‘Maybe,’ said Sathyam resignedly, ‘that’s the way to look at these issues.’
‘It seems sensitivity is all about the ability to see from the side of the deprived,’ said Sandhya who came to serve them breakfast.
The rest of the day turned out to be uneventful for Roopa and Raja Rao though it enabled Sathyam and Sandhya get closer to each other. In the end, reaching the Secunderabad Railway Station in the evening, they retrieved the luggage from the cloakroom. As Sathyam volunteered to keep pace with the coolie, Raja Rao stopped at Higginbotham’s. At that, Roopa slowed down, pretending to mend her chappal, even as Sandhya proceeded to keep company with Sathyam. Sensing Roopa’s gesture, Raja Rao joined her hurriedly, picking up the current ‘Sunday’.
‘I hope,’ he said, as he reached towards her, ‘you remember.’
‘Can I forget,’ she said, without raising her head.
‘I shall always cherish you,’ he said lovingly.
As she was about to say something, he realized that they were in the earshot of Sathyam, and so he hailed him as though to forewarn her.
‘While his presence has set the narrative of my life in poetic prose, won’t his absence make it prosaic all again?’ Roopa thought, and looked at Raja Rao longingly as they went up to Sathyam and Sandhya.
At length, when the guard whistled, Roopa felt as though Raja Rao’s eyes whispered, ‘I love you.’
Waving to them as the Minar Express chugged out, Roopa wondered, ‘Would I ever be able to make my life poetic in his passion? Am I really destined for that?’