‘Given my own agenda, am I all that innocent?’ it occurred to her in time. ‘Am I not scheming to draw Raja into my life? For all that, I could have been flirting with Prasad as well. Anyway, I’ve to ease out Prasad without alerting Sathyam. Moreover, I must ensure that all this doesn’t scandalize me with Raja. Won’t he shun me forever should he get the wrong message? Oh, why didn’t it occur to me all the while, what a risk I was running without my realizing it?’
It is the irony of woman’s life in that she tends to tango her reflexes with the nuances of male proclivities. It is thus, woman’s true feelings get camouflaged in her lullabies of compliance to let her man sink into the slumber of complacency.
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‘Is Roopa leading me up the garden path without so much as letting me hold her little finger?’ Prasad thought in bewilderment that day. ‘Why, it’s two months since I wrote that letter with great expectations. Maybe she’s coy, but of what avail is that? Well, she shows a little more interest in me than before, but where is the hint of her intent to grant? Is she a flirt for all that? How am I to know? Oh, women’s god-damn coyness makes it difficult for men to probe their minds; it could be either a shield for their modesty or a shroud of their coquetry. But then, how can any man get to know what it is beforehand? Leaving all that aside, I would have the last laugh only in her conquest, that is all. Sure, I failed to seduce an odd dame on occasion, but didn’t I come out unscathed for the loss of it. Now, as it looks, it’s all so different with Roopa. In trying to seduce her, it’s as if I’m getting seduced, isn’t it? What a role reversal! It looks like that I might fall in love with her, that is, if I’m not in the thick of it already. Well, I should have her before she gets used to the status quo, shouldn’t I?’
‘But what more could be done to lure her into bed?’ he thought in exasperation. ‘Why not I make a decisive pass at her, in a passionate way? But that won’t help as she’s bound to give me the boot. Instead, I should contrive to make her vulnerable to my amorous assaults. But how am I going to bring that about?’
So he took stock of the situation, ‘Roopa has an orderly life with a mediocre husband in