New Light on India’s Plight

 

‘What ails India’ has been the subject matter of the left-lib right-wing tussle for long, what with the cynics chipping in, in between. However, the right-wing assault on the left-lib ‘Idea of India’, facilitated by Narendra Modi’s nationalist rise in the Indian political firmament, has only increased the intensity of the scrimmage. Be that as it may, this is to throw a new ‘right’ light on India’s ‘left’ plight that has been Bharat’s bane, for a fresh look at it.  

In Kitab al-Hind, Al-Biruni had stated that “the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs”, and that was in the 11^th century CE. Wasn’t it the current American parallel of yore? But still, by the 20^th century, the sangh pariwar, in order to make Hindus feel proud of being Hindus all again, had no option but to come up with the slogan, garv se kaho hum hindu hain. But then, what it was that so adversely affected the Hindu morale that led to the initial decline and the eventual downfall of Bharat that is India is the subject matter of this exercise.   

That the Hindus felt what they felt in the 11^th century, despite the 1^st century evangelical forays into Malabar by St. Thomas and the 8^th century Arab conquest of Sind, in a way, is a giveaway of the cause of India’s plight, past and present – the abject ignorance of the Hindus about the exclusivist ethos of the expansionist Christian and Islamic faiths, and their utter disregard for the perils their followers posed to India’s social harmony, political unity and national integrity. However, given their social ethos of religious amity, this sedate Hindu failure of yore, to grasp the divisive credos of the alien faiths, is understandable, though not anymore. Even so, as the sanatana Hindu non-varnas were socially kept away from Bharat’s varna mainstream, the precedence of Buddhism and Jainism that sought to correct this self-negating social code, were more of reformist offshoots than rebellious branches of the otherwise all-encompassing sanatana dharma that, lo, holds Charvaka’s atheism too in its Hindu fold!

Whatever, given the inadequate growth of these sub-religious trees, as they failed to provide much of a reformist shade to the non-varnas, the practice of their debasement, if not enslavement, persisted in the Hindu social arrangement. Sadly but inevitably, this social wedge became the Achilles heel for the proselytizing Christians and Muslims to pierce through the Hindu body politic. Even so, the Muslims needed the might of their sword and power of patronage and the Christians, the guile of enticement and the guise of charity for their religious headway. However, it is a testimony to the Indian social resilience that together they could only uproot, up to a quarter of its Hindu roots that too in a millennium. Ironically though, it is this intellectual complacency that makes the Hindus the ‘once bitten not twice shy’ kind, showing a blind eye to the unabated conversion of their disgruntled sections into these alien faiths to India’s demographic detriment.         

Just the same, Maryam Jameelah in her book, Islam and Orientalism, lamented that “If the Mughal monarchs had assumed their responsibilities as Muslim rulers and organized intensive tabliq or missionary work, the majority of Indians would have embraced Islam and hence the necessity for partition and all the disasters that followed in its wake, never would have arisen.” If only Jameelah had read Al-Biruni, she could have envisaged the haughty hurdles of the Hindu varnas that the Mughal tabliq had to surmount. Besides, as the unceasing tabliq would have entailed a perpetual jihad, probably, the Sultans staid put in their palaces annexed with harems in the limited lands that came under their sway. All the same, they spared no efforts to pluck the low hanging Hindu ‘non-varna’ fruits to substantially fill their Islamic religious baskets.  

Eventually though, signaling the end to the eight-hundred years old partial Muslim rule, Robert Clive planted the British colonial foot in the Battle of Plassey, plotted by Jagat Seth’s avenging ‘financial’ hand at Siraj-ud-Daulah’s  insult of him. Nevertheless, the Nehruvian school curriculum, as if to deprive the Hindu kids of the feel good revenge, made the game-changing event seem an all-Muslim affair with Mir Jaffar as the quisling. Whatever, given the Mughal decline by then, but for this Cliveian twist to the Mughal legacy, it is not inconceivable that the Marathas, Rajputs and the valorous rest would have given a Hindu turn to the Muslim history. Be that as it may, by ending the Muslim influence in India, the British had enabled the Hindus to feel at home in their ancestral land, at long last that is. But all that turned out to be a false start for them as the British Macaulayzed their educational mechanism to uproot generations of Hindus from their sanatana grassroots to upend their cultural legacy from their collective consciousness. Hence, as if to prove that ‘there’s a price to pay for freedom’, history threw the Hindus out of the frying pan into fire. That it affected an encore for them is the irony of India’s history!

Not just that, the British pauperized Bharat by ruining its industry and degrading its economy, from some 24% of the world’s GDP to around 4% of it before they had to leave its shores for their own safety. However, it’s another matter though that the centuries-long Islamic turbulence had earlier brought down the Indian economy by ten notches or so. Even as the British rule impoverished India that hurt all, still the Muslims couldn’t care less for their holy book hath it that “Naught is the life of the world save a pastime and a sport. Better far is the abode of the Hereafter for those who keep their duty (to Allah). Have ye then no sense?” Not only that, having barred the secular education to their kids for the fear of its intellectual corruption of their irrational belief system, they had confined them to madrasas for further cementing their blind faith in their tiny heads. As ummah is change averse, the Muslim conditions apply even now and maybe into the foreseeable future as well. Thus, it’s no wonder that this inimical feature of the Muslim character has become the cornerstone of the electoral strategy of the cynical politics – Give Muslims their Islam and be done with them.

But then, even as the patriotic fervour began to awake the Hindu nationalism, the Islamic craving for a Muslim homeland started taking its political shape, both anathemas to the British colonial masters. It was then that the much-wronged Hindus needed a visionary leader to guide them to their rightful place under the sun but instead they got the silly but wily Gandhi, who sadly fouled it for them, so to say, for all times to come. However, Muslims found their messiah in Jinnah, who delivered the hoped-for Pakistan to them, so to say, on the Hindu platter of his own ancestors. Surely, Gandhi was erudite enough to know about the Muslim religious obligation to strive for the establishment of an Islamic rule in dar al-harb, which India was, and still is for them. Even then, instead of tackling the ummah on the separatist front, by appeasing the Musalmans in every which way, he naively persisted in his attempts to avert India’s inevitable partition with disastrous consequences. It’s thus, even as he was unequivocal about the Hindu non-violence, he was ambivalent on the Muslim violence, be it Moplah massacres or Swami Shraddhanand’s murder to cite but two examples.

More so, it was Gandhi’s lack of foresight leading up to India’s partition that hurt the Hindus the most, to appreciate which his wooly Hindu-Muslim sadbhavana should be contrasted with Ambedkar’s robust take on the Muslim psyche: “…the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.”  Thus, failing to see the Muslim intent to break India, even after personally witnessing the Direct Action Day’s virulent violence, he remained pigheadedly adamant against India’s inevitable, even necessary partition, albeit with the population exchange on the respective religious grounds, advocated by Sardar Patel, not to speak of Ambedkar. Just the same, as if he had a premonition of the post-partition calamity in the offing, on April 6, 1947 he lectured that “Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives.”

If only Gandhi had a knack for realpolitik, seeing the writing on the Muslim-fractured Indian wall, he should have brought about an equitable religious separation in an amicable manner, which would have saved the catastrophic outcomes of the haphazard partition for Hindus as well as Muslims, more so for the former. But yet, he showed no remorse for his foolhardiness in opposing a planned ‘population exchange based’ partition, but instead had allegedly stated that Hindu and Sikh women should get willingly raped by their Muslim violators. Capping all that, his incalculable harm to India lay in the unilateral anointment of Nehru, the most English of them all (in his own words) as its putative Prime Minister by immorally sidelining the Hindu nationalist Patel, opted by the congress party to lead the nascent nation.

Not just that, with his fast-unto-death stunt later, he coerced the Indian government into releasing to Pakistan its share of the partition funds that is in the midst of their military engagement! Sadly for India, this anti-national stance of Gandhi on his utopian moral ground turned out to be the proverbial last straw on Godse’s patriotic back. Whatever, sensing a godsend opportunity to grind his political axe in Godse’s senseless act, Nehru cleverly dubbed the murder of a maverick as the martyrdom of the Mahatma. But equally cynically, so as to smoothen the way for the Muslim aggrandizement in India, he forged the ant-communal hammer on the anvil of that human tragedy for smothering the resurgent Hindu nationalism. Why, he did proclaim that he was “English by education, Muslim by culture and Hindu by accident.”

However, his Muslim affinity, as can be seen from his midnight missive to Padmaja Naidu, wherein he penned his ‘relief’ at the British military action that killed 400 Bihari farmers indulged in a retaliatory Hindu rioting after the Noakhali Muslim carnage, was more cynical than cultural. What is worse, it is an unambiguous giveaway of his anti-Hindu disposition that he was wont to exhibit throughout albeit in the secular garb. Here are a few lines from that ‘insensitive’ letter for all to ponder over:     

‘’.. I learnt that the military had fired on a peasant mob in the rural areas some miles from here, and about 400 had been killed. Normally such a thing would have horrified me. But would you believe it? I was greatly relieved to hear it!”

“And so when the news came that they have been stopped at last in one place and that 400 of them had died, I felt that the balance had been very slightly righted.” 

Oh, bemoan Gandhi for having entrusted the fate of the trusting Hindus to such a cynical person, who was emotionally as well as intellectually anti-Hindu. But then, the crux of India’s plight is that both these crass characters were at chasing the mirages of their false images - Gandhi as an apostle of non-violence and Nehru as the messiah of non-alignment – by turning its interests into a desert of despair, which apparance is seldom appreciated by the wronged Hindus themselves.

No less significant is the start of Nehru’s epochal Tryst with Destiny address to the Indian Constituent Assembly – “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially” – that is an intellectual indicator of not only his limited ambition for the independent India but also his lack of belief in the Hindu potential to reclaim its ancient glory. But, lo, as India’s ill-fate would have it, he happened to helm it for the first seventeen years in its making as an independent nation! However, it’s true that he shaped the ‘temples of modern India’ in the form of giant public sector undertakings and ushered in the elite Indian Institutes of Technology, ostensibly to train their pujaris. Nevertheless, as it turned out, these prized pundits invariably sailed to the American shores for ‘bettering themselves’ and, in time, the Nehruvian temples were turned into white elephants by their ‘socialist’ attendants. That’s not all to the litany of the national, social, moral, material, and political ills that have come to plague India, courtesy his unsavoury legacy, made worse by his daughter Indira and her daughter-in-law Sonia, who lorded over India for long. No denying, there are books and books, about India’s plight, but doubt if any of them pinpoint the root causes of the malady, and what follows is but an attempt at that.

So to say, to enable the Musalmans to feel at home in the Hindu India, for reasons better left for researchers to explore in the future, Nehru had ensured that the Hindus have no cause and effect to feel it is their own country, which  proved to be its double jeopardy. It’s thus, with its caste-centric Hindus lacking nationalist impulse and its Muslim residuals devoid of any sense of belonging to it (recall Ambedkar’s words) forming its demographic triad, with the ‘neither here nor there’ closet Christians, India has become the habitat of varied interest groups but not a unified nation with a unitary purpose. But still, the historic situation was never beyond redemption, if only the Hindus were made to believe that in essence India belonged to them and them only and so it was their bounden duty to make it great again, morally, spiritually, as well as materially, never mind the non-committal minorities, by and large that is. However, his dynastic successors, not content with engineering the caste divisions to fracture the Hindu mandate, had fostered the captive Muslim vote-bank to willy-nilly put India on the demographic path of future partition.  

But at long last, as if to give itself a rightful turn to its wrongful history, India had induced its indifferent Hindu electorate to vote out Nehru’s dubious descendants, who have become its nemeses since long, and vote in the nationalist Narendra Modi. Hitting the ground running, Modi had diagnosed India’s true malaise and started curing the same by restoring the Hindu religious virility and infusing Bharat’s cultural pride in the Indian national consciousness. It’s as if, so to say overnight, India has regained its lost Hindu josh on its march towards Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat, the veracity of which the Operation Sindoor has validated. By now it is apparent, more than ever, that the Hindus have come to believe that India is theirs to cherish, nourish, and protect against all odds and in every eventuality. What is more heartening is, the Hindus have come to believe that like the Sindoor, Atmanirbhar too is not a one-off thing, but an ongoing endeavour to usher in the Vikasit Bharat after Modi’s heart.

But yet, India has to contend with the nefarious nexus of the intransigent Islamists, obscurantist Muslims and their left-lib cohorts, who leave no stone unturned to impede its progress in every possible way, judicial activism included. So, it is only by defanging this venomous system that Bharat can become vikasit, and hopefully Modi would be able to do that in time so that the present and the future generations of Hindus would be blessed to be able to echo their ancestors’ modified motto, ‘there is no country but theirs, no culture like theirs, no society like theirs, no democracy like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs, no economy like theirs and no military like theirs’.      

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Autumn Love 

    This is the story of moral conflict between marital fidelity and extramarital attraction in a woman’s emotional sphere, in the autumn of her life.

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She willed herself to not to check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his ‘last seen at’ status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. This sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost tortuous.

And then, just as she sat down in her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message.

But when she opened it and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn’t know if he was joking or not. What was this? [*]

‘Is it a point of no return?’ she thought involuntarily moving to the edge of the chair.

Reading his ‘have you forgotten about the castration?’ message, she sank into the chair thinking, ‘is it a lighthearted joke or as a loaded message?’, and for a clue, began to recall the events of the year passed by.

‘Oh, how my life had turned on its head when I turned fifty?’ she thought in wonderment. ‘That’s when I immunized my heart against attractions and insulated my life from vacillations! So I believed, didn’t I? But when he enamored my heart to give a flirty spin to my life, didn’t it dawn upon me that I had only sterilized it for a ritual regimen, and no more. Oh, how his first glance pierced my heart to stir my life that very instant!’

Returning from a temple when she found him alone in the drawing room, she felt as if god had sent his angle to receive her in her own abode. The moment their eyes met, it was as if they began their joint search for a love ground to share, which they had to abandon as her husband entered the scene from behind the curtain.

He was a friend of her husband’s childhood pal settled in the States. Having spent the best part of his life there, he came back with his wife for good, leaving their two children, who were US citizens. That was six months back and they had since settled in Hyderabad, where, incidentally, both her married daughters stayed. As he happened to be in their town alone, to explore some business opportunities there, that evening, he came to call on her husband at their common-friend’s behest. Introductions over, as her husband wanted her to prepare some coffee for them; she went into the kitchen with a heavy heart.

‘While my missing his sight had understandably irked me, didn’t the thought that he too would miss my sight inexplicably hurt me?’ she began reminiscing about that dream encounter. ‘But then, how the smell of the boiling decoction lifted my spirits for it portended serving him some steamy coffee with my own hands. When he said he never tasted anything better, how I hoped he would leave some dregs for my palate to share his satisfaction. What a disappointment it was seeing him empty the cup and how exhilarated I was when he said he had broken his life-long habit of leaving the dregs. Then, as he was preparing to leave, how depressed I was, but how relieved I was when my husband invited him to visit us again!’

She got up from the chair and as if to walk down the memory lane, she walked up to the compound gate.

‘Oh, how that fateful evening changed the autumn tenor of my life!’ she went on reminiscing. ‘Were it the deities I pray that chose to pave a pathway of love for me? Or was it a case of my prayers gone awry? Before he stirred my heart, how sedate was my life, sterile though? After all, there was no material change after he had entered into it. Neither I did I venture onto his love ground nor did I let him into my sexual sphere. Why should life seem drab now as he cold shouldered me? Why not, won’t the change of heart alter the tenor of life? Even the one as dull as mine, well, but it did start on an exciting note for a provincial girl like me.’

She was born to humble parents, who felt increasingly proud of her as she grew up. After all, she turned out to be the small town’s beauty and the brains of its academics. When she was eighteen, calf love turned a new leaf in her life. The object of her adoration happened to be the stopgap lecturer from a nearby town. He taught maths alright but the equation was wrong for their marriage as he was doubly aged and twice married. Yet, amidst the protestations from her parents, with her tenacity of love, augmented by obduracy of adventure, she ascended the altar to be led by him to his native town. Her marital life, underscored by her zest for it, though clouded by his thrift, was exemplified by her two cute daughters born in quick succession.

‘Didn’t his thrift drift towards miserliness soon pushing my life into nothingness.’ she began to recollect that phase of her life when her children were growing up. ‘Why, as his passion for lovemaking too lost traction, how my life entered into the arena of frustration? Yet I shut my mind to adulterous thoughts, didn’t I? But did he stop at that? Why, he did acquire a sense of insecurity as well and how insensibly I imbibed both his vices! Maybe that’s why I learnt short-hand as a long handle for my secretarial security. Was it really so? Wouldn’t have my own fear of the future bred an urge for self-preservation in my subconscious mind? Who knows, I might’ve been.

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This story, written for “Write India Campaign of Times of India, 2015” on Preeti Shenoy’s prompt [*] is a part of the author's free ebook 'Storied Varied - A book of Short Stories', that can be googled.  

 

     

 

    An End Without An End

   A short story by BS Murthy

It is the enigma of life in that death impacts the living in ways varied, so it seems. When I heard she died, well after her death, I was doubly pained. Not that it was any untimely for she lived long enough to become a great-grandmother. Even then, death, after all, is death that is finite. But she made hers, an end without an end, haunting me no end.

So to say, born not long apart, we became close neighbours, that was in our late teens. Besides being pretty and lively, she had grace and poise. Yet I was not drawn to her as I was infatuated with someone by then, say in calf-love. Hence, not to mention her nuanced advances, I was even blind to her come-hither looks. But soon enough, as she laid bare her heart to me, I was insensibly impacted by the warmth of her love. So, with her craving for me crushing my crush for the other, I began seeing her passion in the light of her love, and that enhanced mine own ardour for her. Soon thus, the physics of proximity abetted by the chemistry of intimacy pushed us into a secretive courtship, of necking and pecking. Even therein, we refrained from crossing the threshold of chastity, ahead of the nuptial night that we thought was in the offing.

However, given the nearness of our births, when she became marriageable, I was still some way from obtaining my degree, and far off from becoming an eligible bachelor. So, when her father wanted her to don the bridal attire, she bought time, on one pretext or the other, for quite some time. Eventually though, as he would have no more of her excuses, and as there was no way I could seek her hand from him, she urged me to somehow find a way out for us to tie the knot. But then, my family was in no financial position to man our marital burden and I too had no means to stop her dad from stalling his move. Thus, in spite of her support, as I found myself unequal to the task on hand, she felt that I did not want her enough to have her as wife, the hallmark of love. Maybe, she had our elopement in mind, but all the same, she may be justified in believing that I dithered at the goalpost for I was more of her lover than she was my beloved. Then, probably on the rebound, she married a not so remarkable man, and as if to show me my altered place in her life, she pictured me to him as a ‘distant’ relative. 

But when we met some four years later, though she appeared feisty, yet I could discern in her an element of disconcert that she wryly put it as her life’s course correction. Even so, as if to put her on a lively path, her old flame got aflame, making her uninhibited in her affection and flirtatious in her attention. Though her allure furthered my desire, not wanting to compromise her position, I resisted myself from yielding, hard though it was. Needless to say, the premise I have heard that ‘even as gentlemen remain cold to their old flames, blaggards seek to inflame them’, stood me in good stead then. But for her part, I never knew if she mistook my moral distancing from her as a reconfirmation of my disregard for her emotions. Now seeing all that in hindsight and going by the Bard’s word that ‘virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometime by action dignified’, I should’ve rather given in. But then, it’s our natures that tend to dictate the courses of our lives.  

Whatever, as if not to push us any farther into the tempting arena of human frailties, life had kept us locationally apart till well past our prime, by when passions tend to pale into nostalgias. So, when it brought us back into its reckoning, lo as residents of the same town, though as an abundant precaution, it had ensured that we came together only in our family get-togethers. Moreover, as if to make us stick to its nondescript script, her man tended to monopolize my attention for his tedious monologues, leaving us no scope to reminisce our past intimacies. Thus, as our formal meetings too becoming boring moments, I had no incentive left to make it to her place. More so, as she too showed no inclination for our private interaction, in time, our meets got limited to family functions that were far and few between. Besides, so as not to give her man any cause for misapprehension, as I kept myself away from any telephonic contact with her, we became neither here nor there things for far too long. 

  

Thus, some six months back, when I was away in another town, as her name flashed on my cell screen, I reached for her call in all anticipation only to find it fall through, followed by my return call as well. Though I sensed that something could be amiss in her aborted attempt to contact me, yet I failed to get to her to enquire, even after I was back in town that is. No denying all that stirred me from my stupor, but sadly, my lethargy stopped me from responding. Even so, I tended to think about her more than ever before, but somehow by then, truth to tell, I lacked the zeal to make it to her place. And as for her, the proof is in the pudding itself, so I thought. Oh, whither gone our urges that used to make us cling together with no heart to part; well it’s as if our flame of passion got extinguished without a trace for any follow up by us.

In that setting, as I heard about her demise, after a prolonged illness at that, it seemed like the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip, of my troubled conscience. When it slowly sunk in that even the inkling of death failed to induce in her an urge to see, and be seen by me, for one last time, I was at a loss with myself. But then, why it had to end without an end? Had she become averse to me, believing that I was cold-hearted for my failure to visit her after her tentative phone call that she herself aborted? Or, could it be the case of her brewing resentment against me that boiled over at the near end of her life? Why, she did tell me after our breakup that her life won’t be what she imagined it would be with me. Though I took that as a boilerplate reaction in that situation, going by her life-long reticence, it turned out to be prophetic, as vouched even by her man! That being the case, maybe her reminiscences of things past came alive to rake up her twice bitten wounds, goading her to have the last laugh at me over her cold shoulder, to make me seem her nobody in the end. Oh me, but is it not hard to believe that she would have really wanted me to go through my last days with that sickening thought.

But, how am I to know what had transpired in her troubled head towards the end? Maybe, as and when I bump into her over there, provided she cares to reveal, that too if she had left her bitterness here behind her. But then, having ignored her all the while, when she was alive, why, after her death, am I perturbed about her indifference to me towards her end? It’s as if, more than her pitiable death, that’s what it was as I have learned, it’s my hurt ego that is paining me; so be it, for it implies that I valued her more than either of us ever thought. All said and done, looks like love, in the long run, tends to leave its poetic course to take the prosaic route, and that’s the irony of life.

 

 

 

 

 

  Absurd Proposal

Though not nonplussed at having lost her virginity, Nithya, nevertheless, began pressuring Vasu for the nuptial. Yet, his assurances to tie the knot made her give him more of her own that was till she felt he was taking it easy. When she began denying him the good time to drive home her point that only made him indignant, she could figure out the consequences of his indifference. Thus, feeling vulnerable, she forced herself to humour him even more furthering his fulfillment all the more. But even as he procrastinated over their nuptial, his seed began to evolve in her womb and things came to a head when she missed her periods.

When confronted with the development, Vasu could dodge no more, and spilled the beans.

"I understand your embarrassment," he began.

"What an understatement!" she said in consternation.

"We shouldn't have jumped the gun."

"It's neither here nor there," she said, worried over his prevarication.

"Why worry," he said taking her hand, "as I'm around still."

"Better you rush to your parents now," she said as her voice reflected her sense of urgency. "We should get married before my morning sickness shows up."

"Don't I know about that, but...."

"But what?" she interrupted him in alarm.

"Why are you so impatient?"

"Do remember," she said turning apprehensive, "you promised to marry me."

"I'm here to keep my word."

"Then why dilly-dally?"

"Our marriage is not the problem," he said affecting confusion. "The predicament is how to go about it."

"You always sounded confident, didn't you?"

"I am all for marrying you," he said assuming a melancholic pose. "But there are other things in the way. Those that make life what it is."

"What are you trying to convey?" she became nervous.

"I'm too confused for that."

"What confusion?"

"Now I'm trapped between two stools," he said affecting pain. "I can't extricate myself without disturbing either or both. That's my predicament."

"Is it the time to beat around the bush?" she asked in vexation. "Don't you understand my position? Are your parents against our marriage or what?"

"If it were so," he said assuming an air of arrogance, "I would've walked out on them long back and led you to the Registrar's Office straightaway. But my dilemma is different."

"What's that?" she said, perplexed.

"Promise me," he said outstretching his right palm, "you won't take it amiss."

"Oh, tell me," she said brushing his hand aside.

"We've to contend with Prema."

"Who's she?"

"She's my betrothed," he said nonchalantly.

"What!" she exclaimed, unable to believe her ears.

"We were engaged shortly before I met you."

"What do you mean?" she nearly fainted.

"Don't get upset," he said, trying to comfort her, "listen to me fully."

"How could you do this to me?"

"Oh, please listen," he tried to appease her, "I'll explain everything."

"What else can I do now?" she sounded helpless. "After all, haven't I compromised myself?"

"Don't get depressed," he said trying to sound genuine. "I would never swap her for you. I wouldn't do that even with a Helen for sure. Just try to understand my situation."

"I'm confused really."

"Don't be impatient," he said. "We'll sort out things."

"You should've had me," she blurted out, "only after sorting out things."

"Well, I'll explain."

"Does it make any difference to me now?" she said, wearily.

"When I became a probationary officer, Prema was proposed to me," he said, weighing his words as though he was a tutored witness in the court. "It was a dream match, whichever way one may look at it. We got engaged before I came here for the training. How could I have known that you'd come into my life? The moment I saw you, I was lost in love. The day I was sure of your love, I wrote to my father to cancel the engagement."

"What did he say?" she couldn't help enquiring.

"He said it would put him in a spot," he paused as though to let her prepare for the blow to follow. "He said he used the dowry he took to clear the debts. If I go back now, he will be obliged to return the amount and that would push us back into the debt trap all again. What's worse, it would jeopardize our position in the biradari. So he pleaded that he be spared all this in his old age. Can't you understand my predicament? I've a balancing act to do now and you can see how hard it is on me as well."

"If anything, it's harder on me, especially with your child in my womb. Its time you realize that," she said spiritedly. "Well, I see a way out. Let's take a loan to return the dowry. I'll take up a job and help you tighten our belts as well. It's only a matter of time before we come out clean."

"I don't think it's not workable," he said sounding sentimental. "Besides making me feel like a drag on your life that would only bring me back to square one. Didn't I tell you I always felt deprived, being born poor? Being a Class One Officer, I still feel insecure. While our tightened belts would only reinforce my deprived feeling, the debt trap could make me feel all the more insecure. Moreover, when the novelty wears off, I may even perceive you as the cause of my discomfiture. What's worse, our marriage itself could be on the rocks due to domestic discords."

"All that could be true," she said, as he felt relieved. "But, what's the alternative?"

"There is one," he said seemingly in hesitation, "if you could take it."

"Tell me."

"That is, he said, 'if you believe that I am yours first and last."

"If not," she said a little relieved, "do you think I would've given myself to you?"

"Prema is stinking rich," he began taking her hand as though to make her a co-conspirator.

"Now I see," she said pulling back in vexation, "why you are ditching me."

"If you think I am marrying her for money," he said seemingly offended, "she is no less a stunner than you."

"Oh, the novelty seems to have worn off already!" she said as sarcastically as she could while trying not to feel helpless. "Why not, haven't you had enough of me already?"

"I'm sorry," he said cajolingly, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm just explaining things. Believe me, life for me without you would be like going through the motions. But without wealth it comes to the same in spite of you. Had you come into my life straight away, it would've been like living in heaven in your wifely fold. But this turn of events gave me the opportunity of my life that is hard to miss. And hadn't you come into my life, I would've been happy still, living with her, unaware of what fulfillment could really be with a woman. To be or not to be, that's my dilemma."

"Better realize that you can't have the cake and eat it too," she said as she readied herself to force the issue. "You've to take your pick, now and here. Well, as you have made your inclinations apparent, I won't bank upon your love anyway. I can only appeal to your conscience, that too because of my condition. If only I were not carrying, seeing how you are dodging, I would've walked out on you by now. Now I know what a woman loses by compromising herself. Anyway, it's too late in the day for me to think of it."

"I know you're hurt," he said. "As I understand your vexation, you should also realize I too have my qualms. I've been troubled ever since we've got physically close. That very night I thought of running away from you. But your beauty and my love immobilized me."

"Now that you're satiated," she hissed at him venomously, "why don't you admit it's just lust with you."

"Even if you take it that way," he said, "a lifetime of sex with you won't be enough to quench my thirst for you. And the truth is, I'm passionately in love with you. You know I've got addicted to you, thanks to the ardor of your amour. Without you I would go mad indeed."

"Keeping my fate in balance," she said in agony, "you're killing me with your falsity."

"If you go with my proposal," he said as if to tilt the balance, "everything would turn out fine in the end."

"What's that?" she enquired in spite of herself.

"With your parents' blessings," he said taking her hand, "we'll have a civil marriage."

"What about your parents?"

"We'll keep them out of the loop for a while."

"But why?" she said removing her hand from his.

"It's my idea of our love," he said regaining her hand, "to save our love. In turn, I'll marry Prema without your parents' getting wiser to it. Slowly but steadily, we can prepare her and all, to the reality of our lives."

"What an absurd proposal!" she said in remorse.

"I agree it's unusual," he said disarmingly. "But that suits us admirably."

"I will be a game," she said having read his game in the meantime, "if only you make Prema privy to this plan."

"It's an absurd proposal really."

"Why! Won't it suit you fine, either way?" she said pinning him down. "If she agrees, you would've us both and should she back out, your father needn't return the money. Wouldn't that remove the hurdle to our marriage? You know it would."

"Doubt if it works out that way," he said lacking any conviction in what he said.

"Why don't you admit," she jeered at him, "that you don't want it that way."

"When I'm frank with you," he sounded arguing for a lost case, "I expect a better understanding than that. How do you expect me to tell my betrothed that I've a pregnant lover? But after marriage it would be all so different. Won't the closeness of marriage call for compromises?"

"Now, I understand your method," she said in apparent hatred. "Lure women into bed to make them vulnerable, and then force compromises upon them. You want to make her your wife for money and retain me as your keep to pep up your sex life!"

"If I were as mean as you imagine," he said playing his sincerity card to the hilt, "wouldn't I have married you on the sly?"

"Oh, you're too clever for that," she said in exasperation. "You're no fool to bite more than you can chew. You know you would come to grief fighting on two fronts. So you've hit upon this strategy of smothering me before tackling her. If you can coerce me now, you think you can cajole her later. It calls for an evil genius to come up with such a devious plan."

"Am I expected to take all this rubbish?" he said feigning anger.

"Why, were you to fail with her later," she continued her tirade against him, "you would have me still, won't you? What's more, her money too, for I'm sure you would make some of hers yours without losing any time. And in case you can't sell your idea to me, still you would've a beautiful wife, and all her money. Either way, you know, you would gain more than you can lose. How cleverly you got into a win-win position!"

"You're attributing motives," he said sounding sad, "to a victim of circumstances."

"On the other hand," she said in pain, "you've made me a victim to better your circumstances. Betrothed though, you wormed your way into my life with the idea of making me your keep."

"Do blame me but spare my love," he said affecting distress. "I love you, and I want you forever. I know that you love me too. Don't break our hearts and make life bleak for both of us."

"So much for our love," she said broaching the topic of her embarrassment, "what about your child in my womb?"

"He would be my first born, won't he?"

"You mean the first bastard?" she said in all sarcasm. "Oh, you've determined the sex of our child beforehand! You seem to be cock sure in all you do, don't you?"

"Don't be harsh!" he said taken aback at her resistance. "Didn't I tell you it's time I owned up you up as my wife?"

"What if you fail to keep your word?" she said in vexation. "Won't that leave our child illegitimate and keep me ever your keep?"

"Believe me."

"You mean I should believe you after what all you've done to me?" she said rebelliously. "What if I reject your proposal?"

"Then unfortunately for both of us," he said after a pause, "we've to go our separate ways."

"Well," she said resolutely, "before that see the child goes out of the way."

"Don't be in a hurry," he tried to sound even more persuasive. "What if we make up in the end? Won't we feel sorry then?"

"You know it brooks no delay, don't you?"

"I'm hopeful," he said reaching for her hand, "our love would make us cling together through thick and thin."

"So you want me to let it grow so that I would've nowhere else to go."

"I don't want to lose you if I can help it," he said not giving up. "You may call me mean that way."

"Haven't I got the taste of your meanness already?" she said, "But if you help me get aborted, I may still feel that there is something left to be salvaged in your character."

"I'm still hopeful."

"That's another way of saying that you won't like to pick up the bill," she said sarcastically. "A rupee saved is a rupee earned, isn't it? Who knows about it better than you, a bank officer opting for mercenary marriage?"

"Well, there's a limit even for insulting."

"Thanks for reminding me about the limits," she said unable to control her tears. "Didn't I bring it upon myself by crossing my limits? Had I not given myself to you, you would've found it hard to decide which way to go now. Having given in myself, I've lost my aura, and having had me, you've lost your appetite. Where's the incentive to marry me now?"

"You're cross with me as you've misunderstood me," he said trying to gain control over her. "But don't nurse hatred for me. Our destinies might still bring us together. Won't the intimacy of the old times usher in fresh tidings then? When the dust of your misgivings settles down, I'm sure we won't be able to resist each other any time."

"I would like to forget you in double quick time," she said as she left him in a huff. "How I wish I had never met you at all. Let the devil take you."

As she walked out on him, she was consumed by hatred.

'Why not I kill him and avenge myself?' she thought on her way. 'But that would only ruin my life further and scandalize my family even more. Let him go to hell. I better think about how to get out of this mess.'

As she walked her way home, she turned her attention on self-preservation.

'I've to handle my parents first,' she contemplated. 'They're sure to smell a rat, sooner than later. Better I tell them that he backed out because of parental opposition. Why, they are bound to be disappointed if not shaken. All the same, how their enthusiasm for him surged my own infatuation. Didn't they make it appear as though all was over bar tying the knot? How sad that I got carried away only to end up being pregnant! Oh, how fate has contrived a parental part in my downfall!'

'What a paradox pregnancy for women is,' Nithya thought that night. 'If a married conceives, it's a cause for celebration, but with an unmarried, it's a means of castigation. After all, man doesn't have any bother in this regard, but then, someone has to bell the cat of nature's urge for procreation. At least, he should've got the decency to arrange for the abortion. But the bastard seems to have designs on me into the future as well. He may even resort to blackmail to entrap me all again. Will he ever allow me to live in peace? Oh, what a devil have I courted?'

As she imagined his shadow on her future, she was frightened no end.

'Had I not conceived,' she reasoned, 'it wouldn't have been so tough on me. Well, I wouldn't have made myself as vulnerable to his blackmail later. Won't it pay to take precautions for women in love to save their skin? Why, the hymen would go away anyway but how can any be wiser to the coitus that caused its rupture? Whatever, I've to get on to the table straight away for there is no other way.'

'Is death the only solution to my predicament?' she thought as the hypocrisy of women's chastity seemed an irony to her. 'Oh no, what dreams I had for my life! But, how sour they all turned out to be! And that's another story. Now, before all else, I should get out of this mess. But how am I to go about it? That's the big question! And what of the future threat from him? Well, I would see how to deal with him later, if he ever returns.'

This is an eponymous episode from the author's third novel 'Crossing the Mirage - Passing through youth' that is a free ebook in the public domain