Sunday, August 27, 2006

A short story-7

A Dramatical Trauma
---------------------------------

"Wassup Priya?", Raj was surprised to see Priya calling his number. She hadn't called in over a month and hadn't even bothered to answer his text messages. The frequency of calls was getting lesser and lesser ever since she got married.
"Raj. Can we meet at 6pm, my place?", she uttered as fastly as she could.
"Sure. I'll be there", said Raj.


She was relieved to hear the answer she was so sure of hearing. "Raj is so predictable and yet so complex", she thought. That's what attracts all the girls towards him and makes him an intimate and a trustworthy guy to rely on, for just about anything. She was thankful that her husband was not at home. "He will not understand. He's insensitive to my feelings".
The time in between was so boring, like watching the all-too-familiar advertisements on TV over and over, but the curiosity to know if things will go the way she wanted them to, definitely made it interesting and made her sweat a bit...whatever happens after the clock strikes six will make or break the way she looks at Raj in the future. It was a very important moment and she was glued to the couch, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
After what seemed to be an eternity, it was 6pm finally...


"Come in Raj", Priya greeted him. Raj could tell immediately that she had been crying for hours now.
"What's the matter Priya?"
She burst into tears immediately after hearing him say those words...it was all too dramatic and unbelievable.
"Rahul's a jerk, Raj. My marriage is in danger. He wants to get divorced from me", she hugged Raj.
He tried to console her. He so badly wanted to say, "I warned you", but refrained. He smiled emphatically, feeling proud of his judgement, completely indifferent to the pain Priya was going through. He did not say it, but "I told you so" was written all over his face. Priya could not see his face obviously. She felt she was being genuinely comforted and cried even more, enough water coming out of her eyes to fill a bucket.


Swetha could not take this any more. She did not realise that she had been crying too, watching Priya's anguish. She shouted at the top of her voice, "Get off of him, you idiot. Raj's a bigger jerk than Rahul. Don't you see it? Are you a moron? Get off of him or I'll..."
"Break the remote control one more time?", Swetha's husband, who's entry into the house a minute ago went unnoticed, completed the sentence, as a matter of fact.
"There it is, his insensitivity towards my feelings in full flow...", Swetha thought.

30 comments:

Naren said...

"enough water coming out of her eyes to fill a bucket"
LOL! watching k-sops on star? :P

nice one! keep writing :)

Ram said...

did u get the drift or not? ozhungaa padichiyaa? :-s

Heidi Kris said...

not a bad one ram :P but unoda usual short stories madri illa.

Naren ena vida bulba irupan pola iruke :P

btw angry with some girl or what? Did any girl didnt notice u inspite of ur voodoo and was so much absorbed in soap tales chat? :P

Naren said...

@Ram
he he :P

@Sri
Naana Bulb? x(

Ram said...

oh no. am not sure if i conveyed what i wanted to clearly. I'll reserve my comments until i get a few more replies :P

Prasanna said...

i know its a "story", yet...

'He smiled emphatically, feeling proud of his judgement' - minimal ego, indeed!!!

u r hopeless da... seriosuly gone case :P

Prasanna said...

but i have to confess, u know how to write... good job!!! ;)

Ram said...

PV- hehe, thanks :P and i have to confess too...that by "a few more", i meant you ;)

Sri n Naren-
The text in italics is what happens at Swetha's residence.
The plain text is what happens in a serial that Swetha is watching on TV.
Sorry if you guys got that already. if not, read the story one more time ;)
Thanks for the comments :D

Heidi Kris said...

Thanks for the extra clarity ram, but for once, i got the drift of ur story when i read it for the first time itself.

But i somehow seriously have a feeling that all ur short stories are inspired from your real life incidents :P ;) adunaladhan keten.. ;)

Prasanna said...

conveniently ignoring my first comment, eh?? :P

Naren said...

@ram
i got it, but i don't react like swetha :P
on a different note, i know a few ppl who try to empathise too much with fictional characters!

@pv
ur 1st comment was gr8!

Ram said...

Sri- that's baseless slander! but u r forgiven for ur ignorance :P

PV- i thought u "knew" that it was a "story" :P. anyways, "hehe, thanks :P" was intended to be the reply to ur first comment :D - how u understand that is totally left to u ;)

Naren- u were asking about Priya's tears...that it is the effect of her(or maybe me, i dont know) watching soaps. I did not see the connection.
and yes, some ppl do empathize too much with fictional characters. me too, mostly characters played by Kamal and a few others too. If I can be positively influenced by such characters, i dont see a reason not to. after all, we are better off than those who do not even empathize with real-life characters...

Ram said...

Raz - thanks. A, B, C, D nu pottu padichikko :P

Heidi Kris said...

thanks da.. unaku romba periya manasu :P

meghjanmi said...

had a nice twist..though cud see it coming..but well-written..
:)

Ram said...

Sri-hehe

MJ- thanks! when did it become obvious?

Naren said...

"better off than those who do not even empathize with real-life characters" - true true!

empathysing in a positive way is good :)

sadly, i've seen some ppl getting influenced in a negative way!!

meghjanmi said...

the title..;)

Ram said...

hehe MJ. i knew i was taking a big risk there, but decided to go with it.

i started it as a serious story, but as i was writing it, there was a sudden flash of this idea :D. i must admit that this story is somewhat similar in idea to Sujatha(Rangarajan)'s first ever short story in tamil...but i realized that only after i finished writing it.

The jumps between paragraphs that i made while writing this story can be compared to the shooting of a movie-hehe. i can confidently say that no three consecutive sentences in the final draft were originally written in that order.

This is the short story i enjoyed the most while writing, by far... :D

noon said...

Nalla keedhu Ram! Believable - esp after my trip to India fresh in my mind - people seriously discussing missed episodes on the phone like it is their own family they were talking abt - my MIL was seriously discussing one of the characters from Malargal I think with the maid and they were arguing about whether or not it was stupid of her to walk out on her husband just so he could marry someone else and have a child...I mean they were seriously arguing about it!
Bucket of tears
(well, water as you say it!) - please! :)

meghjanmi said...

yep..the narrative is good..and now that u mention it..does seem like Sujatha's..that's gr8,of course..becoz I consider him as one of the greatest short-story writers..:)
as for me,i can never keep things precise...got to ramble!!

Prasanna said...

the title is, infact, wrong... dramatic is a word... dramatical isnt!!!

Siva said...

dei, poor Swetha's husband.. I pity him and many more like him in this world. And maybe, just maybe, if you had not relatively italicized, it wouldve been more interesting ;-)
good one though.. like how manivannan says to madhavan in DDD, "Nee kooda nalla try panra" :p

Ram said...

noon- thanks. the idea was not to make fun of the ones watching serials non-stop though :)

MJ- thanks! hope i did not pull that out of ur mouth- hehe.

PV- i checked the dictionary before i named the story and double checked at webster.com after seeing ur comment. seems like "dramatical" is a word after all. :)

Siva- hehe. mikka nandri Manivannan sir :P -well, i like giving clues. unfortunately, the highly intelligent ones guess it halfway through and it probably spoils the fun for them :P
NTPK- i know, i know-hehe.

Prasanna said...

i would like to know which dictionary that is!!! and webster gave you a meaning??? :O please ccp that here...

noon said...

I hadn't even noticed the title until I saw this post. But yes dramatical is indeed an english word!

Labakku Das said...

Machi super da.. didnt get the essence the 1st time..A 2nd perusal and bingo! =d>

Ram said...

PV- the links are given below. dictionary.com is the site i use to check meanings for words and it says that "dramatical" has the same meaning as "dramatic". i have given a link to webster.com too. This one doesnt give the meaning of the word "dramatical"(needs subscription), but affirms that it is a word.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=dramatical
http://webster.com/dictionary/dramatical

Anu- thanks for the support :D

Rajeev- thanks machi!

Kumpi said...

Hey very nice..I was like wondering how you would end it all the while..was quite unexpected..way to go !

Ram said...

thanks Vidya :)