Follow Ups

Dear Readers (I know there are not many in the first place, and not many who may find this (blog) amusing),

This is an honest expression from the creators of this series about the concern they have for your feelings and emotions. Through this soap opera of ours, we have tried to bring to your notice, a very general love story. There is nothing specific about the characters involved; there is no indication of any relation to any real life happening. This story is not meant to publicize any particular instance of infatuation that any of the writers' friends may have experienced. This is just what we, as writers, feel happens to someone who takes the first step towards love. Prashant may as well be me, Karuna may as well be you; the names of the characters involves and their semblance to any real world person is purely co-incidental; the references to the authors imaginary "medical friend who happens to be a girl" are just the children of his imagination. We do not intend to relate any of the incidents to any personal relations you may be sharing, neither do we want to upset your emotions by any expression of ours. Every sentence is aimed at tickling your funny bone, and we know people have become sophisticated enough to be finding some of our stuff objectionable. With a genuine consideration for your feelings, this is some form of an acceptance of our shortcomings and "offenses", and for anything that does not go down well with you, in the desired spirit of the blog. We will definitely strive for an improved quality and better reader satisfaction.

Happy Reading!!!

Their Story: Episode 5

Well, yeah, ogling is just like masturbating; there is nothing wrong in it, and yet there is this social stigma attached with it, which makes it a taboo. Of course, you have eyes and hence, every right to ogle at the lady passing by, but then you put at stake the only thing based on which you are labeled as a decent guy by the “pados waali chaachiji”. Prashant was branded the most decent guy amongst his friends, by their mothers, and he was too concerned to let this image be soiled. His photo chromic glasses were an effective shield against all those ogling allegations, while he got his share of the pie. Now to bring to your notice, this is not just a boy-talk, and I have a reliable source’s (remember, my medical friend, who happens to be a girl) opinion on this matter as well, which definitely finds no fault in this activity. Guys don’t complain (as they find no fault in it), though, and it’s the ‘lecher’ (the male one) who bears the brunt of the irksome and fussy ladies. I will have to ask Karuna about her opinion on this matter. Mind you, the butterflies (read moths) in Prashant’s stomach are too dull to let him talk to her.

The class magazine congregation was largely a group of buffer guests that Amandeep had arranged for Prashant’s party. All tried to be too busy with their apprenticeship, making Prashant appear the boss and the only one with some gray matter in that bunch. Karuna was strikingly sharp in her ability to be fooled by such antics and never had a whiff of the actual situation. Admitted she was a decent painter, but the magazine needed someone who could sketch well, and Amandeep’s volatile temper had to pass a test tougher than the one (his thoughts) he had been preparing for those two years. You don’t want to take mauling at the hands of some furious “Romeo”, and so you don’t want to hurt his “Juliet to be”, under his watchful scrutiny. Sometimes the core group tried not to focus on her scribbles, but they had only one able Hindi editor in themselves and they did not want to lose him. The result was a compromise with every third sketch being Karuna’s. Amarjeet, the one with the dirtiest of glass slabs as his eyes, or as Karuna called it, an old, broken paperweight, was quick to see the outcome, and had cleverly proposed a reduced number of sketches for the whole magazine. Prashant had no qualms about any of their ploys, as long as he got to see Karuna.

That day, referred to as the present day in the previous episode, was apparently, a nice one for Karuna. She had no Biology lecture and A.J had caught some kind of flu. It transformed into some kind of a vacation, the urban dictionary might as well call it a flucation, both in the school and the tuitions. She was excited about going out with her family to the newly arranged amusement park in the city, and strictly for children, for some bit of “shopping” and wanted an early leave from the magazine work. Amandeep was fractured and “Glass Slab” had far too many things to look after. The stand-in chief, Prashant was more than ready to oblige her with a break, and so she was allowed to leave early that day. “Glass Slab”, uncanny as he is, was quick to smell the mutiny cooking up in the ranks of his sepoys, and wrapped up everything early.

Was she that special for him, they wondered, when she does not even know his surname? Was she worth all the attention he showered on her? Or was it that usual gimmick to make her aware of his feelings for her? I would definitely go for the third one, and I bet I am making the right choice, having spent 16 years with him. They thought it was a genuine liking on his part; he thought she was all he could have desired in the woman of his dreams.

When Karuna was coming towards him, he felt restrained from kissing her cheeks. Oh, what cheeks! He was trying not to lay his gaze on her and was trying to act “man-ly”. In fact, he was counting her steps, as she was approaching. You need something to focus your attention on, when you try not be noticed by her, all the while “ogling” at a girl, given you are a decent person. Prashant was rank decent; he had never passed any lecherous comment on any girl passing by, something he prided in the company of his friends. He had an impeccable record with the girls who knew him, and recently had garnered some popular support with his filled-with-courtship poetry. Karuna was his latest admirer, and no doubt, this phase of his writing career was the best one. Only a few know that he never actually wrote anything after that. The class magazine was a testimony to his skills, since a majority of articles in found their source in him, and only few thought it was his stand-in position that bore such fruits for him. Sour grapes, is my view.

At the count of thirty, and his head lost somewhere in the middle of those colours, he heard her voice. Whenever you ask him about that moment, a special one for him since he said something to her for the first time, he steps into his ugly, foul smelling Shakespearean shoes, and mind you it is not love that does it to him, but the zillion Hindi romantic movies he saw after that Karuna thing, which lends this hoarseness and pleonasm into his language. Ehh...ugly thing to do, for a decent guy like Prashant, and that too, for some girl like Karuna...I wouldn’t agree in seven lives. Whatever, she chirped in with a goodbye. Yeah, one would have reciprocated with the same; Karuna now-a-days prefers “wishes” instead of “goodbyes”. But the “man” that he is, Prashant stares at her, allows every syllable in her voice to settle nicely to the bottom of his “tympanum” (courtesy my medical friend), and then just when she turns back, amused at the blank black paint (read Prashant’s face), bumbles something about pleasure and duty, that same vapid dose of his Shakespearean quinine. Oh, Karuna, girl, you will be a woman soon! How could you not know, that he was nuts for you! Yeah, they said he is not your kind, but...

Down the aisle she walks, with the best of roses in her hand, and there waits her knight in shining armour (the only thing that shines in his otherwise, dry face is his teeth), and then follows that steaming kiss...yes, you are right my friends, this was the dream he was busy with, while she walked through the array of desks. And just when she had exited the room, a caps lock voice called out her name. Prashant was finally a man now!

“Karuna...”

Their Story: Episode 3

It’s definitely great to see people connecting themselves to this work of “pure” fiction, but the gentle reminder from the creators of this soap opera is, “Whatever emotions we arouse in your tryst with this work, we do not want you to relate to them personally. It is just fiction and please do not belittle and destroy the creativity of the authors by relating it to you. Good and “original” works deserve credit for their originality and not just an ‘I can relate to it’ understatement. Thank you.”
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The seventeenth hour of the day was very important in Prashant’s well chalked-out schedule.

A school going boy, hardly 18, and the kind who has stayed back, bravely, in an attempt to get through some kind of considered-to-be-the-toughest test in the country, a schedule and its importance was an absolute necessity. He stayed in the conscious state for roughly 7 hours, the remaining 17 were moments of sleep and somnambulating (semi comatose, the term I learnt from my “medical” friend). Either ways, he was thinking of his girl in the blue, the color he wanted to see her in, and accidentally the color of the sea surrounding that island and the lighthouse in it. Of course, that “his” association needs a revised scrutiny. The day started with a nagging father, and his ever so annoying ways, to get his children out of the bed. It was his 14th year straight into this kind of a start and yet he was so pissed of every morning that he took a pee straightaway (please do not attack this statement). Nature calls, brushing and bathing and then a freshly prepared breakfast by a sleepy mother…you wouldn’t call that cool when all this happens at 5 in the morning. School had now achieved that added value in Prashant’s scheme of things, which I still crave for. The paucity of the percentage of the things that actually mattered amongst the ones acquired from the school was a growing concern for Prashant. All that he thought he gained from the school was Karuna. He did not go to the school to learn A.J’s clause structure, he did not go to school to see the spit hanging out of some ugly, badly groomed professor, and he did not go to the school for the not-so-good looking girls. Yeah, some subjects were of some interest to him and it was not just Karuna as the reason for him to spend 6 important hrs of his conscious period. It was not just Karuna.

His was not mad about Karuna, but something definitely kept him in a constant pursuit of her thoughts, in the pursuit of happiness. One of the best parts of school time was the banter with his friends, the eternal and the very fresh, how so ever customary, “bhabhiji” talk. You can never hate these talks, and you cannot prevent yourself from avoiding them. Prashant liked it. In fact, he boasted of this respect. Prashant was an introvert but you cannot help displaying certain emotions and Prashant was vulnerable when it came to Karuna. Not only him, but a bunch of crack heads too, were nuts about her, and there was this “possessive” feeling which was expressed in a few moments of outburst. No one likes to hear anything against “his” girl. But other than that, school was fine, yeah, with the principal turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the “affair” hearsays. The only problem he had was her tough-to-pronounce name. Nevertheless, it was different and I like it still.

The rest of the schedule included the daily brawl with the jug head, Amol, the game of cricket with his cousin Vyom, and some melodramatic and adrenaline injecting soaps. Sleep time in our town means the 21st hour sharp, and he had toiled hard, and had succeeded to some extent, in changing the definition. He has some interest in literature and is considered the best in the trade unanimously by our families, a fact that often does not go down well with me, though (no wonder I find it hard to parse his comments). The time after dinner belonged to his studies and his personal space. The last hour of the day meant bedtime.

Karuna lived in the far end of the city. A family of 4 is the best I can think of, and so did her parents. The dressing sense, the accent, and the bodily features of her family members typified an Oriya family. She was one of the 23 girls that our school had imported from the only girls’ school in our town, a feat that our school consistently achieved and boasted of. That breed of students is no better than a pack of parlor girls with an accent, and the inability to think in English, the language they consider their L1. Karuna was, Prashant says, not one of those, and I have to other option but to agree. I remember some teacher’s statements about math not the girls’ cup of tea, and further it by saying that they find refuge in Biology. Karuna is no different this time. However, she was concerned about her parlor girl image, and no wonder she took private tuitions from A.J. yeah, this is all I can tell you about Prashant’s ladylove, I am not supposed to know more than this and neither are the readers, says Prashant.

The seventeenth hour of the day was when he could just wait and wait for his ladylove. He enjoyed the sightseeing in the meanwhile : a female pig and her teeny-weenies around her, the barking mongrels, the malnutrition affected cow spilling her watery shit all over the street, the gang of “dhakad chhoras” on their dirty bikes, flashing their tobacco stained teeth at every passing girl, the hooligans fighting for a 50p kite, the nearby vendor bargaining for every penny with some lousy “pados waali chaachi” and some infants exchanging some (blue) c.d.’s for a few marbles. Prashant was no macho man to teach the tobacco guys a lesson, nor was he a social reformer to prevent the infants from viewing the pornographic contents, he could not complain about the kite group, he knew Amol would be busy in the same “kifayati” doings, the pigs and dogs and cows…the municipality was more than enough for their state. All he had to worry about was the time when the “expelled faculty of a highly advertised coaching place’s brother” wrapped up the tuitions.

“Hey Prasssshhhhhhhh…you not gone yet?” (Prashant is not actually a trendy name, and he does full justice to the feel of his name)

“No, I thought I would wait for Karuna. You know, she did not come to the school today and I ended up fighting with Pankaj over a silly joke of his. You see, all this time I have been thinking of her and (the island)…Man I seriously needed to see her and I thought she would be here…”

“Hihihi…boy you are darned. She did not come here as well. You better pack your dreams and take the long walk back. Huh…waiting for his Juliet ehh…”

Utkarsh, the only boy in the Biology stream had his uncannily wiry body thrown out of the cave from where Prashant expected his apsara as well, and jeered at Prashant. After a tiring day at the school, this was the least he could have wished for.

“Shut up, you ugly idiot, and just pass me on her number. I need to talk to her. May be, I shall tell her all about my feelings for her. At least, I would not have to stalk her then.”

“2300974. There you go. That is her number, and if you do not connect to it, try 2451043, her neighbours’. And don’t you forget to tell me that you didn’t say anything…oh sorry, couldn’t say anything, just like all the time you have been doing in person…haha…I will talk to her…stop that shit man, you know you are not going to.”

Prashant did not say anything. By the time Utkarsh had finished saying his words, Prashant was half way down the street.

Their Story: Episode 2

What episode one, http://randomthrows.blogspot.com/2009/05/their-story-episode-1.html, missed upon is that this narration is purely fictional and any co-relation to any real life incident is purely co-incidental. The characters’ names and their pen-picture are just those figments of imagination, and hereby, any semblance to a real life analog is disclaimed.

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He never thought he would find something this beautiful, of course until he saw something that was greater in its beauty than the one he thought to be the most beautiful; and how often did he realize that whenever he took is stare off the girl he thought to be the “most beautiful” he had seen until then, would his ever-so-gleaming eyes find another feisty assembly of the softest of the flesh and bones, was the commonest issue within his friend circle. Agreed, Prashant was not that kind that is often described as a mongrel, but his friends thought no better of him. Yeah, what set him apart was the childlike (not childish) notoriety in his smile, and the unforgettably shiny and perfectly shaped teeth behind that partition of black flesh. The listless stare which he threw upon the passersby and girls was the kind that could instill in you, a sense of pique, for being so heartlessly ignored. But only he knew who was ignored, actually. Karuna was not, definitely.

The idea of successfully obtaining knowledge and the dreams of a successful academic career had hardly that factor which could propel his motion towards that creepy tuition place. The usual banter with his granny was more important to him than his mathematics tuitions. That ‘jug head’ was the perfect source of entertainment you could find in a family of six, and still Prashant chose the long walk to his mundane tuition point, the SHIKSHA NIKETAN. The manor was just an underground garage sort of a place, with the perfectly counted flight of 17, and built by the school side. The ugly teacher and his ugly beard were a home to millions of mites, so Prashant thought: he had had the first hand experience. The blokes around were not the best in that trade, and given his mental ability in solving mathematics, Prashant fared considerably well. SHIKSHA NIKETAN was founded by an expelled faculty of a highly advertised coaching place; this was the kind of introduction they had received on their first day of instruction.

Karuna was not a mathematics student but the regular effeminate BIOLOGY girl. Prashant had always fancied a girlfriend, someone from the medical profession. The reason he cited was something I don’t remember, but I have my reasons. Of course, they are the girls with the best of skin textures in the town, the fairest of complexions, the silkiest of hair and the juiciest of lips. Yeah, they do not have the ideal 24-36-24, but there lies the x-factor. That extra bit of supple flesh here and there, those extra pounds are the ‘properties’ which make them all the more desirable. I wish I had someone from the medical world…oh! I love biology.

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The time of the day was reason enough for Prashant to long for Karuna. The math’s tuitions were over; the biology students were not yet available. Karuna was enrolled in the biology classes adjacent to Prashant’s cavern, and the instructor was none other than the “expelled faculty of a highly advertised coaching place’s” brother. There is this legacy thing in our place which dictates the careers of many students who feel confident enough to stay back in the town and aim for the highest of glories. If you are a mathematics teacher, your son is supposed to be a chemistry or physics or any god-damn subject you feel like fit for him teacher, and if a student needs the services of a particular faculty, he has to obtain the services of his family members, mandatorily. Karuna needed biology and English tuitions. She was not well versed in clauses and all that A.J. stuff, and so she took private tuitions from A.J.

Autumn meant the school calendar listed the pooja-vacations and the only time of the day he could see Karuna was during the interval between her tuitions. Prashant had his tuitions from 3:00pm-5:00pm, Karuna’s first one commenced on 4:00pm in the day and the next on 5:30pm. That half an hour was the reason Prashant used to take the long walk to SHIKSHA NIKETAN. The tenderness in her gait, the soft of her air, the blush in her cheeks (remember, the extra bit of supple flesh)…all were the best things in the world for Prashant. Karuna was not the most beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, just like Prashant (citations: Gone with the Wind). She was the most beautiful phenomenon he had ever seen, not because it actually was, but because his eyes could not move forward from her visage, to find anything that could compare with the __________________ (put in some clichéd expressions) of her eyes. He never saw beyond her eyes. They were serene, and this is one quality that cannot enter the comparative domains of description. Yes, her eyes were her best feature. (Personally, I thought her lips, though.)

The chill in the day, (goof ups: the first episode mentioned “…was amazed at his audacity to sleep in this heat” after mentioning the autumn), could not deter him from waiting for her, all alone. He knew it would be difficult, those minutes before he could catch her frame.

The story is not in a stage wherein the emotions have been shared. Prashant was still waiting, and his wait ends in the much awaited episode 3. Continue reading and posting comments, friends.