Night of the Mates
That August afternoon, at the Premier Architects’ office, holding Sandhya’s letter, Raja Rao was immersed in Roopa’s thoughts. ‘How miserable she could be, the poor thing,’ he sighed for the umpteenth time.
As though to get a measure of his beloved’s misery all again, he read from his wife’s letter once again. ‘After a fortnight’s stay here, Roopa left for Hyderabad this evening. Bogged down with her affairs all these days, I couldn’t write to you. Roopa is distraught, to say the least. She says that Sathyam has gone astray, unbelievable though it is. And to add to her misery, his friend Prasad has been pestering her for quite some time now. Now as I recall your reading of her situation, I am worried to death about what might lie in store for her. Though she feels she can handle her affairs on her own, I know she needs our support now more than ever. Any delay in our being near her might prove costly for all of us. Won’t you ensure that we forthwith move over to Hyderabad?’
As he read the letter once again as though to find a clue to Roopa’s predicament, he became nervous, and felt something within him was about to snap. ‘Oh, how I feared about all that coming true,’ he thought in desperation. ‘But why did I fail to act? Shouldn’t I rush now and see if there’s something left for me to salvage?’
Aboard the Indian Airlines flight that very evening, Raja Rao’s thoughts hovered around what Roopa’s present portends for his future.
‘What I am rushing now for? Does she want me anymore?’ he began to crystallize his situation at length. ‘Had I missed the bus or did that Prasad jump the queue? How does that matter had I lost her? Whatever it was, she would have given in to Prasad by now. Maybe, she couldn’t bring herself to confide in Sandhya that she was in the thick of it with him. It appears that her part-confession was but a sounding-board to prepare her pal to her affair with him. Oh, why have I delayed declaring my love to her? How costly would that prove for me?’
As the thought of life without Roopa depressed him, even the attentions paid by the pretty air hostess failed to impress him. ‘Am I destined to suffer in regret for letting her slip into Prasad’s embrace?’ he felt gloomy at the thought, ‘If she’s carrying on with Prasad, what sense does it make for me to shift over there now? Won’t that be a suicidal move for me? What an irony it would be, had she transferred her affections to another, even as I’m on the verge putting in my papers for her! Anyway, the moment of truth seems to be on hand for me. Let me see what her life would reveal to me.’