by BS Murthy
Bhagawan: How do you know him?
Rachana: He's my boss.
Bhagawan: And he's my client.
Rekha: The world is small indeed and the other side of the sexual coin is no less ugly
Navya: [Holds Bhagawan's hand.] If not for you, it would have been a certain ruin for me.
Bhagawan: It's all God's will.
Navya: Let me go and apologize to Naveen. [She gets up from her chair.]
Rekha: Why not ask him to drive down. He can be here before you can persuade some autowallah to take you home.
Navya: Not a bad idea. Lend me your ceil
[Rekha gives her mobile to Navya. Navya goes to a corner and talks to Naveen on the mobile (mime).]
[Enter: Kumar. He is surprised to see Rachana in profile.]
Bhagawan: Think about the devil...
[Rachana turns her head in all curiosity and rises from her seat surprised.]
Kumar: I hope M s. Rachana has no brief for an original suit against me.
Bhagawan: Why you have picked up the legal jargon as well.
Kumar: Am I not in the right company on a wrong issue.
Bhagawan: [Handing over a document to Kumar] Now you are free to set right your life.
Kumar: I owe it to you really. I am sure if not for you; I would have been in the limbo till the very end.
[Kumar opens his briefcase and having placed the document in it pulls out his bank cheque book. He signs a leaf, puts the cheque book in the briefcase and closes it. Kumar gives the cheque to Bhagawan]
Bhagawan: Why a blank cheque?
Kumar: Just to show my boundless gratitude within my limited bank balance.
Bhagawan: [Embraces Kumar.]You touched me like no other client. I wish your next wife would see life from the right side of it. [Bhagawan checks himself] Oh, I've got carried away. I am sorry for breaching the client confidentiality.
Kumar: Why blame your emotional involvement that ended my marital stalemate.
Rekha [Goes up to Kumar.]: I'm Rekha. I want to have a word with you.
Kumar: Welcome, if it's not platitude.
Rekha: I want to play a matchmaker.
[Rachana’sface brightens up and readily she becomes tense.]
Kumar: Thank you. I shall give you my resume.
Rekha: I have it from Rachana underscored with love.
Kumar: [Goes up to Rachana with apparent joy.] Will you accept my love and lead me in life.
Rachana: If only you vow not to put your charms at work on the women at work, ever.
Rekha [to Rachana]: But before that you pledge to work against men at work on women at work
Rachana: Only against men unfairly at work.
Bhagawan: [in jest.] Shall I get the affidavits ready for both of you to sign?
Navya: Why forget me. Don’t I need an affidavit affirming trust in my man?
Rekha: With a rider that mischief in the office can misfire at home.
[Rekha receives a call on her mobile and she nods in agreement as she talks (mime).]
Rekha: It's about a complaint at Tits & Tats for MAW AW to get cracking.
[The clock (not in the scene) strikes eight.]
Bhagawan: Why it sounds good tidings for M AW AW.
Rekha: And bad omen for men at work on women at work.
[Enter: Naveen with Ranjan and Nrupa. Navya rushes to Naveen while Ranjan and Nrupa run to Navya. Naveen hugs Navya and she holds Ranjan and Nrupa on either side. Curtains down.]
Stacie Play 3
Castle of Despair
Dramatis Personae:
Rajiv: Forty year old businessman.
Ramya: Rajiv's thirty-five-year-old wife.
Deva: Rajiv's thirty-five-year old businessman friend Divya: Deva’s thirty year old wife and Ramya's close friend. Rau: Forty year old lawyer and Rajiv's long lost friend. Inspector Slesha: Rau's thirty-year old wife.
Nayak: Fifty-year-old lawyer and Rajiv's friend.
Raju: Forty-five year-old Bank M anager and a friend of Rajiv.
Dr. Aslam: The Rajivs' fifty-five year old family physician. Rangaiah: The sixty-five year old servant at the Rajivs' house.
Scene -1
[Curtains Up: The Rajivs' well-furnished drawing room at the right side with an adjoining bedroom on the left side. A backside opening in the drawing room connects the rest of the backstage bungalow. Rangaiah is seen in the drawing room dusting the furniture.]
[Enter: Rajiv with briefcase in one hand and cell phone in the other tucked to the ear.]
Rajiv: Rangaiah, has Bank M anager Raju called on the landline?
Rangaiah: No, Rajiv babu.
Rajiv: Is Ramya at home?
Rangaiah: No babu, she has gone out with Divya beti.
[Rangaiah goes backstage and Rajiv continues to redial on the cell phone. Rangaiah returns with a glass of water that Rajiv takes.]
Rangaiah: You know you are more than my lost son to me.
Rajiv: Don't I feel free with you than I was with my father? Why, you are a confident of sorts to me from childhood. But why do we need to vouch for all that now?
Rangaiah: If you don't get angry I want to say something.
Rajiv: What's holding you?
Rangaiah: I'm scared of the new Rajiv babu in you.
Rajiv: What do you mean?
Rangaiah: I see you are a changed man all charged up for the pipes project. What's the need for you to bother about it being a landlord yourself? Moreover, you have a flourishing steel business as well. You know how uncomfortable Ramya beti is about your obsession.
Rajiv: Rangaiah, you are living in a world that time had left behind and Ramya is unable to step into the new one despite my pushing and prodding. Nowadays landlords are passe and businessmen still carry the shopkeeper tag. Industry is the in-thing but its dog- eats- the-dog out there. Realize that the gentleman of leisure your late master was is a dead species now.
[Enter: Raju with his briefcase.]
Raju: Sorry Rajiv.
Rajiv: Raju,I was really mad with you. Ask Rangaiah if you don't believe me.
[Rangaiah greets Raju and goes backstage.]
Rajiv: You were not at the bank and your cell is ever engaged.
Raju: I couldn't call you to tell about the summons from my zonal office. There was no way anyway. You know how a call from our zonal manager sends us into jitters. Oh, the way he hauls us over the coals right in front of our subordinates! What a nasty fellow!
Rajiv: Don’t we all know that its man's frustration at home giving vent to itself at the workplace.
Raju: Seems so from what is rumoured about his wife. M ore to the point, even as he let me go after a good dressing down, my wife took over on my way here. Why, this damned cell phone could be the brainchild of a nagging wife. But as the Hyderabadi road sense is no less scary, selfdriving is not a sensible option either.
Rajiv: Isn't the bumper-to-bumper on the road as unending as the red tape in your bank. Won't my year-old application for term loan prove that?
Raju: You know I'm only a clog in an inertial wheel.
[Enter: Rangaiah with elachi chai for them.]
Rajiv: Why not get a little momentum now.
[They both begin to sip the beverage.]
Raju: Wah Taj!
Rangaiah: Saab, its Ramya beti's recipe as you know.
Raju [to Rajiv]: So, Ramya is a good teacher as well.
Rajiv: Besides being a strict wife that is.
Raju: Without wife for a jockey, a man can't run life's course. That's for sure. Is she not at home now?
Rajiv: She went out with Divya for some shopping. What a compelling attraction shopping has for women, more so, window shopping.
Raju: Why a window-shopping wife is any day better than a nagging one.
[Rangaiah collects the tea cups and goes backstage.]
Rajiv: But why all this dodging. You know I’m dying to ground my project. You promised to get back to me by this evening, didn't you?
Raju: To m
ake the long story short, your pipes project might remain your pipedream forever.
Rajiv: But why?
Raju: They feel it's like facilitating the delivery of a white elephant for my nursing.
Rajiv: Someone must be mad over there.
Raju: Well, to borrow from cricketer Mohinder Amarnath, they are a bunch of jokers anyway. Leave alone the mega term-loan for your proposed venture; they are dodgy about measly working capital to a profit-making unit!
Rajiv: How would that help me anyway?
Raju: Eureka! Why not I borrow from the prodding of the courts for out-of-court settlements?
Rajiv: Enough of borrowing my friend as the topic is about lending.
Raju: Oh, if only you are a little less impatient and our people have a little more alacrity. Of what avail is working capital once his unit becomes sick?
Rajiv: Is it your idea that I should wait to pick up that sick unit or what?
Raju: I've a much healthier mind than you may like to credit me with. What if you lay a pipeline to his oil unit with the margin money of your proposed venture for mutual benefit? Besides being sensible it sounds nice, doesn't it?
Rajiv: You know I want to be an industrialist and not a money lender.
Raju: Be patient for once. What's your problem if he takes you as a partner? Won't that open the doors for some future projects of your own?
Rajiv: Instead, why not I take over the unit? Won't your bank facilitate that?
Raju: But why should he sell it to you?
Rajiv: To follow suit, let me borrow from Casanova.
Raju: I suppose the topic is not about sexual exploits. Looks like you want to delve into it taking advantage of your wife's absence.
Rajiv: Jokes apart, I tell you he had a better grasp of life being a playboy than you guys have of money being bankers.
Raju: Is it so?
Rajiv: During one of his sojourns, he had for co-lodgers a poor widow and her three daughters. Seeing him dole out money to all and sundry, when the hapless woman had gone to him to makeup leeway, he sought as barter the charms of her eldest daughter.
Raju: What an indecent proposal!
Rajiv: Protest she did but to no avail. Why he was all logic, cold logic you may say. Whatever be his charity, he reasoned it out with her, it wouldn't last forever and before long she would have to approach other men for succor. Well, their line would be no different from his and her response too could be the same. But for how long was the question. It was only time before she would lose hold on her daughters' chastity. When push would come to shove at some future time, won't she let them grant their final favour to someone or the other? That being the case, he said, why should he not be the lucky guy?
Raju: What an abominable fellow he was!
Rajiv: I don't think so.
Raju: Well!
Rajiv: Lest she should mistake his character, he clarified that he wouldn't have attached any strings if her daughters were plain looking.
Raju: Didn't she spit on him thrice over in spite of that?
Rajiv: Well, she let him have her eldest one and he had the other two on his own.
Raju: Isn't it an exploitation of the meanest kind!
Rajiv: Why, it's life's reality of the ironic kind. Logically seen, it's very sound, but sentimentally approached, it's all fury. Whatever, can't you visualize the parallel?
Raju: I do see but as you know I won't approve of it.
Rajiv: So be it. By the way, who's the guy we were talking about?
Raju: He's Sampath one of my valued clients.
Rajiv: What's his background like?
Raju: Why bother about that when you are averse to my proposal?
Rajiv: How do you know he won't be interested in my proposal?
Raju: Well who knows, ask Nayak who also happens to be his lawyer.
Rajiv: Whatever, don't lose track of my application.
Raju: Don't I owe it to my clients to pursue their cases. Now it's time I attended to Rani's errand. I will see your wife sometime later.
Ramya (voice over): Why don't you come in Divya?
Divya (voice over): No, Ramya, Deva would have reached home by now. See you tomorrow, bye.
Ramya (voiceover): Bye.
[Enter: Ramya.]
Ramya: Hi Raju garu, how is Rani?
Raju: She's fine at my account and expense that is.
Ramya: Oh, all you men! Are you not worse for it when it comes to portraying the better-half as the worst-half?
Rajiv: But with the honourable exception of His Exalted Obedience.
Raju: Well, Her Exalted Eminence would be waiting for me, good night.
Ramya: Tell her Divya and I will soon catch up with her. Good night.
Rajiv: Good night.
[Exit: Raju as Rajiv sees him off. Ramya goes into the bedroom.]
[Curtains down.]
Scene - 2
[Curtains Up: The Rajivs' drawing room and the adjacent bedroom.]
[Enter: An excited Rajiv into the drawing room yelling for Ramya. He drops his briefcase on the sofa and goes into the bedroom in search of her. Not finding her there, he goes backstage, yelling for her.]
Ramya (voice over): Why, what's wrong with you?
Rajiv (voice over): That's the problem with you middle-aged women.
Ramya (voice over): Okay baba, what has turned my old boy into a horny lad now? [Pause] Rajiv, don't be mad.
[Rajiv, carrying a demure Ramya in his hands, comes out of the backstage and goes into the bedroom. He drops her in the bed and then draws her towards himself.]
Ramya: Wait until dark.
Rajiv: Is not sex the physical manifestation of emotional expression? Why, it's the barrier-less bearer of man's inner impulses.
[Lights are off as Rajiv cuddles with Ramya.]
[Lights are on as Ramya rearranges her dress.]
Ramya: If only we can turn the clock back?
Rajiv: What a thought when it's time to leap frog in life.
Ramya: Beware of a fall dear.
Rajiv: Why not start a course in the art of pessimistic living. Just as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has his following, you're sure to have your share of fame. Never mind my predicament as a celebrity's husband.
Ramya: Be serious, your obsession to advance has become a drag on my life.
Rajiv: Relax Ramya; I've got a grip on the lifeline to success, almost that is.
Ramya: Looks like you are riding a bigger horse than ever.
Rajiv: It could as well be a carriage of four for the empress of my heart.
Ramya: And our Ravi the heir apparent to your industrial empire in the making. Why not summon him back from the States leaving his course in M.S. mid-course. Oh, my dream merchant, you give me nightmares really.
Rajiv: Let Nayakcome to set your mind at rest.
Ramya: Why talk in circles?
[Rajiv leads her into the drawing room, opens the briefcase and pulls out a document and gives it to her.]
Ramya: What's this?
Rajiv: Game changer.
[Ramya goes through the document.]
Ramya: Who is this M r. Sampath by the way?
Rajiv: He's a technocrat, a good one I may say, but with very little business sense.
Ramya: So he has put his unit up for sale, is it?
Rajiv: Well, not yet. It's my idea to make him do that.
Ramya: But how!
Rajiv [pointing to the document]: By signing on the dotted line.
Ramya: Why should he sell his hatta katta unit to you? What wishful thinking!
Rajiv: It was nothing short of a miracle that he came thus far, in spite of the banker's lending hand that is. He's hard up for funds to run the unit and the financial stress is bound to make him wind up the show any time now. Won't I grab that and proceed.
Ramya: Enough of this wild goose chase, I long to go back to our laid back times. You know I'm getting sick of you and your devious ways for quick bucks. Haven't you inherited enough to last our lifetim
e and more? You're not doing any badly either at your business. What could be a better setting for leading a contented life? Why this urge for more and more of the moolah?
Rajiv: Don't you see this could be the document of our destiny?
Ramya: Ora pathway for frustration.
Rajiv: Wonder why you always sing a sluggish tune forgetting there is a woman behind every successful man?
Ramya: M aybe, to push him into the cesspool of greed only to find him dragging her along.
Rajiv: Isn't it silly to dub the hard-nosed as greedy?
Ramya: Why, eying what is not your due is plain greedy, isn't it?
Rajiv: The world doesn't care how you make your money but weighs you with the moolah you have. Well, it's the credo of the dull to deride success one way or the other.
Ramya: God save you, if you have one.
Rajiv: Don't you know God helps those who help themselves.
Ramya: Isn't it also said that those whom Gods want to destroy they make mad.
Rajiv: Besides your beauty nothing makes me madder than your madness.
Ramya: Don't you know I'm mad with you because I love you?
[Enter: Nayak ushered in by Rangaiah. Rangaiah goes backstage.]
[Nayak greets Raji v and Ramya, they greet hi m in tu rn.]
Rajiv: I thought you would bring M r. Samapath along with you.
Nayak: I'll come to that later. I hope I haven't kept you waiting for too long. Blame it upon the hazards of our haphazard traffic.
Ramya: Don't we, Hyderabadies learn to live with the pregnant traffic ever?
Rajiv [winks at Ramya]: Of what avail is an ever pregnant wife, what do you say?
Ramya: Is it a plea for bigamy? [Turns to Nayak] What do you say lawyer garu?
Nayak: I recall a limerick about the trial of a man who had three wives. When the judge had asked him, why three, the guy said, one is impossible, bigamy, sir, is a crime.'
Ramya [to Nayak]: What about having on hand my plaint for divorce?
Nayak: Won't my conflict of interest rule that out.
Ramya: That is in spite of the notorious double tongue.
Nayak: Isn't it a professional hazard? But I can put you to Rau.
Rajiv: You mean my class fellow Rau! Is he still going round the courts in his worn-out black coat?