Then turning to Sandhya, Narasamma said affectionately, ‘I haven’t seen a more beautiful bride all my life. Our Raja is very lucky. We’ve got excited when we received his letter that you’re coming here. It’s a very sensible thing to do. One shouldn’t forget his roots. We would have loved your stay in our house, but it is only proper that you spend some time in his ancestral home. You might lodge there but know that your board is here only.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sandhya heartily.

‘Why have you not asked them to come in?’ retorted Thimmaiah.

‘How are Krishna and Krishnaveni?’ enquired Raja Rao as he led Sandhya into the verandah.

‘They keep writing, asking us to join them, but how could we leave our hearth and home and stay with them, that too in the States,’ said Thimmaiah stating their position. ‘Though our thoughts are with our children, our desire remains to breathe our last here.’

‘Now that you’ve got married,’ Narasamma enquired, ‘would you go back to the US?’

‘On the other hand,’ said Raja Rao playing music to Sandhya’s ears, ‘I want to come closer to you all. I’m planning to shift to Hyderabad.’

‘Come on, I’ll show you the place,’ Thimmaiah led the couple to their honeymoon house. ‘There won’t be any end to her enquiries.’

‘Don’t hang around there for long,’ said Narasamma as though to get even with her old man.

Led by his uncle, Raja Rao crossed the road with his bride to enter his ancestral house as a prelude.

‘I let it be used as our village club,’ said Thimmaiah justifying his decision. ‘If locked up, it would only dilapidate.’

When Thimmaiah took them to the backyard, finding a flower-bedecked bed on a high-rise double cot, Sandhya felt embarrassed and looked the other way. As though to let her grasp the significance of it all, said Thimmaiah to Raja Rao, ‘I appreciate your sentiment in having the family cot here. I thought you would need a table fan as well.’ Then he switched it on, as a demonstrator would do in the laboratory.

‘Sorry for the bother,’ said Raja Rao. ‘But I couldn’t help it, knowing that we would land up late in the evening.’

‘Well, you’re like my son though he shuns his native,’ said Thimmaiah before he left them all for themselves. ‘I’m glad you’ve chosen it for your honeymoon.’

~~~~~

Being all alone for the first time with her man, Sandhya was overwhelmed by the privacy the moment had afforded them. However, as Raja Rao cuddled her in ecstasy, she cajoled him with love.




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