Nazia the Vampiress (Season 1, Episode 2)
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“Vampires Forever”
. . . She went to look outside the window; there was nothing there but just the party dogs of the night running after tires of moving vehicles subjected to inertia. As she turned around she realized that the sound was that of something weird in her own room.
“Oh my God! Lacoste!” She cried, trying to suppress her expressed ‘exclamation mark’. “But why did she just say , Lacoste? Why Nazia why?”
“Oh sorry! I got too overwhelmed by the recent SMS spree that I completely forgot that it’s called a ‘lizard’ . . . We are having branded entertainment that we just studied in Experiential Marketing . . . HUH?! Lacoste!” With this, Nazia jumped around and found refuge on her bed since those two lizards were literally playing hide and seek on the floor, she had no way to escape, nothing at all. Hey wait . . . ever heard of a vampire who is afraid of lizards? No? Then this is the one who is afraid of them . . . a respectable vampire citizen around.
Nazia had one slogan she would always abide by: “No sucking of blood of friends and teachers”, well at least of those she considered to be good teachers which she was blessed with if not all. Over the years she was able to hide her true identity and befriend people who otherwise would have been scared of her. She and her coordinator, Ms. Sabiha shared a common, that is, an admiration of vampire stories. However, what Ms. Sabiha didn’t know was that Nazia was a vampire in her own vicinity of coordination and that she stayed in school at times from morning to night working the entire day making sure no one finds out who she really is.
“What’s wrong with you guys? Why are you creating such depressing stuff?” Asked Ms. Painda with an amused expression, the graphic designing teacher one day when she was surprised to see Nazia having made an invitation card on Freehand 10, titled: “Human Impalement Ceremony”. Another friend, Toots had made her death invitation card. Still it was a surprise as to how well Nazia was able to keep her true identity in the dark, what she just did through this assignment was to give a hint about her true self but no one still knew. She couldn’t suppress her evil smile which still seemed innocent behind the occasional evil traits.
However, what really appeared evil was some class rescheduling and the crazily hectic semester going on that made her suffer from insomnia and the lack of blood enriched victims made her pale and low on iron. Not only this, she had been changing a lot of her eating habits . . . she gave up consuming haleem and Lays. In her seventh semester Brand Management class she got enlightened with a lot of stuff she didn’t know before. “You know what these guys add in haleem to give it the texture it has? And you guys just eat away,” exclaimed the brand teacher with gleeful sarcasm, “They add a spoonful of washing powder, it probably helps in cleaning your intestines!” He laughed out. Then one day he told the class that truck drivers wash their tires with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo as it leaves the tires soft and helps in smooth driving. However, the day when he discussed how cooking oils used to be tasted . . . Spoonful going into the mouth for quality control . . . that was just too much and Nazia was on the verge of throwing up and then telling everyone how she tastes blood to pick the right type but resisted. Why couldn’t she let people know what she really was? Why couldn’t she leave the past behind that kept on haunting her? The ‘How Cow’ accident stuff . . . When criminals try to make peace with their past it comes to haunt them again . . . And this sinking feeling in her heart always kept her quiet and less social . . . After all she was still half human . . . No wait a minute, she was about 75% human. Only after her teeth grew back after having the dentures stuck in the cow’s throat turned out to be a proof of her being a vampire and she could spent days without blood anyway.
These brands she was studying about drove her crazy especially their use by people, it was outright ridiculous. “You know what anti lice shampoo is mostly used for?” tested Mr. F in the class one fine Saturday, trying to find out if the class knew. “Pets!” she thought. “It’s used on cows and buffalos in rural areas by farmers,” he told the class. Ok . . . now it was pretty ok to digest this piece of information but what was told in the last class was a thing to remember forever and laugh at and feel pity for. At times, you can’t always blame companies; consumers can be fools which you cannot in any way hold the company accountable for. Surf Excel’s pH level concept; ‘Khaara & Meetha Paani Challenge’ (Alkaline and Acidic) was so tempting for some people that they dissolved it in water, drained it out and drank it. God knows what would have happened to such silly people but the moment Mr. F told the class this thing, Nazia couldn’t help suppress her vampire laughter and later feared people might get to know what she really is. Only Toots knew about her past and what she really was capable of and none of the other friends knew her too well.
“Why do you worry? You got all your teeth grown out after that accident that took your precious time and career but . . . See smile . . . Now here you go! You even have these pretty canines back!” consoled Toots, “And please forget that cow now, it was MAD!”
“But I had to resort to a straw for those blood enriched moments until it took some years for my teeth to finally grow!” complained Nazia.
Now that Toots meant a lot in her life, Nazia treated her like her best human friend and kept the most human side towards her with a nice single faced human attitude.
She had been lacking entertainment and TV had started disgusting her a long time back especially the cooking channels. She was dumb founded when her teacher, Mr. Furqan gave a question about ‘product placement’ for a brand in any of the TV plays or movies, that day she was convinced she would fail that hourly but then God helps vampires too when they try to acquire education. She possibly ruined the tea brand, Lipton by applying a downward stretch to it thereby placing it in one of the evening cheap TV plays whose target audience would not consume a light tea brand anyway such as Lipton. Later, towards the end of the semester she was all ready to destroy a chocolate brand like this. But then . . . It happens. If vampires become Marketing Majors then they find it difficult to get a job and this is what had been happening . . . Nazia was still looking for a job.
She was surprised when Mr. Furqan had enlightened the students about how much Star Plus plays had ruined the intellectual thinking of people who watch it and how adversely it had been affecting people. She was thankful that she never watched this channel; she was a well behaved and a groomed vampiress. What was really inspiring about this teacher was that he kept a keen ‘human’ eye on every student as to who had been working and who hadn’t been and graded everyone accordingly, even though it wasn’t humanly possible. And even though he had been teaching this particular course which was introduced just a year ago, he never claimed that only he teaches this course and no one else does or that good students are a proof of his excellence. When you become proud you lose your respect and are therefore not eligible to become a teacher because a teacher is a person worth tremendous respect not knowledge based self pride! And therefore, that other person was someone Nazia sensed B+ at.
While Mr. Furqan was busy delegating work for his project worth an ‘experience’, Nazia was busy counting blood prospects. Oh what a ‘thriller’ . . .
Hospitals near her home and her school had been complaining about blood being stolen though not in large quantities, however, B+ ranked highest among that stolen. That had been happening after 9:30 pm every week until it got to be thrice a week now.
Nazia had been getting pale as days passed by and weight was lost courtesy of some marketing courses over the span of the remaining two semesters. She had no choice but to resort to illegal means of getting her beverage and that had been happening after her fourth time slot classes, that is, after 9:30 pm!!
One night after her Experiential Marketing class, she was busy stealing blood samples again from a nearby hospital as she was too busy in one of her ‘Experience’ projects to go find a healthy human as all were too consumed in term projects to have a good blood level.
“Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind in this darkness which you know you cannot find . . . The darkness of the music of the night . . .” Nazia sang from her favourite track from Phantom of the Opera, “let your soul take you where you long to be!”
Suddenly she was interrupted by the presence of somebody in the lab; she went to hide herself in the nearest corner she could find when she was accosted by a creepy shadow of a hunch back.
“Return of the Native! Oh no! No! Someone like me? Oh wait a minute . . . What the hell are you doing over here!” she inquired.
Now Nazia was convinced that she was not the only vampire in the business school where she had studied and thus vampires are forever . . .
Disclaimer: All characters in this story are imaginary. Any resemblance to anyone dead, undead, haunting or trying to live is simply a coincidence. Don't start assuming things, try educated guesses . . . All the brands mentioned over here just helped give you a lame branded entertainment as a result of these 1,710 words. .. :P
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