Novel Synopsis : Chapters 1 - 10

By Parthasarthy Sarkar (India, 22/01/06)

Chapter-1

Neel the happy go lucky Chartered Accountant working for a leading firm of Chartered Accountants (Shabbir & Associates), had gone to watch a theatre, with Vidya his wife. Conclusion of the show while getting off, he meets a newly acquainted friend of his Shuvopriya Dutta, a copy book gentleman and a corporate executive by occupation, along with his charming wife Dipti. Shuvopriya with an air of connoisseur opines on the state of Bengali theatre, and its superiority over the soap operas being shown in the TV. Neel being short on the subject, excuses himself out of the discussion. Next day Shuvopriya comes to Neel’s office to file his income tax returns, and seeing his tax liability, mouthed some jibes against capitalism in general and businessmen in particular. After the initial outburst, he becomes his benign self, and implores Neel to bring in the next Coffee House literati meet, his wife Vidya, since being from Calcutta, she is purported to have better fibres of Bengali than him.

Neel goes to the next Coffee House meet, with great reluctance but high on Vidya’s insistence; where he finds the attending group raising storms in the tea cup, the discussion gyrated from everything to nothing. Neel felt them to be a group of chest beating wailing widows, who lost their respective breadwinners in some apocalypse. Reaching home Vidya finds that their five year old son, has applied some shoe-polish on his face apparently on some whacky advice of Neel, that it makes the face shinning. Although Vidya approaches Neel in a combative mood; to demand explanation for his clownish activities, ultimately however gets carried away by his charms and wildness. The quarterly review meeting of Shabbir & Associates, was getting conducted wherein the principal partner Shabbir, widely acknowledged Neel’s contribution to the revenues of the firm; and upgraded his position with some additional responsibilities. Few skirmishes and meetings with Neel in Durga Puja, Dipti fall for Neel’s wildness. And initiates for a family trip to Panchmarhi; involving her and Neel’s family, during the trip got close to Neel, due to his out of the book stormy romantics.

Chapter-2

Dipti calls up Neel to collect the photographs of their Panchmarhi trip. Neel in the noon hours goes to collect the photograph at Dipti’s flat and was swayed by the décor of the flat and the refined tastes as well the sharp intellect of hers. Dipti asks Neel to accompany her to receive her parents who are coming from Bombay, since Shuvopriya happens to be out of station. After the one to one encounter with Dipti, Neel gets swept of his feet, and suggests her for a long drive where he seduces her. Dipti though amused of the brazenness of Neel, gets aroused of her biological sensitivities and invites him for a night long rendezvous. After the initial bumping into each other, however Neel deeply falls for Dipti and in fact starts thinking her as his wife and anoints her with a new name Chandrani, which he maintains throughout. Chandrani too becomes maniac for Neel, mostly guided of his strong physical attributes and his swash buckling attitude.

Chapter-3

Three landmark political events are chronicled to create the background of the financial market reforms of the last decade in the preceding millennium. The fall of Janta Dal government, ascendancy of BJP as a major political force and ultimately PV Narsimha Rao’s assumption of Premiership, which leaves a major impact on the forthcoming fiscal policies altering irreversibly the economic scenario. And the world acknowledges; ‘India Moves Ahead.’ Neel was becoming restless with the staidness of conventional practice of Chartered Accountancy, when the financial services market was whizzing past. Shabbir although wanted to back Neel of his aggressive drives, ultimately could not carry the remaining partners who preferred caution. Shabbir advises Neel to branch out independently. Neel takes up the franchisee of a NBFC, under the trade name of ‘Bull Leasing & Finance.’

Shabbir backs his endeavour to the hilt and also puts his PA Sadia Khan to help him out. She becomes the first employee of the venture and solidly stands by her commitment to her occupation. Neel takes off in a big way, becoming the Prima Dona of finance market in central India. Life was hunky dory with the romantic liaison with Chand at its pink best and professional life moving like a juggernaut. It was Chand’s birthday. Shuvopriya was required to reach Tripoli to oversee a project being executed by his employer L&T. Chand actually finds Shuvopriya’s absence a great relief since she and Neel had planned a night long extravaganza in one of the resorts. Neel plays the prince charming, playing guitar and singing along quite a number of romantic scores. Finally taking Chandrani to a new height of sensational eroticism and physical intimacy.

Chapter-4

Shuvopriya gets introduced to Kunal Mukherjee a power broker in the political circles alongside an educationist as well possessing a fine sense of Bengali art and literature. Both move close to each other. Kunal throws a party in a premier club of Nagpur, on the eve of starting his Public school, where in a state of inebriation he gets physical to Chand, which somehow Shuvo could not protest and she feels herself grossly humiliated, reaching out to Neel. He was ready to pick up the cudgel but was ultimately dissuaded by her, since it would have shred her the little leftover marital bliss. It was the marriage anniversary of Neel and Vidya. She expresses herself to be taken for a treat, but he had gone completely oblivion of the occasion and earlier already had planned a late night jaunt in the discotheque, with Chand. He gives a lame alibi of being required to go to one of the satellite town of Nagpur, since certain serious business relationships came under severe threat, and would be back only the next day morning. Vidya sees through the cant yet prefers her dignified silence.

In the discotheque Chand informs that Kunal had asked for pardon for his earlier conduct and is organising some cultural show where she will be reciting. Neel got stormy and in a state of vengeance dances wildly with a young Negro female who gets hooked to him. Seeing Chand of getting upset of his conduct he realises his folly, begs to be excused of his indulgence and professes his unadulterated love towards her. Chand acts enigmatic and after a bout of love making, renders some soul rendering melodies accompanied by playing tanpura at the dead of night. Coca-Cola after two decades of hiatus was getting re-launched in Nagpur, Neel receives an invitation pass for two. He takes along Chand. Commemorating the occasion was a Gazal program by the maestro Jagjit Singh. Returning of the program, Chand informs that she has become pregnant and that she is vulnerable of being exposed to Shuvopriya since it was long they have not been physically intimate. Neel offers to marry Chand only to meet a stern rebuff from her, as she can’t afford their children Shubhecha & Barun to be a subject of societal ridicule and pity. In the storminess of exchange of emotions, they go for a long drive to Wardha and gets back to Nagpur at dawn.

Chapter-5

Rajiv Nair, son of a prosperous baker and common friend to all the members of Shabbir & Associates, commits suicide after failing in his business venture, caused by a ruling of the Madhya Pradesh Government; choking him of his raw material supplies, which happened to be a forest produce. Suicide of Rajiv Nair leaves a tremendous scar on the psyche of Shabbir, the unwritten patriarch to all the members and associates to his firm. Inspite of Neel’s hostility, over a period of time, Dipti finds herself drawn towards Kunal at a platonic level, due to his sharp wits and in-depth knowledge of fine arts. Reena Kapadia, an upmarket woman of extremely beautiful looks, who had been leaving in Australia for three years comes back to India as a country head of an Australian Computer Training and Research Company; she convinces Neel of a business proposal of taking up the franchisee of her employing company. Neel agrees and backs the project with a substantial financial commitment. Reena relentlessly labours to showcase it as a model franchisee, so as to expand her business operations in other cities.

The business picks up in a grand way and during the course of professional association, Reena gets attracted to Neel of his machismo and integrity. In the contemporary period Kunal convinces Chand to join his Public School as a vice principal. She takes up the job to gain a meaningful engagement rather than feeling stifled in the four walls, which she felt like a dungeon. The imprudent business practices of the NBFC’s sooner than later came to light. The Reserve Bank of India cracked the whip on almost all the NBFC’s, who closed their shops after duping lacs of investors. In the process Neel gets thrown out of his flagship business. Concurrently the franchisor to his computer institute becomes bankrupt in its country of origin at Australia. Neel was now financially massacred. During the period he was reading Taslima Nasreen’s novel Lajja and a rhetorical expression of his mind is reflected, through the excerpts of Lajja, drawing on the physical massacre of the minorities in Bangladesh in the aftermath of demolition of Babri Masjid.

Chapter-6

Neel with Vidya and Barun reach Awami Baugh to attend the marriage reception of Shabbir’s niece. Seeing Vidya, Nafisa wife of Shabbir gets overjoyed and tugs along her in a corner as to enquire about Neel and their financial status. Vidya barely could speak anything, which was enough for Nafisa to get a complete understanding of their fragile situation. She gets restless, as she fears that Neel might commit suicide and chides Shabbir for not bailing him out at this hour of crisis. Next day early morning she tugs along Shabbir to Neel’s place and makes Neel to agree, to accept the job of Chief Executive in their community trust owned management institute. It was a fresh challenge for Neel to build up brick by brick a sales management institute of reckoning, but was once again ably supported by Sadia Khan in his endeavour, whom Shabbir recruited as Personal Assistant to Neel. Assignments did start coming in bits and pieces but the struggle was extensive. Neel’s relationship with Chand had hit its nadir, with rare exchange of calls happening. After a long time she called up to inform that her family along with Kunal’s family will be going to Digha seashore to welcome the new millennium. Neel not finding much to add value to the conversation, wishes her safe journey and gets plunged in his struggle. Kunal had arranged for all comforts of a grand itinerary.

Seeing the vast expanse of the seashore Chand finds her ultimate freedom of expression, as well the depth of Kunal’s sensitivities for her; she finds a tremendous soothe in his company, yet could not wish away loads of Neel’s memories and faces a constant internal contradiction. Coming back from Calcutta, Chand connects to Neel and asks him to visit her place for an evening tea. After some casual exchange of updates she moves to the kitchen handing over the album to Neel containing the photographs of their Digha trip. Neel randomly glancing through the album, finds a photograph of Chand and Kunal in a very intimate posture, which he confronts to her only to be snubbed back, that Kunal is a good friend of her’s and Neel should be off from frivolous conjectures. Neel finds himself further dragged off from Chand. Neel after a lot of understanding of various management courses, finds there exists a big gap as well as business opportunity for hands on sales training and management courses. He gets tied up to NIS Sparta for the technical inputs, and launches focussed career driven sales training courses.

The move proves to be a smart one, with substantial enrolment of students. The Institute not only becomes self sustaining, but starts generating cash surplus. Neel starts breathing easy, that he is now a net contributor to the revenue. It was Sadia’s twenty-fifth birthday and as usual she is tirelessly working late. She comes up to Neel that being her birthday she wants to get an exclusive treat from him which readily he concedes. Driving down Neel expresses his brotherly affection towards her, and puts across his gratitude for steadfastly remaining committed to him. Sadia spurns the feelings and point blank states that inspite of the huge age difference she always considered Neel to be her lover, and that is what prompted her steadfastness and commitment. Neel found himself in a piquant situation, but ultimately had to give in to Sadia’s seduction, and becomes physically intimate to her.

Chapter-7

The famous Bengali literati and laureate, Tribhuvan Mitra comes to Nagpur, at the initiative of Kunal’s Public School and agrees to give a live show at the Nagpur University Convocation Hall. Chand besieges Neel, to come for the programme along with Vidya, as she will also be reciting with Tribhuvan Mitra and that his presence will mean a lot of encouragement and pleasure to her. Neel in company with Vidya arrive at the convocation hall, and gets drawn into reminiscences, two decades back, when he was felicitated at the same place, for being a rank holder. The programme went off extremely well, but for whatever reasons could not enthuse much of audience gathering. Shuvopriya was completely overwhelmed, for being able to interact with a litterateur of Tribhuvan’s stature. He invites him for a lunch for the next day. Tribhuvan arrives with Kunal, and in his well manicured mannerisms, presents a set of books and a painting of Frida Kahlo to Dipti who gets touched by the gesture. Tribhuvan narrates some excerpts out of his recent travelogue to Chittagong Bangladesh. Shuvopriya gets buoyed up with the discussion, and initiates an impromptu travel plan to Tadoba Tiger Reserve. Tribhuvan having a weakness for jungle safaris promptly concedes. Next day off to Tadoba, Shuvopriya’s & Kunal’s family, along with Tribhuvan Mitra. Western India Chapter of Indian Association of Practising Sales Managers, organised a two days workshop.

Arundhati Patil, a women in her mid forties yet highly attractive and seductive, is the daughter of a state cabinet minister and estranged wife of a diplomat. She ran a successful placement agency in Bombay and comes as a delegate to have her professional networking done. She gets introduced to Neel and is bowled over by his charms. Both plan an escapade for a night to Ramtek, during the jaunt Arundhati genuinely falls for Neel, recognising his playboy image is only a façade, on losing his actual love Chandrani. She too unfolds her marital life to Neel, which mostly veers around in Jordan, wherein her husband was posted in the diplomatic mission, but she fell for a young Kenyan Doctor, and attempts to flee with him, only to be nabbed by the immigration authorities. After the misadventure, she although not formally divorced, but stays independent of her husband, leading a forlorn life. The journey back to Nagpur was quite painful for Arundhati, as she deeply got attached to Neel and realises the association is getting over. The very night Arundhati flies back to Bombay.

On reaching Nagpur’s city limits Neel found Chand desperately calling him up, as Shuvopriya is out of station and that a flash strike is called by the auto-rickshaw drivers union, as a sequel to murder of one of their colleague by some passengers, thereby Shubhecha is unable to get back from the school. Neel brings Shubhecha back to home, only to find Chand has wounded herself badly, in one of the rusted nails. Neel bandages her, securing a doctor for administering anti tetanus injection. Chand gets touched by Neel’s concern, and pleads him to stay with her for the evening. Neel strongly refuses, to stay by, clearly mentioning, whatever he did was out of a sense of a duty to a fellow human being, sans any passion towards her; a privilege which she had long lost because of her infidelity. Chand gets traumatised and breaks down inconsolably. Neel reaches the club venue along with Sadia, a fellowship night was organised for the outstation delegates of the Indian Association of Practising Sales Managers. Seeing Neel, the local chapter President Dr. Pradhan gives him a piece of his mind for his sudden disappearance during the course of the conference; but finally cools down given Neel’s past conduct. Neel finding the going extremely hot, picks up his guitar and mesmerises the entire audience spell bound with his singing charms, finally he bounces back triumphant. Sadia first time hearing Neel singing goes gaga, with her infatuation towards him further intensified.

Chapter-8

The IRDA act was formalised paving the way for entry of private sector insurers. Neel in a smart move, gets his institute accredited with IRDA, as an authorised learning center for insurance agents training. Gaining the prime mover advantage the institute raked in moolah. The management institute is now a cash rich body. The credit of the feat was due to Neel’ farsightedness, was generously acknowledged by Shabbir. A young girl Reshmi, born in a middle class family, but now the affluent daughter-in-law of a benign retired Director General of Central Industrial Security Force, Mani George, joins one of the training batches of a life insurer, to have some flexi timing engagement. Seeing Neel in the training academy, falls for his glamorous looks and his high profile conduct. Virtually she forces herself on him and goads him to take her for an outing to a local resort. They book in a cottage room, and she unfold herself to Neel that essentially it is a crisis of abundance with her, prompting her to search for the high jinks in life, so essential to distinguish a human existence from that of a dumb animal. By this time Neel has stopped looking at male-female relationships from the standpoint of conventional morality, and every woman he meets, presents a cobweb of human emotions and intrigue, with their respective feet of clay and virtues.

Chapter-9

Reena Kapadia comes back to Nagpur after two years serving in Pune with Kodak India Limited. She has taken up as the branch head of Nippon Life Insurance Company. Neel receives her with professional courtesy, which strongly she objects clearly stating that she wants him back as a lively natural human being, sans any of the plasticized mannerisms. Both started meeting quite frequently, spending long time with each other, gradually the old flame of relationship gets rekindled and both go for a trip to Khajuraho. During the trip, Reena rediscovers the essence of life in the company of Neel, and recounts her past relationships of hers, which has left her high and dry both psychologically and financially. Reena touches the height of gaiety, and gets into complete alignment with the Panna Tiger Reserve, Ken River, Raneh Falls and of course the Khajuraho Temples. Her eccentricity gets fuelled by boundless joys, to an extent that she forces Neel to have a night drive in the forest; little realising that the same is in infraction of the regulatory acts, and lands them into a small brush with the law enforcing agencies. The last night of the stay, Reena dresses herself in ultimate gorgeousness to behold Neel for the eternity; culminating into a tempestuous love making. She now finds her emotional anchorage in Neel, something she was desperately wandering through. Neel too started liking her but possibly could not get himself committed as a lover, however was more playing the role of charmer and made Reena happy as an empathiser would do; which she mistook for a committed love.

Chapter-10

The foreign training and consultancy firms started opening their shops in India and Arundhati offers Neel a job in Bombay; heading the training vertical of one of the frontline training and consultancy firm. Vidya becomes extremely pleased; since really she felt that inspite of Neel’s best of efforts, Nagpur would be too small a canvass of his accomplishments and intellect and encourages him to move on. Neel seeks Shabbir’s opinion, he echoes more or less the same as Vidya, and advises him to go ahead on a positive note. On learning of Neel’s probable shift out of Nagpur, Reena gets furious since she realised that she has nothing concrete to bind Neel anymore, and that once he moves to Bombay that is the be all and end all of their relationship. She gets hysterical and badly abuses Neel of this indiscretion and selfishness. The night before starting off his journey to Bombay, Neel calls up Chand. She becomes melancholic and acknowledges the selfless love Neel possessed for her and the vacuum his permanent departure is going to create. Neel driving alone in his car starts his journey early morning carrying loads of memories. Ultimately in the evening meets with a road accident near Kasara Ghat. Inspite of having a chance of being saved he prefers death, than to a mangled disfigured physical existence, he sees a snapshot flashback of his entire past life, finally recalling Robert Frost, ‘The woods are lovely dark and deep….’