Poignant Moment
‘What a lovely girl she is!’ thought Raja Rao, for the umpteenth time. ‘May not be the ravishing type, but surely she’s the charming kind. Above all, she’s a wifely stuff. Won’t I be able to mould her into a matchless mate? What if I propose to her? It looks like we are of the same caste and that should make matters easy. But then, what of our sub-sects? Don’t they seem progressive to mind all that. But who knows? Appearances can be deceptive, can’t they? Oh, even then, one has still to reckon with the gothrams that are to be different for an alliance to materialize. What an irony, the custom that prescribes alliances between blood relations proscribes sagothra marriages! What’s a gothram, after all? If anything, isn’t it a vague concept at its very best, based as it were on the precept of lineage of all. That too attributed to the obscure origins of just a score of rishis. What a fanciful notion! Don’t all peoples have their own idiosyncrasies? And yet, all are prone to ridicule others for their peculiar beliefs. After all, what is a custom but the collective prejudice of culture or a corollary of a religious precept?’
‘Whatever, she’s sweet and smart,’ he continued turning his thoughts towards her, ‘An ideal girl to take for a wife. Having taken to me in her own sweet way, would she be averse to marrying me? Why not seek auntie’s good offices as the matchmaker? Oh, even if she succeeds in brainwashing them all, that still leaves a question mark in matching our horoscopes. Some half-wit of an astrologer could make it naught with his crude calculations. How this new-found obsession is ruining many a match in the offing? Well, it’s only love that has the power to maneuver through these encumbrances.’
The thought of the power of love brought back the memories of that memorable encounter he had on the train the previous year. ‘Oh! What a lass she was!’ he thought, and reflected upon that incredible incident.
During that early winter, he went to Khajuraho to study the erotic architecture of its sandstone temples. After a weeklong stay there, that evening he boarded the Ganga-Kaveri Express at Satna to reach Madras to present his seminar paper. After exchanging pleasantries with a Father on the side and the trade unionist opposite in that four-berth coupe, he went about polishing his seminar paper well into the night.
Next morning, he was lazing by the window enjoying the refreshing landscape of the wilderness. At around eight, two girls came to greet the Father who was engrossed with the Bible. The one, who was almost in, was rather plain but the other behind her seemed tantalizing in her grey sari. With a black shawl draped around, she was a shade darker and an inch taller than her companion. Directing his gaze upon the charmer, he found her graceful though tentative in her flowing frame. As she surveyed the scene, she found him intently staring at her in wonderment. It appeared to him from her demeanor that the craving she espied in his gaze synchronized with the longing his persona insensibly induced in her mind.