Crossing the Mirage - Passing Through Youth

Chapter 22 - Fouling the Soul

As Prema broke down in the midst of her narrative, Chandra was compelled to caress her hand to solace her, and as the warmth his gesture reached her heart, wiping her tears of dejection, she looked at him with affection. Thanking him for his concern, she resumed the saga of her disaffection.

"It was then that Vasu got closer to me. While my father warned me not to entertain him, I made light of his caution saying that I knew which side of my bread was buttered and believing that I was judicious, he took my word though he had a poor opinion about Vasu. What a silly idea it was that I could keep my boredom at bay in Vasu's company though he did all he could to keep me in good humor. Whatever, I found it amusing trying to distract myself in his company though my man's thought never left me even for a moment. Sadly for me, and as it seems with hindsight, naturally with him, Vasu having mistook my interest in his company for my love began pestering me. But still, I couldn't reveal my mind to him for fear of compromising my lover. Putting Vasu at bay, I waited for my darling to come home for the holidays.

When he came during Christmas holidays, I told him about Vasu's pestering, and suggested that he took up the matter with him. But he felt that, as it would be a delicate subject for a man-to-man talk, it was better that I broke the news to Vasu and be done with him. That gave me hope as I thought it revealed the pulse of his heart. After giving me a lovely time, he left after the vacation.

Left to fend for myself against Vasu's advances, when I tried to shun him, he stunned me in turn. Do you know how? Oh, by shaming my lover! He said that I was being double-crossed by the man I loved, as his real affections lay elsewhere. When I protested, he maintained it was an open secret at college and it was stupid of me to shun the true lover and run after a deceiver. When I asked for the proof, he brought in a witness to vouchsafe for his statement.

As I recalled the vacillations of my lover in shock, they seemed proof enough of his perfidy. And that convinced me that something was amiss after all. I felt as if all my dreams fell apart as a derivative of the domino theory. I didn't know how to handle the situation, and, how devastated I was by the development! I couldn't bring myself to blame my lover for he never wooed me on his own, why, it was I who tried to induce in him love for me with my love. Well, I couldn't blame myself either, for I believed it was no fault to fall in love and thus trapped in a vacuum of hope, how I prayed for my lover to come and save the day for me.

"Oh, how pathetic you would've been!" Chandra said moved no end. "Accursed be the love that afflicted your life."

"Oh, you don't realize that by cursing love you are cursing my lover," she said, "I tell you though I was hurt and cut up with him, still I didn't curse him for I knew he had a heart of gold."

"Thanks for showing me the trueness of love."

"Well, with no way to hear his version and unable to dismiss Vasu's allegation," she began recounting the poignant saga of her love. "it was a dilemma that wrenched my heart so much that I felt I had a stroke. How I wished all these years that better I had died that day, as I would've been saved of all that followed! Somehow, I can't make out how, a sense of revenge was born from my sense of helplessness, and I was seized with the idea of hurting him by paying him back in the same coin."

"Maybe it's in the nature of love that when scorned it becomes mundane to afflicts us in human ways."

"Oh, it could be true though it never occurred to me," she said stoically, "otherwise why did I do what I did. When Vasu proposed, I agreed out of spite but when he took me into his embrace, I felt neither hope nor any despair and not even spite for the one who spurned me, maybe having done the mischief it had left the scene, but when Vasu pressed for sex, I gave in as though to acquire a weapon to hurt my lover. What an irony! Whatever, I had no reason to deny Vasu, as I had no desire left my lover, why I felt like I had lost interest in my life itself. Maybe to cement his position, Vasu never left my bed and I too didn't push him out of it as if I needed his sex to blunt my lover's romanticism that came to haunt me even though I remained stoic all the while."