Rini Basu

Drama

5.0  

Rini Basu

Drama

Ugly

Ugly

5 mins
198


Usri failed to understand why most of her acquaintances called her Bisri, meaning ugly. Little did she realise that by calling her bisri they referred to her ugly mind rather than her ugly appearance.


Usri looked at the mirror and saw a short, stocky woman in her fifties with a square, carefully made-up face and thinning hair set in short bob cut style. She smiled at herself and grimaced. In general people had thirty-two teeth (including the wisdom ones), but her teeth overlapped each other in such a horrible manner that it appeared like she had sixty-four of them. Usri was not too proud of her teeth and hence restricted her smiles to the outer world. Considering the type of addas she had with her close friends, not much smiling was necessary either. Whenever they met it was always bitching, bitching and more bitching. Usri generally took the lead as she was a doctorate in the departments of bitching, backbiting and dirty politics. It was difficult to outshine her there. She was the master brain behind every evil activity. She thought that she was very clever, very discreet and nobody knew. But everybody knew and hence they called her Bisri.


Usri always provoked and used others to achieve her end. When she targeted Rima she used Chirosree as her mouthpiece. When Rima retaliated she provoked Anuradha and her followers to verbally abuse her. This group abusing continued till Rima threatened to take legal action. Usri blocked Rima on social media and pestered others to do the same. Some got influenced by her, some were not, but Rima's image got tarnished nonetheless. Being a writer Rima believed that the pen was mightier than the sword. She acted accordingly. Readers loved her new novel and her enemies hated it.

Usri's next target was Dolly. As usual, her scapegoat was the birdbrain Anuradha again. Dolly, who was a no-nonsense woman, refused to digest their shit. She furiously lashed out at them on social media and the feud continued there. Honey supported Dolly and became Usri's next target. Honey and Anuradha were longtime friends. Usri brainwashed Anuradha and created a rift between them.

In all these cases Usri utilised others and remained in the background herself. She thought she was very clever which she was not. Soon her dirty politics alienated her and her allies from their core group of friends. Some of the men were so disgusted that they even threatened to leave the group if 'those old bitches' were entertained there.


Usri realised the situation and tried to make atonement. Her first attempt was to renew her friendship with Rima. At a common gathering she revealed her basket of teeth at Rima and tried to engage her in a conversation. Rima snubbed her and later scornfully narrated the incident to her friends. When Usri heard she vehemently denied, forgetting about the countless witnesses to that incident.


A leopard can never change its spots and women like Usri can never change their nature. It didn't take much time for Usri to return to her former vindictive self again.

She formed a group of like-minded friends and boycotted the core group's annual luncheon meet. She expected a furore, if not a failure of the annual meet but it turned out to be a raving success. Nobody missed them there. Usri regretted her stupid decision and after seeing hundreds of photographs and videos on social media she felt left out of all the fun and frolic that happened there.

Usri and her allies now arranged for separate get togethers and shamelessly posted photographs on social media to show that they did not care. Such actions further deteriorated their position in the core group. In her frustration Usri now made an epic mistake.


Usri and her husband attended a gathering where some of the core members were also present. Soumen was sitting with his friends having his third peg of whiskey when Usri and her husband arrived and joined them at their table. Soumen tried to avoid her gaze but Usri was determined to speak to him.

"Hi Soumen," said she with a real broad smile. "This is my husband. He is very eager to meet you."

Her husband nodded at Soumen and folded his palms. Soumen, unable to avoid them any further, did the same.


"Hello Soumen babu," said her husband. "I have heard so many things about you."

"Bad things you mean," replied Soumen with a smirk.

"Of course not! You have won so many prizes in cricket tournaments. Such commendable performance at this age deserves a lot of praise."

"Thanks. But how did you know? I share these updates on social media and your wife has unfriended me there. So how come you know all this?"

Usri became pale. She had never expected Soumen to be this direct. She forced a smile and said, "Oh, that happened by sheer mistake. I touched the wrong button. I am sending you a friend request right now."


"Don't bother," said Soumen, enjoying every moment of her discomfort. "Who knows, you might touch the wrong button again by mistake. Moreover, I hardly know you. Hence I can't even call you my friend, can I? So you don't have to send me a friend request."

Usri turned red in the face. She said nothing and looked elsewhere. Nandita, who was sitting opposite to her, started a conversation with Pramit.

"Pramit, why didn't you attend the annual meet this year? We all missed you there so much."

Pramit, who was no less outspoken than Soumen, replied, "Everybody knows, that day I was engaged elsewhere on office work. Otherwise, I never miss these friendly get-togethers unlike Usri and her allies who didn't come intentionally."


The evening was turning into a nightmare for Usri. She swallowed hard and said, "I...I didn't know the date. Otherwise, I would definitely come."

"Of course you didn't know," said Pramit. "How could you when you left the group for your dirty politics? Serves you right."


That was like a tight slap on Usri's face. She sullenly sat there for a few minutes, then silently left the place with her husband. She had never faced such public humiliation in her life.

Later she called Anuradha and lied, "You were missed there so much. Everyone was talking about you. Only Sutanuka said, 'It's good that Anuradha didn't come. She looks so cheap and vulgar in her backless cholis.'"

Usri's face lit up with an ugly smile as she thought about her next target Sutanuka.



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