‘Roopa, nothing is really over till the very end,’ he said persuasively. ‘Even after death, there would still be one last journey to make to the crematorium. You could have wanted to be a doctor to serve the sick. Well, there are other ways for you to do that. Apart from the doctors and the ayahs, health-care needs administrators as well. If you work for it, who knows, you might run your own clinic one day.’
‘Honestly, I haven’t thought on those lines,’ said Roopa visibly impressed. ‘Thanks for opening up my mind.’
‘Who knows,’ said Sandhya joyously, ‘one day you might as well design her clinic.’
‘Won’t I put all my heart into it,’ said Raja Rao heartily, ‘making it all soulful for her.’
‘Oh,’ said Roopa extending her hand to him, ‘it’s like you’re rekindling my ambition.’
‘Meanwhile,’ he said holding on to her hand, ‘improve your academics through correspondence course, and enlarge your vision by observation. When the opportunity comes, thus you would have been equipped to acquit yourself well.’
‘Well,’ Roopa said as though in a trance.
‘I know you could,’ he said animatedly, and she pressed his hand warmly.
‘You can count on us,’ said Sandhya, embracing a moved Roopa.
Infected more by their euphoric love than his carnal desire, Raja Rao couldn’t help taking them both in his arms for a fleeting moment that seemed eternity to Roopa.