Glaring Shadow A Stream Of Consciousness Novel

by BS Murthy

  "I'm no apologist of the dynastic congress but what about the duplicity of N.T.R on the political stage," I had interjected. "When he needed to fill A.P's coffers, he advocated drink all over; prompting the IT tycoons and the corporate honchos to shun his dry land at the time of our early reform. But when voters pulled him out of the kursi for his eccentric governance, he made prohibition his political plank to regain power; that's about the immorality of our politicians as the public memory being short; that's how A.P missed out the early openings even as P.V's vision helped shore up the country's economy."

  "What to say when Rajiv Gandhi's ignoble reign is celebrated and Narasimha Rao's path-breaking role is sought to be sidelined," he said "We are a naive people to figure out our country's heroes, say Nehru vs. Patel or Rajiv vs. Rao and zeroing on our national interests; maybe owing to our feudal roots and slavish moorings, we suffer from the approval syndrome, which is a compulsive need of one to be seen by the others as an egalitarian to a fault. But then, the world doesn't seem to appreciate our quixotic mindset as the foreign press tends to picture Sonia Gandhi as the most successful Italian politician."

  He paused as if he was unable to digest the indignity of it all.

  "While Ruma ruled my heart, Rathi became the heart of our family," he resumed his tale. "The inclusive camaraderie that extended to third cousins in our family appealed to her friendly nature, and so she took to my people as duck would to water; well what a knack she had in letting all feel at home in our 2BHKflat. But when a wellheeled visitor said if only we had a more spacious dwelling, he would've loved to put up with us whenever he was in town, she told him that we don't bite more than we could chew; but how my poor dad used to go out of his way to please all and sundry; it's as if man massages his own ego by playing host to those who profess closeness."

  "It's stupid, really."

  "What else it is, but when the chips were down after he was stricken with cancer, none came forward to stand by him," he continued. "M y brother told me that once in need of a paltry sum, my dad sought it from an ex-colleague whom he had helped all along; but that man excused himself, prompting my father to give me that parting advice to be careful with my money. But by not parting a farthing with a dying friend, how that man had denied himself the satisfaction of discharging a bit of his debt of gratitude; while I felt sorry for him, it pained me that my father had to die after losing the little faith he had had in the virtue of friendship."

  "M ore than the lack of concern for the dying, it could be the fear of foregoing the money that was behind his insensitivity. Why, I know of an incident when the bride was pestered by her in-laws to fetch her jewels even though her father was battling for his life that was the day after her marriage."

  "I suppose your reading is right," he said and continued. "But much before my dad's heart was broken for a few bucks; he dropped in at our place and wanted to know whether I could spare him hundred rupees. How dumbstruck I was that he should've been as hard up as that; why even after I had started earning, he used to book my return tickets on my home visits and had declined my offer of twentythousand to facilitate my brother's engineering education. While I was trying to figure out the import of his financial downturn on his psyche, Rathi fetched him five-hundred rupees that touched his heart no end; oh, even as I gloated over my fortune for having been blessed with such a wife, how his eyes glistened grasping the sense of her concern for him. While I owe it to Rathi for letting my dad feel wanted when he was down, it was his dismissive smile at my twenty-thousand-offer and the cared-for feeling these five-hundred gave him made me realize that it's the small things that make the big moments of life."

  As those poignant memories seemingly impinged upon his heart, his eyes began to swell with tears in profusion.

  "What was more, Rathi was the neighbor's neighbor," he continued after composing himself. "How she was at ease with her life and made it easy for others; it was like seeing the simple living and high thinking in action. Wonder why life had let fate withdraw its model brand well before its expiry time; but the lament in the obituaries about the loss to the society on account of those, who had long ceased to contribute amuses me; would the lack of meaningless hyperboles in them mean any disrespect to the departed? What about the living legends; the psyche of these spent forces makes an interesting reading; used as they were to adulations in their heydays, they tend to bemuse themselves at sundry events as the organizers eulogize them to add value to their own endeavors, and as if they came out of their oblivion, they head home to savor a peg or two to buttress their fantasy of falsity."

  "Sorry for the digression," he continued as we savored the Laphroaic that I replenished meanwhile, "the spiritual beauty of Rathi's love lay in ignoring my roving eyes; it was not that she was any less sexy or I loved her any less, but I was too romantic to remain unmoved by the desirable women though she was more ardent than the best I'd ever laid. Soon after our marriage, we had set up in the first floor of a house. As the widowed house owner lived in the ground floor, her daughter came to spend the summer holydays with her two kids; about Rathi's age, she was her namesake as well. Oh, what a sexy dame she was, possibly the sexiest I had ever seen and the one I most wanted to have in all my life; as my passion for her namesake was ever on the raise, my Rathi said she wasn't losing sleep as her rival's hairy legs were sure to leave me cold that was if push comes to shove; but as I chanced to divine the dame's satin legs, Rathi said she was only jesting to pour water over my raging ardency in those summer times."

  "Oh, how unlike your Rathi, women clip the romantic wings of their men and still blame them for being cold to them."

  "Women tend to imagine man's romanticism as an on-off switch within their reach," he said. "Didn't I tell you about a plain girl, who was enamored of me; much later, another I knew nursed the idea of marrying a romantic guy but was aghast as her father intended to get her married to a dull character; when she told me about her predicament, I said that though she was beautiful, yet she was not vivacious, and that it' sex appeal that triggers romantics; I told her in half-jest that if she were sexy, I would've seduced her; that made her comprehend the sexual realities of her life."

  "Are you a lover or a seducer? I'm unable to figure that out."

  "What is a lover if he is not a seducer?" he said and continued. "Coming back to our sexy neighbor, as I told you, I had lost my eyes to her and she too didn't seem to mind that; Rathi and I used to sleep on the terrace while that dame slept in the open compound with her mother and the kids; she could soon sense that standing by the parapet wall, I was forever ogling at her. That full moon night, I found her with her sari askance as she lay on her belly dangling her bare legs up in the air; oh how voluptuous she was in that moonlight then; sensing my anticipated presence, as she turned all the more inviting, so I got down and sauntered nearby to let her make the next move but she staid put in her bed though I could discern her desire in her manner. Why she had failed to cross the threshold of our adulterous zone to address our wants I would never know; in spite of my surging urge, with her mother nearby, I too didn't dare to press farther. So our passions were locked in a painful stalemate that night; her man's arrival the next day barred my further moves to checkmate her on our love-board of attrition. I always had the feeling that she was craving to be grabbed by me that night and had I dared to hustle her into agreeing, she would've been mine that night, and possibly that would've ushered us into a liaison of our lifetime; but destiny packed me off to this place shortly thereafter; oh how she remains the most insatiate passion of my life with a lingering longing; and had I not made it with that remarkable Sumitra, what a memorable contest it would've been between them for the 'most wanted' woman that I didn't have?"

  As he closed his eyes seemingly savoring the persona of the woman he had failed to possess as well as to reminisce about the flavors of the one he was able to savor, I went out into the open to have a smoke in the fresh air.

  Chapter 23

  Smallness of
Bigness

  "But as my child grew in Ruma's womb, the devil gained ground in my head for the second time; earlier to possess her I even thought of killing Rajan," he continued as I returned. "Maybe I wouldn't have brought myself to that, but the fact that I went to lengths to perfect the plan means Devi was right about my getting swayed by women. Had not death pulled him out of the scene, my ever-on-the-raise passion for Ruma might have tripped me at the threshold; let me tell you my plan for that perfect murder."

  "I suppose it takes moral courage to own up our degradations."

  "The idea was to sow the seed of doubt in Ruma's mind about a Rajan-Rathi affair and to let that grow into a tree of misgivings," he began to unravel the murder plan. "You know in the human mind, doubt has a faster rate of growth than even hope, and we know what that meant for poor Desdemona. Even if Ruma were not to fall into my arms on the rebound, she was bound to offer her shoulder to me to cry over, come to think of it, how cuckolding could facilitate seduction by way of compensation. So, by worming my way into her heart by egging on her fears that Rajan was about to desert her, I would be able to unravel my plan for a perfect murder; at a time when Rathi goes to her parents' place, we would drive Rajan to a less-frequented lake to drug him before I push him into it; as I jump after him to pin him down, she would yell for help, well at the top of her tone, and by the time someone would have come to bear witness to my fake rescue act, Rajan would have been dead and gone. Rathi could be told that Rajan, suspecting that I was carrying on with Ruma, had died in the process of drowning me; in the traumatic aftermath, we were bound to find solace in each other's arms, and given her nature, Rathi was sure to sympathize with Ruma to bring about our menage a trois."

  "M aybe you could've made a name for yourself in crime fiction."

  "How I craved to hear that from Ruma but fearing that she might take me as a callous character, I didn't disclose my diabolical plan to her though she pestered me no end," he said remorsefully. "Wonder how I could think in terms of snuffing out a life, more so of someone with full of life; by the way, what about soldiering, apart from the sense of valor, don't the poor youth opt for it for a livelihood. But who cares for their lives bar in the West, more so in the U.S; ironically, in long drawn-out ground wars, it's this sensitivity to life that's the Achilles' heel of the American military might. Why not, as is the case with the possibilities of life, so is with the power of the nations, it's all about limitations."

  "When it's about not wanting to die young, how poor Desdemona pleaded with the M oor to let her live for at least that night."

  "M ore than life's beauty, it's the lure of it that's at work," he continued. "Under the shadows of the past mishaps, as the fear of the unknown had a domino affect in my mind, I turned gloomy when Ruma's delivery neared; I don't know why, I started worrying about our own offspring not measuring up to Rajan's lost one; if it were to fail me, won't she cherish her lost kid, relishing Rajan's memory being my wife. Moreover as 'Rajan Builders' was in doldrums by then; won't a dull child pull my stock further down; worse still, what if she were to suspect that I let it sink out of jealousy because it was Rajan's venture; but then was it not my obsession with her mind, body and soul that made me forget about my own self; well, of what avail was my love for her if it were to lead her into a rough weather? Even if our child was to be better than

  her lost one, won't that still leave it poor and deprived; why blame her if were she to wish that Rajan was alive; but what a calamity it would be for both of usthen."

  "Is it not said that love is a hackneyed expression unless it's backed by money."

  "True but it's the tragedy of life that it seldom finds the right mix for man in love; if love belittles man for lack of money, it lets gold-diggers fool the wealthy," he continued. "It was to avert the fate of losing Ruma's love that I had taken moneymaking; but sadly for me, she mistook my long hours at work as my waning interest in her, and even as she started wooing me back, I stood wedded to my newfound obsession, ironically, not wanting to lose her love. But she mistook that as the shadow of Rathi on the horizon of our love and maybe to dispel that she became more devoted to me than ever, making me work harder than ever to retain her adoration. With the birth of Satish, as her devotion to me deepened, I began to see the futility of a rat race for I realized that hard work alone wouldn't take one onto the business heights, and that gave us time to gloat over each other and over Satish as well; when she joined me at the workplace leaving Satish to an ayah's care, well, we had the best of both the worlds."

  He closed his eyes as if to reminisce those times in his mind's eye.

  "Then Anand's arrival for higher studies enlivened our lives even more," he continued. "As he reminded me of my own youth, I became attached to him, and perceiving that he would grow up to be my replica, Ruma too had developed affection for him; so as he began to stay more with us than in the hostel, I began to confide my inner-most thoughts to him, and so did she, maintaining that she loved him most, of course, next to me, her man. Won't that remind you of the woman on rebound whom I might have had in my youth. Well, while the infectiousness of his youthful zest lifted our spirits, his affectionate manner buoyed our self-worth that freed our union from the self-imposed strain of yore. That Satish and he took to each other had only enhanced our fulfillment."

  "Isn't it interesting that a happy story needn't be an interesting copy?"

  "I appreciate that you care for your prospective readers and they too need not turn the pages," he said smiling wryly. "After Anand's graduation, though Ruma wanted him to join our firm, I didn't want to stifle his career in our small outfit; so he moved out to begin his career in some other place. I knew all good times would come to an end, but how were I to know that they would lead me up to one bad phase after another; why can't life make it neutral in between its highs and lows?"

  "Given its penchant for variety, isn't it a boring proposition?"

  "How nicely you've put it; I'm glad you have it in you to make my memoir as memorable as possible,' he said, and continued with his tale. "Soon, we started missing Anand, and once when I said that if only 'Rajan Builders' were to be some 'Imperial Infrastructures', it would have been a fitting launch pad for his career, her repartee was that it was ironical that what served the uncle's mid-career should be unworthy of his nephew's apprenticeship; maybe what she said in jest was about the changed times, but I felt she was reviewing my progress card, and that brought the limitations of love not backed by money back to the fore. But the next day, when she said in earnest how 'Rajan Builders' would stunt Satish's future, my apprehensions of yore came to the fore making me worry about my smallness in her vision; so when she began a correspondence with Anand, which she came to relish, I started suspecting that she had transferred her affections to his personal account; oh, how miserable was the thought of having lost her love and esteem. M aybe, her affection for him was

  innocent and my worries about her state of mind were misplaced, but as I came to be obsessed with success all again to regain my supposedly lost position in her heart, the devil took hold of me in its second attempt, so to say, squarely and firmly."

  Chapter 24

  Disown to Own

  "How the glaring shadow of my life came to distort my vision!" he continued in lament. "The grandiose 'Imperial Infrastructures' was the stilted idea of my fucked-up psyche, and as if man's fate factors the times he lives in to shape his life, Harshad Mehta came onto the scene; can one ever fail to recall the euphoria he had helped generate in the bourses? Hadn't business magazines, all and sundry that is, goaded the public to sell the family silver to invest in stocks? Oh, how the public issues of never-heard-of-entities without a factory shed to name came to be oversubscribed many times over; and when the bubble was burst as M ehta was caught stealing, how many became broke no one knows. Why, I too was guilty of laying the superstructure of 'Imperial Infrastructures' over the tenuous foundations of Rajan Builders; wonder how I suffered no qualms in gambling with the public m
onies to raise my domestic stock; but my love for my woman and the luck of the investors might have helped me succeed in my unethical venture; whatever, it was then that I lost my soul and became a devil's slave, though I didn't realize it then.'

  "Once man crosses the moral threshold, he's likely to lose the reins of his life."

  "True, but I met a woman who had been astray for a while and yet regained her moral ground just in time," he said with apparent admiration. "She was the wife of a man of meager means who had big dreams for their twins, a boy and a girl; so he strived to improve his net worth through hard work to uplift their future. But when he realized that his hard work alone was not enough to ensure their rosy future, he had pleaded with her to prostitute herself to fashion their future. Well, like any other woman, she was averse to the idea, but in time, as his obsession for her kids' future dented her resolve to remain chaste, she started making other men feel at home when her man and her kids were away from it. What with the referrals from those philanderers helped her to develop a fetching clientele, her earnings far exceeded her man's expectations, but as he worked harder than ever to augment their fund, she moved ever emotionally closer to him, and ironically, as if to lighten his burden, she endeared herself more than ever to other men. When I came to know of her, I approached her with great expectations but how disappointed I was is still fresh in my memory; as I knocked at her door that morning, I found her readying her kids to school; fascinated by her beauty, I was all eager to have her but she told me that she had drawn the curtains down as she didn't want her growing up kids to smell the rat. Bowled by her sensitivity (I hadn't become insensitive yet), I pressed my suit to the hilt but finding her unyielding, I even begged her not to disappoint me, but with a charming firmness, she asked me to update my informer about the change in her posture. So, I left her as much in disappointment as in admiration, only to meet heron a different footing later on; how small the world can become."