Smallness of Bigness
“But as my child grew in Ruma’s womb, the devil gained ground in my head for the second time; earlier to possess her I even thought of killing Rajan,” he continued as I returned. “Maybe I wouldn’t have brought myself to that, but the fact that I went to lengths to perfect the plan means Devi was right about my getting swayed by women. Had not death pulled him out of the scene, my ever-on-the-raise passion for Ruma might have tripped me at the threshold; let me tell you my plan for that perfect murder.”
“I suppose it takes moral courage to own up our degradations.”
“The idea was to sow the seed of doubt in Ruma’s mind about a Rajan-Rathi affair and to let that grow into a tree of misgivings,” he began to unravel the murder plan. “You know in the human mind, doubt has a faster rate of growth than even hope, and we know what that meant for poor Desdemona. Even if Ruma were not to fall into my arms on the rebound, she was bound to offer her shoulder to me to cry over, come to think of it, how cuckolding could facilitate seduction by way of compensation. So, by worming my way into her heart by egging on her fears that Rajan was about to desert her, I would be able to unravel my plan for a perfect murder; at a time when Rathi goes to her parents’ place, we would drive Rajan to a less-frequented lake to drug him before I push him into it; as I jump after him to pin him down, she would yell for help, well at the top of her tone, and by the time someone would have come to bear witness to my fake rescue act, Rajan would have been dead and gone. Rathi could be told that Rajan, suspecting that I was carrying on with Ruma, had died in the process of drowning me; in the traumatic aftermath, we were bound to find solace in each other’s arms, and given her nature, Rathi was sure to sympathize with Ruma to bring about our ménage a trois.”
“Maybe you could’ve made a name for yourself in crime fiction.”
“How I craved to hear that from Ruma but fearing that she might take me as a callous character, I didn’t disclose my diabolical plan to her though she pestered me no end,” he said remorsefully. “Wonder how I could think in terms of snuffing out a life, more so of someone with full of life; by the way, what about soldiering, apart from the sense of valor, don’t the poor youth opt for it for a livelihood. But who cares for their lives bar in the West, more so in the U.S; ironically, in long drawn-out ground wars, it’s this sensitivity to life that’s the Achilles’ heel of the American military might. Why not, as is the case with the possibilities of life, so is with the power of the nations, it’s all about limitations.”