‘You can trust me as a friend,’ he said, and added as though with an eye on the future, ‘more than as a husband. As a friend, you would find me frank in interaction, but as husband, I might be selective in disclosing. I believe thoughtless openness hurts more than it helps relationships.’
‘I appreciate that,’ she said, turning thoughtful herself.
‘After all,’ he said kissing her hand, ‘it’s not that frankness alone brings a couple closer. It’s the mutual respect that develops a feeling of togetherness between them.’
‘With Roopa,’ she said, as her face brightened, ‘the feeling of friendship fuses with the emotions of our affection.’
‘I suppose, that’s possible only in friendship between women,’ he said. ‘Though I am happy for you, I am worried about her.’
‘But why?’ she said, puzzled.
‘It’s very clear that theirs is an intellectual mismatch,’ he said gravely. ‘And given her faculties, she could be a mightily bored wife by now. Won’t that bring her face to face with the temptation for deviation? After all, liaison is the last resort of a bored woman. In a way, she could be on the thin edge of married ice. So, for her, while a fall could be grievous, life itself would be laborious in the long run.’
‘You’ve guessed it right,’ she said as if she were confessing on behalf of Roopa. ‘Whatever it was, she wasn’t enthused about Sathyam from the beginning, though she did mould herself into a dutiful wife. About the temptations and all, though it may be true otherwise, she is no run-of-the-mill for that.’
‘Left to her,’ he said concernedly, ‘what you say could be true. But do realize that she doesn’t live in an ivory tower anyway. Any man can sense the void in her wedded life and that would make him imagine the possibilities. The attempts at seduction that would follow could insensibly disturb her moral equilibrium to push her into the arms of a novice for solace. What’s worse, desertion that is a corollary to seduction could affect her self-belief all the more. It’s not the moral aspect that bothers me for it’s her private affair, but it’s the possible fallout of that which should alarm us.’
‘Oh, you scare me really,’ she said clutching at his hand.
‘You should know that by their very nature affairs are short-lived,’ he sounded pensive. ‘Of course, they are often brought to a premature close by the favored man. On the other hand, it won’t be the case of ‘once bitten twice shy’ either for the ditched woman. Bitten by the novelty bug, woman could itch for a new lover to supplant her lost paramour. And having got addicted to the illicit thrills, she could jump from bed to bed with gay abandon. God forbid, if Roopa’s life were to follow this pattern, then she could end up depraved in the end.’