‘I can understand your hurt,’ said Raja Rao, moved by Sathyam’s intensity. ‘But then it had always been that way. Didn’t Shakespeare aver that reputation is the most idle and false imposition, often got without merit, and lost without deserving?’

‘Oh, sadly, how true it is,’ said Sathyam excitedly, drinking to the dregs. ‘But isn’t it galling that these guys go about seducing the women of the honest, flaunting the money so made. Coming to this scoundrel of a friend, having vouched for a brotherly affection towards Roopa, he eyed her in a mean manner. Can it get any worse, morally speaking that is? As you know, even Ravan didn’t stoop so low in snaring Seetha.’

‘I agree with you,’ said Raja Rao, driven by his own conviction. ‘Seducing a woman is one thing and deceiving the friend is another. Are we through now?’

‘Let’s have one more round,’ proposed Sathyam, as the waiter came around, and as Raja Rao excused himself, he ordered one large for himself.

‘You know, thanks to my wife,’ said Sathyam with an air of satisfaction, ‘I’ve had the last laugh at him. When in the end, she exposed him to me; I took him to task really. This is what I told him - my dear fellow, money and looks are okay to an extent to lure women, but better realize it’s the luck that enables one to lay them. Why, you can’t screw even a whore if you’re not destined to have her, your visit to the brothel would have coincided with her periods, and the next time you’re eager, she could have shifted out of the town itself. That’s what I told him.’

‘Oh, how true,’ said Raja Rao, even as he recalled that Ganga-Kaveri girl.

‘Now I’ll tell you why I want to get rich,’ said Sathyam, gulping from his glass, ‘in double quick time that is. I don’t want someone like Prasad ogle at Roopa in the hope of winning her, simply because she’s a poor man’s wife. I want to make her rich so that she can keep the lechers all at bay. You don’t know how I love her. How can you, when she herself fails to delve into my heart.’

‘Honestly, one cannot hope to be understood really,’ said Raja Rao enigmatically, ‘even by the spouse.’

‘Maybe, but I adore her and no less crave for her love,’ said Sathyam, as he lost all his inhibitions by then. ‘To be frank with you, our marriage was stymied from the beginning. Somehow, she was unenthusiastic about me. Maybe, she could have felt she deserved someone better than me, and how can I blame her for that, as she deserves a superman, if there’s one. If you don’t mind my being boastful, I was a philanderer myself. But that is beside the point, coming back to my wife, she’s a fantastic dame. All said and done, I’m sure no one can ever love her more than I do. Oh, how I find that song from that film, Ghazal, so poignant - Naively thought I’ve right to love, whom you love, hath right on you.’




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