“When it’s about not wanting to die young, how poor Desdemona pleaded with the Moor to let her live for at least that night.”
“More than life’s beauty, it’s the lure of it that’s at work,” he continued. “Under the shadows of the past mishaps, as the fear of the unknown had a domino affect in my mind, I turned gloomy when Ruma’s delivery neared; I don’t know why, I started worrying about our own offspring not measuring up to Rajan’s lost one; if it were to fail me, won’t she cherish her lost kid, relishing Rajan’s memory being my wife. Moreover as ‘Rajan Builders’ was in doldrums by then; won’t a dull child pull my stock further down; worse still, what if she were to suspect that I let it sink out of jealousy because it was Rajan’s venture; but then was it not my obsession with her mind, body and soul that made me forget about my own self; well, of what avail was my love for her if it were to lead her into a rough weather? Even if our child was to be better than her lost one, won’t that still leave it poor and deprived; why blame her if were she to wish that Rajan was alive; but what a calamity it would be for both of us then.”
“Is it not said that love is a hackneyed expression unless it’s backed by money.”
“True but it’s the tragedy of life that it seldom finds the right mix for man in love; if love belittles man for lack of money, it lets gold-diggers fool the wealthy,” he continued. “It was to avert the fate of losing Ruma’s love that I had taken moneymaking; but sadly for me, she mistook my long hours at work as my waning interest in her, and even as she started wooing me back, I stood wedded to my newfound obsession, ironically, not wanting to lose her love. But she mistook that as the shadow of Rathi on the horizon of our love and maybe to dispel that she became more devoted to me than ever, making me work harder than ever to retain her adoration. With the birth of Satish, as her devotion to me deepened, I began to see the futility of a rat race for I realized that hard work alone wouldn’t take one onto the business heights, and that gave us time to gloat over each other and over Satish as well; when she joined me at the workplace leaving Satish to an ayah’s care, well, we had the best of both the worlds.”