Crossing The Mirage Passing Through Youth Read online

'Won't it seem the color of the skin is the measure of man's worth as well?' he thought in humiliation. 'Oh, how dark skin devalues man in more ways than one. Would I ever be able to induce a decent dame to become my wife? Why, even Vasavi refused to entertain ungainly men, didn't she? How come, even the ugly seek beauty in their mates? Why not, it's the beauty that triggers the biological impulse.'

  At that, inadvertently, his thoughts turned to his mother.

  'What should have been her compulsions to marry my father?' he thought. 'Being so beautiful she herself that is! If only she married another, perhaps, Vasavi and I could've been differently made, wouldn't we have been? Won't mother be thinking that way, seeing the plight of her children more so her daughter that is?'

  But, on second thoughts, he felt ashamed that he allowed himself to think in those terms.

  The reality of life is unmistakable, isn't it?' he felt dejectedly. 'It's the fact of heredity that shapes one's looks for good or for bad. Unfortunately for us, we took after our father. Had we acquired our mother's features, and even a shade of her complexion, it would've been all too different. Vasavi would have been a mother many times over by now and I could have been the playboy of the college. Wouldn't that have made all those who snub me envious of me?'

  The envisaged envy of others in his fantasy made him envious of them in reality.

  'Surely, it could be a heady feeling to be admired by women,' he thought. 'How wanted that might make one feel! Won't the glow of the favored shows it could be infinitely fulfilling. But looks like, it's my fate to encounter indifference indefinitely. What a wretched life, I can't even dare to daydream!'

  In that state of depression, when he saw his father at the Princely Pearls, his state of mind ensured that he found him more oppressive than ever. The grouse he nursed that

  it was his father's genes that were the source of his and his sibling's troubles came to the fore as though to settle scores with his hapless parent.

  The psychic mix of hostility towards his father and empathy for his sister catalyzed by self-pity made Yadagiri’s welcome words seem absurd to Chandra's pixilated mind. What was worse, the father's show of affection appeared apologetic to his son's afflicted mind. Unfortunately thus, in the son's myopic vision, the paternal love seemed an embodiment of parental guilt. It was as if at that very moment the son's alienation from his father reached a point of no return.

  Chapter 2 End of the Tether

  When Chandra had graduated in commerce, Yadagiri wanted him to join him at the Princely Pearls. Though Chandra knew it was coming, yet he felt like it was a bolt from the blue. Having come to mirror his misfortunes in his father's visage, the prospect of the paternal proximity in perpetuity sickened him.

  'But how can I possibly object to something that's obvious, natural even!' thought Chandra, and the more he thought about it, all the more he wanted to avoid being drafted into the family business. 'Come what may, I won't have any of it, that's all,' he resolved in the end.

  So he began to stall the issue on one pretext or the other, all the while weighing his options, and Yadagiri, who envisioned grandiose plans for the Princely Pearls with Chandra in the saddle, was not amused by his prevarication. The inexplicable conduct of his pride-of-the-future perplexed the father in the beginning only to vex him in time. Chandra, for his part, could not conjure up a credible escape route though he thought long and hard about it. But, in the end, having come to know of an obscure management institute, he tried to sell the idea of M BA to his father through Anasuya's good offices.

  "I've more business tricks up my sleeve than the market feel of all the MBAs put together," said Yadagiri dismissively. "They are but snobs in the tweed suits, these M BAs."

  With his hope of good hope too ending up in the deep desert, Chandra feigned sickness by way of finding an oasis. Losing his patience at last, Yadagiri forced the issue and fixed the muhurtham. Dreading the diktat and determined to avoid the draft, Chandra became pensive. But, slowly, pondering over his predicament, brought about by his parent, he felt outraged. The perceived dominance of his father, and his own inability to resist him, made him hate his parent and pity himself in the same vein. His sense of inadequacy to oppose his father overtly made him think of revolting against him covertly.

  'What if I run away!' spurred on by the stray thought, he felt. 'Won't I be free then? Am I not qualified, after all? Can't I live on my own?'

  Plagued by the fear of the unknown and pricked by what was known—apprentice on sufferance—he thought he was caught between the devil and the deep sea. Compounding his misery was the thought of the effect his desertion would have on his hapless mother. Thus, he felt as though he was a bird caged at birth, not acquainted with the faculty of flying.

  'What'sthe wayout?' he racked his brain. 'Why not tell momand seek her support?'

  But on second thoughts, he became doubtful about the wisdom of it all. 'She would sympathize with me only to plead that I fall in line,' he figured it out. 'What's worse, she

  may even extract a promise from me never to desert her. Moreover, what if she blurts out, it would only make matters worse.'

  Puzzled by the predicament, his mind played snakes-and-ladders with his resolveeven as his enthusiasm for freedom surged him to the threshold of action, the fear of the fallout pulled him back to square one. Unable to take the plunge and yet detesting the status quo, he decided to approach his sister for a solution.

  'Being in the same boat,' he sought to pump himself up, 'won't she appreciate my lot? Besides, she won't let me down even if she doesn't help.'

  When Chandra revealed, Vasavi was raveled.

  'It's okay for women to feel helpless in this man's world,' she contemplated, 'and advantaged that they are, it ought to be different for men, isn't i? But, it doesn't seem to be so with my poor brother. Oh, how miserable he looks! Is he afraid of the devil when there is none? Still, if pushed to the wall, wouldn't he be further embittered? Isn't one hapless soul in the house enough to hurt the family health?'

  She couldn't help but smile wryly.

  'What about poor mother?' her thoughts continued in the same vein. 'As it is, she's worried to death on my account. If something goes wrong with him as well, her cup of misery would be overflowing indeed. Why, she wouldn't be able to take it at all.'

  Unable to bear her silence, Chandra clutched at her hand nervously.

  "Help me," he pleaded. "I'm sure you can.”

  "Let me think it over," she sounded hopeful. "You better go now."

  As he left, she began thinking about the plight of their lives aggravated by his predicament.

  'At least he has me to turn to for help,' she felt melancholically. 'What about me? I can cry over mother's shoulder and she is sure to wipe out all my tears. Likewise, she would lend her shoulder to him as well. But can she address our worries? How she can, isn't the poor thing half-dead on my account. Well, should he desert us now, she would be shattered and may even become insane. All the same, she would never let him go if she ever gets wind of his mind. That's the problem. But what's the solution?'

  'Much of his misery may be imaginary,' she began thinking after a pause, 'but its effect appears real. He's really psyched out. Or so it appears. Maybe, it is better that he goes. Being away for a while may relax his nerves and help him clear his mental blocks. There's no other way over there. Dad is bound to be upset about it all. He may even lose his bearings and disown him forever. It would be a tough ask to assuage father and console mother once he's gone. But the family good lies in his going, so it seems.'

  At that, she mapped out a strategy for her brother's deliverance but became doubtful about its fallout. 'Won't they be cross with me for abetting his desertion!' she thought in the end. 'And will that help him in the end after all? What possibly could go wrong with him? Oh, life seems to be partial to the males. Won't it come up with escape routes even when fate corners them? Women, oh, they seem to be forever trapped in the man's world, in every way that is. At least som
e occupation would've served my cause. It might have proved to be an opportunity even. Who knows, I could've met my man at work to work out the rest. Thanks to father's dogmas, I'm condemned to this vegetable existence. How tiresome life has become for so long now! Those silly old values that make vassals out of women! With its oppressive social lock well in place, it's but a calibrated culture trap to entrap women. There is no breaking the shackles my

  father and fate together had put my life in. But Chandra could be a free soul soon. That's the advantage of being born a male.'

  As the euphoria of her role in his brother's escape gave her ideas about her own deliverance, she became ecstatic. 'Why not go along with him?' she deliberated at length. 'Maybe, single women are vulnerable if they are on their own. There is no mistaking about that in our society, at least as of now. But with Chandra around, it would be different; there won't be a problem that way. Once I feel secure, the rest should be easy to get a footing. We both can work hard and breathe easy. Can't we? We can, that's for sure. Who knows, I may find my man at last to lead a meaningful life.'

  The possibility excited her in the beginning only to dampen her at the end.

  'Well, it is one thing for a boy to run away from home and another for a girl to do the same,' she thought dejectedly. 'My rebellion could be labeled loose character and my adventure might be dubbed as elopement. Won't all that shame my parents, and who knows, they may even commit suicide! Oh, how can I bring infamy to my family and ruin my parents in the process? If it comes to that, it's better that I die. It looks as if death is the only escape for me from this life denied.'

  In the melancholy of that thought-wave, she found herself in tears, but as her brother came back to her in apprehension, she wiped them away in dejection.

  "I'm sorry I've upset you," he was upset himself.

  "It's the accident of being born a girl that is upsetting,” she said as a fresh bout of tears gushed out of her eyes.

  Seeing Chandra perturbed, she patted him for equanimity.

  "I'm sorry for both of us," he said, himself in tears.

  "It's no use your living in misery here," she said thoughtfully. "I will help you break free."

  "What if they turn sour with you?"

  "Don't worry," she said resignedly, "I'll find my own release."

  "Thanks to you," he said clasping her hand, "I don't feel helpless anymore. And I owe it to you forever."

  "I know life wouldn't be the same for you," she patted his head, "and try to be brave always."

  Chapter 3 Burden of Freedom

  Aboard the Bombay Express, Chandra was impatient for the train to move out of Nampally Station. Sitting by the window, he downed the shutter to escape attention of the passers-by. Doubling his precaution to avoid detection, he covered his flanks as well with the centre spread of the day's Deccan Chronicle. Thus, in his quarantine, he failed to notice the arrival into the compartment of a bulky youth with a big suitcase.

  Panting for a while, the stranger surveyed the scene within, as one would, to gain a vantage seat. Zeroing on the space aside Chandra's, he began pushing his baggage beneath the seat during which he had inadvertently hurt Chandra's feet. When Chandra reflexively lowered the newspaper, it got punctured as the newcomer got up to apologize. Having sat in embarrassment, yet feeling suffocated, the lad reached for the latch of the shutter over Chandra's head. Lifting the same without bringing to bear his weight on Chandra, the fellow settled in his seat to the latter's chagrin.

  Though Chandra stared at him in irritation, the fellow who had by then regained his lost ground ignored him altogether. Experiencing a peculiar sense of satisfaction at the chap's recuperation, Chandra, as though to buttress his own self-worth, patted him heartily. When the driver, as a prelude to the guard's green signal, tooted the horn, Chandra's spirits soared sky-high.

  Soon, the Bombay Express set on its routine course that charted Chandra's unchartered sojourn in the metropolis. When the express train left the platform behind and went into the open, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply as if to signify his own break with the past. As the train picked up speed, even as the gushing winds dispelled his anxieties, the rollicking motion massaged his exhaustion. In time, resting his head on the window frame, Chandra sank into a deep sleep that even the chaai garam din of the tea vendors failed to impact him.

  By then, everyone in the compartment had settled down as well. While the woman by the window side opposite to Chandra was knitting a sweater for the baby girl in her lap, her husband amused himself with the playful child. While the burly youth was leafing through the Film Fare, the lad seated next seemed to savor the pictures of the fair sex therein. Making the quorum, three middle-aged men, all uniformly bald, were mimicking their boss without any fear of being eavesdropped.

  Right across the aisle, an eager couple joined their split seats in a bid to come closer to each other. The tentativeness of the man's advances and the coyness of the woman's responses indicated that they were just married. It seemed the radiance on his face stemmed from a sense of possessing her and the aura she developed was owing to the consciousness of his attentions.

  When Chandra woke up, his eyes scanned the surroundings, before they rested on the couple lost in their sweet nothings. Struck by their mirth, he even felt mystified. The infectiousness of happiness is such that in the proximity of the fulfilled, the sense of dejection in the suffering would seem to evaporate. Looking at them with amusement, he envisaged the euphoria newness brings to a person's love life and wondered whether the same couple would be half as eager towards each other after a couple of years. Maybe, later on, it could be their vested interests aided by habit and abetted by hope that constrain them to get glued together. That being the reality of marriage, he wondered, how all crave to tie the knot! The thought he was no exception to it also made him see the irony of it all.

  As if to show Chandra the reality of life, the babe cried, making him turn to its mother in anticipation. When she pulled her blouse to let the babe suckle, Chandra got a glimpse of her marble breast. Even as the babe firmed up its grip on the daunting nipple, the mother veiled her ampleness with the pallu. Nevertheless, the momentary sight of that female form made Chandra reminisce the import of an earlier encounter.

  During the summers, he was wont to sleep on the terrace in the open air. That night, as he sauntered there after dinner, what he sighted through the neighbor's window stopped him in his tracks. A young girl in full bloom was undressing herself in front of a full-length mirror. He became breathless when he saw the reflections of her breasts as they were released from the confines of her brassiere. Soon, as he came to view both sides of her delectable frame, he was dumbstruck by the beauty of her nudity. After slipping into her lingerie, though she disappeared from his sight, he held on to his post energized by expectancy. As his legs cried foul in the end, he pulled himself to his bed in disappointment. Even before his hope goaded him back to the post, the light went off in her room as though to end his anxiety. Though the impact of her figure benumbed him for long, the excitement he felt in her imagery lent substance to his self-gratification that night.

  'Obviously, she is a guest,' he thought, enamored of her. 'If only she would host my love.'

  Waking up early the next day, he became restless to see her and be seen as well. At last, when their eyes met, he found hers opaque though she saw desire in his. Disappointed though, he kept vigil for the rest of the day in the hope of catching a glimpse of her. Frustrated in the end, he waited for the moon to take over.

  Much before the sun could oblige him to hand over the night vigil to its celestial cousin, Chandra was on the terrace to sight the moons down the window. When the clock struck seven, to his delight, she appeared in the room. Combing her luxuriant hair, she plaited it with her slender fingers. Then picking up a Turkish towel, she then went out of his sight, leaving him dampened with the thought that she might have gone only to wash her face. When she reappeared with the towel tucked over her breasts, h
e was expectant all again. As he waited with bated breath, she began applying some talcum on her body, her robust thighs bore the brunt of his darting looks. And when she dropped the towel to powder her breasts, he sighted the hair over her chink. The frontal nudity of the magnificent maiden made him mad with desire for her possession. Oblivious to his voyeurism, she slipped into her lingerie and disappeared from his view. And he, lost to himself, stood rooted.

  Though he tried his best to attract her attention from dawn to dusk the next day, she took no note of him. That made him think of giving up on his vigil, but came evening, he found himself on the terrace and awaited her arrival. All the same, while his desire urged him to stay on, his decency counseled him to retreat. Though he felt it was demeaning to pry upon a disinterested dame, yet he reached the coign of vantage to ogle her compelling nudity. As if she got wind of his suffering from his qualms, and to put an end his moral dilemma, she left to her native, the next day. Nevertheless, her thoughts tickled as well as troubled him for long, well before her curvy figure all but became a contour in his memory.

  When the chaai-wala came along chanting his mantra, Chandra came out of his reverie. Alive to the environs all again, he felt like having some chaai, even as the bulky chap ordered for both of them. Sipping from his cup, Chandra saw the woman opposite bring her other breast into play but that made no impact on him. In that lactation, the absence of eroticism was a revelation to him. Then, as the woman cuddled her kid, he sensed the essence of maternity.

  'By now mother would know,' he contemplated. 'She would be taken aback and feel cheated for sure. But then, won't Vasavi make her see the reality? And it would all be different with father. He would be hurt and unforgiving too. Why he may even disown me. So be it. I am a free bird and that's what matters to me now.'

  When the vendors started distributing dinner thalis, the lower berths were converted into dining tables. As the bulky guy found it difficult to arrange himself, Chandra made room for him by squeezing himself.