Sorry for having kept you waiting for so long for my letter. Well, I was at a loss for words when it came to writing to you. Believe me.
Yours all,
Sandhya.
As Roopa read and reread the letter, her innate longing for Sandhya wrenched her every nerve. Thus at bedtime that night, having shown her father’s letter to Sathyam, she said, “I want to go home.”
“What’s the hurry?” he said softly. “Any way we would be there for the dasara.”
“Let me go now as dasara is far way,” she tried to persuade him. “Then we can go together.”
“It’s not even a month since we’ve set up our sweet home and why sour it so soon,” he said in smile and tried to take her into his arms, as though to whisper the prescription for her ailment. “Not that I can’t understand your feelings but you’ve got to get over your homesickness.”
Dodging him, she turned her back on him.
“Don’t behave like a kid,” he said affectionately, and tried to turn her to his side.
“What have you got to do with a kid?” she said as she resisted his advances.
“You know,” he said softly, cuddling her, “‘that I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Never mind,”’ she said withdrawing from his embrace. “I prefer being a kid.”
“I am sorry,” he said pleadingly, “if I’ve hurt you.”
“If you are really sorry,” she said, pulling a blanket over her head, as though it were curtains for him, “let me be alone.”
The next day too Sathyam had to contend with a morose Roopa, and during bedtime, as if to preempt his move, she pretended headache. Unable to bear the tension born out of her regimen, that plagued him for a couple of days more, he gave in.
“Look,” he said that night, “I’ve a surprise for you.”
Though she smelt victory, she feigned indifference.
“I’ll put you on the train,” he showed her the reserved ticket, “this Saturday itself.”
“Thank you,” she tried to appear casual.
“Now at least,” he said, taking her into his arms, “you can bring your bewitching smile back onto your fascinating face.”
Having enfeebled him into setting a precedent, she was not averse to giving in, and thus said enticingly, “Switch off the light.”
~~~~~~~
Roopa’s arrival that Sunday morning took her parents, still at ablutions, all by surprise.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Janaki apprehensively.
‘Oh, don’t imagine things,’ said Roopa heartily. ‘I’ve come to have some fun.’
‘Still Sathyam should’ve wired about your arrival,’ said Ramaiah in relief,