Stories Varied - A Book of Short Stories by BS Murthy (read aloud books txt) 📖

for her, I was deeply hurt for by then I prided myself on my good looks. Swallowing my pride and subduing my lust, as I befriended her to be near her, she admitted me into her inner circle, albeit drawing a platonic line. As she began receiving me at her home, her mother dropped enough hints that she was in the lookout for a suitable boy for Rathi in the corridors of IIMs. And that put paid to the slim hope that still lingered in my mind about winning her hand in the end. So we had to part on a friendly note as graduates, and shortly thereafter she invited me to her wedding that I chose not to attend.

“Where are you lost?” she said returning from the loo.

“Well, in our woods of remembrances,” I said searching for her reaction.

“It seems the flight could be delayed by an hour or so,” she said without betraying her emotions.

“No worry as the wedding is scheduled for the evening,” I said disappointed.

“So, be ready with your handkerchief,” she said in half-jest. 

“Thanks to IndiGo, you can open the floodgates,” I said pulling out a handkerchief from my hip pocket.

“In hindsight it was my mother who scripted my marital misery,” she said as a prologue to her hapless tale. “Reared as she was in middleclass drudgery, she planted high-class seedling in my childhood bosom that turned into an unbending tree in my adult mindset. I was enamored of you but yet I couldn’t entertain the idea of marrying you. As Shekhar fitted the bill, I became his willing bride but just the same, I wished you were at my wedding.”

“You don’t know what a struggle it was for me to decide one way or the other,” I said apologetically.

“Do you think I couldn’t have wagered a guess about that?” she said taking my hand, and began resuming her tale after releasing it. “But what I failed to understand then was why Shekhar opted to marry me as he could have picked and chosen any beauty queen.”

“Won’t that tinge of sadness in your face make you irresistible for men?” I said instinctively.

“Oh, is it so?” she said as her face radiated only to resume resignedly. “Well, he was not the one to nuance the feminine attributes. Instead, he was fixated with the astrological aspects in horoscopes. Do you know why he married me? I came to know later that his astrological guru told him that the planetary positions in the 7th house my horoscope indicated that my spouse would reach the apex of the business pyramid. Now I can figure out with what hopes he would have rented that house in Hyderabad, as a prelude to his entry into the haloed chambers of a blue chip company. You can’t imagine the astrological lengths to which he tended to go; he’s wont to take leave of absence during the predicted bad periods. As a result, he had to give way to his subordinate to ascend the administrative ladder. With his dreams thus shattered, he alleged that my parents had fabricated my horoscope and abused me for being the curse of his career. And that was the final nail in our marital coffin.”

“What have you been doing ever since?” I said placing my hand on her shoulders.

“I returned to Delhi and to my parents to take up the fulltime job of fighting for my divorce. What an ordeal it had been for two years to obtain a decree that was on hand only a fortnight back. In a way, this trip is meant to celebrate my release. Now, tell me about your life,” she said taking my hand.

“This is Mohan Kumar, B.A, LLB, a Junior Counsel at the Delhi High Court, and no more,” I said symbolically withdrawing my hand from hers.

“Had I known that, I could’ve entrusted my case to you and maybe you would’ve set me free much earlier,” she said smilingly.

Soon we boarded the Boeing and tried to delve into the fictional world, she with Crossing the Mirage and I with Benign Flame. What with Rathi’s enhanced sex appeal stirring my own sensuality, I closed the book, unable to grasp the nuances of Roopa’s sexuality dwelt in it. But as she was seemingly immersed in her book, without batting an eyelid, I began savoring her seductive persona. In time, as I was seized by an urge to possess her, I felt like proposing to her then and there. But I checked myself as that might seem that I was trying to take advantage of her disadvantaged position. Even otherwise, how could I measure up to her high-class aspiration? Why invite a rejection all again, I thought, and so I became once bitten twice shy. Yet I couldn’t help but let my eyes follow her frame all the way from Bengaluru Airport to the Koramangala Motel, where we were lodged along with our batchmates, who came in numbers.

It was a gala wedding by any standards of the day and also the bride was no less rotund than the prevailing trend. Even as Rathi was appropriated by the groom’s family, I was overwhelmed by our batchmates. And that depressed as well as relived me in the same vein. As our return trip proved to be an encore, as we waited for baggage clearance, I knew the time was up for me to go back to square one.

“Why not we have lunch at our place?” she said taking me by surprise.

“I would love that but.. “ I said as that didn’t sound like a formal invite.

“Don’t worry, as my mom no longer eulogizes MBAs, and who knows, now she many sing paeans for LLBs,” she said extending her hand.

I took her hand and, hand in hand, we walked out of the Delhi Airport.

Ravinder Singh’s prompt [*]

 

Story 8

A Hearty Turn

 

“Are you sure, Rhea?” asked my mother.

“Of course, I’m. Survival of the fittest, mother. I’m not going against Darwin. Also I don’t want unnecessary scars on my body.”

It’s a known fact that we are all born to die. And frankly, I don’t understand why it has to be made into such a big deal. If it were not for my mother, I would have said that to the bunch of people outside my house, some of them with young kids, shouting slogans, waving placards, literally wanting me to cut one of my beating hearts out. “Save A Life. Donate!” they shout.

For someone, who is one in billions, 7.125 billion to be exact, I expect to be treated better. Scientists are still befuddled regarding my condition that gave me two hearts in my mother’s womb. But years of research and sticking needles into me have led them nowhere, and they have labeled me as a freak mutation. It’s so rare – literally one in all humankind - that they didn’t even name the anomaly (as they call it, I will call it awesomeness). I want to name the condition myself, something on the lines of Rhea’s Hearts-awsome but the doctors aren’t thrilled with the suggestion. Instead they want to cut one of them out and save a life. Huh?

An IQ of 180, increased concentration, exceptional athleticism and phenomenal metabolism rate – are just the few boring benefits of an increased blood circulation. Why would I ever give that up? [*]

That’s how I began my tale to Dr. Ramya, about my age, at the Kidney Research and Rehabilitation Center at Kodur, and for better effect, followed it while undergoing dialysis. With a purpose that is.

Those slogans still ring in my ears though it happened some ten years back when I was twenty-something. It’s when my twin-hearts were fronting the fountainhead of my Rand-inspired head, that’s what it was like. But now my kidneys can’t even handle half of that outflow, how times change! If only my father were alive then! Wouldn’t he have backed me to the hilt? That’s what fathers are for daughters. Don’t we have psycho analysis about that, but that’s beside the point.  Why, even my mother wouldn’t have toyed with that idea, so to say, in normal times.  But then, she had to contend with her widowhood and the insecurity it brought along with it. Damn the sense of insecurity, the source of insensitivity, at least part of it. So she envisaged bartering my hearty thing for her secured living.  And to be fair to her, she revealed her mundane self without putting on a Samaritan garb over it. But did she really, was it a full disclosure.  I doubt.  Since the needy fellow was a Bollywood star, wouldn’t she have eyed some elderly role for herself as a badi bahu or a choti maa on the celluloid that is?  Well past her prime then, she was still good enough to enamour even younger eyes, and she hasn’t lost much, as of now. If only she could’ve made it to the silver screen then, who knows, she could be adorning it, some way or the other, even now. Why won’t that hold a great promise to my mate in lovemaking? Be that as it may, I played foul with that which could’ve been an antonym for a double whammy for her. Yet she didn’t bear any grudge against me, on that count at least.

Even as I poured water over my mother’s calculations, how the mob at our gates swelled by the day to overwhelm me! With what fury they began baying for my surplus heart, as they saw it. And they were all members of that star’s assorted fan clubs fanned all over. All financed by him, of course, any doubt about that. That’s not all. The electronic media went overboard in solidarity, ostensibly with its eyes firmly glued on the TRPs. And the celluloid intellectuals and the social activists began vying with each other to juxtapose the star’s philanthropic largesse and my surplus meagerness. Pig heads all.  Why one hyper-active TV anchor even dubbed it as my double-hearted weak-heartedness, and no marks for guessing who. Not content with all that, legions of the star’s million fans took to FaceBook to bleed my hearts all over it. It’s a mob mob world. So it seems.

Then appeared that fateful post on that very website, “None would’ve cared a damn for Rhea’s second heart, if it were to save the life of a slighted soul, not that of a soulless star.” Well it’s an allusion to that actor’s off-screen omissions and commissions. As that propped up my tenuous position, I initiated spirited chat with him that is without a slightest idea that he could be an imposter!  I should’ve known all that glitters is not gold.  Lo, he led me to his bed behind the back of his wife that is. That I came to know much later that is as he started avoiding me. What irked me was not the loss of the silly virginity that society wants us women to preserve for the sake of an unknown man. That is until he turns up as husband. But then, it’s his deception without contraception that blackened my face before my mother. Seems like life is merciless to those who fall by its wayside, but thankfully, my mother didn’t make it any worse for me. Well, she left the choice to me. It’s not that I was averse to becoming a single mother but I had no stomach to bear that bastard’s bastard child; so I climbed onto the table.

But what an irony the symbolism of abuse is; even if its object is the male, yet its subject is ever the female! As my mother’s tenderness, contrasting his crudeness, gave birth to my softness to the fair sex, I insensibly began to develop lesbian leanings. It’s as if my mother gave birth to me twice, first as a girl and then as a lesbian. Two hearts and two births! How freak! And yet it took a veteran to spot my proclivity and make me adept at