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

of them, he still had all her body for his use. What with her man acquiescing to her frequent outings, she had no qualms to suffer from in her wantonness and that enabled her to bestow her amorous best on men she came to entertain. Since that fetched her better price for her amorous services, ironically, it helped her serve her man’s cause even better. And it was at this juncture that Chandra came into her life.

While Prathima found him odd to look at, she was truly fascinated by his prowess at lovemaking. As she turned eager towards him, so he sought her at every turn and that made them feel that both needed each other for their gratification.  So, she signed off the peon and came to be tied up to him. Devoid of the distractions, she began to enjoy his lovemaking even more and soon enough to his delight turned a devil in the bed. Thus, while he found an admiring lover in her, she felt valued by his constancy to her company. As the intimacy of their union made her throw caution to the winds in their coition, it was only time before she missed her periods.

“I’m carrying,” she said that evening.

“Congrats, though that would leave me starving,” he said, and counting on his fingers added in mock desperation. “Let me see from when to when…”

“You don’t seem to get it,” she said hesitantly. “You are its father.”

“How do you feel about it?” he asked tentatively.

“I would rather abort it.”

“After all, you’re married,” he said in surprise. “What’s the problem then? I’ll provide for you both for the rest of your life.”

“Thank you, but …”

“What is the hitch?”

“It’s risky still.”

“What risk?”

“Why, of its exposure.”

“I don’t get you.”

“What if the child is after you,” she said sinking into his embrace as though to soothe his hurt from her comment, “given your features, it won’t pass, and that’s my predicament.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Don’t be upset,’ she said turning amorous. ‘No one deserves better to be the father of my child than you, physically and emotionally speaking, that is. If only I'm your wife, it would’ve been different.”

“Well,” he said, turning melancholic.

And for once, he failed to respond to her eager advances. That night, as his old doubts, till then overshadowed by his exploits, resurfaced, Chandra went into contemplation.

‘Her comment hurts, but how can I fault her for that?’ he thought. ‘It’s not about the abortion; it’s her affair, after all. But her reasoning is disconcerting, isn’t it? Well, what if, justifying her fears, the child turns out to be ungainly? Though her husband may turn a blind eye, won’t that compromise her with others? As she herself said, had she been my wife it would have been a different matter. Why, we met rather late for that, have we not? It won’t be long before I take a wife, and what if, as feared, my children were to be born ugly?’

What with that very thought repulsing him, he ceased to think about it. But, as his habit took over, soon he resumed his soliloquy in melancholy.

‘Why then it would be the same old story of misery to my progeny and me, not to speak of my wife,’ he began to think. ‘And burdened, I shall live with guilt for the rest of my life. No, I shan’t allow that to happen. No way. What about being unmarried? Well, it’s not always that some Prathima would find her way into my life. Why won’t I get fed up being single sooner than later like my sister? Well, won't I need a relationship that only a wife can provide? I need a wife, yes, but children, no. Is it in any way possible that I can have the cake and eat it too?’

And contemplating on this, he racked his brains all night and hit upon a brainwave at length.

‘What if I opt for pre-nuptial vasectomy?’ he thought in relief. ‘Can’t I manage that though the law prohibits it? What can’t be done with money and manipulation in this world?’

As his thoughts turned to his bride-to-be, his conscience was seized by his qualms.

‘Oh, it won’t be fair to her,’ he thought. ‘Any woman would want to be a mother, is it not so? What’s worse, being barren for no fault of hers, she might even feel inadequate all her life. And won’t that make it worse for me morally speaking? And if ever the cat were to be out of the bag, it would be hard on our relationship too. No welcome prospect, either way. That’s not workable anyway, so I’m back to square one. Well, let me think about that when it’s time to cross the bridge.’

The realization that even ingenuity cannot find ways to impact certain facts of life made him morose. Affected as he was, he turned lukewarm to Prathima’s charms, though she warmed up to him by going out of her way in every way. When he finally ceased meeting her altogether, she felt sad for both of them.

‘Can’t I understand his hurt?’ she reasoned. ‘He too should’ve appreciated my situation. Oh, how the best of relationships skate but on thin ice. But was it not a satisfied life with him as long as it lasted? Now let me get on with my life as he would be getting on with his.’

While she had to put her pimp back into circulation for solicitations, Chandra continued to remain embittered. Soon, however, to console himself in solitude, in the evenings, he began frequenting the Public Garden. Even as the ambience of the place brought back the post-Kamathipura equanimity to his harassed soul, wading through the sprawling park to abandon himself to hope became his pastime. However, as though to aid his solitude, he spotted a secluded spot, and in that nook that he began to nurse his hope of his future wife.

But, fed up by her son’s prevarication over the wedding proposals, one day Anasuya threatened to fix one on her own. Then, Chandra could see the writing on the wall and so he ran to his favorite spot as if for cover. There he began applying his mind to arrive at the final solution.

‘What sort of a wife could I possibly get?’ he thought. ‘Given my appearance, it’s hard to get a beauty. And going by my inclinations, some plain woman wouldn’t go well either. What a Gordian knot for my nuptial knot!’

But, when he saw a commonplace character with an uncommonly beautiful woman peep over the shrubs, he felt as though he had a revelation. ‘So, it’s not as if all the pretty women get tied up only with handsome guys,’ he reasoned. ‘It seems the impulses of the heart have to play second fiddle to the realities of life at times. It appears that in the shadow of fate, life makes a conundrum of confusion as well as contradiction.’

 ‘Were I to land up in a pretty lap, what could possibly come out of it?’ he tried to picture his future as he had seen rays of hope for his married life. ‘Won’t I lap up her beauty greedily? Oh, I would for sure, but what about her? Being laid blaming her fate, she might as well nurse remorse for me, wouldn’t she? Who knows, she might curse herself for having to live with me. But probably, she too would reconcile herself to her destiny and to me as well. It seems that if only a man is lucky to marry a woman of his liking, nature would mould her to be glued to him. Force of habit and the bondage of offspring would only cement the relationship further. Won’t it seem marriage boils down to mere chance?’

As the theory of hope excited him, so the theorem of apprehension pulled him down.

‘But in my case, even if chance induces its dice to show up its full face,’ he began to think, ‘for all that, my vas could still play the spoilsport. Why not I neutralize its potential for mischief before all else? Oh, it’s like cheating my vas before it could cheat me! As for my bride, what if she herself is infertile? Who ever knew the proclivities of fate! Isn’t it the final solution?’

Shortly thereafter Chandra rested for a week to get over his ‘weariness’.

 

Chapter 7

Naivety of Love

 

 

That evening as Chandra ventured into the Public Garden, he found his bearings back in the moorings. When he reached his cherished nook, he spotted a girl seated there, with her back to him and with her head buried in her knees. Though his decency demanded retreat, goaded by her appeal in that posture, he tiptoed up to her. Realizing that she was lost in her thoughts to take note of him, he went nearer to her to gauge her visage but couldn't espy her face as she failed to react to his trespass.

However, from that nearness, as the contours of her waist confirmed her teenage and even as her skin began to merge with the color of the setting sun, he stood rooted ogling at her charming back. But when the sun was all set to envelope her slim frame in his shadow, he lounged on the lawn to escape her attention. As though fearing oblivion, and to register their presence for the last time in the day, the nearby bushes began casting their long shadows on the glistening lawn. And that made Chandra eager to get the full measure of her persona before the darkness devoured the vestiges of the vanishing light.

While she got up in grace, as if compelled by his urge, having come out of his trance, he was awestruck by her face. But as her figure too vied for his attention, he felt ennobled by the embodiment of her poise. When she skimmed her sari at her navel and then like a ballerina, she bent at her knees to let the fall of her sari kiss the ground beneath her feet, he ogled her in disbelief. Unknown to her, as he watched her enthralled, she half raised her heels to tuck it under. Seeing her straighten herself to outstretch the fall over her heels, he felt she might be intending to erase her footprints off the ground she would be treading. As she slipped her lithe feet into her velvet slippers, even as his enamored eyes continued to court the contours of her curves, the languid moon seemed all too eager to have a glimpse of her resplendence.

 When she bent to pick up her purse, Chandra’s eyes, which had by then grasped the form of her frame, began grappling with the appeal of her seat. When she straightened herself, he got up impulsively, as though to pay obeisance to her angelic self and even though he watched her thereafter, lost to himself, startled by his presence, she stared at him in bewilderment and bowed her head in embarrassment. However, recovering herself readily, she passed by him hurriedly, but crossing the ridge, she turned her head, as though in disbelief. And finding his eyes glued on her, she increased her pace to avoid his stare but soon, sensing that he wasn’t following her, she felt easy. But as his thoughts chased her all the same, she became uneasy and hastened to the exit. It was thus into the twilight, she slipped out of Chandra’s sight that evening. 

‘An angel if there is on,’ Chandra thought as if he woke up from a dream. ‘Oh, what feminine aura she has! And how sexy she looks! Her fulsome seat is so enticing, isn’t it? What a gait even in shock! Sadly, she is gloomy. It’s clear she’s perturbed! Why, was she jilted? But would anyone lose such a woman? Well, who knows! What if I woo and win her?’

The impulse that the prospect created propelled him to follow her. But, Nithya, that's her name, reached the gate well before he could step out of that nook.