(July 17, 10pm)

DUKE'S DEVILRY

Season I, Finale

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This webplay is a work of fiction; any resemblance to anybody dead or alive is co-incidental, and is deeply regretted!

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"Ploy Sabotage"

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The duke is totally offensive now.. every canon of decency is dared.. he openly lampoons us, abuses us...

and for every explanation or retort we give,

he has to somehow bring in the college...

and create an impression, that all its pupil are "eat-drink-and-sleep-around" types... who shudnt have either place or respect in civil society!

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Ms Oppressed's pages are said to be devoid of all aesthetics.. I do not know the basic spellings...and neither of us have even minimum level of efficiency..

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And on the top of it, for every minor error, he screams out, "What has KV* extracted 2 lacs for?"

Yeah.... some 25 times he told me that..

(i stopped counting thereafter!)

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At first I thought, these were usual terror tactic... so that we might put in our papers and leave... soon I realise, there was more!

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Read on..

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Im baffled for last few days... after im done with the page and take print outs, the tags go missing..

my sub-editor friends would know there's a separate tag to be used with each of reporter's name..and strapline.. and headline.. picture credit.. the caption..and so on..

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Although, id do that while editing itself, when i take print-outs, all these would be without the proper tags..

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Forcing me thus, to rework on it again, and at the nth hour..

and with the duke shouting from behind:

"If you had given those 2 lacs to even a zilla school, they would have filled something inside your head at least..........."

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Now the thing is, im very organised..i may have 100 other shortcomings, but when it comes to work im totally sincere... and i employ good method to the work too..

So im beginning to smell rat gradually..

but then..first, its not in my nature to blame unless im sure.. and second, even after rampant abuses, i hadnt been able to preempt a "sabotaging" of that nature!

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Anyway...here's where the duke faltered.. had he done this to only 1 of us, we wouldnt get an inkling..

But he tried on both..

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So one fine evening, Ms O tells me... with lot of ambiguity in her own mind... "There's something strange... I put the tags correctly everyday... and everywhere required.. but somehow it goes missing!"

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I turn my face with almost a hopping impact.. her eyes widen... i make a flutter with the hand and hit my head.... her eyebrows tighten... and we both guffaw in disgust..

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We are making a list diligently... and religiously everyday... to list all the tampering this "foul-mouthed-irritant" would do to our pages...

and then take us to task for the same..

and abuse our professors for the same!

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Even while typing this my blood is boiling...

that *astard...

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I do not have either time or space to produce his misadventures everyday.. so for a sample, let us take January 31 randomly.. and see what all tampering he did to my page..

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A story titled, Students of MCOAHS given farewell becomes Students of MCOHS given farewell!

A headline, Decision on property tax deferred becomes Decision property tax deferred!

Quotation marks from one of the infoboxes (which was mandatory) disappear!

Two brieflies, which he himself had copy-edited, and the word limit of which he himself had decided, and which he had even approved to be pasted on the page, are shrinked by 20 words...without rhyme or reason...

Thus creating a hollow space of 3 inches in the side bar.... at 11pm.... with the deadline too stipulated at 11pm!

Besides, a briefly titled Munde calls for stir, becomes, Munde class for stir!

And of-course the byline tag in at least three stories go missing!

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And then the same nauseating stuff:

"What did KV* extract 2 lacs for?"

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You know what, he should be dragged to the roundabout and shown the middle finger!

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And now comes the climax.. the duke goes on leave in the new year weekend.. and before he departs, he instructs the bandit (who would be heading the shift) to employ the same tricks!

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Never he would have thought this would backfire so badly!

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Now it so happens, bandit is exact specie of the duke...but minus the brains.. so while the duke would cleverly delete only the tags.. verbs...or spellings... the bandit deletes the entire headline!

Lol!

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Night of January 1, 2011

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Ms O suddenly realises, that one of the major stories in her page is without the headline.. and this, at 11pm... when she was about to take the print out!

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Her endurance gives up...

she shoots heads on.. "Sir, suddenly the headline disappears?"

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The bandit is dumbfounded for a second...

but the next moment, he's the lion heart..

"Huh... where is the headline?"

"Huh... dont you know there's a headline in each story?"

"Huh... werent you taught?"

"Huh... you stupid... gave KV* 2 lacs for nothing!"

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Ms O's face is red... eye balls aint moving... breaths coming out with deafening sound.. and then.. "Thats exactly what i want to know... where's the headline?"

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"How dare you.......... You SHAMELESS woman from *CJ!"

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"Dont talk to me like that.."

"Shut up you SHAMELESS WOMAN.........."

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"If i had forgotten the headline, i would have been caught in the copy editing stage itself!"

"Shameless *CJian"

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"Which means i had put the headline very much there"

"Shameless woman!"

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"Which means the headline must have been removed at a later stage"

"Shameless!"

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End of Season I

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So how would Ms O react now?

Slap him?

Show him the middle finger?

Or run out crying?

All that and more in Season II

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Goodbye and Thank you!

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