sanity, she lost her rational soundness, and her head has got loaded with trashy stories so pulpy that whatever little brain was lying about there has long been ejected out! You don’t believe one word of hers, love!

I desired to tell Una this but never got a chance to utter even a single word.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

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.