‘We need a romantic man’s judgment for that, don’t we?’ said Tara positing Madame Bovary back on the teapoy. ‘Well, to be beautiful is one thing and to beautify is another. Woman’s beauty could be a lovers’ fortune but more often, I suppose, it’s the husband’s routine.’

‘If only my dream-man were for the real,’ thought Roopa, nevertheless, keeping quiet.

‘What’s your husband?’ asked Tara appearing to sound casual.

‘He’s a Senior Assistant at the Secretariat.’

‘I guess yours is a love marriage,’ Tara said implying that but for the weakness of love, Roopa must have got a better match.

‘It’s a regulation match,’ said Roopa sounding mysterious in her own way.

While Roopa was too young and inexperienced in life to infer Tara’s innuendo, the latter for her part was puzzled to understand what was at the back of Roopa’s mind.

‘Why don’t you come,’ invited Tara enticingly, ‘and grace my place?’

‘Please excuse me for now,’ said Roopa eager to continue with Madame Bovary’s story, ‘I’ll present myself soon enough.’

‘You know, I’m a working woman but now I’m on leave all this week. If not now, come later, but don’t disappoint me,’ said Tara and left, without waiting for a reply, in the manner of a person who would leave as though the argument was over with that statement.

After Tara had left, Roopa found herself contemplating, ‘What a stylish carriage she has, backed by that confident manner! Won’t she make the hallmark of grace itself? Oh, there’s something casual about her remarkable beauty as well. What an impressive personality she has! Well, she symbolizes the modern woman.’

Though Roopa went back to Madame Bovary, it didn’t take her long to realize that Tara’s persona seized her mind, and unable to concentrate on the book she gave up in the end.

‘Is this fascination for Tara owing to my lesbian leanings?’ Roopa began contemplating. ‘Oh, am I bisexual by disposition? No, it can’t be, it was only my distress that triggered that union with Sandhya. Looks like Tara is no less enamored of me. Could she be a lesbian by any chance? If it ever the push comes to the shove, it won’t be an unwelcome development, would it?’

~~~~~

After lunch, the next day, Roopa set out to Tara’s place, and soon found herself pressing the door buzzer, though without a response from within. Realizing in time that there was load shedding in their area, she knocked at the door that Tara opened expectantly.




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