The Sociopath and the romantic
Where Maan tells Geet the tale of Romeo and Juliet – his version
He looked wearily at the woman who was sobbing buckets sniffing and hiccuping in between. He removed the paperwork which was strewn across the table just so that her tears didn't pollute his hard work. It was already fifteen minutes into sobbing session and his patience was slowly melting. He wondered if she would sue his ass off if he hit her hard enough to make her unconscious so that he could finish his work for the day. He shivered at the thought of aftermath. Because she wouldn't hurt him physically or emotionally; she would attack on his weakest point – his patience. Also that it was late in evening and he had a pile of work left.
"Will you quit it?" He said handing her yet another tissue.
"But…but…but…" She blubbered.
"If you want me to understand whatever you are saying, then you have to quit crying", he bit out with remaining bits of patience.
"IT'S SO ROMANTIC!" She cried out little shrilly. He winced at her shrill and handed her yet another tissue.
"Whatever that "it" is, if it's romantic then why are you crying?" He rolled his eyes at the word "romantic".
"Because the whole situation is so sweet and so sad", she replied wiping her nose and eyes. He couldn't take his eyes of her hands and face. It was so….
"Contaminated", he said. She looked at him quizzically.
"Can you please go and wash your face and hands? And when you are at it, change your clothes too. You know what? Just go take a shower", he added the last bit after a moment's pause.
Her nose turned redder and eyes narrowed. When she balled her fist, only then he realized that it wasn't perhaps the right thing to say to her when she was crying. He back pedaled quickly.
"I was just joking Geet…yeah…joking since you are so sad and all", he added. He crossed his fingers under the table and hoped if she was gullible enough to take the bait.
To his horror, she did.
"Thank you so much sir", she replied with a wan smile and her eyes started tearing up again. He hated it. No, he didn't hate the fact that she was crying but not knowing the reason behind it.
Damn my curiosity, he thought.
"So….what happened?" He slowly asked.
"You know the secretary of our chief accountant?"
"Is she very hot?"
"I never checked her temperature." She narrowed her eyes.
"Is she gorgeous?"
"Not very. But pretty."
"Then no." His obviousness burned her. She ignored the growing feeling of thwarting him.
"You know the guy from networking?"
"No."
"You met him and told him to cut my internet access", she bit out.
"Oh him? Yes. Nice chap." He answered. How she found out about his back handed cheap way of threatening that poor guy to revoke her internet access, he never knew.
"Well, they were in a relationship."
"Did they use workplace to do it?" He suddenly sprung from his chair.
"Will you quit jabbering in the middle of my grand storytelling?" She asked thoroughly annoyed.
"Fine, fine. Please, carry on. I will sulk about random lovers corrupting the sanctum of my office space."
"Do you want to listen to my story or not?" She asked now slowly getting irritated. He gestured her to continue.
"Well like I said, the two of them were in a relationship. They come from same village and there both their families hate each other. They hate so much that the hatred is now passed genetically."
"That's impossible Geet", he butted in middle. She glared.
"Sorry sorry. I will now shut up and listen to the story which has been told gazillion times." He made motion of zipping his mouth and throwing away the key. She seemed mildly satisfied at that.
"That was just a figure of speech which I would have told if you hadn't beaked in between. Anyway so they meet here at Khurana constructions after many years and its instant love at first sight." Maan's eyes widened at this and he struggled to control the words pouring out of the mouth. He bloated cheeks unnecessarily as if to tell her silently that words were now filling in his mouth and ready to choke him. She sighed.
"Alright, unzip and talk", she bit. He grinned.
"You see Geet this story of yours is so darn redundant and predictable that even I can complete it."
"Oh yeah? Then tell me."
"So the guy and girl who have not met during the metamorphosis from awkward and borderline ugly teenagers to good looking people. So once they meet, they conveniently forget their awkward selves and pretend not to know each other and fall in love because the guy things girl is gorgeous and the girl thinks guy is hot. And then lots of rendezvous in my office, which by the way I am planning to sanitize this weekend, they actually talk for the first time and realize that they bat on opposite teams. More drama later there is lot of friction between families and tones of tension later they elope and get married. End of story." He finished with a sweep of his hands. She stared in silence. His victorious smile faltered a little.
"Am I wrong Geet?"
"You aren't, actually." She answered sullenly. His victorious smile was back on tenfold.
"But sir, I don't think the guy and girl recognized each other when they met."
"Oh come on Geet. Only in overly sensationalized or dramatized drama serials you see that people change from being teens to being adults. In nature, that's almost impossible. Unless you account for plastic surgery that is", he added.
"They why do you think they fell in love with each other even when they knew that their family had problems with one another?" She asked him as if she was asking him to explain the reason for drop in Sensex points on a random day.
"Because it gives people high to do something forbidden and potentially dangerous", he wriggled his eyebrows.
"That is soooo lame", she said dragging on the word "so". Her condescending tone didn't bother him.
"It's not lame at all. It's true. It's about rebelling towards a specific design of things and not to mention the adrenaline rush it gives - a lot like drugs actually only not illegal. Of course it could also be that the two of them exhibit a considerable amount of psychopathic tendencies to be in a situation which is tad too dangerous and execute things which normal people would easily avoid", he grinned at the end.
"Being in love with a person who is hated by the family doesn't mean he or she
is psychotic", she banged her fist on table. He winced.
"Come on Geet. Think rationally. Why would one want to pursue a relationship with their enemy's son? Isn't it easy to move on instead of getting killed in process?"
"Why? To that person, loving is more important than some silly familial feud. How is that important?"
"Family feud gets important if political and financial motives are involved Geet especially when lot of money and power is at stake."
"How did politics get into story of Romeo and Juliet? It's a simple love story sir where the lovers die in the name of their love of one another", she exclaimed.
"You are so naive Geet. You only see what is shown to you."
"Of course sir. Only you can see things that are not shown. It's also called hallucination", she smirked. He rolled his eyes.
"The real story of Romeo and Juliet is actually very different and isn't sappy thing that you get to hear." She looked intrigued. He continued.
"The story is actually about power play."
"How did cricket come into picture?" She stopped him in middle.
"I meant political power Geet. Geez you don't leave any opportunity to ogle at good looking men don't you? Et tu Cricket?" She glared. He only bared his teeth in mirth.
"The two families were vying for the ultimate power in the country. Each family was aware of the others political and financial monopolistic tendencies. So they asked their kids to be spies for their family. So Romeo and Juliet agreed to be spies and get some awesome info on their competitors."
"So Romeo and Juliet didn't actually love each other but were only getting info? This is utter crap", she dismissed easily.
"Come on Geet, that's more believable. Times during those days were exactly similar to our corporate world; it was run on money, deceit, corruption and power. Romeo and Juliet came from influential families so the reality wasn't lost on them. They decided to help their families."
"And then?" Her interest was piqued.
"And then the entire wooing and courting operations took place. They sneaked all over the town, which is awesome by the way, and didn't really get anywhere."
"Why?"
"Because they were really good spies! Both sweet talked non-stop which made the entire deal look like on darn too long foreplay." Her face contorted at his words. He grinned and continued. He was having fun after watching her cry too much over lame things.
"Anyway, so they realized that they weren't getting anywhere. And that's when the balcony scene happens wherein she ensures that Romeo hears her words. Romeo being a guy would have wanted to see the target, which is Juliet of course in totally non gracious way which many parents these days are scared to death of. Juliet decided to take one dangerous step. She spread rumors about him and her and taught her family to react violently and beat Romeo in process."
"What does she do?"
"She feeds garbage info about peace and all that shit to a priest and implants an idea in his head that if Romeo and she were to get married, there would be peace and of course she would pay him heaps of cash."
"So Friar's motives weren't noble but one that of greed?" She asked him incredulously.
"Of course Geet! Anyway coming back to the story, the two get married in secret and all that jazz but her plans go awry when Romeo refuses to fight in a stupid duel. She is irritated and agrees to go into a drug induced coma. Romeo hears of her death. The plan of sending messenger and stuff didn't really exist in the first place. It was all a plan to thwart Romeo so that the competition will be removed if he comes and kills in the name of love."
"So Friar and Juliet were on this together?"
"Of course. Juliet seduced and him and made him pledge his allegiance to her. Anyway as Juliet predicted Romeo drinks poison at her grave and kills himself."
"Romeo does die then. Poor him", she sympathized.
"You still haven't understood this story Geet? Tch tch… No, he doesn't die. Even he fakes his own death to prove a point to people and cash some money on the saga later on by sheer blackmail or worse writing a play and performing all around Europe."
"But after this Juliet kills herself by stabbing herself."
"Geet. Geet Geet", he shook his head as if he was talking to the biggest idiot in the world.
"What? What? What?" She asked.
"Do you know how difficult it is to kill someone let alone themselves by stabbing?"
"How will I know? I have never tried it before", she replied it sarcastically.
"I know that you are going to Google this later but for the sake of completeness let me tell you – it's darn too hard to do something like that. It's the bogus part of the story which was added for dramatization. That part of the story never really happened. People love that kind of thing Geet – where the girl performs an extremely violent action in the name of love." She rubbed her head in annoyance.
"Once they successfully managed to fake deaths it came as shocking revelation when they found that their family had joined hands and had called in for peace."
"So you are saying they were still alive?"
"Of course. No idiot want to kill themselves for anything or anyone Geet, let alone love."
"Not even those who die for their country?"
"They are different. They die for a cause."
"Isn't love a cause?" She challenged him. He hated her logic because she found flaw in his.
"On sheer hypothetical theoretical grounds, it may be. But rationally it isn't because this cause isn't tangible in a wider Diaspora." He gave himself a mental pat for an awesome comeback. He looked for her answer.
"Whatever. So what happened to Romeo and Juliet in the end?" Her interest in the story was still active.
"They were spies right? So they had all these awesome cool gadgets and potions which made them live for very long time."
"That's absolute BS."
"No, really. So come 19th century they waited patiently for their time and started implanting ideas in people minds." She stared at him in wonder. How far fetched can he get really?
"Even if I don't ask "what" you are going to tell me anyway", she said wryly. He nodded vigorously.
"They planted ideas in mind of great people who would discover the awesomeness of action movies and thrillers and science fiction so that poor sods like me can mock romance and chick flicks." He finished grandly.
She burst out laughing. He looked at her plaintively.
"You know sir, this is one of the worst rendition of Romeo and Juliet I have ever heard. It was contrived and totally unconvincing."
"What? I find the story that you believe in totally unconvincing."
"Alright alright. Peace, okay? But thank you sir, for providing me with good entertainment. It was a good story no matter who crappy it was", she chuckled at his "Hey".
"You feel better now?" He asked as she started getting out of the chair. She looked at him in surprise.
"Yes. Thanks to you." She smiled and walked towards door.
He shook his head and pulled paperwork. It was going to be a long evening.
He was surprised to find her coming in to his office all cleaned up with a pot of coffee and two mugs.
"You haven't left yet?"
"No. It's my turn to return the favor", she replied. He raised an eyebrow at that.
"You told me that crappy story that you pulled off as you went just to lift my spirits and keep me grounded. So here I am." She pulled some papers and started looking into them.
"It was going to be a pleasant evening after all since she was here", was his final thought before they both delved into the pile of work.
Sookie
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