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

Never Yours,

Prema.

‘Oh God!’ he collapsed, ‘I’m ruined.’

“Be a man, Vasu,” Nithya said tauntingly. “After all, being a woman, I didn’t cry when you left me in the lurch then. But, there’s still hope for you. If Chandra chooses to leave me, I may still come to you, of course, along with his child in my womb. You can have it as a bonus, won’t you? Moreover, there would be no need to spend on abortion as its no shame conceiving in marriage. Isn’t it?”

“Oh stop it,” said Vasu in exasperation. “Now it’s clear, you planned it all and took your revenge. You’d induced me to write that letter to use it for my ruin. You prompted me for our family friendship to turn Prema against me. Oh, how you poisoned her mind. You bitch!”

“Mind your language, Mister!” said Nithya contemptuously, “and then stop blaming me. Why, I was indifferent to you when we met again and I snubbed you when you came to my place to cajole me and yet you coveted me, didn’t you? Oh, how you had hinted at blackmailing me! You thought I would chicken out and come to sleep with you, didn’t you? Fool, did I ask you to write that your wife is cold? As you sow, so you reap, you better realize that?”

Vasu got up to leave.

 “Blame it upon your attitude towards women,” she said as he crossed the threshold of her house. “Blame it upon your lack of character. Blame it upon your mean nature.”

 “It pays to know that our nature is our fate.” Nithya said, slamming the door after him.

Publication Date: 01-27-2015

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Dedication:
If passing through youth was like crossing the mirage of life for Chandra and Nithya, it proved to be chasing the mirage of love for Sathya and Prema though for plain Vasavi, Chandra's pitiable sibling, it was the end of the road. As life brings Chandra, who suffers from an inferiority complex for his perceived ugliness, and Nithya, who was bogged down being jilted by Vasu, together, they script their fate of fulfillment. And as poetic justice would have it, Sathya, who caused Prema's heart burn, himself was led down the garden path by Kala, doing a "Sathya on Sathya". Just not that, life has in store just deserts for Vasu owing to Nithya's retribution as he tries to stalk her. Besides, after many a fictional twist and turn, the way the story ends, challenges the perception that fact is stranger than fiction. Begin now with the book - Youth is the mirror that tends us to the reality of our looks.