Benign Flame: Saga of Love by BS Murthy (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

“Why not if Roopa is its co-author?” she said smilingly.

While Roopa’s wanting remained unfulfilled for the day, Sandhya’s romanticism ensured Raja Rao’s fulfillment that night; and the next day, as the eager lovers came out of the ante-room, they felt as if they had sex for the first time in their life.

However, a few days later, at the sound of the buzzer, fearing exposure, they were benumbed in their lovemaking.

“What to do?” Roopa whispered, instinctively covering herself.

“Let’s not respond,” he said in undertone.

“What if it’s Sandhya?” she said, worried.

“I’ll see,” he said getting dressed hurriedly.

When he returned relieved, she was partially dressed.

“Thank God, I escaped the quarantine,” she said in relief but added in apprehension, “I’m afraid we may not be lucky next time.”

“And there’s the Murphy’s Law to back your fears,” he smiled.

“It’s no laughing matter; if it is Sathyam, it’s death, and if it were Sandhya, it’s shame though she seems to have guessed it,” she said nervously.

“So, it’s time we seduce her into a threesome,” he said thoughtfully.

“How I would love that day, nay, that night,” she said, as she hugged him in hope.

However, as the buzzer never sounded again during their escapades, their fear of exposure was evaporated in the heat of their passion and so the urgency to rope in Sandhya into their orgies receded.

Soon, as the business improved, Raja Rao was getting bogged down at the office until seven, however, freeing his women by five. Back at Sandhya’s place, the mates were wont to melt in each other’s arms.

In their lesbianism, even as the feeling that her man was also enjoying her lover gave the cutting edge to Sandhya’s amour, Roopa was eager with her ardour to augment her lover’s pleasure with her mate later. Thus as their fondness for their man grew, they were ever closer with each other in their lesbian domain and since Sathyam too was keeping late hours at the Secretariat, the mates began to keep themselves in their arms for longer hours.

“My lovey, what a life!” resting in Roopa’s lap, said Sandhya that evening.

“A love filled one,” said Roopa, fondling Sandhya’s breasts.

“Yet with yearning,” said Sandhya, winking at Roopa.

At that, having looked into Sandhya’s eyes intently, Roopa buried her head into her mate’s bosom endearingly.

“Take it easy,” said Sandhya in all smiles, moving her finger meaningfully in Roopa’s erotic essence.

“Make it hard now,” said Roopa in ecstasy.

Also, the affection Roopa felt for Saroja catered to her innate sense of womanly want and fondling the baby, she experienced a motherly fulfillment as well. Whenever Saroja smiled in her lap, wanting to mother her sibling subconsciously, Roopa felt spasms in her womb. The mood at the office too was upbeat for them all. Even as Ranga Reddy’s ambitious ventures were rising to the skies one by one, Subba Reddy’s new contracts were wearing the drafting table a little bit more. New clients too were trooping in, making Raja Rao think in terms of expansion. Thanks to the word of mouth, Sandhya too was busy with the decor of the posh bungalows of Banjara Hills. And all that made it a dance and dinner in Roopa’s life.

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That evening, as they were calling it day at Integral Architects, Narasaiah brought the disturbing news of a communal commotion in the old city.

The walled city of Hyderabad, on the banks of the Musi, built in the 16th Century by Quli Qutub Shah around the Charminar, is a predominantly Muslim populated part of the modern metropolis. As the legend has it, Shah built the place to commemorate his love for Bhagmathi, his Hindu beloved, and named it Bhagyanagar. Manned for most part by the Muslims, His Court felt that a Hindu name for a Muslim capital would be a misnomer, and thus proclaimed it as Hyderabad for the posterity. Ironically, as history witnessed, the Hindu mind and the Muslim psyche failed to fuse with the spirit of love that brought the place into being. Instead, they preferred to imbibe the theory of the Court that the Hindu character and the Muslim identity are things apart.

“They say some pork was thrown into the Mecca Masjid, and the Muslims suspect a Hindu hand behind the defilement,” reported Narasaiah.

“That might spell trouble after all but why do they provoke the Muslim sentiment at  all?” said a worried Aslam. ‘

“The fact, that the mere presence of pork in a mosque or beef in a temple could trigger a communal riot in our country speaks for itself,” articulated Raja Rao. “There’s no denying that it hurts the hyper-religious both ways, and it’s precisely for that reason that the mischief mongers from both the communities resort to such acts. If we allow such symbolic hurt to trigger a communal riot, it’s like walking into the trap laid by the cunning con men or the religious zealots. Everyone knows that the silent majority is peace loving and law abiding; not that they are spiritually enlightened or religiously tolerant. It’s just that all realize that orderliness serves their self-interest the best. But, thanks to the machinations of the mischievous few, all get engulfed in the communal frenzy. Regrettably, the politicians too developed a proclivity to fan religious passions to create vote banks for themselves.”

“What’s the way out then?” asked Sandhya.

“Oh, there seems to be none really,” articulated Raja Rao. “But common sense might help one to reach out to others across the boundaries of religious biases. Let’s take the present incident. Even assuming that it’s the handiwork of a couple of Hindus, can one say that all the Hindus of the city are behind it? But for all that, it could as well be the handiwork of a demented Muslim. The Muslims might rightly be outraged by the sacrilege, but won’t the Hindus themselves be wary about the tasteless deed? Instead of getting at each other’s throats, won’t it make sense for all, to collectively voice their common consternation? If only we could do that, the miscreants from both the communities would realize that there’s no mischievous ground left for them to foment trouble.”

“But who’s to take the lead?” asked Aslam.

“Who else but the middle-class as the pigheaded religious heads have failed the masses? Partly, the problem lies in the tendency of those that tend to give a public face to their private faith, and that makes the others suspicious about their religious intentions and personal inclinations,” said Raja Rao.

“Is it to suggest that the Muslims should desert their mosques?” asked Aslam.

“Who says that, but all should downplay the manifestations of their faith in the public arena at least. Maybe, more than the others, the Muslims need to do a lot more social re-engineering for their own good,” said Raja Rao.  

 “We, Muslims believe that there is but one God, so we can’t religiously relate to the Hindus who worship at the altars of so many gods, and that’s the source of the discord to begin with, something like an ideological dispute,” said Aslam.

“If that’s the case, the Christians too believe that one God, yet there were those crusades against the Muslims,” said Raja Rao. “But then, how can God be one, when all religions have their own ones! As for the Gods in our religion, I would say without meaning any offence to other faiths, there’s no contradiction in that. As the modern organization has evolved round department heads, it seems to me that our sanatana dhrma conceptualized various gods and goddesses for specific functions governing the Hindu destiny.”

“But it’s the Hindu idolatry that is at odds with Islam,” commented Aslam.

“Well, religion is an emotion peculiar to the humans, the sensitivity of which increases in the face of criticism from those of the other faiths,” said Raja Rao. “We, Hindus, feel incensed when others tend to reduce us to idol worshippers even as the essence of our Hindu dharma is aham brahmasmi brahma - God is but the self of man. Where is the question of idol worship when our bowing before our deities is only a symbolism of our submission to the paramatma, that is, Him? However, being ignorant of this Hindu nuance of our devotional ethos, those professing the Semitic faiths naively take it as idol worship.”

“Moreover, our deities impart form to the god we seek solace from, and thus help us stay focused in our prayer to Him,” continued Raja Rao. “By way of an example, we can all recall the features of our beloved ones in their absence, yet it’s only when we look at their pictures that our emotions for them get focused in our minds. It’s time others realise that what they misconstrue as idol worship is but a Hindu way of concentrating on God in their worship as well as in their prayers. Besides, we Hindus need distinctive images to envision our concept of God’s avatars but all the same, hasn’t the so called idolatry insensibly seeped into the religious ethos of the Christianity and Islam as well? Won’t that prove, if proof were ever needed, that when it comes to spirituality, imagery comes naturally to man, and anything contrary, be it religious or be it ideological, is the pretence of the protagonists.”

“Given the reality of human emotions, religious tolerance seems a mirage after all,” opined Roopa.

“Misplaced zeal for one’s faith and uncalled for bias against the other religions has been the bane of the humans,” said Raja Rao. “It should be understood that no one can emotionally feel about a religion other than his own, and only in the realization this truth lies the mantra of religious tolerance. Having said that, my intellectual perception of Hinduism and Islam is this: Hinduism is the most abstract of all religions, to comprehend which one needs a certain level of intellect, not common to the masses, which, at once proved to be its strength as well as its weakness. It’s the very character of their philosophy that enables the Hindus to try to understand the atma, that is, the self. And this Hindu endeavor to understand the self brought about the evolution of a thought process of the highest order ever achieved by the humanity at large. On the other hand, the Aryan intellectual apartheid pushed the Hindu masses into abject ignorance, not to speak of poverty.”

“Islam, on the other hand, is supposed to be a concise creed without any scope for ambiguity,” continued Raja Rao, “It’s as though the faith was fashioned keeping in mind the intellectual limitations of the mass of its adherents. Maybe, this clarity coupled with the egalitarian, though sectarian, concept of its teachings could have led to the conversion of those Indian masses who were either unable to comprehend the precepts of the Hindu dharma or those oppressed by the social prejudices of the caste order. But at the same time, this very virtue of definitiveness of Islam precludes any philosophical discourse about life, making it fundamentalist in its precept as well as its practice.”

“What do you think of Christianity?” Narasaiah, a Christian convert, asked Raja Rao.

‘To my mind, going by the progress made by its followers in shedding its dogmatic shackles, it’s the most dynamic of all dispensations, though its core remains fundamentalist. But its undue emphasis on sin as the fulcrum of the faith is indeed intriguing,” said Raja Rao.

“All religionists claim their religions preach peace, yet what governs the world is strife,” said Sandhya.

“That’s the paradox of the faiths,” said Raja Rao in exasperation. “While one wails over the death of a co-religionist in a riot, the same person is indifferent to the slaughter of scores from the other community! But will it be a consolation for a woman who lost her man that a dozen from the other faith were widowed as well, in the same commotion? Why would ever wounds differentiate human bodies on religious lines to heal themselves? What else is religious strife but human stupidity?”

“Inshah Allah, let it subside without further trouble,” said Aslam.

What an irony that modern man, engaged as he is in the pursuit