CHAPTER 32 - A Vampire for Our Times

Every day Savitha Tandavi used to Scooty-hop from her habitation (pun intended) at Pudmeyro Nager to come to the office at Tesser Towers on Raj Bhavan Road for work. And every day she used to secretly ideate, one could tell, on what and how she should do to bring about a nemesis to all friendly relationships that have slowly begun to sprout into existence, especially between her friend Una Artoran and her own office associate Arinvan Maliek.

Not only was she lamely jealous about them but she was also highly acerbic to everything she thought had existed between them, the first rush of love as such, and that it ought to be squashed before it gets a chance to ripen into a mature relationship that couldn't be crushed later on. Blimey!

Only this brainless ravenous nymphet could perpetrate such a blunder and no one else could. Why? Because this female was like that only! She became a Ruination-Princess on par with Merion Roz Reyo, the very ‘shape-shifting’ individual Savitha sunk deep her contentious teeth in and destroyed not one but two lives, innocent as they were, including Una Artoran’s. Ruination-Princess who? Savitha. Nah! Not any kind of ‘Princess’, god forbid! That’d be too much of a depiction to make of this deeply resentful character that I had the misfortune to come across and work with.

‘Princess’ can never be a word for her regardless of the possibility that it is hyphenated with the word ‘Ruination’. Okay, let’s be plain speaking: She was a down-and-out, derelict scarecrow, a scheming conniving renegade miscreant comparable to yesteryears eyebrows-dancing vamps Nadira and Lalita Pawar combine. That is the thing that she was: hell-bent on tearing away Una from Arinvan’s arms.

I cannot consider the thought of Monami Roy (alias Mon) or Padmashri Raoh (Paddu) or Una Artoran (Una) herself wanting to kill off all associations with Arinvan Maliek (Arin), the way the jug-head Savitha Tandavi (Savi) had been covetous of to butcher away: all through our woeful working days (loaded with cold-vibes and deadly laconic stares) on the 5th-floor of the great Tesser Towers. They all did eventually bring themselves up to the culpable task of executing the newly-discovered fellowship with him; however, with an impeccable exception of Padmashri Raoh keeping up her share of a flame of kinship burning for some time before permitting herself to ebb away little by little. One could understand Padmashri’s ebbing, for I too had to decidedly ebb away. A far better prescience of natural reason contrasted with any of the aforementioned ladies’ put together.

Gushy old Monami for all her keenness to impress with oft-rehashing energetic sentences and the glorious “wakeful I-was-so-pissed-off afternoons” of her “Fish Sketching aptitude” was, sadly, deceptively uptight to not come forward and make her stance clear about whatever she felt or understood about the crisis that involved all of us, so to speak, one way or the other. Yeah, maybe she was “pissed off” again and again and took the nearest patli gulli instead!

Arinvan was not looking for sympathy, far from it; neither would he have someone pity him. That would be foul. Because of the ‘plight’, he thought he was in, some comforting words from ‘friends’ would have been truly beneficial. No words came by. Padmashri, to her great credit, was, surprisingly, not a fly on the wall or a mere all-seeing-but-doing-nothing spectator. Her frank bit of support for a relatively stranger Arinvan had meant fairly well to lessen the misery of self-pity off him. The things she mentioned were essentially true.

Miss Monami Roy decided to crank out of the situation before anyone happens to expect her to come face to face with it. The escapist tendency is probably not her cup of tea, but what was stopping her to convey her kind of ‘Fishy’ wisdom to sequester the evident stalemate or share a word or two with Arinvan and Una about Savitha’s wolfish conduct? That was inexcusable. And, might anyone ask, what was halting Arinvan to phone The Fish Sketcher Monami or Miss Stan-Chart Una? Because, dear ladies and gentlemen, he was very heartbroken (and you weren’t, remember?), couldn’t think clearly through, grief had clouded his judgment as he was inconsolably grieving about his upsetting personal loss. That was his defense against an irate, escapist friendship you fine individuals had meted out to him! Thanks, but no thanks!

A Simple Act of Kindness

Naturally, on her part, Paddu, Padmashri Raoh that is, chose to remain silent in the beginning and rather not talk about it lest it might appear like adding fuel to the fire. But I am pretty impressed with the kind of true womanhood she portrayed. She threw all fiendish status quo to the winds and decided to make a series of phone calls to spare a few friendly graceful words for Arinvan. Arinvan was grateful for that most meaningful gesture she conveyed in the form of those phone calls.

That simple act of kindness, conscientiousness even, of being friends with Arinvan drove home the simple point of fact – that she meant it well enough in her personable way – has brought a world of difference to his maligned state of affairs with his lady love Una Artoran. He couldn’t help but wonder at Padmashri’s exceptional gratitude, comparable to none, towards a person who has fallen on bad times. Contrast that with Monami’s all-weather heavy-duty capacity for “I was so totally pissed-off” endowments, oh dear, not even close to Padmashri’s extraordinary merit. Yeah, maybe Monami was "totally pissed off" for the nth time, as is her wont.

Una Artoran, the very person for whom all this fighting was going on, appeared to have collapsed and given up all hook, line and, sinker, thanks to her comrade-in-arms Savitha Tandavi’s controlling efforts on her. Una, terribly unfortunate, surrendered everything up to Savitha and drove home astride on her Kinetic Honda – to her own sweet memories of another person with whom she once had fallen in love in an earlier life of hers – to her cheek by jowl neighbourhood in Mollycarjone Negar.

Savitha must have happily believed that the relationship between Arinvan and Una has had a well-deserved ending and it’s as good as finished. (But I bet Savitha can never get accustomed to the fact that Arinvan and Una’s relationship has had a merited consummation or justified fulfillment or whatever you’d prefer to call it.) Now, Savitha, let's see if you can handle that?

Una too, sorry to say, must have felt the false feeling to enthuse her shrewd comrade Savitha Tandavi into keeping her mouth tightly mum and in good humour. 

Una was supposed to be saying this: And for God’s sake, Arinvan, there are other pebbles on the beach? Or different rocks on the shoreline? Aren’t there?! Yeah, I know, and thank god for them.

“Thanks, Savi! Thanks a lot! You are lovely! That episode is thankfully over,” said Una sighing deeply before continuing, “One of these days I will drop by your house and we can take stock of the situation and go shopping to the General Bazaar on MG Road and....we will have some gol matol pani puris there. What say?”

“Sure, done! Bol kab chal rahi hai tu?” said Savitha excitedly, feeling much better than perhaps she ever did in her entire lifetime at Satyam Computers when the friend-stealer Arinvan was an unwelcome part of their Two-Some picture. For all he cares!

(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.