Disvocabulary

I tried posting this story on My Fiction World the other day. My lack of familiarity with MFW proved more than a hindrance.

[Anyway, I am trying to do it again. It is one of my favourite stories that was published in my story book called "I Love You in the ICU & 20 Other Stories".

I would love nothing better than your honest feedback.]

The Slut

I don’t remember who exactly introduced Dema to me. Must have been another beautiful colleague of mine. Dema was of average height, a bit rounded with the most amazingly kind face I’ve ever seen on anyone since then.

The same night, Amitda, a friend of ours, working in the U-Me Carpentry Workshop, invited Mr. Das, a senior teacher of the Aspiration High School and me to dinner. We spent the evening playing cards, chatting, and having a rollicking time on the whole. We had dinner at around 11 – rice and chicken curry, a mouth-watering meal in those days at a place like Dream Land. One of them made the bed for Mr. Das in the room with the bukhari on, while I shared the other bed with Amitda. Amitda was the leader of the pack, beautiful, young and fun-loving.

While my eyes were heavy with sleep, the last I heard Amitda throwing at Dasda was:

“You know, Dasda, what happened last night? On my way back from the market at around 10 at night, I heard a foreigner knocking on the door. The door cracked open a bit and there’s a bargain going on – Ten thousand was the rate fixed on finally!”

The staggering amount and the bitter tone of Amitda describing the girl finally brought sleep, dear sleep to my drooling eyes.

The next evening as luck would have it, the same girl, Dema, came to my place. I was occupying the two rooms with the barest of furniture on the ground floor of the only three- storied house in that vicinity. She came sharp at 6 in the evening with her sister – another beauty and completely unlike Dema. Pem for that was what her sister’s name was, was lanky, slim and in the black tight-fitting jeans and loose T-shirt, she looked just ravishing.

In the front plank-floored room , there’s the electric cooking heater on a small, rectangular piece of wood fixed on the wall. The room inside had a cot and the multi-purpose table facing the window on the east. We’d a very enjoyable evening together. Pem helped me roll the rotis, while Dema prepared the curry on the heater. Later, at around 8, we’d a simple dinner consisting of rotis, daal, fried potatoes and tin-fish. Both the sisters were the unassuming, uncomplaining type. No putting on airs or acts, simply some fun-time together. While I was reaching them back to their place, Dema told me that we could have an early dinner mainly due to the heater. It was very handy. It had to be as it was a parting gift from one of my South Indian colleagues, Mr. Madhavan.

A couple of days later, Deki, oh, (I forgot to tell you anything about Deki, she was another striking Dream Land beauty working as a contract teacher in our school at that time, married to a wealthy businessman), joined me while I was coming out of school. One reason for our close friendship was her impeccable English. She did her B.A. from St. Augustine in Darjeeling. I was young then and held people highly if they communicated well.

I was surprised when she made the purpose of her surprise visit to my bachelor’s den clear to me. In spite of having the reputation of possessing a damnless attitude to what the rest of the world felt about her, she was, after all, a married woman. She rejected my offer of tea with a dismissive movement of the hand and came to the point directly:

“Sir, I heard that that slut is hob-nobbing with you a lot these days. Be careful, hah? Stay away from her if you can, otherwise, she’ll ruin your career.”

I was so taken aback by her remark that I didn’t know how to react, what to say to her. Once the message was conveyed, she took leave, telling me that she looked upon me as a good person and friend, and that's why she took the trouble!

A couple of weeks later, after Deki’s visit to my place, Dema invited me to a party at her place on the main road away from the main town. It’s an experience of a lifetime for me and that was the first time when I realized how fast our country was embracing modernization. She stayed on the upper floor of the house, the whole ground floor of which was used for the production of the famous Dream Land mathra, a warm cloth made of wool.

I got there at 8. Dema looked stunning as usual. So was Deki along with two very handsome, smartly-clad boys with their Korean-style hair and all. They made me feel very low of myself, though, in between the drinks and dancing, Dema played her part of a superb host to perfection. Time and again, she came and asked me if I was feeling comfy or not. I left the party at around 11.

A month later Dema sought me out near my place. She had bad news. Her company was shifting to the Distant Land. She’d be leaving soon. The day before she was to move, I paid her a surprise visit. She’s busy packing. When she unwrapped the parting gift I’d brought for her, she broke into a lovely smile. “Thank you. I shouldn’t have spoken in glowing terms about this heater last time…It means a lot to me.”

A few days after her departure, Leki, a common friend, dropped by. He’s carrying a book in his hand. He told me that Dema had left the book with him for me. It’s a book called “Prize” by Irving Wallace. The book kept sleep away from my eyes for the next few nights. Written in the background of World War II, it tells, in a nutshell, the love story of a Nobel Prize designate and a slut. The laureate in his hotel room, while drinking like one drinks water, had tears running down his cheeks in the early hours of the morning once the slut was done with her heart-touching narration of why she became one. The lechers in one of those Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany had left her with only option – either to offer herself or her 13 year-old divinely beautiful daughter. The mother in her couldn’t see the wolves devour the daughter.

The book is the best book I’ve ever read. The book made me respect Dema more. A girl who can tell a great book from a good one, may be despised, degraded, or quarantined by the society, but whatever it may be – her tale of sacrifice, courage would be a matter of envy for many.

The End