Crossing the Mirage:Passing Through Youth

But, fed up by her son's prevarication over the wedding proposals, one day Anasuya threatened to fix one on her own. Then, Chandra could see the writing on the wall and so he ran to his favorite spot as if for cover. There he began applying his mind to arrive at the final solution.

"What sort of a wife could I possibly get?‟ he thought. "Given my appearance, it's hard to get a beauty. And going by my inclinations, some plain woman wouldn't go well either. What a Gordian knot for my nuptial knot!‟

But, when he saw a commonplace character with an uncommonly beautiful woman peep over the shrubs, he felt as though he had a revelation. "So, it's not as if all the pretty women get tied up only with handsome guys,‟ he reasoned. "It seems the impulses of the heart have to play second fiddle to the realities of life at times. It appears that in the shadow of fate, life makes a conundrum of confusion as well as contradiction.‟

"Were I to land up in a pretty lap, what could possibly come out of it?‟ he tried to picture his future as he had seen rays of hope for his married life. "Won't I lap up her beauty greedily? Oh, I would for sure, but what about her? Being laid blaming her fate, she might as well nurse remorse for me, wouldn't she? Who knows, she might curse herself for having to live with me. But probably, she too would reconcile herself to her destiny and to me as well. It seems that if only a man is lucky to marry a woman of his liking, nature would mould her to be glued to him. Force of habit and the bondage of offspring would only cement the relationship further. Won't it seem marriage boils down to mere chance?‟

As the theory of hope excited him, so the theorem of apprehension pulled him down.

"But in my case, even if chance induces its dice to show up its full face,‟ he began to think, "for all that, my vas could still play the spoilsport. Why not I neutralize its potential for mischief before all else? Oh, it's like cheating my vas before it could cheat me! As for my bride, what if she herself is infertile? Who ever knew the proclivities of fate! Isn't it the final solution?‟

Shortly thereafter Chandra rested for a week to get over his "weariness‟.