"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves -- say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; this conviction the blind have."
Victor Hugo
"Perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart."
Edgar Allan Poe
"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
New Testament , Matthew, XIX,6
"Marriages are made in Heaven."
Tennyson, Aylmer's Field, line 18
Bhaskar's plane landed in Madras airport. He collected his luggage that was checked in and came out of the security area. As soon as he came out, from the visitors crowd, Latha with her baby came up to him and greeted him. " See your papa, my dear", she said to the baby. Bhaskar looked at his daughter. When she was offered to be carried by him, he said that his hands were full with luggage. He merely looked at the baby girl, smiled and said, "How are you little one ?".
Lahta had hired a car and soon with his luggage in the boot, they made their way to Latha's quarters. At the door step his mother-in-law was ready with arathi to greet them. The couple with the baby were shown the ceremonial arathi and entered the house. The arathi water was duly thrown outside the doorstep of the house.
"How was the journey ? We were waiting for you to come. You took so many days to come after I came here", Latha said.
"Oh ! There was some project to be completed. The boss was particular that I should complete it and then only go."
"How did you manage for food ?"
"I went to hotel for breakfast. Lunch was from office canteen. Only dinner was a problem." He did not want to let out the fact that many a dinner was with Geetha.
"I used to work late to complete the project and on the way back to home, I was dining at some south Indian restaurant."
"Any way, son-in-law, now you would get proper meals and tiffin form me", said his mother-in-law.
He found that Latha had arranged things in the flat nicely and neatly. The drawing room furniture was placed in a pretty way. The dining table was clean and without clutter, as in most houses. The articles of decoration were arranged in befitting corners on beautiful shelves. The bed room was spic and span with double bed covered with clean sheets with floral design. He found a cute cradle next to the bed. After all, he thought that Latha was a capable person. He said to himself that he should admit it.
The succeeding days passed by with no great happening. He joined duty in the new office and on the first day of his joining, he got a phone call from Geetha. She called now and them. Bhaskar also welcomed these chats over phone. If he did not get a call from her, he felt anxious. He started calling her every day on coming to the office as the first thing to be done. He was becoming not very communicative with his wife, as the interaction with Geetha increased. There was increasing pressure from Geetha to make him tale a decision about his leaving his wife and joining her in life.
At home, his mother-in-law was managing everything in running the household as Latha was busy in the office work and when she came home she was spending time with her baby. The house was literally run by his mother-in-law. Sometimes it was very irksome for him. He did not like many small matters in day to day life as managed by her. Probably it was accentuated by his preoccupation mentally with Geetha as his thoughts were mostly about her. When once a person gets thoughts fixed on a person, especially one of opposite sex, all other thoughts get deranged. Like a homing pigeon, now and then, the mind gets back to the same person. Whatever is observed or happens around and about a person, reminds the person of the other one so fixed in mind. The mind recalls incidents that happened concerning that person and imagines how he or she would have reacted to such events and happenings. This is overwhelmingly so, if it is a woman or girl with whom the man or boy had developed an attachment. You may call it love or infatuation, involvement or preoccupation. Whatever be the diagnosis for the feeling, the result is the same. Only in the case of true love, with no ulterior selfish motive of exploitation, it is rightly sung by poets as a noble feeling. It may be assessed by psychologists or medical men as emanating, in any case, due to expectation for self satisfaction and prompted by the manifestations of hormones or by age old social behaviour pattern embedded in the psyche from the childhood.
Be what it may, Bhaskar was slowly and steadily and surely began slipping more and more into the unreal world of companionship with Geetha, though living with Latha. So, all that happened around him and did not happen around him were snapping his family ties with Latha and his daughter. He became more and more irritated with Latha and started moving away from her and his family. He was convincing himself that he could no longer live with is wife The frequent phone calls and passage of words and sweet statements by Geetha added fuel to this fire that was ravaging the marital bond, life partnership promises made during wedlock and even good memories of family life. The inevitable finally came about. After a wordy quarrel with Latha on a petty matter, he packed his clothes and personal belongings in box and moved to a hotel. A week after that, Latha got a notice for divorce from his lawyer.
Non English words:
Arathi: Water turned red in colour by dissolving turmeric and Indian lime, poured in a plate and showed before the face and circulated clock wise in front of person as a greeting and for guarding against bad luck.
End of Chapter 17
NB. I cannot but apologise for inordinate delay in completing this story. Only a couple of chapters and the tale will be over. Thank you for reading it.
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Life, Lilies and Surf
General FictionThis is the life story of a South-Indian woman with humble background, making her life emerge from archaic tradition and background. Her life of trials and tribulations in the late 20th century are described. The story is set in the stage of family...
