CHAPTER 33 - The Vampire Strikes Back!

Savitha Tandavi for whom (the bell tolls?) each and every point of interest, every act of life, needs to have a conformable value on which she could claim her pound of flesh. Hell hath no fury, but this Predator does!

For Savitha, Una Artoran was the best stooge available and so she felt impinging on anything she liked to claim her own. Everybody in her harem of friendship was at her beck and call. Probably, gushy old Monami too had no choice. Una obviously wouldn’t mind appeasing Savitha’s worthless ego. Nothing could come into existence for anyone in her friend’s circle without her kind permission.

No wonder, she looted Arinvan’s relationship with Una with a prejudiced eye and plundered perpetually upon with the hammer of her brainless grunt. Basically, her writ was final and sadly Una too had constantly kept herself up to the job of protecting her friend’s interests rather than hers. In other words, she felt capable of protecting her companion's advantage (brownie points) instead of hers. Arin's love was secondary to everything Savitha had desired for her. That is the sort of bizarre companionship they had espoused all during the months that I had the misfortune to know of.

Their friendship had always offered Savitha, the taller one, the better things she had ever wanted by showing Una her legitimate spot, which was beneath her companion's pride. 

Their friendship was not really friendship; it was, more or less, an arrangement of two like-minded conniving folks salivating to protecting their immediate interests - that is, keeping convenient ones and ejecting others.

Nosy Parkers like Savitha will always exist in the world for us to deal with, but one does need a special kind of animosity, blended with one’s willpower, to scare this kind of people away from your lives! Boo! Arinvan realized this as much but it was noticeably past the point of no return for him to make amends with his sweetheart Una, and he never knew how to have proper animosity – the one which is well-worth to rankle her – towards a petty office colleague like Savitha. It was too late to do something about it. Savitha had indeed had her kill, but thanks to Una also who kept looking the other way while her friend had her evil way. His beautiful relationship swept away with the tide of inopportune time and is ruined for life.

Relationships don’t bond well when jealous upstart crows like Savitha get to meddle in it. I wish Una had a head for understanding that. She didn’t, and this thing was also part of the whole problem. Savitha was one heck of an evil-doer and people like her ransack friendships and often get away with it.

I wonder what Una was thinking about her friend Savitha. What her thoughts on her were. But realization never hit her: about the fact that her own friend had, well, stabbed on her back. That being said, it is up to her own free will if she feels comfortable enough (but in what capacity would she be able to? I don’t know) to go along with Savitha, the evil-incarnate’s chugalkhori (chugli…?). That’s really funny! (They tend to rather run in packs). It’s her life to live on her own terms, including her dear old friend Savitha’s. And who do I think I am to even suggest it to her?

When ‘Friends’ Simply Slink Away…

Later when Arinvan found his mental space and time to examine as impartially as he could Monami’s role in his romance-filled days with Una, he had to spend restless days and sleepless nights reflecting upon it.

But it came to no avail. It hurt him deeper still. Miss Roy played her cards well, meaning she preferred to prevent herself from uttering any stray word or two that would rather bring no respite to the entire conundrum Arinvan was enduring. She chose to escape from her share of duty or moral obligation – an escape route is more or less like moving away from the perceived problem while one still can, and assuming no moral stance on the issue at all is akin to being simply chicken-hearted. In this regard, Miss Monami Roy was akin to her own failures, moral or otherwise. I am convinced.

There was perhaps nothing to fetch from this kind of ‘spontaneous friendship’ we all had come to naturally acknowledge – overtly meaningless it suddenly began to sound to all these escapist ladies, as it eventually ended up falling on its head. Whether we were really friends or not, nobody had really cared to ask themselves this question! As for me, I buried it in the grave of knowing full well that it was merely an offshoot of Una’s short span of relationship with me, not a penny more, not a penny less! Case closed and rammed shut!

So what is that supposed to imply? Does it imply that a few telephonic conversations and a meeting or two are insufficient to make a kinship last longer? Say that to a lady and she will probably wince at it. But to gentlemen, even a small kinship becomes something to feel good about, and yes, keep nurturing it for days, months, and years in the fond hope of another chance at meeting the object of his affection (and deification). In any case, some girls (take for instance Una) don't seem to have a head to think that it adds up to anything on the grounds that they have "other pebbles on the beach" to make a leisurely choice later! So why bother now!

I had finally reconciled to the aforementioned sad truth in my earlier life of contemplation, including the one that uptown girls (at least not ladies yet) often do tend to have some inner/hidden agendas of their own, and for all, you know it may be quite natural for the female species to have some of that complex stuff dwelling in their play-hard-to-get tenacious hearts for as long as they walk on this earth. So, suit yourself girls; they are all yours.

I wouldn’t worry about girls like that anymore than I used to when I was down and out in the blues. I guess one does get typically judgmental when one is crestfallen due to whatever bluesy reason: profound or purported.

Who cares when there’s nothing in for us! That’s the standpoint most people like Miss Monami Roy, well-cushioned from such vagaries of life, take. Never mind that, it’s her wish and will though. Friendship, busted! Fair-weather friends? Yes!

It boils down to the bitter fact of life that the world ultimately chooses Triumph over Failure. To me Triumph is showy, therefore irksome and alien; Failure is what I am interested in and is much more interesting than Triumph can ever get to be.

Mine had been everything but Triumph and I am proud of it.

(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.