Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life - BS Murthy (polar express read aloud txt) 📗

my parents readied me to be the glove on Gautam’s ambitious hand to grasp the expediency of life. It was another matter that we lost track of our life itself before we were lost to each other in the end. Maybe I would never know why I became loose for no conceivable reason. Honestly, had I suspected in the least that I was pushing my son into the vortex of crime by my wayward ways; I would have been more circumspect.  Who knows, I myself would've got out of the cesspool of promiscuity. Well, that’s the regret with which I would've to live and die.”

“If not for my disorientation, there was no way I would’ve gone astray,” she said with an apparent regret. “Gautam was no mean a lover for all that. If not a victim of circumstances, I wouldn’t have ended up the way I did. Surely, I shouldn’t have. True, I am amorous but not amoral at all. Whatever I had undone myself, hurt my man and ruined my son. Now, I think it’s time I help my son at least to get a chance to undo his past.”

“I know how hard it is for you,” said Dr. Gupta as he got up to leave. “May God give you the strength to handle your predicament.”

“Let's hope so,” she smiled wearily seeing him off. “I can never thank you enough for your concern to my son. Had I shown him a fraction of that, perhaps, things would not have come to this pass. Well, it is time I show him that I care. How I wronged the man I married and the son I bore. Sadly, there is no way I can retrieve the shame I heaped on my man. But it’s not the case with my son, let me see. Thanks for coming and goodbye to you.”

 

Chapter 7

Moment of Reckoning

 

‘What a life it has been!’ Sneha found herself thinking after Dr. Gupta had left. ‘Oh, how it had shadowed my son’s life! Can I ever look into his eyes which witnessed all that? Why was I not dead before I came to know of that? It’s okay that others might smell rat of my peccadilloes but, oh, to be object of my son's voyeurism, why wasn’t I wary when he grew up? How sad my carelessness buggered his psyche and ruined his life as well! Were he to be hanged, won’t I be damned? But if I damn myself, he would be saved, how paradoxical!

‘Wasn’t the rumor mill crunching my reputation for so long?’ she thought as she recalled how her own name was besmirched. ‘Well, as is with other scandals so is with my story; it would be passé in no time? Why, even when it was the talk of the town, some believed and others gave the benefit of doubt. Wouldn't people's short attention span favor even scandals in the long run? Whatever, as long as they are not aired in my ear, how am I bothered about them? But to testify to my shame would only amount to baring my body in the court, and soul as well, but would any credit me with that! How would that affect poor Suresh? As it is, my shame is shadowing him! If I were to kiss and tell in court now, that's bound to shatter him beyond doubt. Isn’t it a frightful prospect to contend with?’

As though her body and mind got synchronized by then, she turned dizzy and felt she could think no more.

‘If only he had spilled the beans in the court!’ she thought at length, having realized the problem needed a solution. ‘Would I have a place to hide my head by now? But with his head on the block he keeps mum about his mom. Oh, how people disown their near and dear if only to save the bother! And what of the betrayal of their benefactors for no more than a few bucks! How shameful, and haven’t I seen all that? Yet, the press pictures him as a fiend, and all perceive him as lacking in character! Could there be a better character than his? And for that matter, what’s wrong with my character?

‘Isn’t it clear that it is either his head or my head that should roll now?’ she felt at length, having reflected upon her life for long. ‘And the choice is clear, isn’t it? To what avail should I hang on after all? What would life have to offer me other than ridicule? How Gautam’s empathy makes me jittery! Won’t I feel that his blame game would've been rather solacing? What if even one of my lickers-in-scores of yore stood by me, it would have softened the blow. But where are they now? What a collective vanishing act that was!’

‘Don’t I know what men are like!’ she tried to sum up male proclivities. ‘How paranoid man is for exclusive sexual rights over the frame of his spouse! But which man minds waiting in the brothel for his turn to satiate himself? Wonder where his sensitivity of lone possession goes! And what is the fuss about female chastity if it were not man’s insecurity about his own virility? Oh what if his spouse thinks his rival seemed better in bed? But when it comes to a whore, why should man bother even if it were premature ejaculation? How does it matter for he is her faceless customer, and once out, won’t he submerge in the crowd? In truth, man gives a damn to savor the so-called tainted wife of his but his only worry is how she might've felt about his performance in comparison. Thus, it’s not the moral aversion but the perception of his inadequacy that is behind man’s hurt when he hurts his woman who takes on another, so it seems. Besides, what the aggrieved man could do than divorce her under the guise of moral apathy if not kill her out of sexual jealousy? But then won't man learn to live with his wife paying a blind eye to her paramour.’

‘Now that my life became an open book,’ she thought, applying her theory of sexual desertion, ‘what a letdown it could be for all of them to learn that they were not sharing me just with my husband but with all and sundry as well! But how would they ever know that I enjoyed every one of them for what they were worth? Well, they should’ve known that I didn’t hold any scale of virility as they laid me. Had I done that really, how many of them would have measured up to Gautam? Let them go to hell and how does that matter to me now?’

However, she could not help feel bitter about the fact of her desertion by all those who crooned eternal love into her exultant ears.

‘Gautam, how considerate he is as a man and loving as a husband, in spite of it all,’ she continued to review her life and times. ‘But, the inconsiderate world sees him as immoral! What is that society, which denies the genuine their fair share and yet damns the deviants as immoral? If only there were fair avenues for the upright! Well, being on the brink why think about the Utopia? Yet, it all feels like betrayal, but then I have had enough of it. And having savored the scandal for so long now, it’s as if the world too is tired of me. Maybe my death might stir up the hornet’s nest all again, to excite the people for a while. Won’t time bury my memory in a hurry?’ 

‘How all crave to be remembered after they are dead and gone!’ she thought. ‘And what could suit me better than being forgotten, the sooner, that is? At least, that would take some shine out of the stigma sticking onto Gautam. Suresh, after all, is young enough to pick up the threads of life after a stint at the Tihar. After all, that’s what the good doctor assured me. As and when he comes out a free man, surely, he would still be an eligible bachelor. At least, our wealth would ensure that.’

‘Why, am I not old enough to die, though young enough to live otherwise?’ she began thinking, seized by a death-wish. ‘I had everything going my way; both ways, always, and suddenly I find myself at a dead end! What an irony that is! Why not bring the curtains down before the scene turns too bawdy to stage? Well, it would have been a different story, had fate allowed me to age without bringing my past to the fore!’

That night, soon after Gautam had hit the pillow, Sneha, with the denouement in mind, went to the writing table in the ante-room.

        My soulmate:

Whoever thought of such a fall for us from the dizzy heights you took us to! Why, even my worst fears failed to push me to such a precipice. I’m sure neither yours would have. After all, you were sure that by the time the dust settled down, we would have ridden the storm. And my blind faith in your abilities failed me to see what was coming. Well, it appears that fate is averse to taking your dictation, at least in this case. Instead, it chose the well-meaning Dr. Prakash Gupta as the messenger to deliver the script it had fashioned to end our trauma.

How could I've known that I was the cyclonic eye of the stormy life of our son! It appears that he was privy to my double life ever since he could understand what it was. I know that it would shock and shame you no less. What a payback for the freedom you granted me! Pardon me if you can. Maybe, it’s better that you fail to forgive me for that lessens my burden a little.

How I wronged Suresh the apple of our eyes! What a hurt to know his mother is a slut! How cruel of me to let him bear the cross of my debauchery! As for me, it’s just unpalatable even to think he had seen it all. Now, having known that I was his voyeuristic target all the while, I cannot imagine facing him ever again. It seems it was my amorality that induced the misogamist mindset in him. And we have the word of the well-meaning expert for that.

Maybe unwittingly, but inexorably, I had set our son on a ruinous course. That puts me in the dock, doesn’t it? Let me plead guilty in your court that I buggered our son’s life. God forbid, if the apple of our eye were to die on the gallows, I would go insane. And I dare not see him even if he’s set free. What sense does it make for me to hang around here any longer?

What a congenial couple we had been! But, how stealthily had fate tampered with our wedlock! Don’t I know the pain you felt in having to forsake my womanly honor? But to what avail did I give in to my latter-day temptations? Why did I take undue advantage of your goodness to abuse my life that would have hurt you so much?

Now, more than ever, I can visualize what a pain it was for you seeing me turning into a bitch as it were. Oh, if only it had dawned on me then! Yet, it’s not with the intent to hurt you that I say this, but how would it have been had you put your foot down on my waywardness? But then, you are a gentleman, and I didn’t prove to be your worthy ladyship. And still, thanks to your large heart, I was cozy as your wife.

How the scandal changed all that! I am aware that the altered realities of our life would ensure that it could never be the same again for me and you as well. In a way, hasn’t our relationship become