Dear Reader:
I wrote the story below titled URBANIZATION OF THE MOFUSSIL GIRL as my entry for the Urban Stories Competition 2011. (This was my second entry, the first one being REUNION which I have posted on my blog earlier - http://karvediat.blogspot.com/2011/08/reunion.html )
The stories were required to be set in an Urban Backdrop in contemporary India
This story URBANIZATION OF THE MOFUSSIL GIRL was long-listed and I expected the story to be in the shortlist too. Sadly it has not been selected in the short-list for publication in the Urban Stories Anthology. I wonder why? Is the story not realistic? Is the Backdrop not Urban? Does the story not have a message for the youth which is pertinent and apt in today’s urban social scenario?
Did they drop the story because it does not generate a “feel-good” feeling? Is it because the story does not have a happy ending?
Why don’t you read it tell me?
And if you feel this story deserved to be short-listed then please comment and tell me why you liked it and make my day!
Regards
Vikram Karve
URBANIZATION OF THE MOFUSSIL GIRL
Fiction Short Story
By
VIKRAM KARVE
She licked the salt from her hand and drank the shot, in one go, then a long swallow of beer that met the tequila’s burn as it rose.
Everyone clapped and cheered. With that one act, she had crossed the barrier.
She was no longer the rustic girl from the mofussil.
Now, she was one of “them”. Yes, now she was a part of the hep urban crowd.
No longer would she have to hear those derisive jeers and taunts of the city slickers that pierced her heart – like dehati, behenji, gavraan, gavandhal … Now she would “belong”.
“Hey, Mofussil, that’s not the way to have a shot,” Cute Girl said.
“Please don’t call me Mofussil,” she said and looked at Cute Girl.
Cute Girl was one of those sophisticated synthetic beauties who looked very chic. Cute Girl was Mofussil Girl’s role model.
“Then let me see you do a Los Tres Cuates.”
“What’s that?”
“Come on Mofussil, you don’t know what’s Los Tres Cuates – The Three Chums – The best way to drink tequila. Look, I’ll show you,” Cute Girl said.
Cute Girl put some salt on her palm, licked it off, downed the neat tequila shot, picked up a wedge of lime and pressed it between her teeth biting hard into it.
The girl they all called “Mofussil” sprinkled some salt on her left palm and picked up the tequila shot from the bar with her right hand.
“Be careful,” a voice said, “It’s her first time.”
“Oh, come on, Killjoy. She is a tough girl. She’ll drink all of us under the table,” Cute Girl said.
It was now or never.
Mofussil Girl knew that once she proved her capacity to drink she would gain real respect in this urban crowd and she would truly be one of them.
She downed the shot in one go.
As soon the shot hit the pit of her stomach, a rash of gooseflesh raced up from her insides, tremors reverberated through her body up the back of her neck resonating into her brain and she felt her brain she might explode.
It was like a terrible black orgasm.
Then, as the horrific resonance in her brain abated, first she felt a vacuum, and then a high – a blissful ecstasy she had never felt before.
Everyone cheered and a voice said, “Let’s drink to that,” and they all had a few shots in quick succession, one after another, one after another.
“Let’s hit the dance floor,” someone shouted, and propelled by unseen hands she was in their midst swinging away on the dance floor to the rocking music.
The atmosphere in the disco was electric, fantastic, like she had seen in the movies. Mofussil Girl felt wonderful, mesmerized, and with her inhibitions dissolved in the alcohol inside her, she let her hair down and danced so unabashedly and vigorously that soon she lost herself in the ultimate state of frenzied ecstasy she had never felt before.
This was the hep, hot and happening way to celebrate New Year’s Eve – not sitting with a pizza and ice cream watching the boring New Year’s Eve programme on TV in her hostel like she had done for the past few years and her dehati roommate was doing right now.
She danced continuously without break. The dance-floor was packed with bodies rubbing against each other. Suddenly, the lights went off and it was pitch dark. The DJ announced, “Ten seconds left for the New Year.”
And then he began counting: “10, 9, 8 … 3, 2, 1” and suddenly all the lights came on and everyone seemed to have gone berserk. Hooters, whistles, horns, drums, shouts – all had raised the noise level to a din.
Total strangers hugged and kissed her wishing her a Happy New Year.
The reverberating music, the crowd, the dancing strobe lights, the smoke, the cacophony, her exhaustion and the alcohol inside her – it made her head swim so she negotiated her way and swayed across to the nearest sofa and slumped down on it.
She tried to focus on the dancing couples. Everything was a bit hazy. Her head began to swim even more and she felt thirsty and reached out for the glass of water across the table. As she stretched across the table, she swayed and rolled back uncontrollably into her chair. Her stomach seemed to be full of mercury, ice-cold and enormously heavy. Her face felt hot and beads of perspiration began to appear on her forehead. She pushed herself forward again, trying to reach the glass, and knocked it across the table. Her brain began to fade, and she leaned her elbows helplessly on the glass edge of the table and felt her head fall on her wrists.
“You’re okay?” Cute Girl asked.
“I don’t know,” Mofussil Girl said.
“Come,” Cute Girl said holding out her hand, “Let’s get some fresh air.”
Mofussil Girl took Cute Girl’s hand and followed her like a zombie into the dark. Outside it was cold, and she could sense a maze of hands groping her, supporting her unsteady body and propelling her towards the car park.
Mofussil Girl felt there were two persons within her as result of the baleful double personality that comes into being through drunkenness. The first acted as if without any brain at all, in a mechanical, vacant manner, and the second observed the first quite lucidly, but seemed entirely powerless to do anything.
“I’ll shove her in the backseat with me,” a male voice said.
“And you come in front,” the man in the driver’s seat told Cute Girl.
The car drove off into the darkness, and hearing a shuffling noise in the rear, the man driving the car looked into the rear view mirror and asked, “Hey, what are you guys up to?”
“Giving her a drink.”
“Be careful, she’s already had too much,” Cute Girl said, looking back.
“Just priming her up!” the man in the back seat said.
“It may be her first time,” Cute Girl said.
“Really? Then she will need more priming. I’ll give her one more swig.”
The man in the back seat roughly forced the bottle into Mofussil Girl’s mouth.
“Shall we do it here?”
“No. Not in the car. We’ll go to our usual place.”
“Shit! Bloody Shit!”
“What happened?”
“She’s puking.”
“What?”
“She is filthy drunk! She is vomiting all over me. Stop the car before the whole place is covered in puke.”
They stopped the car.
“She’s badly sick,” Cute Girl said, “It was her first time and she’d had too many shots. I told you not to force booze down her throat.”
“What do we do?”
“Let’s clean her up and go ahead.”
“Shit! She is still puking. It is bloody nauseating. I’ve lost it.”
“Disgusting! Let’s dump her here.”
“Here? No. Let’s drop her back,” Cute Girl said.
“Drop her back? Are you crazy? And ruin our New Year’s fun?”
“We’ll get into trouble.”
“She’s so drunk she won’t remember a thing.”
So, they dumped Mofussil Girl in a desolate spot and drove away to enjoy the New Year.
Wallowing in her stinking vomit and shivering uncomfortably, Mofussil Girl stared vacantly into the dark sky, never so frightened, never so alone.
She wanted to cry but tears refused to well in her eyes and her throat felt dry.
Her recollections and images of the terrible night were just vivid flashes in a void.
Her head throbbed with pain and her body ached as she retched again and again, till there was nothing left inside her.
Feeling totally shattered and enveloped by unimaginable agony she lapsed into a zombie-like state of suspended vacuum.
The urbanization of the Mofussil Girl was complete.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2011
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
© vikram karve., all rights reserved.
Did you like this story?
I am sure you will like the stories in my recently published book COCKTAIL comprising twenty seven short stories about relationships. To know more please click the links below:
Do try out this delicious, heady and exciting COCKTAIL
Cheers
About Vikram Karve
A creative person with a zest for life, Vikram Karve is a retired Naval Officer turned full time writer. Educated at IIT Delhi, ITBHU Varanasi, The Lawrence School Lovedale and Bishops School Pune, Vikram has published two books: COCKTAIL a collection of fiction short stories about relationships (2011) and APPETITE FOR A STROLL a book of Foodie Adventures (2008) and he is currently working on his novel. An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles in magazines and journals for many years before the advent of blogging. Vikram has taught at a University as a Professor for almost 14 years and now teaches as a visiting faculty and devotes most of his time to creative writing. Vikram lives in Pune India
Professional Profile Vikram Karve: http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
Fiction Short Stories Book
Foodie Book: Appetite for a Stroll
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