‘Now you’ve made me fall in love with you,’ said Roopa hugging Tara.

‘Why don’t you preserve all your ardor for him,’ said Tara affectionately. ‘Good bye for now.’

The fact that she made Tara privy to her innermost feelings enabled Roopa feel as though she had shared the secret of her life with the world itself. The feeling that Tara could have rightly guessed the identity of the man of her dreams made Roopa even more ecstatic. It was in that state of mind Roopa bade good-bye to Tara at the wicket-gate.

~~~~~~

As Tara walked down the road, Roopa found herself staring at her all the way. While taking a turn at the main road as Tara looked back, Roopa waved at her as if propelled by a sense of gratitude for that love-saving gesture of hers. Well after Tara went out of her sight, Roopa stayed put at the wicket-gate, reminiscing about the fascinating closeness that developed between them.

When Roopa was closing the wicket-gate, as Lalitha had opened the main door, recalling her sleazy comment, Roopa felt embarrassed in her presence and extricated from the tête-à-tête that Lalitha began. Once in, as if to fully grasp the import of the incident, Roopa sank in the sofa, and reliving the moment, she began to see Tara’s character in a fresh light.

‘Wasn’t she in a position to abet Prasad’s cause and then blackmail me into her calling,’ thought Roopa in all admiration for Tara. ‘What a noble woman Tara is, in spite of everything.’

And in contrast, as the brotherly mask worn by Prasad to hoodwink Sathyam to seduce her appeared ever more mean to her, she despaired, ‘But in the man’s world, Tara is a loose woman and Prasad a gentleman. That’s the paradox of perceptions, isn’t it?’

She tried to figure out Prasad’s future moves to enable her to come up with appropriate responses, but as she failed to come up with a game plan, the postman came up with Sandhya’s letter as though to show her the way.

All along, Roopa had hoped that on their way to Kakinada, Sandhya and Raja Rao would come to Hyderabad. That letter of Sandhya’s helplessness conveyed that her father hijacked her when some work took him to Delhi the week before. The unexpected development depressed Roopa for it meant she wouldn’t meet Raja Rao in the near future.

‘Fate seems to be playing hide and seek with my love,’ she thought at length. ‘Now the least I can do is to go to his wife to hear her talk about him. Besides, that would keep me away from Prasad’s designs, if any. More so, I could consult Sandhya for a way out of this mess, couldn’t I?’




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