An Invisible Man on a Thin Slab
“It’s a platform projecting from the wall, and it’s enclosed by a railing. That’s the perfect definition of a balcony in the Oxford. It’s not a slab, it’s a balcony.” One of Manoj’s friends, Raju, always argues. But in Manoj’s house, no one calls it a balcony—not anymore. They call it a slab.
In June 1988, in his first week back home with a Civil Engineering degree from University of Roorkee in Uttar Pradesh, India, Manoj’s brother had declared it a slab that could hold no more than five or six people. He had warned his family of fatal accidents if the weight on that slab exceeded 400 Kilos. Everyone in the family believed Manoj’s brother since he had a degree and a Hewlett Packard scientific calculator. That very day Manoj’s father demoted that third floor platform to a mere ‘slab’ from a ‘balcony’.
The ceremony was validated by four family members examining the balcony by positioning themselves in four different corners of the property.
“You’re right, it’s just a slab,” Manoj’s father who held a Master’s degree in Economics screamed from the north end property line standing on top of the septic tank.
Besides Manoj’s brother’s theory, there were two other reasons why the name of the platform was downgraded.
Firstly, the thickness of that concrete slab was no more than five inches. Secondly, the slab was very small, only six feet by four feet in dimensions. It was not even in the original blue print of the house. The builder had misread the floor plan that had resulted in the extra space. So they had built that balcony free of cost to make up for the missing area in the master bedroom.
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Manoj’s house faces north, overlooking ‘Tokhaa’ hill far into the distance. The slab is in the front-end of the house directly above the porch, straight across from the unpaved road that joins Bishalnagar and Baluwatar, two familiar suburbs in Kathmandu. Since the head office of Nepal Rastra Bank is located in Baluwatar, hundreds of people flock to work that route everyday. Manoj has spent a big chunk of his life standing on that slab. Taking a sip of tea in the morning, or munching on afternoon snacks, he has scrutinized hundreds of working people, door-to-door vendors, and kids and youths rushing for schools and colleges. That slab has been a window to the world for Manoj. That is where he saw many stories start, get complicated, and end—including his own.
Manoj’s own story began on March 12, 1985. That day has been stained to his memory, and it has not rusted with time. He was in the eighth grade. At that time the platform was still called a balcony.
That morning, as he stood on that slab waiting for his mother to call him for his brunch, he noticed a slim girl walk towards Bishalnagar. With her every step approaching Manoj’s house, the girl curved more beautiful. Manoj knew almost everyone who walked that road, but he had never seen that girl. While the boy watched curiously, her head down, as if she were looking for a lost 10-Rupee bill, the girl walked past Manoj’s house quietly. Her steps were as feminine as the guise of a new mother breastfeeding her two-week old. Her hair was long and shiny. Her school uniform was spotless. For the first time in his life, Manoj felt an appetite of a man inside him. Suddenly the movie ‘Betaab’ made a lot of sense to that young boy.
Manoj picked a Hero Fountain pen from his study desk. He quickly removed the steel cap and the plastic barrel, turned the pen upside down, and squeezed the rubber-like filler couple of times. When no ink came out of the small air hole in the nib, he grabbed the ‘Chelpark’ ink bottle from the desk and uncapped the top. He dipped the nib into the ink bottle and filled up the pen by repeatedly squeezing the filler. Since the sac was light brown in color, when he saw the blue ink filled to the top, he wrote his first name on a blank piece of paper to test the ink and his Chinese pen. He then picked out a brand new notebook from his school bag that had ‘Mayur Avvyaas Pustikaa’ written on the cover. The top portion of the cover had a faded drawing of a peacock. The bottom third of the cover had three entry fields for the owner of the notebook to fill. The first field read: ‘Name’, the second field immediately below the first, read: ‘Subject’, and the third field read: ‘Address’. Manoj wrote his name next to the first field and he wrote ‘My Personal Diary’ next to the second field. He left the third field blank.
That’s how Manoj started logging his life into his diary.
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First entry to my Diary,
March 12, 1985
Dear diary,
I don’t know how to write a diary. My English teacher, Mukhiya Sir, has been telling us to start writing a diary. He tells us there is nothing like memories. I being his favorite student, he is pushing me harder than anyone else in my class. He suggested the dairy should read like I am telling my story to myself. Today I finally found a reason to start. In every sense today was an ordinary Tuesday. Like a typical March day, it was cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon, and cold again in the evening.
I found out that Nepal Rastra Bank employee, who wears a red muffler, is not retarded after all. For all these months, I thought he was retarded because he waved at me couple of times. I always ignored him. Today I saw him talking to my father. Later my father told me that he used to teach Optional Math to my brother before he joined Nepal Rastra Bank. That is why he waves at me. He thinks I am my brother. Sorry, red muffler guy. The next time if you wave, I will give you a bigger wave.
I saw a girl from our balcony today. I had never seen her before. She must be in the ninth or the tenth grade. She looks a year older than me. I think she is pretty and very neat. She was wearing a school uniform that everyone in Kathmandu wears. I could not tell from the uniform what school she attends. It’s funny that I never felt this way about girls before. I can’t wait to see her again.
End Diary,
Manoj
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Five days later, Manoj saw the girl again. She was wearing the same uniform, a navy blue knit shirt under a Navy cardigan sweater, a long dark blue skirt, a pair of slip-on flat shoes, and white knee socks that stretched almost all the way to her knees. Like the first time, she had her uniform properly ironed and tucked in. She looked even prettier the second time.
She was cute, but there was nothing voluptuous about her. Fashioned in minimalism, her face glowed in its gentleness, while her ordinary attire cheered her in its own defeat. Her humble steps communicated her compelling simplicity. Like the first time, her head down, she walked past Manoj’s house while the boy stared at her. Manoj watched her till she vanished in the thin March fog.
Once again, she did not notice him.
Manoj had heard strange stories about puberty from his classmates and seniors. He was not sure if he was really falling for the girl or he was just reacting to his adolescent alterations. Whatever it was, he felt that strange, invigorating feeling that he could not wait to feel again. And again. For the first time in life, besides the game of cricket and Indian movies something else made the boy anticipate.
Because of time difference, when Indians played cricket in Australia or New Zealand, matches started earlier. But the cricket fanatic Manoj chose to stand on the slab and wait for the girl than watch Krishnamachari Srikkanth, his favorite cricket player bat.
He dissected the girl over the course of several weeks. Once in a while he would run downstairs and ride his bike and follow her secretly. Manoj had inspected her from every angle possible. There was no blemish in that tall, fair, and courteously detached girl who only watched the road when she walked. The boy did not have courage to talk to her. All he wanted to know was her name, so that he could link that to her unruffled face.
By April she had shed her sweater. Everything else remained the same. At that time, in most of the schools in Kathmandu, specifics of the uniform shoes were not defined as long as they were closed-toe. She had a choice to wear any kind of shoes, but she only wore three different pairs of shoes. She had a Moccasin design brown pair, a slip-on flat black pair, and a single strap closure black pair. Manoj liked her in her brown shoes since he had no other choices to choose from, the uniform was always the same.
Soon, her brown shoes became Manoj’s good luck charm. She was wearing her brown shoes on the day Manoj’s father got promoted to ‘Saha Sachib’ at the Ministry of Finance. She had her brown shoes on, when Manoj came second in his class in the midterm exam. He usually finished third. She was wearing the brown pair the day Manoj’s sister delivered a healthy baby boy on the same day Krishnamachari Srikkanth won the ‘Man of the Match’ award. The boy on the slab became obsessed with the slim girl and her brown shoes.
Months had gone by since he first saw her, but the girl was yet to notice him.
By September of that year, Manoj had watched her for six months. He found it odd that he never saw her coming back from school. He waited for hours on the balcony to watch her return from school, but he did not have any such luck. She had become an enigma to the boy who was already mystified by his pubescent transitions. Strangely, he never heard any of his friends or neighbors bring up the girl in conversation. He kept his infatuation so secret, occasionally, he would even deny to himself. Among his friends, Manoj was notorious for his apprehensive nature. He felt, if he revealed his feelings to his friends, it would only worsen his reputation.
The more binding reason for his secrecy lay in his fear of his family. In Manoj’s family, it was not normal for an eighth grader to talk about a strange girl in the street. He feared his orthodox mother more than he feared approaching the girl. Manoj’s mother was so unyielding that she did not speak to her younger sister for seven years after Manoj’s saanima married a guy outside their caste. Even seven years later, he cowered when he heard his mother read his saanima the riot act. His mother’s words were as extreme as her bigotry. Outright terrified of his mother, Manoj was more interested in knowing the girl’s last name than her first name.
Between April and September of 1985, Manoj dared everything that his little brain could conceive to get the girl’s attention. Once he faked a bike accident. She did not notice him because she had just passed him by the time he slammed his bike on the wall. His timing was off by couple of seconds. Then other times he stood on the slab and coughed loud. Sometimes he sneezed. His bronchial pickup lines did not work either. The young boy was running out of tricks. Brought up in a conservative family and surrounded by friends who loved to mock his tendency to waver, Manoj felt like he was working in a vacuum.
To aggravate his cause, he felt the girl was only growing more beautiful each day. By September, she had put on couple of pounds, a few she lacked, he thought. She looked perfect to him.
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Two weeks before Dashain Manoj stood on the balcony enjoying the median of ‘Sharad’ season. He was inquisitively watching two stray dogs across the street fight over an old tennis ball. A boy in his late teen came running from his house, picked up a good-size stone from the road and threw it at the dogs with all his strength. The stone hit one of the dogs in the rear left leg so badly that the dog ran off limping, shrieking a rhythmic cry of agony.
“Rajib daai, ke garyaa tyo? Tyo bicharaa bhusiyaa kukur le ke bigaarya chha tapai ko?” Manoj screamed from the balcony.
“Target practice garyaa ke, mulaa. Tesko khuttama kya tadyanga laagya, dekheyu? Khuttrukkai vayo ni tyo kukur. Esai Army le lidaina ke. Nisaana ta achuk chha ni mero,” Rajib bragged. After completing I.Com from Shankar Dev Campus in Putalisadak, he had just joined the Royal Nepalese Army as a Second Lieutenant
Manoj was so disgusted by Rajib’s response he muttered to himself: “Yo ketaa paagal nai ho. Army le kina linthyo esai.”
The dogs quickly disappeared from Manoj’s site, so did Second Lieutenant Rajib Samsher Jung Bahadur Rana of ‘Shree Bhairavnath Battalion’. Manoj too was about to go back inside, he saw something from the balcony that stilled him. He patiently watched what he saw for full two minutes before rushing to his room. Once he was in his room, he locked the door, sat on his bed with his elbows resting on a pillow on his lap. He covered his face with his hands and started breathing heavily. His noticed that his hands were shaking. He looked his panicky look in the mirror. He was not feeling well even before that visual from the balcony, so he decided to skip school that day.
He had the entire day to mull over on what he had seen from the balcony that morning. On the whole, that was a quite happening day. Manoj had witnessed just too many startling events in one day.
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September 13, 1985
Dear Diary,
Last night Sabitri aunt had invited us for dinner. As always she had put a bucket of oil in every dish she prepared. I was sick the whole night. I got out of bed early at five. I went to the balcony. I was not expecting people in the street, but I was surprised to see some. I saw Pawan jump off his wall with a small suitcase. A minute later, I saw Ritu climb up and jump off her fence wall. Then I saw the two elope right in front of my eyes. It was like watching a movie. They did not see me. Our lights were turned off. Later in the evening, I heard rumors in Bishalnagar Chok. Everyone was talking about them. I did not say anything. I wonder where they went. They are only 17 and they are not very bright. I am really concerned. Their foolish families should stop fighting and let these two live their lives.
On the other hand, I envy Pawan. He has guts.
My own story looks like it has ended. Today I saw my girl with a guy. He must be 18 or 19. He looks a couple of years older than her. I was so nervous to see her with that man I ran to my room. She was wearing her black shoes. I don’t feel good about this. I have felt sad the entire day. I hope he is her brother or a cousin. Though he looks nothing like her, he is not a bad-looking guy; he can be her brother. Hope they are related.
End Diary,
Manoj
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Manoj found out soon. After that day, he saw the two together frequently. Though they behaved within the norms of a conformist society, Manoj figured out from their body language that they were not siblings or cousins. With that man around her, he saw her smile for the first time. Manoj did not find her smile as fascinating though. He felt she had a strange smile. That was her only blemish. Or, he was just jealous. He could not bear to watch her being happy with that man.
Though he was more distracted that year than any other academic year of his life, Manoj finished first in his class in the eighth grade. He had finished second, third, and even fifth once, but he had never finished first. He did not know what had motivated him.
He had lived through a strange year.
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March 3, 1988
Dear Diary,
Sometimes I wish we did not have that balcony in our house.
I first saw her exactly three years ago. Since then I have watched her countless times. Today I saw her again. I was standing on the same place where I saw her for the first time. She looked different today. Her long shiny hair was in a bun. She was wearing red from head to toe. I could only see a part of her face since it was covered with a crown and a veil.
There were hundreds of people around her. The car she was riding in moved slowly. I felt like it was teasing me. A band playing a dull Indian song was accompanying the car and the guests, who looked happy. It felt like everyone was enjoying the evening at my expense. The guy who accompanied her to school was sitting next to her. He was wearing Daura Surwaal and topi. His forehead was covered with tikaa. He looked happy.
I never liked the color red. I hate it even more now.
From the glimpses I caught of her, my only consolation was, she did not look quite the same without her school uniform. Her simplicity, her best attribute, was lost in the makeup—and in that maze, that ugly bun.
Have a wonderful married life.
End Diary,
Manoj
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The SLC result came out in June 1988. Manoj did well. Two months later he joined St Xavier’s College. By that time the balcony was already demoted to slab. The curious schoolboy who had turned into a grown-up youngster, however, never stopped browsing the world from the slab. Neither had he stopped clicking and navigating what he saw from the slab.
In his college days the slab had become his library. That’s where he spent a big portion of his college years. For his reading convenience, he had put a small portable desk and a chair that hardly fit on the slab. Manoj was enjoying an October afternoon honing his Trigonometry skills when Pawan screamed from across the street, “There’s no wind. You want to play some Badminton?”
Pawan and Ritu came back to Kathmandu only three days after they had eloped. Ritu’s Pusaaju had tracked them down in Mandaar Hotel in Pokhara. Eight months later, their families, relentlessly victimized by malicious rumors, reconciled—and the two 18-year-olds sat through a conventional wedding in ‘Ram Sita Bibaha Mandhir’ in Janakpur. The married life followed by his father’s untimely death had remarkably tamed Pawan. The young man who sowed wild oats in his teen years was transformed into a sensible youngster who could laugh at his own errors of judgment.
Manoj was looking for a break himself when he heard Pawan’s voice. He stood up from his chair to respond to Pawan, but yet another view from the slab sidetracked him.
There she was—slowly walking towards Bishalnagar, her steps more feminine than ever. Manoj had not seen her since her wedding day 19 months ago. Perhaps too much Trigonometry had affected his brain, the boy started talking to himself: “You should never make a bun.”
She was glowing, partly because she looked at least 5-month pregnant. The man intoxicated by Trigonometry muttered one more time, “You’re too young for that.” For the first time, Manoj saw her wearing a pair of open-toe shoes. They were brown in color. Standing on his rooftop, while Pawan waited for his response, Manoj stood on the slab and watched her cautiously till she took the right turn to Bishalnagar chok.
Pawan’s voice woke him up, “Are we playing?”
They played a grueling best of five that afternoon. Manoj beat Pawan three games to two. Pawan used to beat Manoj 80 percent of time.
“I’m impressed. You’ve been practicing or what?” Pawan complimented.
“It has nothing to do with my game. Those brown shoes … I knew I wasn’t going to lose.”
“Oh god not again! I thought you stopped talking about those brown shoes. Are these the same brown pair?”
“These are open-toe.”
“Where do you keep these shoes—your good luck charm? I always see you on sneakers or sandals.”
“I don’t own them.” Manoj replied calmly.
Manoj’s famiy, his relatives, his relatives’ relatives, his neighbors, his friends, his friends’ family, and his friends’ family’s relatives were sick and tired of Manoj’s ‘brown shoes’ talk. But nobody knew what those shoes were about.
During the October and November of 1989, Manoj saw the girl at least two times each week. Sometimes she walked with her husband, and other times she walked with an elderly woman with a goiter. He stood on that slab and wondered where she was headed. He wondered why he never sees her coming from Bishalnagar. He wondered whether she was going to have a boy or a girl. He wondered what would have happened if he had talked to her instead of faking that silly bicycle accident. He felt she was too young to bear a child. He felt sad that she missed on her youth.
And when Manoj felt upbeat, he thanked her for preparing him so early to life’s disappointments. He measured his failures against her growing abdominal diameter. Monoj stood on that ‘what if’ slab and tortured himself with hypothetical questions that always produced romantic answers. No matter how hard he tried, Manoj could not help himself not watching the pregnant woman.
After all these years, she still had not noticed him.
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Feb 6, 1990
Dear Diary,
Allen Roth from New Jersey, who rented our second floor for two years left today. He was a friendly guy. I will miss him. Couple of months ago, he gave me a book called Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I am addicted to this book.
I have seldom finished second in any language related course. Some even think I am gifted. So did I, until I started reading Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. This book made me realize that words have bigger responsibilities than just structuring sentences. Some of the quotations in this book sounded so dumb to me that it made me think—the deeper meaning of those words collectively. I think this book is helping me to solve myself. Now I know my grades meant nothing. I know how I got good grades. I memorized more, and reasoned less. Because when I reason, I fear of not reaching a deduction. The same applies to my life. It’s a scary notion.
I am no more thankful that I don’t understand what I think I should. When I was nine, I used to fear life so much because I was convinced that everything was going to end after ‘chauraasi juni’.
“After chauraasi juni, everything, the entire universe will be gone,” my brother used to scare me. What I feared most was—god being a part of the universe, he too was going to end. Who was going to reinvent me?
When I mentioned this to my father, he understood my fear of conclusion. I remember him telling me calmly that everything will make sense when I grow up. I am thankful for that advice because I did not fear anything for nine years. I just waited to be a grownup. I did so by not reasoning what fell under logic. Like my father promised, I just assumed that I would understand life one day—just like that. But, sadly, right now I don’t think even my father has a therapy for my full-grown phobia.
I will be 19 in five months, but every time I watch that pregnant girl who bears someone else’s child, nothing makes sense to me. I fear failing. Either I want to grow up as my father promised, or I want answers. Answers to all of my complex questions, like, why I never see her coming back from Bishalnagar. Where does she go?
I want my “Where does she go?” added to the next edition of Bartlett’s, because it may have a deeper meaning. Who knows…she may be a ghost or a vampire that vanishes upon reaching Bishalnagar.
For the record, as I struggled to be thoughtful, it took me four hours to finish today’s memoir. And it’s only 51- line long. It’s embarrassing that some people think I am gifted with language. Shame on me! Actually shame on them, if they are worse than me.
End Diary,
Manoj
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Manoj was standing on the slab talking to his neighbor, Dr. Bista, when they heard an ambulance siren. They looked at each other in surprise. Neither of them had ever seen an ambulance in that road. For one simple reason: the paramedics were so unreliable, nobody called them during emergency.
“I’m a doctor, I shouldn’t be saying this, but even I’m surprised,” Dr. Bista laughed.
A minute later, the ambulance stopped right in front of Manoj’s house making a loud, jarring noise of a deflating tire. The torrential monsoon rains of 1989 had badly damaged the textures of the road in front of Manoj’s house, creating many treacherous ditches. The ambulance was not the first victim of the monsoon induced condition. Manoj remembered the episode with his own motorbike.
“It’s the same exact spot,” he emphasized using two synonymous adjectives together.
Manoj quickly ran downstairs to help the paramedics. So did his neighbor. “Who do you have here?” demanded Dr. Bista, a pediatrician by vocation.
“A woman in labor,” the paramedic replied. Dr. Bista ran to the rear door of the ambulance. Manoj followed him. When the paramedic opened the door, Manoj started to shake with agitation and nervousness.
There she was, lying on a stretcher, only moments away from giving birth to her first child. Her anxious husband was sitting next to her holding her hand tightly. Dr. Bista asked the husband, “Her water broke?”
“That has to be it. She’s in a lot of pain.”
“I’ll drive you guys to the hospital. Let me get my car.” Dr. Bista volunteered.
The woman was in so much pain that she was not paying attention to any of the conversation. In fact she looked like she had not even felt the flat tire. She was acting like she was already in the hospital. While Dr. Bista ran to his garage to get his car, Manoj was left alone with the husband and the pregnant woman. That was the first time he had seen her so close. Manoj kept on staring at her totally ignoring the husband. He clenched his hands to gather strength, and whispered, “You’ll be okay.” She did not reply. She was in so much pain that her eyes were closed. She did not even see him.
The mediocre badminton player who had finished a 51-line memoir only nine hours earlier was still invisible. It had been five years since he first saw her, but she was yet to notice him.
“Thank you so much vaai. I really appreciate your brother doing this for us,” the indebted husband woke up the wistful boy from his reverie.
Manoj did not feel the need to clarify that the man who ran to get his car was his neighbor, not his brother. “Don’t worry, she’ll be okay. Her brown slippers look comfortable,” Manoj blabbered.
Dr. Bista stopped his car next to the ambulance and yelled at paramedics, “Bring her in, quick.” Within two minutes they were all gone.
“What happened there?” Manoj looked up. His father was asking the question.
“A pregnant woman, a punctured tire, and an invisible man …”
“WHAT?”
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Because of unceasing political strikes nationwide, though the two-year college was extended to more than three years, Manoj never lost his focus. His father had convinced him that those two were the most crucial years of his life. The father was right. Since there was not a single reputed engineering university in Nepal, the government scholarships abroad were awarded based on the two-year college performance. Manoj worked very hard for the scholarship. Like his brother did before him, he wanted to attend a prized university in India.
There were more than 100 candidates for 28 seats for the scholarship to India. Since the Ministry of Education decided all government scholarships, it was mandatory that everyone went through the interview process. Manoj knew for sure he was in top 40, but he was not sure if he had made it to elite 28.
On May 27, 1992 Manoj stood on the slab waiting for his friend Raju. He had a queer feeling in his stomach caused by the anxiety of the interview result, due later that afternoon. While he pondered his future from the slab, he saw a cute looking two-and-a-half-year-old girl running on the road. The woman with a goiter was walking behind the kid. Manoj recognized the woman. He stared at the little girl and studied her face carefully. He recognized the girl too. Nostalgic, Manoj looked around for the little girl’s mother. She was not there. Manoj had not seen the mother since that ambulance incident 28 months ago.
The little girl stirred Manoj’s musings when he heard her scream at the woman, “Hajurmaa, I can jump in these shoes.”
He quickly looked at the toddler’s shoes. She was wearing a brown pair, with straps tightly wrapped to the ankle. Manoj smiled. He looked happy and relieved.
“What are you smiling at?” Raju shouted from across the road.
“I’m getting that scholarship. BROWN SHOES!”
“NOT AGAIN.” Raju screamed.
So did Pawan from his house, adding: “Good luck to both of you. I know you guys will make it.”
At 3:19 PM that Wednesday, Manoj felt his efforts were rewarded when he saw his name at number 23 on the notice board of Sichhya Mantraalaya in Keshar Mahal. He was not surprised. He was so sure after seeing those brown shoes that he did not even react with joy. He walked a couple of blocks towards Thamel and called his father from a convenient store: “I knew it,” Manoj bragged.
“I knew it too,” the proud father praised his son.
When it mattered the most, in the entire country, among those who majored in Physics and Math, only 22 people had beaten him. One of them was his best friend Raju, whose name was at number 17.
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June 26, 1992
Dear Diary,
Tomorrow I am leaving home for four years. I know I will be back for holidays twice a year, but that does not comfort me now. Right now I am not excited about my new life and the entire career ahead of me, I am just very sad that I am leaving my family and friends. This is going to be a very difficult night to endure.
I wish I could always feel about my family and friends the way I feel about them right now. If I am already missing this place so much, I must have been very happy here. Then, why didn’t I share this happiness with myself once in a while? I should have appreciated this more.
If nothing else, this evening has certainly taught me how to calculate happiness. Looks like happiness can only be measured in the unit of its loss. Happiness by itself is like Specific Gravity, it has no unit. It’s the ratio of how you feel any particular day divided by your memories. Today that ratio is very low for me.
I wonder what I will miss the most besides the obvious. Perhaps Maha Boudha ko momo. Putalisadak ko sekuwa? My Honda CG -125? Since I won’t have my cassette player with me, maybe Guns N’ Roses. I still think ‘Estranged’ is a lot better song than ‘November Rain’.
I am only going to India. I won’t even need a passport. And I already love Sachin Tendulkar. I will just have to learn to tolerate the other 900 million.
End Diary,
Manoj
To be continued …
PS
I will post the second (final) part of this story only if I see that this part has generated enough interest here. The ball is in your court. Swing!
Final part - http://sajha.com/sajha/html/index.cfm?threadid=37277
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