Crossing the Mirage Passing through Youth

by welcome

  place!”

  “What!” she exclaimed looking at the gate.

  “I thought it"s his house,” he said equally surprised.

  “How long have you known each other?” she said having come to see Chandra"s good

  turn.

  “We met only recently,” he said unable to make head or tail of the equation.

  “Oh, I see, step into our small world,” she said in delight.

  “How kind of him that he brought me to the threshold,” said Sathya smelling a rat, and

  went in behind her.

  “I told him our story without naming you,” she said.

  “Now I see,” said Sathya sitting in the sofa, “he made it two plus two after hearing my

  version of it. What a lovely way he made us meet!”

  “I"m glad you still recall our saga,” she said, sitting by his side.

  “Can either of us ever forget it?” he said and added in apparent hurry. “I"m dying to tell

  you something. When is Vasu expected?”

  “He won"t be back till a week,” she said all smiles. “So you"ve all my eyes and ears till

  then.”

  “Thank you,” he said smilingly, “but I won"t bore you for that long.”

  “Hope you don"t mind if I engage you as long,” she said, going into the kitchen. “Let"s

  have some coffee first.”

  “It is ages since I had anything from your hand,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

  “Haven"t you got married?”

  “I failed to induce any.”

  “Don"t tell lies,” she said heartily, “you ladies" man!”

  “Don"t you know I"m unlucky in love?” as he said, his manner mirrored the sadness of

  his heart.

  “Don"t be so mean,” she said equally affected by his manner. “Why don"t you say we"re

  unlucky in love?”

  “I was blind to your beauty when you loved me,” he said as he sighed. “And when I

  could visualize your charms, you opted to get out of my sight, that"s the crux of my

  tragedy.”

  “Don"t you realize the same was the case with me?” she said sounding sad. “I craved for

  you when you were tentative and shunned you as you were insistent.”

  “To tell you the truth,” he began tentatively, “I realized only recently how my conceit

  would"ve affected your life. It took the meanness of a woman to make me realize how mean

  I was to you. It was a sort of poetic justice for you that made me cry in shame and regret all

  that night. Ever since, I was dying to tell you that fate had paid me back in the same coin. I

  hope you will care to listen, at least this time.”

  “I"m sorry on both counts,” she said melancholically. “Don"t I know that not giving you

  my ear then was the cause of my ruin? How I rued that mistake I only know. Maybe, I

  owed it to my horrible fate. Barring that accursed time, I always felt your fortunes and

  misfortunes are mine as well. Oh, tell me what happened?”

  As Sathya narrated the tale of his unrequited love, Prema saw the mirror images of her

  past agonies.

  “It"s thus fate made it even for me,” he said in the end. “Now it"s up to you to forgive

  me.”

  “Oh, your suffering was ethereal for its purity of love and the spirit of sacrifice,” she

  said moved herself. “But my predicament was all about hurt pride fouled up by spite.”

  “Whatever it was,” he said, “you"d undergone what you"d undergone because of me. I

  seek your forgiveness if you don"t feel the same bitterness now.”

  “I"ve always felt you"ve a heart of gold and the soul of a saint, in spite of that sin that

  is,” she said holding his hand. “I'm happy that my belief in you is proved right.”

  “Your understanding is heartening,” impulsively he went on his knees to her. “But it"s

  your forgiveness that I seek.”

  “Get it straight from my heart,” she said, pushing his head onto her bosom.

  “You don"t know,” he said, resting his head on her bust, “how tiring it is forever losing

  in love.”

  “I"m sorry for you,” she pressed him further.

  “Have you forgiven me for my sin?” he asked looking into her eyes.

  “Kiss me,” she said, lifting his head and reaching for his lips, “like you kissed the first

  time.”"

  So to retrieve their lost souls, they found themselves digging with their tongues in deep

  kissing. And then the phone rang as though to prevent a premature beginning to their

  momentous reunion.

  “It"s Prema here.”

  “Nithya calling, am I disturbing?”

  “Benefactors won"t disturb,” said Prema joyously, “do they?”

  “How"s the bonanza of love?” said Nithya, unable to restrain herself.

  “Oh what a dream Chandra scripted for us,” said Prema in the same vein. “Sathya

  wants to thank him.”

  “Hi Sathya!” said Chandra at the other end.

  “Why, don"t I count anymore?” said Prema who still held on to the receiver.

  “I know you"ve got your right count,” said Chandra. “I"m happy for you really.”

  “Didn"t I tell you,” said Prema, “you and Sathya have many things in common?”

  “Thank you for repeating it,” said Chandra.

  “Well, Sathya is impatient,” said Prema.

  “I am indebted to you,” said Sathya to Chandra, “for helping me to unburden myself.”

  “What about crossing the mirage?” asked Chandra.

  “I"m bogged down with tears.”

  “Then let me speak to Prema.”

  “Hello, tell me,” said Prema.

  “Do hold on,” said Chandra. “Nithya says now it"s her turn.”

  “Why not yourself lead him to the oasis?” said Nithya all the while sharing the receiver

  with Chandra.

  “Well, my tears of joy are shaping one!” said Prema.

  “Make it big enough for bathing in love,” said Nithya laughingly. “Good night.”

  “I"ll tell you tomorrow,” said Prema coyly, “and good night for now.”

  “Tell me about you,” said Sathya as Prema had hung up.

  “Discourse after dinner.”

  “I"m hungry for both.”

  Prema after dinner bared her soul and detailed Vasu"s character.

  “I thought marriage would"ve changed him,” he said feeling sad for her predicament,

  “and you could be happy yourself. I"m sorry for your misery.”

  “Maybe, I deserved this fate,” she said in tears. “Oh, why did I reject you out of hand?”

  “It was natural after all,” he tried to lighten her burden.

  “I didn"t realize I was cutting my nose out of spite for you.”

  “Now that we know our minds,” he said, “we'll be less bitter about it all.”

  “Mud head,” she tapped on his head. “I think I"m destined to take the initiative when it

  comes to us. I"ve filed for divorce and hope to be single soon enough. Won"t you like to

  marry me after I"m free, and make me yours in the meantime?”

  “Oh, really!” he said as he hugged her in ecstasy, “what a windfall to our love at your

  seductive best!”

  As she melted in his embrace, he lost no time in making her crouch on the couch to

  enter the arena of her longing. At length, fulfilled, as she stretched her limbs, satiated, he

  lay outstretched on her.

  “Oh, God, I now know the true meaning of sex for a woman," she said, smelling

  Keo-Karpin in his hair. „Sex seems to be more real for a woman than all the pining of her

  love. Had you had me that
first day, the latter-day aberrations wouldn"t have disturbed our

  equation. What a pity, all your loving entreaties failed to sway me away from Vasu for I

  had had sex with him by then.”

  She kept mum as if atoning for her folly while he reminisced over the night of Kala"s

  advances.

  “Strangely sex seems to affect the sexes differently,” she continued. “The more a man

  has a woman, the more he finds his urge waning. And woman"s attachment to her man

  deepens with sex though it"s a case of diminishing returns for her body. Oh, how men of

  lust tend women into sex as men in love long for their heart! It"s the tragedy of woman that

  if she gives in to the lusting, either she gets jilted to her hurt or lies trapped in a deadlock of

  wedlock.”

  “In that case,” said Sathya in surprise, “with Kala was it not a wild-goose chase for me?”

  “Why, you had your chance with her,” said Prema continuing in the same vein. “I"m

  sure you"d lost her the night you declined her final favor. Had you had her then, I"m sure

  you would"ve been in the reckoning in the crunch situation. Well, depending on how you

  appealed to her in bed, you would"ve weighed in her mind. But fortunately for us, it"s a

  case of two wrongs becoming a right, isn"t it?”

  “Maybe, you"re right about her,” said Sathya, tapping her lips. “But what"s the feedback

  from you?”

  “If you haven"t found it cold,” she said leaning onto him, “won"t that answer your

  question?”

  “It"s like I was in a hot chamber.”

  “Can"t I count on your coolant to curb its heat?”

  “Won"t your charms keep up my supply lines?”

  “Here"s my fresh indent,” she pushed her breast into his mouth as a prelude.

  In their newfound love, reluctant to part with each other, they slept in each other"s arms

  at the exhausted end of that night.

  Life of a Kind

  Waking up at eight, Prema sprang to her feet to ring up her friend and as Nithya was

  waiting for her call, she answered the call by the first ring itself.

  “What a coup in the making!” a joyous Nithya soon appraised Chandra about the

  development and its import on the final act.

  “Don"t get carried away and spill the beans,” Chandra cautioned her. “Let it pass off as

  a twist of destiny.”

  After speaking to Nithya, Prema sat down to draft a new twist to Vasu"s destiny. At

  length, she went to Sathya only to find him stirring in the bed. When she sat on the bed to

  wake him up, he pulled her into his arms.

  “I wish we begin afresh,” he said winking at her.

  “Won"t you help me end this chapter first?” she said smug in his embrace.

  “Only as a sequel,” he said squeezing her hip.

  At length, as they got up for the day, she went into the kitchen.

  “There are things to sort out right away,” said Prema as they had their coffee.

  “Assign my duties,” he said, “and the responsibilities.”

  “Like Kala before me,” said Prema deliberately, “I want to acquire a fresh wardrobe.”

  “You"re welcome.”

  “Likewise,” she said, “I want to shed him off all that my father gave us.”

  “Why to go to such lengths?” said Sathya a little taken aback.

  “Well, it"s my whim?” she said spiritedly.

  “But still.”

  “Stop being considerate to all and sundry,” she said unrelenting. “Won"t it do that I gift

  them away to the needy of the neighborhood?”

  “It"s a point of view.”

  “Let"s put the car on sale,” she said in the same vein. “And donate the proceeds to some

  orphanage.”

  “Rob Peter to pay Paul.”

  “Why forget he robbed your honey to butter his bread?”

  “I wonder how your parents will react,” he said coming to reality.

  “Can"t you imagine?” she told him assuredly. “Don"t you know how they wanted me to

  be your wife? It would be better late than never for them.”

  “What a day it would be!” he said dreamily.

  “Our wedding day!” she smiled coyly.

  “That be our own day,” he said taking her into his arms, “for the rest of our life.”

  “I wish we will be around,” she said sinking into his embrace, “to celebrate the golden

  jubilee.”

  “Well, the law of averages might help,” he said hopefully, “for the way we have

  suffered so far.”

  “It"s my promise,” she said lovingly. “I will strive to make you happy every day of

  those fifty years.”

  “Are you on the pill or what?” he asked tentatively.

  “It didn"t happen that"s all.”

  “Hope our aggregate improves,” he crooned into her ear.

  “Am I not desperate to bear your child?” she said happily. “But for now think of the job

  on hand.”

  “You cover the neighborhood and I"ll go round the town,” he said giving her his hand.

  “Is it okay?”

  “Get me light blue lingerie for our first night in your flat,” she said coyly, “that is, after

  dinner at the Chandras. Well I forgot to tell you that we're invited as a couple.”

  “Made for each other I suppose,” he said and added in undertone, “what about the

  made for you uppers and lowers?”

  “Don"t forget to pick up some petticoats as well,” she said aloud after whispering in his

  ears.

  That evening, dumping the purchases at his flat, they set out for dinner at the

  Honeycomb.

  “You're an expert,” said Sathya watching her drive.

  “Are you any less,” she said winking at him, “in handling the fair sex.”

  “Don't you make much of it?” he said feeling flattered.

  “Oh, how kind is God to us!” she said dreamily.

  “Of the rarest kind, isn"t it?”

  “How I felt like praying to God to get you back,” she said nostalgically. “But I didn"t

  dare after all that.”

  “Assuming there is God,” he said philosophically, “He's not amenable to your prayers.

  I've come to realize that.”

  “Have you become an atheist or what!” she said struck by the conviction of his tone.

  “As I told you,” he began nostalgically, “I believed Kala was a mislaid jewel to be

  retrieved with my love, and understandably, I turned to God for help. And for over a year,

  though the deities differed, my prayer remained the same: oh, God make me the means of

  her happiness! And how fervently I used to pray! Believe me, my own fulfillment through

  marriage was never in my mind. Wonder how I could become so selfless in my endeavour!

  Why, the singularity of the appeal and the constancy of my prayer had to be seen to be

  believed! It was nothing short of a tapasya.”

  “I can see from your face,” she said stopping the car by the roadside as her eyes welled

  up, “your capacity to love. Why I couldn"t see it then when I snubbed you? Maybe I've

  noticed that with my mind's eye, if not why did that look of yours come to solace me ever

  since?”

  “Won"t we make up Prema!” he said wiping her tears.

  “Now that God has willed it,” she said, “I know we will.”

  “Well,” he said stoically, “when I failed with Kala, it made me introspect about the

  power of prayer over the will of God. Could there have been a more worthy cause and a

  selfless prayer than mine? Yet, why d
id God dispose of my proposal! For all I know, God is

  but a myth and even if there is one I've realized, he would only grant that which He thinks

  fit and not what we might pray for. Any way you look at it, we can"t bend His will through

  prayer and if there is none, well, it's a waste of time.”

  “Maybe your theory,” she said as she steered the car back on to the road, “leaves no

  scope for anything contrary.”

  “It was then I turned to the Bhagavad Gita only to find it was all there in it to the last

  detail,” he said in apparent admiration for it and added, “It"s the tragedy of man that he

  doesn"t benefit from the existing wisdom.”

  “How true,” she said, “but do tell me about life in Calcutta.”

  “I don"t know why,” he began reminiscently, “but the Howrah Bridge always fascinated

  me ever since I"d seen it in the title movie starring Madhubala. It"s a different matter that

  her love story is no less fascinating than her persona, and her life as poignant as her death,

  at only thirty-six. You know what a fan of hers I was but you don't know that I mourned

  her death like a lover, as you know, I was in Ranchi then.”

  “I was no less lovelorn then,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe, the saving grace of

  unrequited love is that it makes a fascinating story. And what an irony that is!”

  “True, but our story of rediscovery” he said lovingly, “makes it a fairy tale really.”

  “Isn"t it written all over our faces?” she said joyously. “Now continue with your

  Calcutta.”

  “That morning when I first set foot there,” he resumed, “I was awestruck finding the

  cantilever bridge right across the railway station. As I crossed it in a cab, I was overawed by

  its awesome grandeur. Many times over, I used to saunter on it only to experience a

  peculiar sense of solace looking at the Hooghly down below. Come evening and all that

  would change. The sprawling structure becomes a hindrance to those who have to catch the

  trains that leave the Howrah station around that time. The traffic jams that stretch up to

  miles send people in the cabs and cars alike into jitters. But the ingenuity of the coolies

  provides escape routes for those who"re willing to venture out. With your baggage as head

  load in their bamboo trays, with you in tow, they meander their way over the bridge to the