Of No Avail by BS Murthy (read novel full txt) 📖

the meantime; and for all that, she might have sought him on her own to fulfill her unfulfilled dreams. What an irony it would have been had she cast me away to make it with him by shedding her caste inhibitions; so I was constrained to engage a private detective to find that out to counter her strategy in the court.”

He stopped at that as if the findings were distasteful for their recollection leave alone narration.

“Skip that if it’s hurting,” she said pressing his hand.

“It really hurts but so be it,” he continued uninhibited. “When it came to light that she was living with that man after ruining my life, I was devastated to say the least though her unseemly conduct would make her case for maintenance collapse like a house of cards in the court hall. Yet it didn’t appeal to my sense of decency to go to town with her dubious character to score over her; so I sought her in the court premises and told her that her only saving grace lies in setting me free without any strings attached to our separation. Luckily for me, she saw the writing on the wall and saved me the shame of shaming my wife to save my skin.”

“Are you bitter feeling betrayed?” she said.

“Not after I could view the web of our wedlock through her marital prism,” he said. “She believed that the material fringes make value additions to life without which she saw it merely as a wasteful living. Maybe, one can fault her outlook of life that too at the cost of being judgmental but can’t really blame her for wanting to lead a life she wanted to live. But the moot point is the way she went about it which of course depends on one’s nature and character in the given circumstances, and that’s in the realms of morality which is a different subject altogether. Anyway, all that helped me to see life in more ways than one.”

“Now it helps me too?” she said.

“Anyway, after that four-year court ordeal my lawyer managed to get the court’s nod to untie our nuptial knot, and that tells a different story about the judicial apathy,” he continued. “You would’ve read a lot about our country’s judicial jigsaw but I’ll tell you something about its innate stupidity. On any given day, the so-called cause list, containing more cases than a Bakasur of a judge can bite, consumes much of, if not all, his pre-lunch session in routinely granting adjournments on one ground or the other. That only leaves the post lunch session for him to masticate a couple of cases at best with witnesses, arguments, and such. What a colossal waste of scarce court, nay public, time and yet wonder why it won’t occur to the wisemen in the black robes to take only that much in their judicial plates at a time as they can bite and chew as well.”

“Why, the insiders seldom have an outside view,” she said.

“That apart, the very idea of change is an anathema to the status quo,” he said. “It didn’t take me long to realize that our Byzantine system suits the culprits in the criminal cases, vexes the righteous in the civil suits and hurts the hurt in the divorce matters. That’s how I felt that I should try to contribute my little bit to hasten the justice delivery; moreover as our company was in doldrums by then, I saw the legal profession as a long-term career option for me. So, I opted to study law in an evening college to eventually enroll myself at the bar.”

“I do remember that your grandfather was a lawyer,” she said.

“A law author at that but wonder why he didn’t advise me to step into his shoes then,” he said.

“Better late than never and I’m sure his genes are serving you well at the bar,” she said.

“Maybe my impulse to serve at the bar itself owes to them,” he said with a sense of satisfaction. “You may know he was known to fight on the right side of justice so much so that the judges tend to pre-judge the cases that he had advocated, but on the flipside, it didn’t yield him the monetary returns the profession is known to yield to its protagonists. Possibly, my career graph too could follow his curve, and I won’t grumble about that but anyway that’s in the realms of the future.”

“I hope ethics and wealth would blend in your career,” she said.

“That is practice willing,” he said smilingly.

“By the way, have you ever tried to find me out all these years?” she said.

“Frankly, no for I always felt that while gentlemen remain cold to their old flames, blaggards inflame them,” he said with conviction.

“It’s gentlemanly, really,” she said taking his hand.

“Glad you appreciate,” he said pressing her hand.

“Be good to show me her picture,” she said smilingly.

Having handed over his marriage album to her, he went into the kitchen as it occurred to him that he missed his smoke all along.

‘Won’t her manner suggest that she is thinking in terms of picking up the threads?’ he began to contemplate as he prepared some coffee for them. ‘What could be her marital status? Given her rich manner, she could’ve married a well-heeled man. What if she’s either divorced, or god forbid, widowed? But seeing my net worth won’t add up to much why would she marry me now? By any chance, is the idea of an affair with an old flame moving her? If so, what a bonanza it would be with her enhanced allure. Or has she simply come to see me driven out of mere curiosity? Whatever, I shouldn’t be too eager as it’s wise to be once bitter twice shy.’

“Oh, thanks,” she said as he handed her a cup of coffee, “but surely she’s a good looker.”

“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” he said. “The irony of it all is, having lost your hand; I had to wait so long for a like hand. Maybe, a lesser hand would’ve served me well but that’s about ifs and buts of life. Well, what about showing me the picture of the man you gave your hand to?”

“Why jump the gun, first let’s go to my place,” she said.

“Let me have a shower then,” he said heading for the bath.

While he had his bath, speculating about the possibilities of her current station in life, she leafed through his marriage album all again.

“What about hiring a cab for us,” he said all ready to go.

“I’ve come in my car,” she said.

“Then I’ll follow you on my motorbike,” he said tentatively.

“What if you lose me in the traffic; I’ll be back to square one,” she said smilingly, and added. “So, I’ll take you in my car tied with the seat belt.”

“You can take me blindfolded if you wish,” he said as he led her out of his apartment.

“If you come with an open-mind that would do,” she said overtaking him to reach her car.

 

 

Part 2

 

As Priya drove him into the sprawling compound of an elite complex, Venu began to see the futility of his daydreams entertained in his modest dwelling.

‘Is not our status gap too wide to fill?’ he thought as she drove the car to her duplex villa. ‘Surely she would’ve known that the moment she stepped into my apartment. What for then has she brought me to her arena than to show me my place? Didn’t she hint that I’m better open-minded? What a tease it is? Oh, how I brought it upon myself; instead of being formal, I got warmer to her. Why the women in my life are so cruel to me. What if I deny her the vicarious pleasure by bidding her adieu at her doorstep itself? Won’t it serve her right?’

Parking the car in her portico when Priya nudged him towards the main door; he looked at her as if to read her mind for a clue to her intentions.

‘Am I seeing the devil in a Devi,’ he began to rethink on his vacillating ground. ‘Why am I not being able to give allowance to her genuine change of heart? Willy-nilly, have I become a misogamist without my knowing about that? Maybe that’s the damage my aborted marriage caused to my psyche, but I should not allow that to ruin my life. Why place the cart before the horse, let her show her hand now. ’

Thus as he stood at the doorstep, she stepped in to usher him in.

“Oh my man, tell my name,” she said in all smiles.

Her strange welcome made him co-relate it with her ‘customary entry’ statement at his place, and that brought to the fore the fuss his folks made to force him and Chitra to tell each other’s names to grant visa to enter his apartment. So it dawned on him that she could be alluding to the just weds’ entry into their marital home, and that raised his hopes all again.

“Oh, Priya,” he said tentatively as she took his hand.

“Welcome, though belated,” she said pressing his hand.

While she led him round her luxurious villa, to his dismay, he saw their economic disparity in full view.

“It’s frightfully rich,” he said as they returned to the drawing hall.

“Don’t frighten me like that,” she said as if pleadingly.

“Again I’m sorry, if I’ve sounded so,” he said taking her hand.

“Do you know what it cost me?” she said leading him to a sofa.

“I’m not yet into the real estate business,” he said in jest taking his seat.

“The price I paid for it is the self-imposed tax on my life,” she began by taking his hand, “After you stopped seeing me, as I started missing you, I developed second thoughts, and even as I was slowly veering towards you, as luck would have it, Veda my cousin visited us after a long gap. After her graduation, even as she wanted to marry her classmate for love, her father forced her to tie her life with a better qualified though oldish looking man, twelve years her senior. Though I was five years her junior, she treated me as a friend and used to confide in me a lot, so she was wont to lament then that as her uninspiring man fails to excite her, she lies as cold fish in her nuptial bed; that was shortly after her marriage but as if fate didn’t intend our union yet, she changed tack during that fateful visit. She said that it’s as well that her father derailed her love for she came to realize that there are other womanly wants that only a man of means can meet; so she maintained that in the long run love alone is of no avail to woman’s life. And that was that.”

“Won’t my story vindicate that, so no faulting that,” he said melancholically.

“Never mind women’s outcry about their lot in the man’s world,” she said after pressing his hand with empathy, “with a little bit of looks and a fair amount of luck, marriage tends them into exalted settings. However, save a slave of Razia Sultana, that could seldom be the case with men for woman tends to look up her station for her mate. Thus, banking on my good looks, even as I raised my matrimonial bar beyond the reach of the suitable boys of the middle class but the upper class parents either cold-shouldered my father’s overtures or pegged the dowry over the moon. Yet it took me quite a while to realize that the marital bar I set was beyond me to cross over onto the higher material zone. So, when my hopes became dupes, giving go ahead to my sister’s out of turn wedding, I came here to increase my social height by becoming a chartered accountant.”

“Wonder how you grew so much in a short time!” he said admiringly.

“But it took twenty years for the world to become small for us,” she said wryly. “So, I