Sometimes I loathe you. You are innocent but cunning. Loveable but abhorrent. Helpful to others but helpless for yourself. Compassionate but pernicious. Funny but at inappropriate places, with wrong timing. Your sense of humor is shocking. Your jokes are bad. They are gross and derogatory. It hurts people. Protshahana was too. Remember that day? The first day you two met? It was a virtual meet but you managed to hurt her for real. That was just a start but she had known you the very first day. Known your inside. That is how it all started, didn’t it? It started. It ended. Then restarted. I don’t know where it is now.

You were working late that day. Or night rather. You had a presentation to make the next morning. Paul had stepped into your cubicle. Paul, your colleague-cum-confidante, had just gotten back that day after a week-long trip from Connecticut.

“How did the conference go?” – You had asked.

“Pretty good! They were all stuffed up towards the end. Had to rush through the final few slides.” He had chuckled. “They are impressed though. Grant renewal on its way”. He had winked. “How is it coming along?” – He had taken a short pause looking at your monitor screen.

“Awesome, I have made it as abstract as possible. Don’t understand half of the stuffs myself. They will look at each other in the question answer session” – You were that extra-over-confident, a ‘wannabe’ smarty pants as usual.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here comes Mister David Brent, oye Brent!” – He had pulled your legs and you both had giggled. “By the way, met with a Nepali girl in the conference.” –He had caught you by a sweet surprise. The mention of two things: Nepali and Girl. “Wow!” – You were glowing. The monitor had gone to the screen-saver mode. It had started displaying a series of mazes. You were into it.

“Ok. What was she doing over there?”—You had faked an indifferent tone.

“Oh she works as a research scientist for NASA, Jonhnson Space Center.” – He had started chuckling again. “She goes to the Uni we had our conference at.” – He had overridden his previous statement.

“Oh okay. What’s her name?” – You were anxious. “It’s a difficult one…pra …ti…Hold on! Lemme check” –He had taken his digital diary out from his pocket. “It’s ProT-shaa- haa-naa. I have her email address too, if you want to touch base” – He had said and you had kept smiling.

*****

That night you came back home rather late. It was almost morning. Birds had already started chirping. You hated it. It was cacophonic. You went to your restroom right away. I know you love the big mirror in there. You lit the small fluorescent light on its top. You had started to envision Protshahana. She was being reflected from the mirror. It was her image. The image that you created. It was breathtaking. She had worn a white night gown. Her hair, black with shades of burgundy, was spread over her shoulder. She was looking at you amorously. Her eyes were sensual.

“Protshahana sweetie, morning!”

“Hi Prots honey? How about a morning kiss? Not naughty like the last night ones, just on the cheeks”

“Prots, what you cooking today?”

“What you wanna eat today, Prots?”

“Prots, You raise my testosterone to infinity, shall we play for a while? Where do I start from? I like the top-down approach”

“Prots, what’s your favorite number? Mine is 68+1”

“There you go again with your erratic thoughts. All you have is just her email-id, you don’t even know her neither does she. She doesn’t even know that you exist. You exist in the misery of a lonely life. You say you are happy but you are not. You are sick. Your life is doomed. Who is Prots? Who is she? Your friend? Girl friend? Companion? Where is she? Does she breathe? What if her name was not Protshahana but some Mangala Devi, or Pampha Kumari? Does your hormone react to Shanti Devi or Som Kumari? You are a hypocrite—a real one. You let me down. I feel grossly embarrassed by you. I am leaving you. Right now. Right at this moment. You divert me away from being sane. You rot in hell for I don’t care.” – I had reddened.

You turned the light off, closed the restroom door, went back to your bedroom and off you went to bed. “Good boy!” – I had thought. I was dead tired. I went to sleep within few minutes. You woke up again though. Damn you! You booted your laptop. Logged into MSN. You added her address in your contacts. She was online too. She accepted you. Lucky you, lucky ba*tard!

“Yo!” – You went.

“Huh?” –She was perplexed. “Do I know you?”

“I guess not!”

“Who are you?”

“I am I” – You veiled your identity with mine.

“What?”

“Well, you may not know me but I know you through a common acquaintance of ours” – You were being honest. Thanks for that.

“Okay, what’s your name, where are you from?”

“I am I, and I am from nowhere”

“Arrgh….please, I don’t have time to fool around with you” – She was getting irritated. Rightly so.

“Prots, I am feeling horny. Shall I make love with your image tonight?” – There you came to your real-self.

“What? What the…how filthy! Disgusting! You are sick!”

I was snoring but it broke suddenly. You were hitting hard on something. I came back to consciousness.

“hahaha, I was just kidding, trying to pull your legs” – I typed.

“It’s not funny, okay?”

“I know, sorry if it bothered you too much”

“So who are you and how did you get my email id?”

I explained her everything. You were there with me reading each and every word I typed and those that came from the other end.

“Nice talking to you, I gotta go for now, ttyl” – It didn’t look like it would end with pleasantries when it started.

“Same here” – The feeling was mutual. I was relieved. At least it ended in a positive note. Saved me from disgrace.

You were anxious. You wanted to see how she looked like. Right at that moment. I was too, but my concern was platonic. Yours was adulterated by sensual desires, as usual. It took me a while to get you into sleep that night.

Next day was remarkable. You were unconscious and I was active.

* * * * * * * * * *

“…So ‘fastlove’ is all that I’ve got, on my mind….”-- You were singing your favorite song.

“Yeah yeah you sing well, I am impressed. Leave me with ‘her’ for a while now, will you?” – I patted on your back.

You were smiling.

*****

I signed into MSN soon after the machine was ready for use. She was online! My heart started to race. I have never understood the connection of heartbeats with talking to someone “special”. I mean, I do understand the biological phenomenon but I don’t know: Why does it have to be that way?

“That is what love is, goodfella!” – Came your response. You had never ceased to irritate me with your unsought attention-seeking attitude but on that particular instant I thought: “May be you are right.”

“Hell no! I don’t want it.” – I said to myself.

I waited for her to open up the conversation. It did not seem to be coming and I was feeling restless. “Oh, how sad!”—You giggled.

“Ssssshhhh!”

I decided to do the talking through the keyboard.

“Hi” – I broke the ice.

“Yo!” – Came the response, after a short pause. “How was your day?”

“Not bad” – I was always that reluctant-optimist in your absence. “How about yours?” – A predictable question followed the answer.

“Nothing interesting, busy as usual” – She was a part time worker and a part time graduate student, as per Paul.

“So how is your research coming along?” – Not that I was too eager to know but still.

“So far, so good. At some point I may need to look at your work” – She followed with a smiley face.

“Well mine is in bits and pieces at the moment. It will take a while to assimilate. Perhaps after a couple of months we can talk of working in synergy and stuffs. But you can count on me. Anything for you, Prots!”-- I stuck my tongue out.

The following line took some time to be typed and when it did, it took some more time to be sent.

“What’s your number?” –It came out finally, followed by two emoticons in a row—both sticking their tongues out.

It looked like it would take her forever to respond. I thought I had hastened. “FOOL!”-- I started cursing you.

“What did I do? Please, it’s completely you this time, I am not even in the picture!” – You retaliated.

As I was about to type in “Never mind, may be later”, I saw on the label right underneath the chat window: “Protshahana is typing a message”. My heart started to race even faster.

“What’s yours? Give me yours and I will give you a call instead. Is that okay?”— Came the message.

I did not want to say “No”. I thought it would not make any difference. Her number would display on my cell anyhow if she called me.

“That works too. Here I go: ***-***-****” -- I wrote. Well not exactly. In case if “you” are wondering what those asterisks mean--a quick reminder--I am sharing just my story. I am still the sole owner of all my “private stuffs”. Thanks. Let’s move on.

Before I could think of what to write next, a rush of blood came from nowhere.

“When are you calling me? Can you call me now, right now, right at this moment?” – I don’t know what made me type that. I thought you were not there. Seriously!

“Haha! Seems like you are too anxious to hear my voice” – She chuckled through her emoticon. “Calm down dude, they are in line, get there first!” – She then laughed out loud.

Arrghh…forgive me if I sound like a sexist, or may be I am one, but man, girls would forever remain girls! And what is more interesting is their larger-than-life ego--simply out of this world! I almost felt like murdering you for soliciting (literally) her for that response. Why did you have to ask her to call me right away in the first place? Could you not have been a little more patient, a bit more composed, huh?

I didn’t know whom I was mad at: You, her or myself.

“Oye, hello! Ms. Yourself, just asking if we can talk, nothing more. If you are busy serving others, I have better jobs to do as well.” -- I had known my ego for its vulnerability. It had already started to show signs of panic. My rising blood pressure level was one of them.

“Oh! Then why are you chatting with me right now, mister! Go do your job, if they are that important, irritating!” -- She was quick to pounce on me.

“Oh really? Am I the only one chatting with myself here? Who is your optometrist? Let him be told he is doing a fantastic job!” – I was that unruly as always when ticked off.

“Okay okay, calm down!” – She became submissive instantly which was quite an anticlimax really for the haughtiness she displayed a few moments back.

“I am cool” was all I could utter.

*****

My cell started singing the AT&T tune. “Private call” was all I could read on the display. I thought some phone card company wanted to eat my already-semi-eaten brain. I was literally yawning when I decided to attend it. “Hello” – I went.

I had to look around to make sure if my cell was the only source of sound at that moment.

“Y..e..s!!??!!” – My voice was trembling.

“Chinena? Ma, Protshahana!”

Before I could stop wondering why she was Protshahana and not Protshahan, I felt an earthquake. My random guess would be, 9.8 magnitude in the Richter scale.

A long silence followed the calamity.

Soon after I recollected myself, next thing I knew was, you were already there in my bed, completely covered from head to toe inside the blanket while a small orifice that was created from a corner of the blanket was exposing your favorite finger pointed upwards. Sometimes even finger can do the talking, no? I heard it saying: “YES! Enjoy! You and your “Prots” AKA Protshahan(a) ”

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 4: Badman Sheds Tears, Goodman Laughs Hard

“Hello, do you hear me? Hello!!!”

“Yea yea, I can hear you, and only you at the moment. Tell me”

“Okay… hehe… umm…so?”

“So?....nothing…you say”

“No you say. Are you shy or something?”

“Shy? And Me? With you?... Just a bit shocked to be really honest..,hahaha”

“Shocked? Why? You thought I wouldn’t call you?”

“No, of course I had thought you would call me since you took my number but I didn’t know, even in my wildest dream, you would sound so much like Protshahana…hahaha”

“What you mean?”

“I mean you have such a beautiful voice, why don’t you sing a song for me?”

“What rubbish! As if you really want to”

“Oh I am yearning. I can KILL to hear you singing now that I know how sweet your voice sounds. Shoot!”

“Yea right! Aafno voice chahin katti na ramro jasto”

“hahaha”

*****

“So…what you doing right now?”

“Me? Nothing… just stretching my legs, feet on my bed, trying to invoke ‘you’…my machine is on my lap so I am feeling its heat…..on my lap…, you know, it feels like I am talking with my machine in person, so that means you must be quite hot”

“Okay, umm…I don’t understand what you mean by that. Shall we switch the topic?”

“Haha…What’s so difficult comprehending it? It’s the basic idea of Physics. See, essentially I am talking about heat exchange… Jeez, and I had thought you would love scientific theories hahaha!”

“Oh I can see how your scientific theories work…so, that is what you’ve been doing lately at work, ho? Very interesting…”

“Yeah exactly! I am trying to find out if heat can be transferred through radio-waves. Have you ever wondered how convenient it would be to feel your beloved ones through phones? When distance wouldn’t matter? Like, say for instance, I will touch you right now and you will feel it for real. Enticing, isn’t it?”

“Okay, I am too naïve for your so called scientific theories. May be he will understand it better. You two can talk while I will listen. Shall I add him in the conference?”

”Biraj”

“Who Biraj?”

“Biraj, my boyfriend.”

“Well, yeah sure…umm…no, wait! I think I have choked on something. Hold on for a minute. I need to cough it out. Be right back”

*****

“Okay, I am back. So where were we? Yeah, conference call.”

“Yeah. Do you want me to…?”

“Well, umm…not today, sorry, may be some other time. I need to work on few things right now so I will talk to you guys later, is that okay?’

“Okay, as you wish. You work. Bye now”

“Yeah bye.”

*****

I remember that night very vividly. I had ended the call and you had snatched the cell from my hand and switched it off. You didn’t feel like talking with anyone, anymore. You were back to your favorite location—the restroom. The flagrant mirror was reflecting your egregious image once again. Your face was lackluster and your moves were incapacitated. I could only look at you and commiserate with your state.

“Why me, why me again?” –You had begun to sob.

I rewinded the chain of events that took place that day starting from when you woke up with the filth. When I replayed them, by the time I reached the concluding scene of the night when Protshahana was insisting or rather gibing you for the conference call, I could envisage the comedy in your tragedy that you and your random shallow thoughts had brought about. My mouth widened and I started to titter. “Look at you, poor kid!” – I pointed my forefinger at you in the mirror and giggled spasmodically, and it continued as an incessant laughter for a while thereafter.

You were broken down. “Why does she have to be taken, why?” – You frowned and your lips began to bend downwards. It was not a pleasant sight to see you weeping but I had seen you in pain, agony and reclusion before, so it did not come to me as a surprise. “Let it go boy!” – I fondled your head.

*****

Everything about you is fleeting. Not only your thoughts, but your emotions are also fickle. It did not take you long to come back to normalcy that night. “….I found that love is no friend of mine; I should have known time after time…” You listened to Gary Moore for more than five times in a row. You were as anxious to get over Protshahana as you were to talk to her when you first heard of her from Paul.

For next five days, you tried keeping yourself away from your laptop--MSN in particular. She came and away she went; far away, leaving your sensuous desires unfulfilled, your secluded, secret dreams unfolded. I had known your paltriness, your parsimonious attitude and this was just another instance of your involuntary, frugal impulse. Forgetting her was as easy as counting down from three to one – 3, 2, 1 and boom! There you go! She was out of your mind. For good.

“Why do you want to stay away from her? Why are you ignoring her?” – I had asked you on the sixth day.

“What is there to talk for? I don’t see any scope.” – You were blunt.

“Why? Just because she is already taken? Does that make her less eligible for a friendship? Is she lesser good a person when treated as a friend? ” – I had questioned to which you shrugged your shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, friends forever. Bullsh*it! I don’t want to shed my emotions for an unworthy cause. Period. You go ahead and do whatever you feel like, I am outta your way” – You were hell-bent on your stance.

****

It did not take me long to sign into MSN once you left. I had thought she would be online, but she was not. I stayed online--basically, waited for her to show up. She did. Eventually. Just some three hours later.

“Hi” – She had started the conversation.

We talked about many things that night. I, minus you, was always cordial and she could only be genial in response to it. My guesses about Protshahana were as good as Paul’s. We just had one interaction under our belt of experience about each other.

“Where did you do your schooling from?” – She had asked inquisitively.

I answered her honestly.

“Really? I went there too” – She was as much surprised as was I. “Which batch?”

We got bored typing out the stuffs we wanted to say for each other. She asked and then gave me a call which I had no hesitation in attending. This time her number was displaying on my cell phone. “Thanks, at least now you trust me a bit more than before” – I had thought.

As we further delved into the matter, we came to know that she was just a couple of batches younger to mine. We were in the same house while in the school and more interestingly in the same team, yes in the same team, that once won the inter-house quiz competition back in our good old days when she was in grade eight and I was in the tenth.

“I don’t remember your face very clearly but I do remember you somehow as a person. You were a little girl, too short for an eighth grade girl to be really honest. You used to braid your hairs into two sideway pony-tails that used to hang behind your shoulders. The oil that you used to put on it had a peculiar smell though. It used to smell like a rotten egg really” – I said giggling intermittently.

“Ufff… as if I will believe you completely. I don’t remember you that much clearly either. But I remember, you were the captain of our team and although you contributed pretty well, if it wasn’t for my answer to the last question, we would have lost it, remember?” – She remembered more than I could ever think of, probably because she had displayed some histrionics in the event towards the end.

“Yeah yeah, that’s one more and a very important thing I remember about you. To my surprise, I had found that you were pretty smart. Didn’t seem like when I saw you first time though. Sometimes looks can be deceiving” – I had laughed out loud.

The phony rendezvous went more smoothly as we found common things between us to talk about. We talked about our inmates, favorite teachers, obnoxious teachers, friends, good friends, dear friends and families. New movies, old flicks, classical, waltz, rock, hip-hop and blues. Girija, Prachanda, Paras, Gyanendra and Himani. Obama, Hillary, Guiliani and Bush. Apple martini, Sparkling wine, Chai latte, French vanilla, Tiramisu and Cheesecakes.

“How is Biraj? What does he do?” – I had asked her when there was nothing I could think of to talk about.

“Oh he is doing good. He works for IBM in North Virginia. IT project manager.” – She had replied.

“Manager? Must be bald and boring. How did he come across your stinky, braided pony tails?” – I was trying to be funny but I knew I had acquired some shades from you in asking that question.

“How rude! You haven’t even seen him.”

“Haha! How did you guys meet?”

“Well, we first saw each other at a wedding party in Oregon last winter. He was there to work on a project and I had gone there to attend the marriage ceremnony of my cousin sister.”

“Was it a love at first sight?” – I was inquisitive and direct.

“Kind of. More so for him though. He was attracted to me, to my charming personality. Well, that’s what he still says…” – I could not see her but I was sure she must be smiling at that moment. Not to mention her proud and bulging nose.

“What about you?” – I had asked.

“Well, he was good looking and a smart guy as well. He proposed me over the phone after I came back from the wedding party. We had exchanged our numbers in the party. I said I would think about it. After a couple of days, he called me again and I said yes.” – Her voice sounds pretty excited in explaining the events that brought them together.

“Was it that easy? If things click at that rate, even I can fancy proposing you right now, what do you say? Haha!” – I tried to test her.

“Yea right! Like I will go after serving all the desperate ones, hoina ta?” – She had replied.

* * * * * * * * * *