Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth - BS Murthy (best ereader for epub .txt) 📗

his love, which had been the goal of my life. I hated Vasu and I hated myself more so and I was tempted even to go back to him, but how could I, after having fouled my soul and polluted my body? I fell down in my own esteem, and suffered in Vasu’s embrace ever since. And so I became frigid to the charms of life thereafter.”

“Wonder how did you let your sentiment sway to mar your life!”

“Maybe, that's the hold sentiment has on unexamined life,!” she said, “and placed in the same position, I tell you, I'll keep sentiment at arm’s length. Well, when Vasu’s father sought my hand for his son, my father was taken aback. Though my father didn’t make any fuss, he swore against the match. When I tried to checkmate him by refusing to marry another, my father forced a stalemate by restricting my movements. At last it took ‘him’, you know who I mean, to bring my father around by telling him that one can live with a broken heart but it would be hard to carry on with a troubled conscience. Oh, how he captured my feelings!  When he told him I got too far with Vasu, my father married me off in style befitting his status to begin my run of the mill.”

She paused as if to come out of her past disappointment    freshened by her memory.

“True to my father’s prophecy,” she continued, “Vasu showed his true colours soon enough by beginning to supplant my father’s money as if to improve my quality of life. While my father gives in, thinking he has a cross to bear, Vasu believes that as the jungle belongs to the lions and tigers, this world is for the rich and the powerful and it’s for the smart to get rich by hook or by crook. That’s the man who finds me cold in bed, and you need not be surprised about it.”

“Sorry for fishing in troubled waters,” said Chandra visibly upset. “Believe me, had I known I would’ve sorted out with him myself.”

“Maybe, it’s good that you’ve alerted me,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, you should’ve shut the door on him and be done with it. But still, I would've been left with a man who tries to philander with my money. I think it serves him right to cut off at his source. It’s time I left him.”

“Don’t act on the rebound,” he said concernedly, “as you did then.”

“Thanks for saying that,” she said. “I don’t want to cry over my father’s shoulders now. As I told you, I spurned my lover on hearsay and messed up my life, and when I had the chance to rectify the mistake, I let my sense of chastity ruin me. I should’ve known better that woman’s character is sourced in her heart and not in her hymen. Oh, how vanity and sentiment took turns to ruin my life! Now, let me apply my mind and see.”

“What of him?”

“Oh it is years since we last met,” she said reminiscently. “But I do hear about him now and then.”

“Is he married?”

“Not when I last heard.”

“Why not get in touch with him?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Why not make a real beginning?”

“Wouldn’t have his flame been doused by now?” she said as she sighed. “What's the point in dreaming for its warmth then?”

“That’s true,” said Chandra sympathetically, “and it pays to be pragmatic.”

“Is it pragmatic for me to count on your affection?”

“Nithya’s included,” he said extending his hand. “You know how she loves you. Getting to know your remarkable story she will empathize with you even more.”

“Thank you,” she said taking his hand, “but don’t fail to congratulate her for me, for her great escape that was.”

“She might wish you would fare no less.”

“Let’s see what’s in store,” she said as Chandra got up to leave.

On his way back home, Chandra felt sorry for her lost love but just the same, he was conscious about a new dawn in his heart for Prema. He couldn’t help hoping that she too might feel the same way about him. When he narrated the operative part of ‘The Operation Desert’ to Nithya, she derived a peculiar sense of satisfaction associated with the feeling of revenge. And they awaited the next move from Prema to checkmate the trespasser.

 

Chapter 23

Poetic Justice

 

Ever since the countdown for the showdown with Vasu began, Nithya was feverish with anticipation. The very thought that Prema was all set to desert Vasu portending a double jeopardy for him pleased her, providing the cutting edge to her vengeance. As she was in reverie at the Princely Pearls that evening, the ringing tone of telephone brought her back into the environs. Going for the receiver, she wondered whether it was Prema on the line. However, it was Chandra who called up to inform her that he was held up with some work.

“How long would it be?”

“I can’t say,”

“If you can,” she said, “call on lawyer Sudha and find out the latest. Damn it, her line seems to be dead.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll also see if Sathya has returned.”

After Chandra hung up, Nithya’s thoughts turned to Sathya.

“Whatever happened to him!” she thought as she recalled Chandra describe him as a remarkable lover with a romantic face. Even as Nithya was seized with an urge to see Sathya, Chandra was puzzled about his long absence.

Later, when Chandra was through with his work, as he reached Sathya's flat, he found it locked to his disappointment but as he got back into his Fiat, to his delight, he saw Sathya coming down the lane.

“I just rang up for you,” said Sathya going up to him, “and your wife told me I can expect you.”

“I’ve come here thrice before looking for you and left a message every time,” said Chandra, reprimanding him. “I was wondering what happened to you.”

“Once you hear me,” said Sathya enigmatically, “you’ll know.”

“Let’s go to my place,” said Chandra.

“Your wife has already called me for dinner on your behalf,” said Sathya pushing Chandra into his dungeon, “and we shall move as I finish my tale.”

“Begin it then,” said Chandra as he sat down.

“If you remember,” said Sathya with a wry smile, “we last met here in the first week of December. Shortly thereafter, I was shocked to know from Rajah, my long-time friend that my father, well, he's a character all by himself, had put a private detective behind Kala. Well, the report only confirmed what she had confessed to me, and naturally  he was enraged. Believing she would marry me and carry on with her lover all the same, he vowed not to allow me to marry that bitch, as he called her. Hell-bent on bringing my affair to a close, he pressurized Rajah to go to Madras and appraise her lover about what was cooking on behind his back.”

“Oh God,” said Chandra, “it seems life never ceases to surprise you.”

“So it seems,” said Sathya and continued with his tale of surprises, “and sadly for me, Rajah acted at my father's bidding and met her uncle and warned him that he was on the verge of losing his woman. Well Rajah said that he thought it would be a good riddance for me if her man reined her in. Though I felt ditched at that, I couldn’t fault my friend’s intentions and that proved to be the turning point as I received a letter from her soon stating that her 'uncle' rang her up to enquire about her involvement with me and when she told him about her intention to leave him and marry me, he air-dashed to mend his fences with her. It seems he begged her not to leave him and agreed to solemnize their union at the altar.”

“What a testing time it was for her love really!”

“Well, this unexpected twist to the tale placed her in a dilemma,” said Sathya, “and she wasn’t prepared to tackle a like situation. Given her attachment to him and commitment to me, she wrote that she was unable to decide what to do and which way to go. As she had no heart to hurt him and had no mind to ditch me, she was at her wits’ end. Nonplussed to comprehend any solution, she wrote that she wished she were dead before she had to choose between us. That was the sum and substance of her stance and I never felt as hapless before.”

While Chandra was at a loss for any prompting, Sathya continued regardless.

 “Gathering my wits I wrote to her appealing to her sense of fairness,” said Sathya. “I questioned as to how she could go back on her word, leaving me in the lurch. I reminded her that I had walked out on my family and compromised myself at the office and wouldn’t I invite ridicule for her desertion? Though I pleaded for her understanding, from the tone of her letter and the tenor of her life, I could realize which way the wind was blowing.   When she didn’t respond and as my emotions turned wayward, I went on writing to her unceasingly, fretting and fuming alternately. But as she greeted me with stony silence, I realized what it was like sitting under the Damocles' sword    with a thin thread of hope separating life and death. I wonder how I didn’t turn mad with my ordeal of that fortnight.”

“Oh, shit,”

“When I received the post on New Year’s Eve,” said Chandra melancholically, “I opened it with a premonition only to find a greeting card staring at my face. With my heart in the mouth, I looked for an accompanying letter but to my dismay I found none. I could see the writing on the wall scripted by her silence and I realized that she had decided to hand me the wrong end of the stick. What a crass way for her to sign-off with someone who loved her more than himself! Well, if she wanted to desert me, didn’t I deserve a farewell word at least? Is it the same woman who I thought was an angel? I felt as though I’d lost my capacity to think and for the first time in my adult life, I cried that night in self-pity.

 “Whatever may be her compulsions,” said Chandra, “to say the least, her silence is abominable.” 

 “That's what I too thought,” said Sathya gloomily, “As I reviewed my tragedy as it evolved, the fact that she first flirted with me to attract and then used me to serve her life became apparent and that made me see a parallel in my life when I played the spoilsport in a neighbor girl's life. That night, I recalled how I treated that girl in a like fashion and thanks to my hurt, I could visualize the magnitude of misery I would’ve caused her and that has come to trouble me. With that sinking feeling and ashamed of myself, I started crying for the girl I wronged and stopped worrying about myself. I tell you, from that moment on, I was seized with an urge to beg her for her pardon.”

“Oh me,” said Chandra with a premonition.

 “And to be done with Kala,” said Sathya morosely, “I received the summons from the court on her plaint to annul the marriage and as I chose not to contest her contention, the curtains were down on that peculiar affair through an ex parte judgment in a Madras court.”

“What an unfortunate man you are!” exclaimed Chandra feeling sad. “How could she do to you what she did?”

“My friend, as I see it,” said Sathya enigmatically, “it was poetic justice at work more than anything else.”

“Before we come to that,” said Chandra still unable to comprehend the development, “I want to know, what you think of her now?”

“Honestly, I have had no thought of her afterwards,” said Sathya philosophically. “Why I’ve been obsessed with girl I wronged.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Chandra in surprise, “how it’s possible to forget Kala overnight!”

“Well,