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

it has something to do with my nature,” said Sathya by way of self-analysis. “Once I’ve an agenda, I would strain all my nerves to work for it and should I fail to achieve, I     forget about that without any regret or remorse. I believed Kala was a jewel in the gutter of fate and I made it my mission to pull her out polish her with my love. Didn’t I pursue my goal with a missionary zeal? That’s what mattered to me then, and having failed, it matters no more. That’s all.”

 “But still.”

“Since you force me,” said Chandra after a pause, “I may remember her as a sort of guru for she made me realize how the fallacy of sentiment becomes the bane of life.”

“Oh, is there any better way of forgiving?” Said Chandra in admiration, “But still, isn’t it sad such a love got wasted?”

“I don’t think so,” said Sathya stoically. “I feel it’s the force of my love that pushed her towards her own goal. If not for the reality of our affair, perhaps, her lover wouldn’t have ever agreed to marry her. That way, my love would have served her cause. It appears that, in some men at least, the infidelity of the spouse acts as a tonic to boost their own love for the erring. It’s as if the thought that someone else values his woman, increases her worth in his own eyes! And also, the fact of her loving another man makes him crave to win back her love for him. So he tries to regain her favor by wooing her afresh to wean her away from his rival. When in the end, his positional advantage helps him to regain her, he feels vindicated. Maybe, that’s what would’ve made him tie the knot with her after all that dodging.’

“Why, it's possible,” said Chandra, “but was their wedding worth your suffering?”

“Why, it's worth much more than that,” said Sathya feeling indignant. “Amidst my tears, that New Year's Eve ushered in a new dawn in my life. I was hurt not so much for having been jilted by Kala, as for her having dragged me willy-nilly into the mess, involved as she was with another man. Had she declared upfront that her heart was occupied; I was no fool to fancy my chances of winning her mind. If not for her flirting, would have my budding desire for her   blossomed into an overriding passion? Surely, I wouldn’t have come to grief in the end if I had known her mind in the beginning. As I told you, I always romanticized winning a woman in unrequited love, unable to get over her past to look into the future. Why, that’s the impression Kala gave me while actually carrying on with him, love or no love, but with the idea of sticking to him if only he called her bidding. But, as you felt before now I realize I was a victim of her idea to have a second string to her bow, just in case.”

“Somehow, it all looked fishy to me from the beginning.”

“Whatever, in that hour of my tragedy,” said Sathya with tears gushing out from his eyes, “I could see the poetic justice of it all, for the girl who loved me, and whom I lost. As I told you, now I’m seized with an urge to meet and seek her forgiveness. So to say, I’m being consumed by the passion for her forgiveness. That’s the sole mission of my life now and I don't wish to die before she pardons me.”

“Your life seems to be the puzzle of fate,” said Chandra smelling a rat. “Wonder how it gets solved in the end. I’m curious really.”

“Oh, beautifully said,” said Sathya getting up. “Better we put a little spirit into our souls as well.”

“If it’s a round or two it should be fine,” said Chandra checking the time. “I hope you won’t mid telling me the other story as well.”

 

Chapter 24

Agony of Penitence

 

“I was born in Konaseema,” began Sathya as they had their first sip of Old Monk for a change. “It was where I spent much of my childhood and as for my adolescence it was coursed in Kakinada. When I was twelve, my father was transferred there and we were set up in a neighborhood dominated by a well-heeled man with varied interests with a sprightly daughter, two years my junior. It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale isn't it, well, but for my conceit, the end would have been no different.

As he took a liking for me, I used to spend a lot of time with him and he used to enlighten me about everything under the sun as his daughter used to hang around a lot. When I was in the school final, it was through the accidental touch of our bare knees that exposed us to the sensations of adolescence, but that was that, at least for then. 

 That summer, a relative of mine, who was close to me, came visiting us. When we were passing that neighbor’s house, as she hailed ‘hello’ from her first floor room, my relative asked me whether she was my lover. When I said it was not the case, he said her warmth in her manner was oozing with love for me. When I sought to dismiss him saying that he must be imagining things, he said that it only showed that I didn’t reach the stage to scan the picture of affection the eyes of maidens hold for their lovers. You can imagine how curious and expectant that could have made me, a boy of barely fifteen that I was then. Oh how tempting it was to verify the veracity of his surmise or finding whatever then and there but it was only in the evening that I got my chance.

  I found her lying in her room and as I sat on the edge of her cot, she asked me whether I was in love with someone. Courtesy my relative, I could read the statement of her love in her enquiry but not wanting to lose out on the fun in the offing I replied evasively. When she narrated how she had loved me all along though unsure about my feelings for her, I assured her of my liking her but came to admire her for her conviction of love. When I reached to kiss her eagerly, she parted her lips impulsively and, oh, how divine she tasted! After necking and petting her to my heart’s content, I left her, satisfied and excited as well. It was the first time I had ever got so close to a girl, and it was such a thrill! But somehow I didn’t fall in love with her, maybe because she bestowed her affections much before I started valuing them. Whatever, till that night of poetic justice, I thought I was very smart in dealing with her that day.

“And from then on, on and off, I used to meet her, to steal some memorable moments. But never did I allow myself to press her for the final favor. Maybe, I was too young to want sex, or I didn’t wish any complications for either of us. Yet, I made tentative enquiries with some classmates about contraceptives, but to no avail. And you know the level of our sexual awareness at that age in those days.

“But as I got into the PUC, I developed a calf-love for my classmate, well, nothing came out of it, but still that pushed that girl farther on the backburner. Then I went to Ranchi after my PUC to join the BIT, and we were further distanced, even when I went home for the Dasara, bogged down with friends, I ignored her by and large. Sadly, as I feel now, I didn’t even bother to tell her about the date of my return journey but when I went again for Christmas, she told me that the last time she had been awake to see me leave for the railway station at two in the morning. Moved by that, I realized how I took her love for granted and it was then that my liking for her transformed into an adoration leading to love, well, by then I was through that calf-love. You can imagine how we both would've been moved as we looked at each other at the dead of that night as I left for the railway station after the vacation. Oh, how her eyes glowed as she waved me goodbye. But, as fate had willed it, literally it turned out to be the goodbye from her.

“Oh, God,” Chandra blurted out.

“When I came back for the summer recess,” Sathya resumed animatedly, “it was as if the heat had turned on me. Even as I was rushing to see her, someone told me, on purpose, that she got close to a boy of our locality and that she had been to the movie Ave Kallu with her beau the other day. Disturbed at what I heard, I enquired with her about the veracity of it all.”

While she owned up her affair with that character, she told me that she too was privy to the affairs of my heart. When I said that we could make a new beginning, she told me she didn’t love me anymore but what pained me more than her rejection was her averment that as long as she was in love with me, she had great hopes about her life and after what had happened, she wouldn’t care two hoots about her own life. While I wanted to keep all that behind us, sadly, she told me she was not worthy of me anymore, having already given herself to that guy. It was a great blow to me too, as by then; I began loving her like as an adult as insensibly her devotion to me dwarfed my calf-love for another. You can imagine how wretched it could be losing her not only for my sake but for hers as well and so feeling guilty and being helpless, I stepped aside as she carried on with him.”

“How wrenching could be that feeling?” said Chandra having got a clear picture of it all by then.

‘It was of my own making for I failed to make her see the depth of my love for her,’ said Sathya remorsefully. ‘But, given my nature, I got on with my life, and the whole thing went into the backyard of my memory. Anyway, we remained friends, though we never talked about our past and it was my argument that made her father to relent in his objection to her marrying that guy. Since my parents too shifted out of Kakinada shortly thereafter, I lost contact with her altogether. As we do have some common friends, now I’m in the lookout for them. Oh, how all these years I treated that as a missed opportunity at the best, and a failed affair at the worst. Never did I realize that I was the villain of her life. But, that night, in the hour of my ruin, while visualizing the source of her trauma I had a measure of mine own meanness.”

“What about her pain?” Chandra couldn’t help but say. “Could you ever visualize it?”

“Why, it's my grasp of her pain that's the source of my shame,’ said Sathya holding back his tears that had filled his eyes by then. ‘If only I was honest to tell her about my infatuation for my classmate, she wouldn’t have nursed false hopes on me, would she have? If only she knew about my love for another, what if it's a calf-love, she wouldn't have hoped to convert my tentative interest in her into an abiding love for her, and had I been truthful, she would’ve reined in her heart to keep her nascent love a sweet memory of youth to be cherished