‘Leave aside morals,’ she said, thoughtfully, ‘I think you deserve to keep the booty, if only for your motive behind grabbing it. And no less, for the way you’re suffering. Now let me call them so that you too can divert your mind.’

‘As you’ve given me hope,’ he said, ‘let me relax over a large. Why not you to their place and spend some time with Sandhya.’

‘I better do that,’ she said, changing her sari ‘But do mind about your drink.’

In time, as he drank out that large, it dawned on Sathyam that the calamity of the moment had brought Roopa emotionally closer to him than ever before. With his spirits having soured thus, as if to steady himself, he made himself one more ‘large one’.

~~~~~~~

Having dragged her feet all the way to Sandhya’s house, finding it under lock and key, a disappointed Roopa, nursing hopes of their early return, clung on to the gate for long. At length, however, caught between hope and despair, she felt as if her head was splitting into half.

‘Oh, what a miserable day,’ she thought in the end, as her weary legs took the homeward path.

At length, as she reached home in disappointment, she sank into the sofa in exhaustion. However, in time, gripped by an impulsive need for company, to shed her melancholic overburden, she went up to Sathyam, and found him emptying the bottle into his glass.

‘Why don’t you stop that god-damn drink,’ she said in irritation in spite of herself, ‘and start showing some concern for me?’

‘There’s no way I can help you now,’ he said apologetically, ‘why don’t you help yourself with a drink or two?’

‘Why not,’ she said without second thoughts, ‘if that makes it a little easier for me?’

When she returned with a glass, he looked at her amused, and as she poured for herself from the fresh bottle, he stared at her wide-eyed.

‘Oh, haven’t I failed you all these years,’ he said, clinking her glass for ‘cheers’. ‘Besides, it would have been a great fun drinking together. Oh, how we wasted our time!’

‘Better late than never,’ she smiled, as she sipped that Scotch. ‘Isn’t it well said?’

‘You’re a sport really,’ he said in all admiration. ‘And I love you for that. Oh, how I knew that, the moment I saw you.’

‘Don’t I know that?’ she said, turning coy.

‘Having been a cold fish all along,’ he said, at length, ‘I wonder how you turned into a hot chick overnight.’

‘Why rake up the past now?’ she smiled.




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