| Creative Writing Competition 2012 India | |
| CODE | 264 |
| SETTING | Online Social Network |
| OBJECT | Cell Phone |
| THEME | Infidelity |
Funny Short Story – Waiting for Monique
Funny Short Story – Waiting for Monique
** SEPTEMBER 30, 2009, 6.20 P.M. **
“Seychellois”. What an exotic-sounding word! Who knew that a person from the Seychelles was called a Seychellois?!!
Puneet arrived at the fountain at 6.20 p.m. He had sprayed on his favourite Issey Miyake cologne, and he felt good. A first date, that too with a Seychellois model, was not to be taken lightly.
Monique had asked him to look for her under the huge Sony hoarding. He straightened his tie and waited patiently, casting expectant glances at every woman who passed by. Alas, not one of them was dressed in a short green skirt. He looked at his Longines watch and cursed,
“Typical woman, late as usual”.
A few more minutes went by, and he thought to himself, “What is with this Seychellois babe? Are these people as unpunctual as us ‘desis’? I mean, I’m only about twenty minutes late despite being a busy banker. Besides, I even had to stop off to buy these stupid chocolates. But this woman is just some fluffy model; she has no business to be late.”
Did he have the place, date and time right? He checked his iPhone. Yes, he had all the details: Raffles City mall basement, fountain at the atrium, Sony hoarding, September 30, 6 p.m. She had written that she would be wearing a black top and a short green skirt. Surely, she could not have arrived at 6 p.m. and left ten minutes later? No, she would not be so foolish as to pass up a guy who made so much money.
At the Burger King on the other side of the fountain, Nisha sat near the entrance. She wore a pair of blue stonewashed jeans, a baby pink shirt and a huge summer hat which spanned her shoulders. She wore a pair of stylish sunglasses, to boot. As she munched on her burger, she looked at the atrium periodically, and watched the world go by.
Puneet began to look at his watch every few seconds, then pace a few steps, and then mutter a few expletives at being made to wait. A further twenty minutes later, he decided that enough was enough, and he started to walk away.
Then, he saw a woman in a long green skirt walk close by. He was confused. This woman was well-built and somewhat dusky — hadn’t Monique told him that she was leggy and olive-skinned? Besides, this woman appeared closer to 50 than the 30-year old he was expecting. Nevertheless, he made bold to walk up to her and proffer his hand with a loud greeting,
“Hello, nice to meet you, but you are very late. I have been waiting for almost an hour, you know.”
The woman pushed him away and screamed, “Who the hell are you? If you do not go away, I will call the police.”
From inside Burger King, Nisha watched the fracas, and went back to sipping her Diet Coke.
** AUGUST 2009 **
When Nisha, a software engineer, first arrived in Singapore from India, she knew hardly anyone. Even at work, she had just one colleague, and he was a family man. So she embarked on placing an advertisement on the Internet. She would also respond occasionally to other people’s ads, but it soon became clear that despite professed good intentions, most of them were looking for sex which was not her primary interest.
Nisha had been naïve enough to create a no-brainer user ID – just 'Nisha' — and she soon realised her folly. As a Shakespeare and P.G. Wodehouse fan, she was pained to read inane messages such as “Dear Nisha madam, I also Indian want make good friend. I am also look sweet beauty wife who cook good chicken curry." Given the calibre of the responses, she wisely refrained from revealing her cell phone number. In her amended ad, she avoided saying much about herself. Instead, she requested persons interested in hiking, inline skating, literature, the arts, photography and gourmet food (to name a few) to become friends with her.
‘Savoir_Faire’ was one of the respondents, and from the style of his English, she guessed he was a well-lettered Indian. Her first reply to him “Desi kya?” stumped him and he countered with-
“How the hell do you know?”
Her hunch had been right; Savoir_Faire a.k.a. Puneet was a banker. He said that he was a typical bored Indian bachelor, looking only for friendship and not a relationship. His problem was that he had travelled so much that he had become a “world citizen”; he was not Indian enough to vibe with his Indian friends, not British enough to enjoy fish and chips with his British banker colleagues, and not Chinese enough to hang out with his Singlish-speaking colleagues. Nisha and he were on the same wavelength from the word go, and they started chatting on the phone and texting each other. He then suggested that instead of texting endlessly, they meet over dinner after work the same day, on a ‘go Dutch’ basis.
When they did meet that evening, Nisha, a fitness fiend, was surprised to find that Puneet was a fat and balding man, and very picky about his food. He could tuck away huge quantities, while she, a petite woman, ate what she thought right for her build. He, claiming to be an MBA from an institute of repute, constantly belittled every profession other than banking — with comments like “software people are no better than coolies” — and was generally pompous and boring. In addition, he derided her for wearing a formal blue silk shirt and a fitted skirt to work. That was not how desi software engineers dressed, he said. Even more strange, when she asked him if he knew XYZ from his university, he refused to reveal his exact year of graduation, the bank he worked for, or even his full name. This struck her as odd, as Indians usually find some satisfaction and thrill from discovering common friends.
She vowed never to meet him again, but as they had already placed the dinner order, she endured the meal. When they finished an hour later, he threw down a ten-dollar bill which did not cover even half the total amount, and he said,
“That is all from me; you settle the rest.”
As they exited the restaurant and headed to their respective trains, he sprang the question,
“How about coming home with me? We can have some fun.”
She was stunned and could only reply weakly, “No, no, thank you. I am not interested.”
Looking back, she felt she really ought to have walked out on him even before the meal arrived. It puzzled and hurt her: she had said nothing offensive to him; did the guy have to be so obnoxious?
** SEPTEMBER 2009 **
After his failed date with Nisha, Puneet decided it was time to place his own ad. He had a way with words, and it was no surprise that his ad was catchy, full of puns and literary references.
The first week, he was disappointed. Were there no takers for someone with his wit and intelligence?
Then, he got a response from Monique. She was from the Seychelles, of French origin, and now just off the plane to pursue a career in modelling in Singapore. She wanted to meet up with a respectable, well-read, music-loving man of any nationality. She was on assignment for three months, and was not looking for a boyfriend or a live-in companion.
What luck — a ‘firang’ model was writing to him! He wasted no time in responding to her message.
“My name is Puneet, and I’m a boring and bored banker, albeit successful”, he began.
As Monique read on, she realised that he was far from boring; he had a wide range of interests. He had studied French in school, and he figured it would be wonderful to brush up on it now.
That entire day, Puneet kept peeping at his inbox, as if waiting for the postman to deliver a letter. When he heard back from Monique du Maurier, he was excited. Predictably, she was fond of French cuisine and red wine. And like most women, she had a sweet tooth, with Belgian chocolate being her favourite. (Ouch, this was a glitch – he *hated* chocolate!) Nevertheless, she was articulate, and she came across as an attractive, vivacious, intelligent and down-to-earth woman. Her English, however, was not perfect — from the sometimes-hilarious errors, he guessed that she thought in French rather than in English. Actually, this added to the ‘cuteness’ and mystique of Monique.
He composed his trademark catchy reply:
“Puneet Agarwal has hit a brick wall.”
He explained that having lived up his single status with several flings and relationships, he was looking for just good old-fashioned friendship; it was so boring to go back to an empty apartment every evening. He was pleased that he had at last come across someone who was looking for pure friendship on a human-to-human basis. She came as a breath of fresh air, considering that his most recent date, in August, had been a disaster; the woman’s endless prattle had been quite incongruous with her claims of being a Wodehouse fan. Worse still, she had been all over him and had even tried inviting herself to his apartment, something that had horrified and nearly traumatized him.
Puneet continued that while the online correspondence with Monique was enjoyable, it would also be far more interesting to meet her in person. Monique explained that she had no contact number yet, as she was awaiting her Singapore Employment Pass which was a pre-requisite for registering her post-paid cell phone connection. Could their meeting, therefore, wait for a week?
Puneet said, “The lack of a cell phone is hardly a handicap. After all, I have survived the greater part of my life without one! And besides, you have my number, so you can call me from a payphone if we need to coordinate. Anyway, I know Singapore like the back of my hand. You suggest a place you are familiar with, and I’ll see you there.”
Monique swung into action. Facebook was a good place to begin. But there were ever so many hits for the name — which one was *her* Puneet Agarwal? She tried looking for the profile based on his e-mail address. No luck. Well, that cell phone number — would that help? She pasted the number in the Google search box and it took her to a Facebook page.
Eureka! — there was a profile picture, a family photograph of a fat, balding man, his wife and his two sweet daughters — all posing before the Taj Mahal! She stared hard at it and double-checked the full name.
“Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions”, she thought. Maybe it was his sister with her kids?
She carefully navigated every page of his profile. The “relationship status” in his profile and the comments below the pictures left no doubt; those people were indeed his own wife and kids. The cell phone number was a perfect match. And even his *wife’s* cell phone number was listed!
That entire evening, Monique was on a high. She could not help chuckling and thinking to herself,
“Gee, how stupid can a planning-to-cheat married man be? And he said that a certain woman tried to invite herself to his place? Hmmm…”
Monique wrote back, suggesting the Sony hoarding near the basement fountain of the Raffles City mall atrium, September 30, 6 p.m. She also asked him whether they could shop for some Belgian chocolate.
** SEPTEMBER 30, 2009, 6.50 p.m. **
The woman in the long green skirt hastily walked away, concluding she had encountered a psychopath. Puneet stood there, dazed, for a few minutes. Had he been tricked by Monique? He moved away slowly, cursing aloud,
“Bi*ch! Bloody bi*ch! Scum of the earth!”
He threw the box of chocolates hard against the hoarding. A few people stared at him, thinking he was mentally deranged. Then, they just went back to their business.
Nisha felt good watching that son-of-a-bitch Puneet Agarwal’s frustration. After he was gone, she whistled a tune and skipped along to the station to catch her train home. She could not stop telling herself what a great detective she was.
When she got home, she poured herself a glass of red wine. She turned on her computer, logged on to the social networking site, and navigated to the option “Delete profile”.
She said to herself, “Gee, this moron Puneet is even more stupid than I thought. He could have at least taken those chocolates home for his kids, instead of throwing a temper tantrum because some online avatar didn’t show up!”
The site beamed a message, “If you delete this profile, you will not be able to retrieve any messages or contacts linked to it. Are you sure you wish to delete this profile forever?”
Smiling at her computer screen, Nisha said softly, “You were brilliant, Monique du Maurier. Goodbye — forever!”, and clicked the button “Yes, delete this profile forever".
__END__
