Second Chance

Chapter 2 New Housemate

Income tax officers swarming the head office of Jamwal Hotels & Resorts was not something the people working for the firm expected. Moreover, they never anticipated it to happen the very next day of the wedding. The wedding of Devrath Jamwal with his long time girlfriend was already, the employees of this office were busy gossiping about. Now the tax officers turning the whole office upside down diverted the attention from wedding to this uproar. Even the media was pursuing the tax raid rather than the wedding. In all of this, Devrath Jamwal was standing in one corner of the office. He was watching the unfolding of the whole drama silently. 

The whole commotion was for nothing. The officers cited some documental mistakes at the lower level. They apologised for the inconvenience while leaving the premises. Dev also didn't take any unnecessary effort to get to the root of it. And find out the real reason behind the bureaucracy's so-called documental error. He was already occupied with the events of yesterday. Up until yesterday, one name he knew was his present and would become his future. But, since last night, that name has been changed to Maherishi Solanki or Mrs Maherishi Jamwal. 

And this name would remain part of his future for the next two years. At least, that's what Mahi and Dev have decided to proceed with. 

For Dev, being back in the house was somewhat comfortable and uneasy at the same time. He felt comfort because he was far away from all the chaos, happened in the last couple of days; the wedding and tax raid. At the same time, he discerned an uneasiness as he entered his own house with a completely new person. It struck him when he was unable to refer to his own home as 'house'.

He didn't exactly dream of this day, but he definitely imagined it differently. When the first time he'll enter this house with his wife, he never envisioned anything like this. But something with more colours. With more people and definitely more of the family with little celebratory surroundings. The thought gave him a distant chill, bringing him back to reality, next to Mahi and greetings of his house helps. 

Entrusting his new wife with the housekeepers, Dev took an escape from this throttling reality by taking a flight of stairs which led him to the confines of his room. 

After spending the next couple of weeks in silence and burying himself in work, Dev tried hard to ignore the existence of someone new and someone else in the same house. Observing the last few days, the way they went by without disturbing the peace and quiet of the house, Dev thought that the next 2 years won't be much difficult to live in a similar fashion. The set routine of working the respective jobs and coming back home only for food and rest. 

As soon as Dev became comfortable thinking this, his mind wanders back to the paper in the right drawer of his study. The discovery of which that night had the consequent events leading him to marry Mahi. He couldn't escape that. The words on the letter are just not the reasons but the whole rationale behind his changed life. Life, he is somewhat forced and somewhere voluntarily living. 

Saturday is the one day in the whole week which Dev spends with himself, away from work, away from living, from any noise of the world around him. But for the past few Saturdays, he has been avoiding it. In particular, he is resisting any time or space that he has to spend with himself. A mind occupied with work is the only way he feels he can stay sane and avoid confronting his thoughts on being left with just a letter. Even though he is home every Saturday by ritual but, he spends it being buried in work.

He is doing so even today. He gets too tired from following the usual. So he gets out on the balcony of his room. While looking at the pool right below, he makes up his mind to go for a few laps and refresh himself back to the routine.