by BS Murthy
'How am I to ieave you now?' she protested.
'Right now,' he said embarrassediy, 'to be honest. I'm uncomfortabie with you even.'
'I'ii be in the haii,' she said, 'caii me if you need something.'
'At ieast, he drinks to iighten his burden, and he deserves it as weii. But what about me?' she feit, reciining in the sofa, and began to picture her future. 'What couid possibiy come of the scandai? He's sure to iose his job, and might find himseif behind the bars even. Oh, how that wouid ruin him and ridicuie me. What have I done to deserve aii this? Oh God, what's wrong with my iife? How iong I have iived in a void for want of iove, and then, that yeariong pining in passion. At iong iast, when I'm happy, here's this tragic turn.'
'Won't high connections heip?' she thought at iength. 'Can Ranga Reddy come to our rescue? Isn't he known to be close to the Home Minister? Even otherwise, won't the case be hushed up, as the bigwigs are involved, no less than the Finance Minister? Perhaps our fears could turn out to be liars.'
At that, she went up to Sathyam to show him the silver lining, and found him still at drink.
'How I wish it comes to that,' he said, even a little relieved.
'I'm sure all this is bound to fizzle out in the end,' she said, sounding music to his ears. 'Don't we see, the reports of enquiry commissions whitewashing the scandals involving politicians. I'm sure this won't be any different.'
'God willing, we would get the hell out of time,' he said excitedly. 'We will go to Tirupati and I'll get tonsured.'
'Whatever may be the itch,' she ruled for the future, 'never ever grease your palms.'
'It's a promise,' he said taking her hand, 'I won't undergo all this for anything. I'll resign my job and get into some business with that money.'
'Leave aside morals,' she said, thoughtfully, 'I think you deserve to keep the booty, if only for your motive behind grabbing it. And no less, for the way you're suffering. Now let me call them so that you too can divert your mind.'
'As you've given me hope,' he said, 'let me relax over a large. Why not you to their place and spend some time with Sandhya.'
'I better do that,' she said, changing her sari 'But do mind about your drink.'
In time, as he drank out that large, it dawned on Sathyam that the calamity of the moment had brought Roopa emotionally closer to him than ever before. With his spirits having soured thus, as if to steady himself, he made himself one more 'large one'.
Having dragged her feet all the way to Sandhya's house, finding it under lock and key, a disappointed Roopa, nursing hopes of their early return, clung on to the gate for long. At length, however, caught between hope and despair, she felt as if her head was splitting into half.
'Oh, what a miserable day,' she thought in the end, as her weary legs took the homeward path.
At length, as she reached home in disappointment, she sank into the sofa in exhaustion. However, in time, gripped by an impulsive need for company, to shed her melancholic overburden, she went up to Sathyam, and found him emptying the bottle into his glass.
'Why don't you stop that god-damn drink,' she said in irritation in spite of herself, 'and start showing some concern for me?'
'There's no way I can help you now,' he said apologetically, 'why don't you help yourself with a drink or two?'
'Why not,' she said without second thoughts, 'if that makes it a little easier for me?'
When she returned with a glass, he looked at her amused, and as she poured for herself from the fresh bottle, he stared at her wide-eyed.
'Oh, haven't I failed you all these years,' he said, clinking her glass for 'cheers'. 'Besides, it would have been a great fun drinking together. Oh, how we wasted our time!'
'Better late than never,' she smiled, as she sipped that Scotch. 'Isn't it well said?'
'You're a sport really,' he said in all admiration. 'And I love you for that. Oh, how I knew that, the moment I saw you.'
'Don't I know that?' she said, turning coy.
'Having been a cold fish all along,' he said, at length, 'I wonder how you turned into a hot chick overnight.'
'Why rake up the past now?' she smiled.
'What had brought about the change in you?' he said, suddenly seized with curiosity.
'As one can't drink from an empty glass,' she said tilting her glass, 'one can't love with a lifeless heart.'
'Won't you let me see,' he said, 'theotherhalf of your glassful now.'
'Well, it is for my eyes only,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'By the way, why you want to drain it to the dregs?'
'As I love the taste,' he persisted nevertheless, 'won't I like to know its recipes as well?'
'Oh, it's the spice of my heart,' she said, as she winked at him, 'flavored by the Cupid.'
'Oh,' he said, giving up his probing. 'You're a hard nut to crack.'
'Come on,' she said, extending her hand to him, 'let's have dinner.'
'I haven't space,' he said, feeling his tummy, 'even for a morsel.'
'In that case,' she said drinking to the dregs, 'why should I cook?'
'What about your dinner?'
Til manage with the leftovers,' she said. 'Moreover, I'm too tipsy to light the stove even. 1 wonder how you can drink like a fish, and yet remain steady!'
'Isn't It the best compliment ever from you,' he smiled heartily.
'Pay back then,' she held her glass, 'with a peg at least.'
'You're game, anyway,' he said, obliging her.
'But with those,' she said In a drawling way, remembering her lover's averment, 'who raise the bar.'
'In time, you may beat me at my own game.' he said In awe; as she gulped half from the glass at one go.
'Walt and see,' she winked at him.
'I've always felt,' he said holding her hand, '1 could have won your love had 1 agreed that night.'
'Why rake up the past now,' she smiled. 'Are we not happy anyway?'
'1 know that, but still,' he said melanchollcally, 'we wouldn't have lost what we lost In those three years.'
'Let bygones be bygones,' she said dreamily.
'You don't know how I crave for your love,' he said ruefully. 'You've never really known me. In spite of everything.'
'Well, 1 was beside myself then,'she said. 'But 1 value your love now.'
'Now,' he suggested In hope, 'why not you study medicine.'
'It's too late, anyway,' she said resignedly. 'But that night 1 was desperate. Your consent could have made our life heavenly. And that's the reality.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Any way, that's life,' she said, 'full of Ifs and buts. Isn't It?'
'Can you ever pardon me?'
'I think all of us,' she said, taking his hand, 'In spite of our faults, are pardonable.'
'I always felt guilty on that score,' he said withdrawing his hand, overcome by remorse all again, 'and that made me feel uneasy with you.'
'1 was aware of that, but 1 couldn't help It,' she said reaching for his hand again. 'But you know It's all different now.'
'You're the life,' he said, pressing her hand, 'of my life.'
'Thank you, but stop It now, for my sake,' she tried to dissuade him, as he was mixing some more for him, 'I'm feeling sleepy.'
'Why don't you sleep In the hall tonight?' he said pleading, 'I like to drink a little more.'
'Good night then,' she said yawning, and picking up her pillow, she went Into the hall.
Having had some curd rice with a mango pickle, she took to the makeshift bed, and fell asleep, even as she hit the pillow.
I've a brainwave,' said Sathyam excitedly, waking her shortly thereafter. 'With that booty, you can open a nursing home and serve the sick. That way the bad money would serve a good cause, won't It? Above all. It will help me get rid of my sense of guilt. Roopa, don't say no.'
'Oh, what a love,' she said, hugging him tightly. 'I'll do anything for you now.'
'Let's move away the money to safety tomorrow itself,' he said excitedly. 'Who knows, there could be a r
aid soon.'
'Lie down here,' she moved away to accommodate him.
'Why not I celebrate my brainwave,' he kissed her good night. 'Three cheers.'
Having bid him good night, at length, an intoxicated Roopa fell into an exciting slumber.
Chapter 38
Subdued Beginning
Roopa, with a hangover, woke up to Yadamma's buzzer, at seven the next morning, only to realize that Sathyam was still in bed. At that, as she began to brush her teeth, Yadamma set out to wash the staircase. Soon, as Roopa was at preparing coffee decoction for them and Sathyam, for he started having bed coffee for sometime then, Yadamma began sweeping the hall. At length, while Roopa in the kitchen was keeping watch over the boiling milk Yadamma went into the bedroom. Shortly thereafter as Yadamma, taking ayya to be dead, raised an alarm, Roopa spilt the strong coffee she was preparing for Sathyam on herself. Then, rushing to him in pain, she felt his pulse, and finding it still, she fell unconscious over him. At that, fearing the worst, Yadamma rushed with the news to the Raja Raos in bed.
Reaching her home post-haste, the nonplussed couple found their benumbed lover lay on her husband's body. However, readily realizing that Roopa was breathing still. Raja Rao hurried Sandhya to fetch some water to splash her into senses. In time, as Roopa opened her eyes, Sandhya took her mate endearingly into her lap, even as Raja Rao caressed the bereaved in assurance. Even in her state of shock, Roopa found their touch reassuring and began to feel solaced by that. There could be moments in life when a mere touch of a dear one conveys more empathy than a score of sympathetic words.
'What's this tragedy?' sobbed Sandhya, inducing a flood of tears from Roopa'seyes.
'He was upset the whole of yesterday, and went on drinking till midnight,' cried Roopa inconsolably. 'And he was no more by the morning. Oh, I can't believe it.'
'Maybe, he died of excessive drinking,' said Raja Rao gravely, looking at the two empty bottles of Chivas Regal lying near the cot. 'But why didn't you stop him at some point?'
'What do you mean?' Roopa said, perplexed, 'Why, was he not dead drunk so often? Can one die of drink, really?'
'As it appears,' said Raja Rao, staring at Sathyam's body, 'sadly, he drank himself to death.'
'But why didn't you send for us all day?' said Sandhya.
'You were not at home when I came in the evening,' said Roopa ruefully. 'And in the end, unable to bear the tension, I myself had a couple of drinks, and slept off. Oh, if only I knew, wouldn't I have stopped him in time.'
'How I wish you did,' said Sandhya bogged down with tears. 'And that would have saved a fine soul for us. But as they say, God won't keep Himself away from good souls for long. Wonder why it doesn't occur to Him that the world needs such, even more!'
'What else we can do now,' said Raja Rao, consoling Sandhya, 'than braving the cruelty of fate?'
'Oh, how fate had chosen me,' said Roopa melancholically, 'as the villain in his life. What an irony our life has turned out to be! While I slighted him all through, he died burdening me with his magnanimity.'
'Stop feeling guilty dear,' said Sandhya cajolingly. 'After all, he died with a feeling of being loved by you. That's what matters to his soul and to your conscience as well.'
'Perhaps,' said Roopa, staring at Sathyam's body, 'that's the saving grace of my life with him.'
'It's time,' said Raja Rao to Tara who came by then, 'we informed the police.'
'Leave all that to me,' said Tara, though beside herself, 'and take care of her.'
At that, as Roopa realized that the police would come to take away the body for postmortem, the irony of the tragedy dawned on her.
'Oh, how he feared he would be arrested,' she thought feeling sad about it all. 'But they would be here soon, to take away his body. What if they revisit to confiscate his booty as well?'
Then, having recalled how relieved Sathyam was at his brainwave, she resolved, 'No, I can't let that happen, if only to see his soul rest in the Sathyam M emorial Clinic.' Thus, closeting with Raja Rao and Sandhya, she narrated all that happened, and concluded, 'He told me that he kept that money on the loft. We shall remove that before they start looking for it.'
As Raja Rao and Sandhya shared her sentiment and volunteered to shoulder her burden, the prospect of her immortalizing Sathyam's name through the clinic enabled her to face the calamity with equanimity. Shortly thereafter, Tara came back, and Sandhya went home to tend to Saroja. And as the Police began investigating into Sathyam's death so to assist them Raja Rao left Roopa to Tara's care.
'You know that I look life straight in its face,' said Tara in undertone to Roopa. 'You should welcome his death though in a weird way. Well, he lived believing you're faithful to him and died before knowing you've a lover. Don't you fool yourself; it was only a matter of time when he would have got wind of your ways, and how hard that would have been on him you can imagine. How he would have suffered all his life for that hurt and death seems to have saved him that fate. And that's life!'
'Oh, I haven't seen it from that angle,' said Roopa, even as she began to contemplate on that.
At length, as Tara's outlook insensibly gave her a new perspective of her life, Roopa began to see Sathyam's death in a fresh light. And late that night, to retrieve the treasure that Sathyam had left behind. Raja Rao, helped by his women, had crouched into the loft. 'If not for the sentiment attached to it,' he thought disconcertingly, 'how mean all this could be!'
The mourners' number had swelled by the next day, what with the arrival of relatives and friends from far and wide. While Ramu helped Raja Rao to keep things moving, Raju ran errands for his brothers-in-law and others.
When the body was brought back from the mortuary, while a shocked Pathrudu tried to console Durgamma, she went delirious over it.
'Why instead of him, didn't God take me away?' she cried inconsoiabiy, 'how couid He be so cruei to my son in the midst of his iife? Did he ever harm even a fiea, aii his iife?'
But whiie Janaki cried herseif hoarse that her daughter got widowed so young, Ramaiah found himseif burdened by guiit, 'Had I not then brainwashed her into marrying him, I might be busy now searching matches for her. Oh, what a fate it is.'
It was ieft to the Kamaiakars, together with Sandhya, to consoie Roopa, as Chandrika was yet to arrive.
'No doubt it's sad,' said Kamaiakar, patting Roopa, 'but you need to be brave.'
'How sad, it's aii over for Sathyam,' said Damayanthi, taking Roopa into her iap, 'but you shouidn't iose heart, knowing we're aiways with you.'
'That's true,' said Kamaiakar, overwheimed by Roopa's piight at such a young age, 'we wouid treat you iike our second daughter.'
"I iove you aii the more for your iove and understanding for her,' said Sandhya moved by her parents' empathy for her friend.
'We're proud of you dariing for your commitment to friendship,' said Kamaiakar, patting Sandhya,
'Not to speak of yours as weii,' said Damayanthi to Roopa.
'I never experienced a iike moment,' said Roopa, shedding tears of sorrow and joy in equai measure. 'Your iove iightens as weii as burdens my soul.'
'That's what makes your life so unique,' said Sandhya,'
'And your friendship so singular,' said Damayanthi.
By the mid-day, when everything was in place for Sathyam's last rites, Roopa's eyes were left with no tears to shed and when Sathyam's body was lifted on a bamboo stretcher, Pathrudu, with a pot of embers, led the funeral procession. As the corpse was thus taken away, leaving the females behind, Sandhya held a benumbed Roopa from collapsing.
Consigning his son's body to the flames on the funeral pyre, Pathrudu felt the quirk of destiny, 'How our roles have got reversed by fate!', and as he saw Sathyam's body engulfed in flames, thought Raja Rao, 'How tragic it is that the triumph of love was snatched away by the hand of death I'
One by one, the kith and kin, with heavy heart, took leave of the bereaved, leaving Roopa, her family and her in-laws to fend for themselves. Then came
the twelfth day, the before the closing rituals, when Ramaiah took it upon himself to sort out the matters concerning Roopa's future.
'Sad though it is for the departed,' Ramaiah addressed the assemblage, 'life must go on for the living, as s we all know, without means, life is but a plight. Though it may seem inappropriate, since our minds are governed by magnanimity, and as our hearts overflow with sympathy to the survivor, it is the right moment to sort out the mundane issues.'
'You couldn't have said better,' said Pathrudu approvingly.
'As we lost our son, we would treat her as our daughter.'
'I've never doubted about that,' said Ramaiah to Pathrudu, 'but don't you think that she would be better off in her parental house?'
'Well, It's up to her,' said Pathrudu thoughtfully, 'but wherever she stays, she Inherits our property.'
'1 can never thank you enough for your affection,' Roopa tentatively told Pathrudu. '1 would have loved to serve you both, but I've a mission for his memory and that keeps me here.'
'What do you mean?' said JanakI, taken aback. 'How can we leave you alone?'
'When I'm around, how can she be alone?' said Sandhya spiritedly. 'M oreover. It's far easier for her to recover from her tragedy staying with me, and she needs our support to accomplish her mission.'
'Don't we know, how you love her,' said JanakI, 'but still. It won't be appropriate that she stays with you.'
'Whatever It Is,' said Roopa as though pleading for their understanding, '1 need them to fulfill his last wish.'
Fearing that the discussion might take an ugly turn, not wanting to embarrass themselves and the others as well. Raja Rao and Sandhya slipped out, fully aware that. In spite of all the persuasions and dissuasions of others, Roopa would remain steadfast to fulfill the dictates of her life which fate had fused with theirs.
'No cause Is a right cause for a widow to stay away from her family,' said Durgamma Indignantly, 'moreover. It would scandalize all of us.'
'What she says Is true,' said JanakI, seconding Durgamma's stance.
'Whatever It Is,' said Chandrika spiritedly, 'let's see what serves her Interests and not which suits your prejudices.'
