Rust On The Astute Sword

Chapter Three

Amrita bolted the door from inside. She was boiling with rage. She could never stand Chetan. Nothing Chetan did could satisfy her. She used to grow jealous even when Chetan came first every year in The Annual Chess Competition at school. When Manohar decided he would admit Chetan to Karate classes, she tried all sorts of vindictive excuses to change her husband’s mind.

She used to say, “Are you planning to make him a goon who would sit and stand at orders from ministers?”, and even went on to say that, “someday your own son will hit you with the techniques he learns!” But nothing she could do to change Manohar’s robust mind.

She in her sadistic vengeance was hell bent on rebuking Chetan even for the itsy-bitsy mistakes he uncoiled. She was of the school of thought that Chetan was solely accountable for her tensed alliance with Manohar.

Never had a mother walked the face of the Earth who loathed her son more!

She dialed her brother and faked a teary faced expression and breathed some hysterical sobs. A few strands of hair fluttered over her eyes which she shoved away to the burrow above her ear, riled. A sole sweat drop slipped from her chest between her cleavage making her fret. Her full lips quivered under tension and her frown deepened.

The phone rang a few times before a mechanical stern voice said, “The number you’re trying to reach is busy…” She hung up, furious, making a twitching sound.

Manohar always recharged that much money needed to give missed calls on Amrita’s phone. “Son of a bitch,” she murmured.

Her two year younger daughter picked up after her, “Chon-o-Bee.” Her lips were brimming with saliva. She glanced at her mother, mumbling her own invented language with her face evoking an innocent and languid smile.

She went over to her daughter cursing herself to say it, this time making effort to say it without beating her lips.

“My baby, we’ll provide for you. We’ll do everything that needs to be done. We won’t let that ill-fated, pampered boy take over what is originally ours,” she took her daughter over her shoulder and patted her with a lullaby, sauntering to and fro inside the room. Her daughter snuggled up on her shoulder, resting her chin on her Trapezius.

She hadn’t finished singing and her daughter’s tender eyelids were half closed when her phone vibrated. She made sure her phone was always silent when she sang her daughter to sleep. She peeked down on the bed, still patting and singing. It was her brother. Other days she wouldn’t have bothered to check her phone but today was different.

She slowly and steadily put her daughter down on the bed, fastidiously keeping an eye on her, picked up the phone and swiped right gingerly.

“Hello Brother! Finally,” she said with a modulation of vehement criticism.

“Was caught up with Babu. You know when he wants something I have to go leaving my naked wife also sometimes, so…”

She countered without listening to him completely, “Manohar hit Chetan today!”

“He what?” her brother found it harder to comprehend what she had just spoken.

He finally said after five seconds, enthusiasm competing with blood in his veins, “That’s good… See..I told you my plan will work… What happened next?”

But it hit a block as soon as it started to gain acceleration, “Don’t be so overjoyed without getting to the bottom of it.”

In the next few minutes she accounted the entire details, precisely, although mentioning a few exaggerations which only a woman of her frame of mind could spit easier than betel juice.

“None of our plans are making a necessary impression. We need to do something and really quick.” To this her brother replied something in hushed timbres.

“Yes Chetan threw the bottle right at the chest…Okay I’ll see to it.” She hung up.

Filled in with cruel resentment towards Manohar and Chetan, a wild and vicious objective was gathering nutrition, like a twig from a shoot, in her mind. And she let it feed, even watering it frequently.

She looked at her daughter and whispered in her ear, “Your mother will do everything for you.” She kissed her forehead, and the baby slept on peacefully oblivious to the malicious web spun by her own mother concerning her.

                                          ***

Outside, Chetan was making for his room, after lunch, when his mother’s voice and a locked door made him pull back and listen.
He really didn’t like that grin and wondered what was her mother up to, then. He wasn’t off base with the fact that her mother conspired against him, as regular as clockwork.

Haplessly much of the conversation was over and Chetan could only catch up with, “Okay I’ll see to it” with a few “Hmm”s which even to him failed to provoke any suspicions.

He rolled his eyes and went to his room.