Needs editing. Will re-post after editing.

Sum Off..

Very well written. Your narration of this character depicts how ruthless and heartless someone can be. But again people tend to learn what their parents teaches them and how they grow up. Her mother teaching: Giving is losing - so there is where Divyeswori learned all her Taandab.

I feel what divye.. is today is just because of her mom.Her mom should have told her she couldn't keep other's stuff no matter how valuable it was; instead she stopped a young innocent child from returning that pen.Ms pande was just like any other innocent,non maupulative,honnest kid when she was young but she got a wrong guidence.We all know our first school is our home and our first teacher is our mom.But unluckily her first teacher was manupulative,greedy,dishonest,cunning and ms pande turned just like her teacher ,her own mom.
But I pity on those kind of people.I don't think they will be happy in the long run.Even look at Ms Pande,her life is hollow,no truth and absolutely false.Getting money by hurting others will never bring happiness ;I think even divyes....is not happy deep inside her.
But this ending is not upto my expectation.Maybe I didn't understand this last part.Or maybe a lot of hindi movies (I used to watch a lot of hindi movies,even now if I get time I do) made me think in a different way.
But whatever story wants to tell us,I like the way sum_off puts his words and sentences.Keep writing.I'm looking forward many stories or essays from u.Kuddos to u!!

Sum_off,I think I miss your days in Nepal.Now I 'm interested.Can u pls give me websight for those so that I can read your 1st,2nd...........days in Nepal too?
Thankyou

Waited till the last part to sing the praise....
Very well written indeed..... but as others I think I am missing some threads...
This is my understanding of the last part:
The ugly girl Ms. Pandey sees in her dreams in the self percecption of herself trying satiate her mothers wishes while she puts herself in the shoes of her mother i.e. She is her mother and the ugly child is herself?? Where does Jimmy Carter fits in the story? and ofcourse this young man who looks like Jimmy Carter??

sum off,

I will tell u why u are better than us lesser mortals.

"......verified the man who still looked like a young Jimmy Carter."

"......asked the mercenary healer who later charged the woman for his questions."

The fact that u can come up with such sentences proves that u are gifted. I cant
do that and thats the reason I am not writing on sajha.There's however a very thin line
between being a genius and not making much sense. Watch out for that.

What i take away from your story is that: Divyeswori is the person she is, because she
had a mother that she had. (Phew!! EVerything in fiction has to have a reason haina??
...nobody can be mean on thier own account, not atleast in fiction)

But the greater lesson to me from this story is the title of the story itself. Case 1273.
That after a lifetime of scheming and plotting and manipulating and achieving...this is
what it boils down to. That divyeswori pandey has become a case. this is what she has to show for a lifetime lived.

And I also noticed that you have one hell of a imagination. That is the most important
asset of a writer, by far, in my opinion.

Having said all of this, is the conclusion of the story somewhat of a letdown? Yeah,
a little bit. I found it a wee bit rushed. And please dont make us draw conclusions
on divye's state of mind on the basis of that one dream alone. That is not enough.
Especially after all that background.

BUt please keep on writing. If they opened a fan club for you....I would be the first to
sign up. And like everybody else I too am waiting for the .....days of nepal.

ok I read your days in nepal till 7th episode.Good one.Enjoyed thoroughly .waiting for your 7th episode..................

sum_off bro..........to be honest i didnt get the last part. the first three had a marvellous flow of incidents and the characters were manipulated in a well defined way. but what happened to this part.my view is that u could ahve done more then this...........but anyways ur writings are brilliantly written.......there is no way i can write this better.........good job bro............looking for some more writings of urs.and by the way what bout ur sequel of ur visit to nepal. do post them too........

peace

the ending couldn't have been any better.

dami cha bro!!!

koi ending chai ali bujina ..but the whole story was awesome....gr8 job keep it up....

Sum_Off,

I somehow agree with Bhusan and Bideshi- --anti-climatic and the potrait of her mom and herself. But, I'd also speculate that there has to be a child-- a birth of child makes a lot of sense. It seems like she is being hunted for her behavior and she is trying to put those behind by seeking help of a shrink (the western way to coming clean by confessing a person who has plenty of time to listen to peoples' crap).
We all know where the 'red carpet to the goddess' came from, we all know where the 'parker pen' is coming in the dream, but we don't know anything about 'the child'. Why is she seeing the child in her dream? Not to mention an ugly one. An ugly child in the dream is not a good sign, I guess. So, in that case, I have to quote our comedian friend Russell Peters "Somebody's gonna get a hurt" :-)

Sum_Off, your story is like Shyamalan's movie 'The Village' but w/out the thriller part. It was well written but sort of disappointing ending (at least for me). Although, I must say, you've got helluva talent! So, Thank you for the wonderful reading. Keep it coming!

events in our lifetime-dictates how we behave later, that was the lesson from the series from me, and is very true in my own level of experience...

I'll be honest. I expected a better ending. The first three chapters were amazing. Giving is losing- a nice theme Sum off but I expected a much better ending. Nevertheless I completely get the point. I'm just saying the ending could have been more dramatic. I'm just bad at literature myself but was it Jimmy Carter who dropped the pen?

Boy, it’s quite refreshing to hear some criticism finally. I completely respect your concerns and disappointments about the ending. Don’t get me wrong. I still prefer compliments though. The ending is the way it is because I wanted to leave it to your analysis. You have all the privilege to interpret the story to make it your own. That was the idea. I wanted to sum it up the way I felt restful with. My original ending was quite descriptive. I truncated more than two and a half pages out of that ending. Some of you would have liked that ending better, but to me, it felt like I was tutoring my readers. You have to understand that I have a lot of pride in you guys.

nepalonmymind gets this story. He should become a critic. Seriously.

Bhusan brings up two very intelligent points, but he should have answered the first question (below) on his own.

1) Why is Divye interested in the rug while being psychoanalyzed? Because she is Divyeswori Pandey; the daughter of Indu Pandey. The rug thing was deliberately inserted in the final chapter to further illustrate Divyeswori, and her priorities in life.

2) Bhusan says the red carpet line is not clever. Absolutely true. Actually it’s on the borderline of being dumb. But it’s a dialogue, not a narration. The author does not narrate it; the character says it. Divye is a nervous wreck in that Shrink’s office. Compelled by her instincts, she is subconsciously trying to please the shrink—by complimenting him about things that are not even worth complimenting. Having said that I realize that I should have added a line in the shrink’s response. I should have written this instead:

“I don’t find my analogy to be clever by any stretch of imagination. I have no jurisdiction over those words, however. They’re all yours,” smiled the man.

Thank you Bhusan.

Addressing other questions:

Ugly child: Is the ugly child a metaphor for how she thinks she should feel when she swindles people—ugly? Or the ugly child is Orangutan? How think you? Your interpretation is as good as mine. Remember, it’s your story too, I just happened to type it.

Why Laxmi pooja reference? It could be ‘Gathey Mangal’ or ‘Dashain’ or ‘Naag Pooja’? Why Laxmi pooja? How say you? The answer is quite simple.

Why Jimmy Carter reference? This is just a synthetic distraction to the story. Does not mean a thing to the plot. Just to throw you off. “Giving is losing” is where the actual story ends. I just felt like I’d be lecturing if I ended the story at “Giving is losing.” So I was just making a pointless commentary there at the end. The Jimmy Carter line’s sole purpose was to reduce the density of the ending.

Why is the title named ‘Case 1273:Divyeswori Pandey’? Why not something like ‘Divyeswori Pandey’s chronicles?’ Just read nepalonmymind’s comment regarding this. He nailed it.

A girl crying in her dream? Is it Divye herself or Radha in the next room who cries while Divye dreams? Again, your interpretation is as good as mine.

“Inu stop it” … What do you think this means? The answer is in the first part of the story.

Why does Divye limp in her dream? Is it a reference to the bullet she was hit with at the Dairy Queen? Or, another metaphor that she just can’t run away from what she knows about herself.

Why would she use the word ‘capture’ while describing Laxmi Pooja?

Align your own meaning to the ending. I am no smarter than you are. Trust me.

I will buy a venti-size Caffe Mocha from the Starbucks to anyone who figures out why I used the number 1273. The answer is in the story, in two different places. No, it’s not her birthday.

As much as I would like to think Ms.Divya Pandey as a culprit, I would think she is a victim as well. She is a victim of her mother's greed, her father's ineptness, her husband's infidelity which led to her owning a STD, her Bengali lover's son's bullet and above all victim of her own actions. She might not have been behind bars or in a mental institution but she surly went behind barbwires of her internal prison.

Like they say "What goes around comes around," her bad karma came flying down knocking on the door of her life.

just a small comment. totally unrelated to the story of yours. i agree nepalonmymind is one hell of an analyst but i think that person is a SHE and not a HE. i could be wrong but i have read one more post of hers (i take that liberty for the time being. nepalonmymind, could you verify). well sum_off, i leave it up to you to understand why this is an issue of sorts.

anyways as for your story, i did love it. and like everyone else have my complaints on how it ended (or how you ended it). but yeah leaving us all to get our own conclusions or making it our own stories is clever indeed, it's just that we (at least, I am) are too lazy for that kind of mental exercise. how about you post that original ending of yours and we have a chance to find out how close our story got to yours. just a thought.
yeah keep writing.

sum off,

I am a girl hence a she, not a he. thank you :)

one more thing, you should stick to your previous dialogues for the red carpet analogy, or better still change it to something different, something which means business, this one
is a little flirtatious for the shrink. But dont change it into the later one.

“I don’t find my analogy to be clever by any stretch of imagination..............."

Because the shrink is drawing analogy for something he doesnt know and hasn't seen, he cant say whether his analogy was clever or not.

Just my thought.

Hi sumoff,

Nice story,well I must say it is very honest portray of the lives... I can somewhat relate to it..A beautiful story of a woman prevailing over disasters and tragedies.......
Hats off to you! keep on posting!
And yeah I would love to read some of ur writings...can I? I am new here...so dunno much abt how this forum works and stuffs....

Kohinoor

Well written.. but the edning is kinda or sounds like uncorrelated...or..s.t... I read ur explanation. Its my story also :) Sum-Off happens to write it ;) and i will try to analyse it WHY WHY !!
But Writer could have modified it a bit ! Less work on my part hehe
Just my 2 cents.

My thoughts on Jimmy Carter refernce...started with Carterlike figure dropping a gold pen, the very first instance when the idea of giving is losing was poked into Divya's head. And finally she's ready (maybe) to treat is as a problem and has gone to the shrink and is it a coincidence that she found one that looked like the man whose parker started it all? My hats off to you sum_off..an awesome read..and I too am waiting for the days in Nepal series.
Thanks a lot.