‘Let me not miss you now,’ she said eagerly.

‘Wonder how,’ he said taking her into her arms, ‘Roopa excites you as well as depresses you.’

‘That is true,’ she said before he sealed her lips.

Over their weeklong stay there, having gauged Sandhya’s ability to take things objectively, Raja Rao thought it fit to lead her on the realistic path of life.

‘Sandhya,’ she heard him croon, as she lay exhausted in his arms that night, their last night of the honeymoon at Kothalanka.

‘Hahn.’

‘I must confess to you that I fancied some women and enjoyed a few of them even,’ he said, ‘I even imagined that a wife could be just another woman in my life. However, you’ve made me realize that wife is man’s very own woman, different from all other women.’

‘Are you upset,’ he enquired, as she didn’t respond, ‘that you didn’t get a virgin man.’

‘No, not at all’ said Sandhya. ‘I was just thinking about something else.’

‘Normally it is better that woman keeps her past from her man,’ he said setting the standard for their relationship. ‘As I appreciate the proclivities of youth, you can be open with me without any hesitation.’

Then she readily narrated her experience in the city bus, and said, ‘All that would seem so funny now.’

‘Well,’ he said, making light of it, ‘he stirred the nest and the bird flew into my hold.’

‘Now I’m relieved,’ she said, ‘Oh, how it has been bothering me ever since.’

‘Treat that as one of those small pleasures in life, and no more,’ he said smiling. ‘But they have a place of their own in one’s life.’

‘Maybe, it’s my love for you,’ she said reaching for him, ‘which induced that guilt in me.’

‘While nature has conceived man-woman attraction for the furtherance of procreation,’ he said to let her understand the import of it all, ‘it’s man that invented the institution of marriage for orderly living. However, nature didn’t oblige us by altering the catalysis of man-woman chemistry to suit the structured need of marital fidelity. Thus, the human proclivity to get attracted to the opposite sex comes into conflict with the concept of adultery. That’s why it’s not fair to judge the sexual ethics of others.’

‘You’re an intellectual,’ she said in all admiration to him. ‘I am proud of you really.’

‘You are my angel indeed,’ he said, as he became eager all again. ‘I adore you.’

When the time came for the Raja Raos to leave, the old man hoped there would be similar summers to come.




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