Crossing the Mirage:Passing Through Youth

As that too failed to enhance her son‟s appetite, the mother was at a loss, and it showed. However, the women of the neighborhood read it all wrong and gossiped on that count.

“An unwed daughter of twenty-eight,” opined a sympathetic soul, “surely is a sore.”

“No less an eyesore,” said another.

“What can be done,” said a fair-skinned, “when the girl is so dark?”

“Don‟t tell me,” said a know-all. “She got her chances but Yadagiri rode the high horse then.”

“That's the trouble with us,” philosophized a bluestocking. “We aspire for more than we can hope for. Wanting the very best is a bad idea but failing to see what the best one can get is even worse.”

Unmindful of the gossip that reached her in its magnified form, Anasuya broached the subject of Chandra‟s condition with that lady philosopher who professed herself as an amateur psychologist. Having read the brief, the lady of letters diagnosed the malaise as a case of ennui and as for the remedy, she prescribed a course in fiction for him.

It's thus amidst his class books, the Zolas with the Gogols, that Anasuya slipped in, started gracing Chandra‟s study. Unable as he was to concentrate on his studies, he began browsing through them as a way of distraction only to end up delving deep into the fictional world pictured in them. Soon, as he was seized with novels in their scores, their fictional aberrations helped him analyze his own shortcomings. But what really hooked him to the novel was the ego gratification it afforded him in judging the characters portrayed in it. What's more, the empathy he felt for the fictional figures brought the latent sympathy he had for his sibling to the fore. This, in turn, abetted self-pity in his consciousness.

Well, Vasavi remained single, not by choice. While nature deprived her of a whetting visage, her upbringing failed her in imbibing aplomb. Besides, Yadagiri's attitude towards matchmaking didn't help her cause either. No sooner would a well-meaning proposal come forth than he would dismiss it on the grounds of status or pedigree and/ or both. It was as if he came to see his own elevation in slighting others and as the well-wishers too lost patience with him, the leads to the prospective matches got sapped one by one. All this had dented his own efforts besides drying up the well of his daughter's marital prospects.

On the other hand, Vasavi, having failed to induce a suitable boy on her own and with nothing better to do, went on an acquisition spree of diplomas in assorted faculties. Ironically, that made her progress on the marriage front even worse, as the list of eligible bachelors on academic plane was leaner, what with the penchant of the boys to take up jobs with their basic degrees.