‘Why not I stay back,’ said Janaki with concern.
‘Why do you make me feel guilty,’ said Roopa goading her parents to go. ‘It should be okay soon. I may even make it to the lunch. Who wants to miss a pellibhojanam?’
Having seen her parents’ back, Roopa in contemplation waited for Raja Rao.
‘Perhaps, it’s the fate of illicit love to cohabit with lies. What a paradox it is, that a noble sentiment like love needs the prop of a base instinct for its survival! It’s as though the pleasures of a liaison act as intoxicants to help dampen the sense of guilt in a woman’s heart.’
The thought of guilt made her feel odd about the rendezvous she had chosen for her adventure.
‘Am I not violating the sanctity of my parental place?’ she began to think. ‘How would my father react if ever he comes to know of it? But then, isn’t he guilty of brainwashing me into the marriage? Well, whether he likes it or not, he’s sure to shroud my secret. Who wants a scandal on his hands? But now, I’m more of Sathyam’s wife than his daughter, am I not? How marriage alters even the fundamentals of a woman’s life! Whatever it is, I won’t let these silly sentiments spoil my party with Raja.’
Though she breathed easier on the fatherly front, she continued to feel choked in the friendly arena. As she felt that her guilt of seducing Sandhya’s man lingered on, in spite of the nobility of Raja’s love, she was insensibly gripped by an urge to confess to Sandhya and seek her consent to carry on with Raja.
‘Why get bogged down by guilt,’ she thought at length, ‘when I can fly with the wings of accommodation provided by Sandhya understands? But I need his nod for that, don’t I? Well, I’ll make him understand that we’ve no right to wrong her any more.’
From then on, Roopa waited for her lover, more for the sake of his wife than for her own self. When she spotted him at some distance, she felt at ease, as though he were coming for her deliverance and when he took her into his arms, she sank in his embrace as if to deliver her soul to him. As he lifted her head to envisage her visage, he felt that it looked aesthetically beautiful and thrilled by the charms of her frame; he wondered whether the purity of emotions rarefies the soul to surface onto the face, to enable the fusion of the inner beauty with the outer grace. Won’t such demeanor get imprinted in the minds of those who espy that visage then!