Som Nath, 1999/07/03, "The Communications Consultant"

Bhutan was walking down the dark alleyways of Kalighat looking like a Michael Madhusudan Datta minus beard. He obviously had a lot on his mind. The love of his life, the girl for whom he received two of the juiciest from Manada a year ago had come back to his life from nowhere. Bhutan was a man of action. An epicurian by birth and a "Communications Consultant" by profession he was a man without the finer sentiments of life. But Mamoni was an exception. Her Ramaaiya like figure, Juhi like innocence and especially Lisa Kudrow like charm made her irresistible. And above all, she was the only girl who has cared to show some response to his cravings.

Bhutan was returning after attending a late night party at Park Hotel. The party went extremely well for him as he had managed to develop six new 'contacts'. Communications Consultants (CCs) are a curious species. It has been mathematically proven that the amount of money one pays such an animal far exceeds any benefit derived from the output. The matter of their usefulness in society vis-a-vis managers results in rather vicious and interminable debates. They have a passion for self-aggrandizing jargon and have christened themselves Communications Consultants or, in a inexplicable flight of fantasy, 'dream merchants' despite being nothing more than what the aatel Arnab rightly called, "Assistant Salesmen". A typical CC develops contacts with the ruthlessness of a Joe Pesci collecting heads in duffel bags. Not that till date Bhutan had benifitted from them and except for the fact that these contacts occasionally imposed upon his otherwise one-way pocket. they hardly made any contact with Bhutan at all. Still he never missed a chance to develop "contacts" and attended or gatecrashed roughly 90.78% of the parties which are held in the city. He considered it indecent to reach home before 3 AM in the morning and for this reason had been arrested twice for suspicious loitering.

But let us not digress. The point is, Bhutan is slightly disturbed. Earlier in the day he had received a one line eemale from Mamoni - "Bhutanda - don't abandon me". The line contained the desperation of Princess Leia's plea and even Bhutan was moved. He has already replied to Mamoni despite being extremely busy throughout the day. The letter, which was the epitome of corporate convention and diplomacy, went as follows:

Dearest Ms Paramita "Mamoni" Ghosal,

                I am very happy to inform you that I have fallen in love
with you once again since this date.  With reference to the various
appointments which were held between us a year and a half back and to your
email No.<199907022546.UAA31799@cal.vsnl.net.in> dt 7/2/99, I would like
to present myself once again as a prospective lover. In light of previous
complications, I would propose a period of probation the details of which
we can discuss over lunch on Sunday, July 4th, 1999 at a restaurant of
your choice.

		I request you to kindly respond within 24 hours. failing
which I shall be forced to consider other candidates. I would be happy, if
you could forward this letter to your friends, if you do not wish to take
up this offer.

				Thanking you in anticipation,
				Yours sincerely,

				Mr. Sandip "Bhutan" Roy

Arnab, 1999/07/01, "The Aatel And The Aalur Dom"

"Din raat loadshedding, tram-bus-e badur-jhola. Aare baba shorir take to rakhte hobe!" That old Horlicks ad about summed up Robert's mood that day - only, he didn't believe in Horlicks, except the occasional "emni emni" khawa, which for all the advertisements never amounted to any additional energy, or Calcium for that matter. Robert had woken up that morning with a slight hangover, found his bed wet with sweat, there was no water and hence no bath, walked two bus-stops - one to avoid the Manada gang and the second to save 30 paisa. The bus was late, by half an hour, overcrowded as usual. He found about twenty square centimeters of available footspace and a place to hold on to the handle by the rear doorway and was gassed most of the way by a rogue tempo which had never heard of the environment. He arrived late for his first student, was foxed by a conversion of time from longitude and tried his best to prove that the answer at the back of the book was wrong. The tea they offered him was cold but he had to drink out of politeness, the banana was over-ripe and the chom-chom was over-sweet but he played a martyr to good manners. The next student was a girl of class VII who couldn't draw a circle with a compass and had her solar system in the form of non-concentric sunflowers which were often painted yellow to boot. He gobbled up a dozen shabur papods, which he really liked, and firmly declined tea.

His Saturday morning duties over, Robert cooled his heels at a nearby dhaba and ate luchi and aalur dom of the most exquisite variety. Just as he was relishing the third luchi, who should turn up - with a headfull of unsightly hair, torn jeans, a jhola bag and the ubiquitous fag - but Arnab. It must have been some two years since Robert had met this old school-mate of his and this meeting appeared to be ten years too soon. Arnab was a notorious bloodsucker. He would eat your food, steal your fags and borrow your money all in one smooth motion while running a commentary on the complexities of "Approximate Diophantine Equations", the relative merits of homebrews over Kingfisher or more often what "Powderfinger" really meant. Arnab had some sort of research assistantship at S.N.Bose College near Chingrigachha and was supposedly working on a Ph.D. in some rarefied mathematical field for the past fourteen years. Since his boss was a character named Jagdish Rai who was more searched for than found, this didn't raise many eyebrows at all. To sum up, Arnab was a professional aatel - he even wrote poetry and movie scripts. In the world of Horlicks advertisements Arnab would say "Aami keno khai, daarun lage".

Arnab, 1999/07/03, "L'Tete-A-Tete"

Arnab : Hey what's up? (non-chalantly helping himself to a luchi as Robert watched helplessly) Got a cigarette to spare? Thanks. So, it's been two/three years or what?
Robert : Yes, I guess. What about you? What's going on with you?
Arnab :

Chot-fot kore ki hobe?
Jhul bora poro kuthire
Second hand nishshas nichchi
Aami je shudui Konishker matha

Chhera pordar phake phake
Ui pokar bashagulor moton
Cigaretter chhai aar gondhe bhora
Vim makha etho bashuner saathe
Borshar aat din bichanar opor
Aami, tumi aar aalshemir chuto

Mone aamar kalshire poreche
Saraswati khuje pai na aar
Chardike badurra ultrasonogram nichchhe
Baroari maayeder shoshtange pronam

Ashes, 1999/07/04, "Who Would Have Known!"

Satram was worried. He was standing outside Durgapur railway station waiting for his assistant to show up. The new recruit, temporarily assigned to him, the one who had done marvellously in Patna, was a full two hours late. Satram was a professional and didn't take kindly to such tardiness. Reports had been coming that there was something wrong with the organization, and today's incident or the lack of it seemed to confirm the worst. Not for a moment did he doubt that the higher-ups in Calcutta would not be able to manage such a thing. There were a few things that the chiefs of Sujata Travels could not accomplish, but certainly an assistant at the Durgapur railway station was not one of them.

Being in charge of the operation he felt it was upto him to go to Calcutta and check out the unconfirmed reports that the organization had frozen all activity until the current CBI investigation had blown over. It might be better to mention here, albeit in hushed tones, that the business of the company was not plane tickets or hotel reservations or any of the other trivialities that were usually associated with this name, Their business was simply money. Money channeled from the dubiously rich discrete offshore accounts around the world. Yes they were intarnashonal. They even had an office at Atlantic City. Their latest addition, which had taken them miles beyond the competition, was a department of electronic transfers. There was something about the anonymity of transfering millions of dollars from fictitious account to fictitious account that drew investors like flies to spilt jhola gur. They had recently recruited the minor genius who was rotting in a deadend teaching job in Khidderpur and he had performed several minor miracles in the "Bihar Case". But he had not showed up. Nobody betrayed Satram. He resolved to call the chief that night, which was a somewhat involved process, as the call had to be routed through several switchboards. You see no one knew the true identity of the chief though it is rumoured that he was a Punjabi academic of considerable repute.

The recruit in question was none other than our very own Ashes. Seeing his chubby features, his foolish, slow smile, his shiny bald head, it was easy to dismiss him prematurely. Nor would you notice anything but a dull confusion in the course of normal conversation. But give him a laptop and a modem and suddenly you had a whole new man. There was a spring in his steps and a light in his eye and he even seemed to lose weight and grow hair after a night of such cybernetic bliss. At these times he could outwit Chintukle in a game of chess or outdo Arnab in any form of aatlami. He would have gladly been at Durgapur and proved his prowess to his appreciative employers but due to a very suspicious communication problem, he had not been notified of the plans. Right at that moment, that sultry Saturday evening, Ashes was quite preoccupied with other matters. He was on his way to meet with the jyotishi Nanechoda and was now walking the streets with a song on his lips and some helium in his heart. During the course of his meanderings he reached the Park Street - Chowronghee crossing. This was quite a tricky place at any hour and even though there was no traffic he did not cross. Appearances were always deceptive and so he waited for the psychologically right moment.

Som Nath, 1999/07/07, "Who Stole The Cookies From The Cookie Jar?"

Shome Nath, alias Nanechoda, was walking along Diamond Harbour road. It was seven in the morning and Calcutta was at her very best. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, the grass was green and Mamatadidi was in Delhi. But Shome Nath was gloom himself.

A stout middle aged man whom everyone scrambled to avoid in a dark alley, he hardly resembled an astrologer. He would have fitted pretty well as a tantric on one of the Ramsays' Zee Horror Shows, a bodysnathcing dome or a swashbuckling construction worker. Infact he had played through all these roles and a lot more in the thirty eight decorated years of his life. He had started his life as a raj-mistree, and evolved, in the order mentioned, to a data entry operator, a petty thief, a newspaper vendor, a bell-hop at Park Hotel, a potato wholeseller and a dalal at Sonagachi besides cooling the occasional heel in Alipore Jail a couple of times.

His current incarnation as Nanechoda, the sauve and discrete astrologer, had gone pretty darn well but he sensed that it was time to move on. He felt that he was born a few centuries ahead of his time, what a pity! He could still take on a masquerading reporter and put the wise-cracking non-believer in his place but after what had happened the previous evening, his confidence was shattered and regardless of what The Man proclaimed, it did matter a whole lot.

He had been sitting in his chamber on Park Street, happily content, after having sold an iron ring to Haldarbabu, a high-ranking government official. when Bakulata, his sexy secretary, had ushered in a fat bald man with a sad dumb look. One stare at him had convinced Shome Nath that this was the man he had been searching for all his life. Yes, this was the man who would believe that an apartment was up for rent on the moon and would readily make a downpayment too. His appearance was so alluring that Shome Nath hadn't been able to resist fishing out his emergency pack of cards.

The man had slowly placed himself on the protesting chair and proffered his mammoth hand. It was only then, after examining the apparition at point-blank range, that Shome Nath had recognized Ashes, his old school chum. Fear of recognition and exposure had instantly set off the panic alarms until he managed to convince himself that with his Medusa-like hair and Raabindrick beard, his saffron clothes and heaps of rudrakkho, it was quite impossible for a half-wit like Ashes to recognize him.

With a working knowledge of the exploits of the king of romantics, Shome Nath hadn't failed to mention Ashes' futile affair with a certain female sumo wrestler, then Jyotsna and of course Daliya, the girl who, according to reports, had even proposed marraige to Ashes. Ashes was quite visibily impressed and had gone on to enquire about his future with Mamoni. Taking his cue Shome Nath had revealed the simultaneous flirtings of Ketu and Rahu with the fair moon and proclaimed that even though Ashes possessed an enviable loveline, the situation demanded one of two available remedies.

"Either you have to consume two shers of bison milk that has been extracted while the bison female was in the process of achieving orgasm or you have to win five thousand rupees in a quarter of an hour from a man in saffron clothes and whose name, when spelt in English, ran to nine letters and began with the letter N", like that Shome Nath or Nanechoda, had proclaimed. Ashes had merely asked for instructions for attaining the bison milk having declared that it was a pity that he knew no such man to try his luck on. "But I am here, right before your eyes. I will gladly play cards with you for high stakes. No one goes back from Nanechoda without a remedy." The game was simple. Three cards distributed to each party and the one with the highest points won. Som Nath could not but feel a bit of nostalgic for the night at the Parkhotel when he had once extracted three hundred bucks from Bhutan in thirty minutes.

Nanechoda had read futures for one and all, starting from Saha-da to Tapas Pal but he had made a great mistake in never bothering to read his own. If he had, he would have known that on that fateful Saturday all the planets of the solar system with the external help from another star 53 lightyears away were whispering in conspiratorial tones, "Let's all get together and fuck Nanechoda." As a result Ashes extracted the required amount and and an additional sum of fifty paisa less than ten minutes.

Nanechoda was already a beaten man but what happened next destroyed him. Ashes, rising from his chair, calmly said, "Shomu, I knew it was you as soon as I entered this room. Don't be depressed. Be a man and face this failure. These small tragedies are sent to us to make us more spiritual and I am sure that with time you will be able to come to terms with it."

Shome Nath, too shocked to talk or think, had only sensed an elephant leave the room singing the happy tune, "Mora dujonai raajar jamai - jamai!"

Vanka, 1999/07/06, "Bhutan Revisited"

Bhutan checked his tie carefully in the mirror. He took special care to flick off that imaginary speck of dust on his sleeve that Wodehouse had so expressly warned about. Bhutan was quite a stickler for tidiness. He smiled a self-satisfied smile as he brushed his hair and whistled a gentle tune to himself.

Bhutan was a quite a man of his times. His communication consultanting skills have already been dwelt upon. But one cannot emphasize enough his great charm and personal charisma. No man could resist that lethal lady-killer aura of invincible machismo. A soap-advertising agency would have died for it. Or paid big bucks. Or so he thought.

The funny thing, once one settled down and looked at it, was that there were a lot of people who did not seem to think so. He still grimaced a bit when he thought of that day when all his grace and charm and fool-proof deodorant had failed to persuade Manada from landing those, er, bazookas, on him. All his faith in pie charts and projections seemed to die a sudden death when he came face to face with Palashbabu, Mashima and yes, that miserable excuse for a human being, Parimal "the Chope" D'Costa, his chop-stick weilding, tobacco chewing, Penthouse reading, asthma suffering, privacy invading, name dropping, and worst of all, artistic temperament feigning boss!

Bhutan's face lost some of it's studied indifference. Chope always seemed to have that effect on him. Even the thought of such a person on such an important day was a bad sign. Bhutan stopped himself on the road to review his features on the window of a parked car and sure enough - his pager went a-beepin'. Bhutan cursed the Indian Penal Code thrice and the Communication Consultants' Model Code Of Conduct four times before walking up to the nearest STD booth.

Bhutan : Hello, Sandip Roy here.
Chope : Hey Bhutanovic, I've been looking for you. Come over will ya, I have some ideas to run by you.
Bhutan : (silently groaning) Sir ... but ... I ... well ... sir ... have a date in twenty minutes. Couldn't we do it tomorrow? Today is Sunday, sir.
Chope : Ah, a date! A Mah-Roy-tha confederacy the making, eh? But my dear Shandaman, what is a Sunday to an artist. My ideas have come and they will go. Do you think, Bhutumselva, that they keep office hours? No, no, I must get them out now.
Bhutan : Sir, but, sir, I couldn't! Please sir, couldn't you tell me about it over the phone, sir?
Chope : What a very good idea. You know Royetti, I always liked you for your trouble-shooting ways. Well here goes. There is this girl, you know, on a beach, I think, in a thong, I'm thinking green - kinda flourescent, quite topless, ummm. Does that make you horny?
Bhutan : Yes sir, very much sir.

And for the next half an hour he went on to describe the grand sceme for the next Ganesh Marka Shorsher Tel campaign featuring assorted Polynesian beauties on the French Rivera. Yes, Chope was a firm believer in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

But at last! On the way to Lake Gardens, there to meet the fair Mamoni. Mamoni, ah Mamoni! "Oh sleeketh cowran beastie, what a panic in thy breastie", he softly misquoted Shelly to himself as he pictured Mamoni's pretty figure in a flourescent green thong, a few miles east of Marseilles. It is quite another matter that Shelley was talking about a mouse. Mamoni was his Clytepa.., or was it Cleomens.., er, whatever she was, Mamoni was his - for keeps.

Else, why else would she send him such loving mails? First she had pleaded with him not to abandon her. And then she had replied to his well phrased mail about the resumption of their relations with a lovely sentence "Bhutan-da, don't abondon me". Bhutan saw in these two messages a distinct change of tone. While the first mail had been a desperate cry from a girl who had finally recognized his overwhelming male persona, the second had an air of quiet resolve and intensity. It meant that not only had the pretty girl agreed to the terms that he had outlined, she had agreed with a flattering degree of silent fervour. All, in all, Bhutan thought, as he ran his hands smoothly over his gelled hair and reached Mamoni's doorstep, it was all quite satisfactory.