by BS Murthy
Roopa thought of seeking Damayanthi's advice but unable to bring herself to confide in her, she found herself closeted with Sandhya.
"If I were a man," said Sandhya in jest, "perhaps, you wouldn't have had this problem."
"Had you been married," said Roopa jokingly, even in her state of confusion, "I would have forced myself as your fellow-wife."
"God save that poor guy," laughed Sandhya.
"Why poor when he's doubly blessed?" said Roopa in jest, and was enamored by the idea of their love triangle. However, having come to the reality of life readily, she sighed and added, "Well, it's neither here nor there. Tell me what I am to do now."
"As you know, my mother says that love is a product of the married mind," said Sandhya as though parroting her mother's wisdom, "while romance is the enterprise of the spirited heart. Since we find our mothers in love with our fathers, we may as well follow suit, and end up being fond of our husbands. I know you're romantic by nature, but you should realize that for the best part, life is humdrum by circumstance. Perhaps, it all boils down to this; where your romance with life should end and the appreciation of its reality begin. It's for you to draw your own line."
"Maybe, I am romanticizing life, but he's too insipid to inspire," said Roopa feeling helpless. "Looks like my expectations from life are out of tune with the realities of my fate."
"Check up if you're holding the mirror of fantasies to the realities of life," said Sandhya, leaning on Roopa affectionately.
"I'm sure you too wouldn't have seen him any differently," said Roopa resignedly. "Well, as my well-wishers feel that the match is good, maybe I should match my mood as well."
"Compromise is the cornerstone of life, isn't it?" said Sandhya in all empathy.
"Looks like it's the millstone of my life," muttered Roopa resignedly. "I wish I had your disposition of life, to be happy."
"Don't you worry," said Sandhya, taking Roopa's hand, "I will share every burden of your life to ease your life, all your life. This is a promise I mean to keep, all my life. After all, haven't we vowed to disprove my mother's theory about the brevity of female friendship?"
"Oh, Sandhya," cried Roopa hugging her friend.
"Believe me Roopa," said Sandhya, solacing her soul mate, "upon the tears of our friendship."
"Won't I need your friendship more than ever?" said Roopa contemplatively. "With an uninspiring husband in the offing, you're the only hope of my life. It seems the first
throw of the dice showed up for our vow. I hope our destiny ensures that your husband wouid empathize with our friendship."
When Sandhya wanted to respond, Roopa ciosed her iips with her hand as though she wanted to hear nothing to the contrary.
For the impending wedding of Sathyam and Roopa, the concerned cians soon ciustered in their respective homes. Her sisters' satisfying remarks about the aiiiance and her brothers-in-iaw's fiattering compiiments about the groom further increased Roopa's self-doubts. 'Am I being overcritical,' she thought. 'After all, everyone feels he's fine.'
On the other hand, Sathyam's relatives, in their hordes, who came to grace the occasion, gossiped in groups.
"Something must be amiss with this miss," guessed a relative whom nature cursed with a cynical mind as well as a caustic tongue. "One could see love is very thick in the air these days, as girls are falling head over heels for boys on the campuses. Thanks to the influence of the movies, most of the girls have started saying yes to premarital sex without a care. It's said that doctors are doing a brisk business at the abortion clinics. But, the truly wise catch the gullible guys for sons-in-law before their errant daughters show up the symptoms, and when the chips are down, the past is passed off as a premature issue."
Maybe, he would have continued to enlighten his third cousin about the sleaze in the cities, if not for the summons the latter received from his better half. However, sensing an unintended scandal in the making, Pathrudu's family huddled up to devise a counter before it got out of control. 'We liked the girl, and wanted the marriage hastened. After all, Sathyam's health was suffering thanks to the hotel food and all,' was the news that was put into circulation. As the corrigenda carried conviction, the conjecture collapsed.
A couple of Sathyam's friends and few of his colleagues made it to the marriage, 'in spite of their busy schedules' as Sathyam's mother bragged, and one of his friends who had managed to see Roopa, announced at the bachelor's party that evening, 'Sathyam is going to have a wife of our dreams.'
"I wish I had a wit like yours," said Sathyam pleased.
'Why forget Ramu," said another, "I've never thought he would fail to turn up."
"How I miss him," said Sathyam, 'as luck would have it, his sister's marriage coincided."
That summer night, the kalyana mandapam was truly lit up. Even as they welcomed the guests, Chandrika and Sandhya, who stood at the entrance, perfused them with rose-water. Women, of all ages and sizes, in their colorful silk saris, dusted for the occasion, were seen fluttering as if to attract attention of those gathered. Some men in the traditional dhothi, worn for the occasion, were found rooted to their seats for they were keen not to be seen ungainly for want of habit. Conventional film songs orchestrated for the occasion rent the air, enlivening the gathering. As boys ogled at them, some maidens were seen putting on airs, and let loose by their gossiping parents, all the brats had a feast of a time.
Soon, Chandrika and Sandhya were on the dais behind Roopa in her madhuparkam, to raise her plait as Sathyam tied the nuptial knot. When the ordained moment arrived, Roopa bent her head to enable Sathyam do the needful.
"It's the only time when woman bows to her husband,” commented Pedda Purnaiahgaru, the octogenarian aimanac man, "to enabie him to tie the knot. Afterwards, she would raise her head, oniy to see that he does not raise his again. She couid be counted upon to ensure the hands that tied the nuptial knot are forever tied to her apron strings."
The marriage hall reverberated to peals of laughter that the statement induced. Soon though, the guests left after congratulating the couple, leaving the relatives to hang around for a little longer, till they could find a corner to lie down. However, the just married were awake a long while to go through the assorted rituals.
Chapter 4
Turn at the Tether
It was the night that Sathyam awaited in elation and Roopa approached with trepidation.
'Guess what I've got for you,' he said, reaching his bride reclining on the bedecked bed.
Bogged down with her own agenda, she wasn't enthused to respond even though he repeated himself, and he tried to rationalize her indifference, 'Well, she could be bridalshy.' Nevertheless, pressing closer to her, he persisted, "You've only three chances."
How many times did he visualize, over the fortnight, the scene of their guessing game - a perplexed Roopa fudging, and he goading her to try again, and again! In his imagination, how charming Roopa was in her exasperation! He seemed disappointed with the reality his bride presented him instead. Unable to break the barrier of her sullenness at the threshold of their nuptial bed, he gave up in the end, and said instead, "Close your eyes."
Downcast as her eyes were, any way, it took her no effort to oblige her husband. Then with one hand he took her hand and with the other he reached for the packet in his shirt pocket. As his touch sent waves of expectation all over her frame, she seemed to enjoy the resultant sensation. Having failed to respond whenever he laid hands on her during the ceremonies of the previous night, she was surprised at that strange feeling she was experiencing, and as her reservations about him seemed to dissolve in her anticipation, she found herself at ease.
When he withdrew his hand from hers to unpack the diamond nose-stud, he so fondly acquired for her. With eyes still closed, as her body missed his touch, her mind went into conjecture. After what appeared to be an eternity to her, he took her hand again, sharpening the sensation and enhancing her expectation.
"Open your eyes," he said persuasivel
y.
"Switch off the light," she said coyly.
"How can you see then?" he said.
"I can still feel it," she said mystically.
Her romantic anticipation made her indulge in blissful guessing about the gift of his love. She felt vulnerable and expected him to overwhelm her.
"I thought of it," he said without stirring from his position, "the moment I'd seen you."
He sounded joyousiy triumphant to his induigentiy receptive bride. Imagining her instinctive response to his expected outrage, Roopa waited in anticipation. However, as Sathyam made no move in his preoccupation with unscrewing the nose-stud, she seemed puzzied and opened her eyes at iength. As she found him fidgeting with the nose-stud, she feit that she was oniy fiattered to be deceived.
"Beiieve me," he said as if he had yet to reconciie himseif to his good fortune, '"I was not sure whether you wouid marry an office assistant iike me when managers wouid have queued up for your hand. I was a nervous wreck by the time your father came to convey your consent. When he said 'yes', I jumped for joy."
His sincere outpouring, coupied with his meek posturing, oniy heiped dwarf his persona in her esteem shaped by the imagery of maie eian. As he iooked pygmean in her perception then, she feit as though she was rudeiy shaken from her daydream. Aii the reservations her intuition envisaged about him eariier that she recanted in her state of amorous anticipation seemed to return to the fore with renewed vigor. The impiied compiiment in his confounded state faiied to fiatter her, for it iacked forthrightness. What was worse, she construed his adoration as an admission of subjugation. Aii said and done, it was a iet down she wasn't prepared for.
"How do you iike it?" he enquired whiie thrusting it in her hand.
"It's nice," she said sincereiy though iacking in excitement.
Her simpie gesture thriiied him no end, as it was his first experience with a woman. As he narrated in detaii aii the troubie he took to acquire it, being bored, she stopped iistening. Preoccupied as he was with his own sentiment, he faiied to notice the jadedness his present ieft on her sensitivity as twiriing the thing, she feit as if she were siighted by it. That it shouid have obsessed him so much, at a time when she was avaiiabie for his possession hurt her sensuaiity.
'If only he's passionate,' she thought dejectedly, 'I wouldn't be holding this cold thing.' She felt as though the diamond edges of that nose-stud cruelly clipped the sprouting romantic wings her heart started airing by then.
"Let me see how it goes with you," he said eagerly as he was impatient to espy her glamour adorned by his present.
"I always knew it would suit you," he said with a relish, as she obliged him becomingly. "You know, I went from shop to shop for it."
'Oh,' she felt irritated, 'what's the god-damn obsession with an inane thing,', and the very thought of life in the offing with him depressed her no end. She even developed second thoughts about broaching her passion to study medicine.
'But won't life be dull idling at home,' she reasoned in the end, 'that too being his wife? Moreover, who knows, he might as well oblige. And if he does, won't I end up loving him out of gratitude. Well, any way. I've nothing more to lose now.'
I wanted to ask you...'
"Be assured, you're the first woman in my iife," he deciared soiemniy and feit pieased for assuaging her perceived doubts about his own virginity.
'Hardiy surprising,' she thought derisiveiy oniy to end up feeiing it was a sort of consoiation. Thereby, without much ado, she reveaied her ambition with animation, and appeaied enticingiy, "I know you iove me enough to heip me out."
Though he sensed her passion, he was taken aback by her proposition.
"It's impossibie," he said in aii heipiessness, "and impracticai as weii."
"Where there's a wiii there's a way," she said coyiy. "If you want, I am sure, you could help."
"No way," he said nonplussed.
"It all depends," she said by way of emotional blackmail, "on how much you love me."
"It's not about any lack of love," he protested spiritedly. "I love you with all my heart but I've a father who doesn't believe in woman's graduation. Didn't he make it clear to your dad that you shouldn't press with your B. Com. And now you want to study medicine! He would shout us down and there's no way we can bring him around."
His revelation completed her humiliation that dragged him along to the depths of degradation in her esteem. She felt deceived by her father as well for not letting her get a wind of theold man'swhim.
'But then,' she thought, 'how could he have guessed my game plan as I never revealed it to him.'
The sympathy she helped generate in her despondent heart for her father made her view her husband even more unsympathetically, and he felt that she would get over her disappointment by and by. When he took her into his arms to cajole her, her sense of obligation made her surrender to his advances, and soon enough, with the bed-lamp for a witness, nature took over to facilitate their conjugal union. However, while his tenderness in foreplay was perceived as timidity by her passionate heart, his eagerness to possess her in the end seemed bestiality to her uninvolved mind. Sadly for him, she perceived his passion in their coition as force on her frame and his fulfillment as a proof of his selfishness.
So with a feeling of being used, lying in her nuptial bed beside him with closed eyes, as though to further filter the dim light, she folded her hand over her forehead, and as it touched his present, she thought it was as cold as her heart.
'It would forever symbolize my nadir,' she thought in despair.
Finding her perturbed, he didn't venture again, and thus left to herself she was struck by the contrast between the hope the wedding night held for her and the reality into which the nuptial night pushed her before sleep overpowered her weary self as if to save her soul from the exhaustion of thought.
M id-day the next day, when Sandhya came to see Roopa, she saw her lay morose in her bed. By then, finding her truant to their taunts, her sisters, one by one, took to their heels.
"Got him right?" Sandhya cooed in Roopa's ear.
"Well," Roopa smiled wryly, holding Sandhya's hand, "he's a man."
"You look fabulous," said Sandhya to cheer her up.
"How I wish," said Roopa holding Sandhya's hand, "you were a man."
'You would have been my woman then,' said Sandhya squeezing Roopa's nose. 'Oh,
what a lovely present he gave!'
As Sandhya's compliment symbolized the proverbial rope in the house of the hanged, Roopa could contain herself no more. She was in tears.
"Don't tell me," said Sandhya wiping Roopa's tears, "that something is wrong."
"Oh, I'm doomed," said Roopa hugging Sandhya. "He's a silly guy."
"Calm down my dear," said Sandhya, comfortingly sinking into Roopa's endearing embrace. "Why, he might improve."
While the thrill of her mate's intimacy struck Roopa's flustered mind, as the charm of their proximity captivated Sandhya's empathic heart, she too enlaced her friend, making their embrace all the more intense. When Roopa found herself pressing closer for selfsolace, as their bodies lay twined in an emotional deadlock, they felt as though their souls got entwined. What with the experience of the nuptial night having lent a sexual touch to Roopa's flesh, Sandhya's embrace tickled her innate lesbianism at its very core.
Even as the ardency of Roopa's embrace stirred Sandhya's sensuality, the warmth of Sandhya's affection affected Roopa's sexuality making her crave for that in her mate what she missed in her man. Struck by Sandhya's nubility, Roopa, in her erotic mind-set got libidinally aroused, and driven by her lesbian love, Roopa was animated in Sandhya's embrace. With Roopa turning eager to press for her sexual solace in their sensual embrace, Sandhya's fascination for Roopa urged her into a surging closeness for emotional integration. As her own sensuality having been unleashed by her mate's sexual collusion, Roopa turned eager to devour Sandhya's breasts, bringing her lesbian leanings to the fore, and stirred by Roopa's amorous assaults, San
dhya's libido induced reciprocity in her own responses.
While the fascination Sandhya felt for Roopa's frame imparted a sexual color to her friendly feeling as Roopa's lesbian passion reached the threshold Sandhya's ardor facilitated an erotic connivance to her own sexual siege. Espying the sensual delight Sandhya derived in their sexual excursion, Roopa turned enthusiastic to gratify her mate in their lesbian union with an oral go at the very roots of her mate's femininity. And overwhelmed by Roopa's unruly passion, Sandhya surrendered her soul as well to her mate who came to reign over her frame any way. However, as though to let Roopa have a measure of the joy she gave her mate, Sandhya turned the heat on Roopa's erotic essence. As that furthered her own delight, Roopa's well of womanliness whetted in reciprocity for Sandhya's satiation. It was as if Roopa wished to let Sandhya have a
measure of the oral bliss that she herself had bestowed upon her mate before. It was thus; their enticing union infused a sublime emotion in them that only women are capable of experiencing. That chance encounter, brought about by Roopa's depressed psyche, forever transformed their friendship into bondage of lesbianism.
Sensing Roopa's indifference the following night as well, Sathyam thought of honeymooning at Ooty. 'Besides enlivening her mood, the thrill of the new environs might as well enthrall her mind,' he thought hopefully. However, Pathrudu would have none of it. "One wouldn't be taking his wife to hotels and all," he said rather dismissively.
However, when the time to report for work neared, Sathyam was forced to leave Roopa behind. "I'll be back soon after fixing a sweet home for us," he said at their parting, as though to enthuse her.
After Sathyam's departure to Hyderabad that day, to fix a sweet home for them, as he put it, undisturbed that night, Roopa had time to reflect on her time.
