Girl With The Guitar Tattoo. [SWASAN FF] update Part 14, page 33 - Page 4

Originally posted by: Sparkler8

At last we see the background story for Swara. . I think I need to reread this update..

Res for now.

Originally posted by: chi1tra

Ya Shona took her own sweet time to get introduced.

Reread, woww that made me happy 😛

Sorry my forum lingo is bad but what does res mean?

Disclaimer: This is a really long post. Strictly suggest you to muster some patience before reading. Also I give reference to an dot-com start up in my post. The name of the start-up is real but I skewed up some facts to align with my story. Hope that is okay (Admins please tell me if its unacceptable).

Guess I am so inspired from all the SwaSan-licious episode from yesterday's telly. This written update also has a lot of SwaSan and it brings out a Swara's side of her story. Like I told on Day Zero, she is not a mahaan, she is very flawed but can be charismatic too at the same time. Enjoy folks.

Part 4:

Maheshwari Mansion on (Raglak engagement day) 8PM:
DP calls all the boys to his office room but La doesn't turn up.
DP: Office ka sensitive information Shekar babu ke beti ko kaisey pata chala. Hamare office se kisi ne leak kiya?
San: Bade-papa, aajkal spy ki zarurat nahi hai. Company ke computers hack karke bhi pata kar sakte hai. Mainey Kunal (who is San's personal assistant) ko pata karne ke liye bola. 3 weeks pehle ek security breach hua. Hum kal hi security tighten karenge so that these kind of things don't repeat.

Maheshwari Mansion on (Raglak engagement day) 11PM:
San and AP come to La room and his mother seemed alarmed.
San: Lucky did you speak to Rag.
AP: Sharmistha-ji ka phone aaya, Rag ghar par nahi hai, uski gaadi bhi nahi hai. Doctor saab bol rahe the ki San aur tumhare alawa Rag Kolkata mein kisi ko jaanti tak nahi. Tumhe pata hai who kahan gayi hogi.
La: Haan Rag does not have friends in Kolkata and none of her Del friends came for our engagement.
At once same thought crossed La and San and gave each other a nod.
AP: Beta tu usse kuch ulta seedha toh nahi bola na, ki woh gusse mein kuch kar baithegi.
La: Nahi ma, aap chinta mat kijiye. Mein pata karta hu.
La immediately switches his phone on and calls Rag. She picks up after two calls:
Rag: Hi Lucky, cooled down now?
La: Where are you?
Rag: Home where else will I be at this time?
La: Seriously Rag, you want to lie to me again. You mom just called to our house saying you are missing.
Rag: Bites her tongue at this. Sorry Lucky, I am with my sister. I told dida but don't know why my parents called your family before confirming inside the house. Moreover, I dint think I will be caught not being in my room. Sowwieee (she tries to act cute)
La: Okay. Bye (He was about to hang up when)
Rag: Hey do you want to join us as well? I will whats-app you the address. (La was about to say No) Don't say no. Please come na I want you to meet my di. She will be leaving tomorrow morning and I don't know when we will meet next.

La tells AP and San where Rag is and AP doesn't seem very happy. Ma kya mein ek baar ja sakta hu, Rag chahti hai mein uski sister se milu woh di kal subah Kolkata se chali jayegi.
AP: Achcha, tu mujhe pooch raha hai ya bol raha hai.
La: Makes puppy eyes. Please papa ko sambhal lena.
AP: Thik hai ja, lekin jaldi wapas aaja. Ek kaam kar San ko bhi saath lekar jaa.
San: Arre, badi-maa kal mujhe office jana hai.
AP: Haan woh toh La ko bhi jaana hai. Ab tumhe jaldi sona hai toh Lux ko jaldi wapis lao; she says with a clever grin.

Place where Swara is put up, 11:30PM:
La and San drove to the most crowded market side of the city, which was now silent as a grave except for a few street dogs howling. They saw an old building and found Rag's ka Redsie (her car) parked. They knock on the door as per address sent by Rag. Rag answers the door, she was surprised that San also came and the boys were shocked by what they saw.

The cramped up living room was dimly lit with LEDs and candles only, there was a mattress strewn carelessly in the middle of the room, two wine glasses on either side of the mattress and Sw was sitting there with some playing cards in her hand. Beside her was a macbook which was flickering on her geek spectacles, and behind her were two suitcases with stuff pouring out as if they popped open by mistake. 'Comfortably numb' was playing in the background.

Rag: Come (she gives La a single hand hug). Hey don't mind the place okay, this is the old house my parents lived in when they were newly married. They stayed on rent but Di was born in this house, so they bought it out of sentimental reasons. Dida thought its better if Di stayed here tonight instead of some hotel.
La: Haan, hotel mein yek sab kaisey kar paoge (teasingly as he points around the room and then Rag)
Ra was wearing a yellow patiala with a white A&F tee, while Sw was wearing knee length shorts with a black Roger Federer tee with their hair tied in a messy bun.
San: Ooh I dint know girls listened to Floyd. I feel like I walked 8yrs back in time to my dorm room.
Sw shot her head up and gave a blank face. Rag introduced everyone.
Rag: Di, meet my man and dragged Lucky.
La: Hi di (La and Sw shake hands)
Sw: Finally we meet young man. I heard a lot about you.
La: Wish I could say the same (he reverts with a smirk)
Rag: Lucky, behave okay. Di this is San, La's elder brother.
As San was towards the other end of the mattress, they just wave hi to each other.
Rags: Everyone presenting my uber cool Di. She stays in San Francisco, hum sab se door.
Rag is now visibly sad. She leaves La hand and goes and hugs her sister from behind.
Sw: Bas bas. Your fiance might be annoyed if you do so much PDA to me. Hey why are you both standing just help yourself, sit na. Would you care for some wine?

La & San (almost in chorus): I don't drink
Sw: Ya rrright. You from IIT-Chennai and you from VIT-vellore, and I have old pictures of you guys "NOT" drinking. Make convincing lies, please.
La and San give an unbelievable look as to how much Swara knows about them.
La: Okay fine. We don't drink in Kolkata (looks at everyone sheepishly). Aur Rag tum peeti ho.
Rag: Only with di. Moreover, wine is not alcohol. We doctors only recommend it to people for a healthy heart.
Sw: Laksh, how are you ready to marry someone you know nothing about. Do you guys even talk? No scratch that, do you know each other well enough to want to get married?
Rag: Di please aap Narad muni mat bano.

Both the sisters start chuckling. They notice that San was bored and busy on his phone while the girls were only busy entertaining La. Rag pours very little wine into two more glasses and hands each to Lak and San.

Rag: San bhaiyya aap bore ho rahe ho. Cards khlena hai.
Sw: I have an idea, do you guys want to play poker. And just to make it more interesting, every time a player folds or backs out or loses, they either take a shot (shows the cap of the wine bottle, which is almost the size of a cough syrup) or they answer a question any player asks. Cool?
La: Di aap sach mein sharaabi ho? (he tries to ask as politely as possible)
Sw: Oye, buying alcohol doesn't make me an alcoholic and I share so that should make me generous. No?
Rag: Aur di sirf khushi mein peeti hai, ghum mein nahi she adds defensively.
La: Haan achcha plan hai, mujhe Rag se bahut sawaal karna hai?

San was not comfortable with this whole thing. He was scolding himself for coming with La in the first place. Finally they start to play poker and inevitably it's either Swara or Sanskar who was winning in every round. La and Rag would either fold too fast or would get caught bluffing, they had some fluke victories too. RagYa looked visibly intoxicated, as they preferred to take the shots. San and Sw would rather prefer answering questions rather than take a shot and there were very few times they lost so they hardly had to make that choice. Time just flew by and Sw was happy she got to know La and was also having a good time with her sister.

Below are some of the questions they asked in the course of the game
La to Sw: A truth I don't know about Rag?
Sw: She loves me more than you (and starts laughing)
La: Come on di
Sw: Umm, don't know if you noticed. She does not call our father baba anymore. She was so angry with him; she swore that she wouldn't call him baba till he forgives me.
_____________________________________________________________
Rag to San: Something that you lost in life but you are glad you at least had it in the first place.
San: (thinks for a min and says) Uttara.
La looks at San painfully while San continues.
San: She was my younger sister. She was pre-born baby, born in 7th month. We all knew she wasn't going to survive but she fought death so hard, we got to spend 3 beautiful years.
Rag: I never knew it. Sorry bhaiyya.
_____________________________________________________________
Sw to La: What is your goal in life?
La: Help bhai in saving Maheshwari textile and having loads of kids with her
(Looks at Rag as she blushes looking thoughtful at the same time)
______________________________________________________________
San to Sw: What's with your entire controversy?
Although everyone in the room wanted to ask the question only San dared to ask it.
Sw: There is no controversy. You all heard it in the morning right.
Rag: Come on di, your truth deserves to be heard.
Sw: Well, I drink and smoke and all but I am not an addict or anything. I have friends who drink like a lost cause but I don't judge them. On our batch farewell we decided to spike the drinks of everybody, size was what 300 odd people. But we din't have so much money to buy stuff, you know. So two other guys and me researched to find out about these tranquilizers that doctors give to mental patients to keep them sane.

Everyone was listening to her without blinking.

Sw: Come on yaar we were young and stupid, we decided to forge baba's prescriptions and buy the drug from the medical stores. I was a girl so they asked me not to come to the chemist. Those buggers were such idiots they bought 20K ka tranquilizers from a single chemist so obviously kisi ko bhi doubt ayega. The chemist asked for IDs and they gave. Immediately they called the dean, dean called baba as he signed the prescriptions and it wasn't exactly rocket science to trace it all back to me.

(Rag lay her head on Sw shoulder and pressed her hand)

Dean told baba I was an outstanding student and I had gotten admit from MIT and Stan by then so he said he could either expel me and ruin my future. Instead it would be better if baba took false blame that he misguided students into purchasing the drugs. And he did what any parent would do, no surprises there. Then baba blackmailed me if he were to fund my studies abroad I should be at his mercy my entire life and make up for all the mistakes I did and was too hot headed back then. My exact words - "I will clean up my mess myself, if you want me to be thankful for what you did as a father I will thank you. Punish me all you want but I can't submit my freedom to you". Baba also gave a go fu^& yourself look and...

Sw skype started to blare and she excused herself just to find out that RagYa has already dozed off and San was the only one listening to her attentively. Sw went into the adjoining room to take her call and she was back after 15min. She and San pass awkward looks at each other. He insists on leaving with La.
Sw: It's 4AM and you might be trippy. It's not safe to drive now, sleep here itself, points to the adjacent room. I will wake you guys up around 6ish when I am leaving. Cool?
San: You have something here and points to her neck left collarbone.
Sw: Rubs her shoulder and says gone?
San does a head bobble, and Sw smiles and says ohhh that's a tattoo. He gives a typical raised eyebrow stare.

Sw: Hey, can I talk to you about something i.e. if you are not sleepy.
San: Sure go ahead.
Sw: I am sorry I hacked into your office systems.
San: Good you admitted. Shit I should have recorded this (Sw smiles)
Sw: But after finding about the situation your business is in, I have a value proposition for you.
San gives a raised eyebrow yet again.
Sw: I know you are currently exporting fabric to European brands. And your European clientele has factories in China so you are spending way too much on moving cargo to China. Despite all these costs your clients are losing to bigger players like Mango, H&M and Zara, and that will keep you out of business pretty soon. I propose you instead I will bring you fresh client base from the USA and it is real big players, Gap/Hollister/A&F. Moreover, their factories are in Bangladesh and Cambodia, very close to mainland.

San: You have done a little more than harmless hacking. You were so illegally snooping around.
Sw: Ya right like I care. Anyway I was saying
San: And how do would you pull a stunt like that; hack into their systems GAP and Hollister?
Sw: Well I know a little birdie in a billion dollar company called Nasty Gal. They have tie-ups with every textile and apparel vendor of USA.
San: Yeah read about their co-founder very recently, some 26yr old chic who dropped out of college and started as a vendor on Ebay and then rose to fame like in less than 4yrs to make a billion dollar business. What was her freaking name?
Sw: Swara Sebastian Davis, nice to meet you.
San: Nooo way (Sw gave her brightest smile) But why would you do us such a big favor?
Sw: Gudiya ke liye. I don't have any hidden agenda behind helping you, I swear.
San: Give me a minute. There's too much going on for me to process.
Sw: Must be the wine.
San: Shut up (takes a deep breath and throws his hands on his waist and looks up at the sky) Why do I get the feeling you staged this poker game to gauge me and Lucky, so you could decide if we were good enough for you to present the investment proposal or not.
Sw: (laughs) what can I do? You look stupid and rich.
San: Well, what if I'm smart and poor?

They both knew they were making references to the infamous conversation from 'Love Story - Erich Sehgal'. So they dint want to break the fun and played along.

Sw: I'm smart and poor.
San: Well what makes you so smart?
Sw: I wouldn't go out for coffee with you that's what.
San: Well what if I wasn't even gonna ask you to go out for coffee with me?
Sw: Well that's what makes you stupid.
And they both gave a hearty laugh and Sw phone alarm went off. She ran to snooze it and she abruptly left the conversation to get ready. While she was gone to freshen up, San was sitting right there at the way the night turned out, he couldn't believe how effortlessly he was having such a silly conversation with a woman he just met. Seriously, is it the wine, he doubted it. Swara got ready and woke RagYa up at 6AM, everyone locked the room and got down.

Rag: Sorry di, don't know when I slept. Chalo I'll drop you at the airport.
Sw: No chill, I will take a cab. You are sleep deprived, plus ma baba will be worried. You head home.
San: (butts in) I will leave you at the airport if that's not a problem. Anyway I want to ditch sleep now and make it to work early.
Sw: Ok sure. Bye gudiya (bids Rags with a very tight long hug) take care. Bye Redsie (and blows a kiss to the car)

At the airport, 7AM:
Sw and La slept off in the car while San drove quietly to the airport. He was looking at Sw as they reached the airport. She looked so peaceful sleeping; he was studying her face when his gaze went to her collarbone. A tattoo, that somehow intrigued him. He woke her up, picked the luggage from the trunk.
San: Take care Sw.
Sw: Come to SFO and meet my board of directors San. Promise me you will think about it, okay.
San: I will if you tell me what is that tattoo.
Sw: Nice try. I will tell you if you come to SFO. Another mystery for you to remember me by (she winks)

She goes to the back seat and screams "Bye" in La's ear waking the poor fellow with a fright. She bids them both good bye and disappears into the crowd. San watches her walk away without a blink and her last few words ringing in his head...

"Another mystery for me to remember you by"