Trembling Shadows
A romantic, psychological thriller
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“Just shut up! I don’t want to listen anything more from you now.” He yelled.
He did not care with her feeling at all. He continued satisfying his urge as usual. But after three or four days of that conversation she had committed suicide. It jolted him like anything. A guilty consciousness swept all over him for few days after that. Most surprisingly, he stopped feeling the urge for a long time after that incident.
Now, suddenly now, he did not know why Anand remembered Mallika. She did wrongs but she wanted to keep him good. She liked him. She did not want him to be spoiled. But he did not care her feelings and blackmailed her and enjoyed her. How much wrong she had committed so far comparing with him? She did that too only because of her husband’s inability to satisfy her. He did not consider about anything at all but his bodily desire. Suddenly he felt disgust on himself. He himself a big wrongdoer how he had any authority to say someone else did wrongs?
He was not the only person in his family did wrongs. He stealthily observed his sisters satisfying their lust with their boyfriends in secret. Even sometimes it came to the knowledge of his parents they did not care it much. He knew that his mother and father as well had gone on wrong routes. His whole family was rotten, spoiled and worst. In fact he had no right to blame Sunanda. If the way he lived, his sisters lived and his parents lived taken into consideration, he had no right to say that Sunanda did wrongs.
He was feeling surprise thinking what caused that change in him? He never had thought in this way before. Why this sudden change? After hearing Aravind saying so he started thinking but he was not thinking that alone caused this change in him. It seemed that the place itself had got some influence on him.
“You are thinking something very seriously my friend.” When he heard the voice Anand looked back. Aravind stood behind him. He was observing Anand with his those inscrutable eyes. Anand felt in the same way every time he would feel in the presence of Aravind. There was something untellable attraction in this boy. He was feeling subdued and yielded in the presence of him. He did not know why he wanted to listen whatever he would say.
“About my past. It is not that much glorious” Anand replied with a pathetic tone.
“Almost all our past lives are so. Only very few people would have glorious pasts. But we need not worry about our pasts. Our concentration must be and always on present and future” he squeezed Anand’s shoulder with his hand
“To me, my present and future either are not that much prospective” Anand said even more despairingly
“Why you are becoming like this? What is making you worry in this way? I know that you are quite educated and intelligent. You have got very good parents-in-law and a beautiful, intelligent and educated wife. What else any man wants in his life?” Aravind said with an assuring tone.
“That much is true. But I cannot understand why I am still unhappy. There is something lacking in my heart which I cannot be known.”
“If it is so your uncle will be more helpful to you in this regard than me” removing his hand from his shoulder Aravind said.
“Yes my problem is mostly psychological. If he is not my father in law I would have gone to him for help in this regard. But as he is my father in law I cannot explain my problem to him at all.”
“What happens if you do? What would be the loss if you discuss your problem with him?” he paused for a moment before saying again “Anyhow for the present we forget about psychologists. I can suggest a wonderful remedy to make you free from all your problems and be happy at all times.”
“Then please tell me. I shall be very grateful to you if you say some solution to my problems” there was pleading in his eyes.
“Try to be good with your wife. You are unnecessarily making her unhappy. If you make Sunanda happy your problems will be automatically solved. You can feel quite happy.”
“But how it is possible? I think that there is no relation with my problems and Sunanda” with a questioning expression in his face Anand asked.
“I think it is not any problem causing unhappiness to you. Your unjustifiable way of behavior towards Sunanda causing you feel unhappy. First try to do what I have said and then see whether it works or not”
Anand nodded his head. Deep in his heart he felt that this solution would work. What Aravind said appeared true to him. He was really very unjustifiably behaving towards Sunanda. He made her lot unhappy unnecessarily. He did not know why but he suddenly felt lot of love and affection towards his wife. His body as well was aching like hell for the touch of Sunanda. As he could not have that for more than four days or so he came to know how valuable it was. He decided in himself to change his behavour towards her from then onwards.
“What you are thinking in yourself? Decided to try my solution?” looking into the eyes of Anand, Aravind asked.
“Yes. I think it would work.” He paused for a moment and said. “How is your relationship going with Sameera? That girl is showing lot of interest on you and I found both of you on one or two occasions talking very intimately.”
Aravind hissed out heavily. “She is showing lot of interest in me, of course. But I have got some problems to be solved with her.”
“What is your problem in accepting the love of a beautiful girl like her?” looking surprisingly into the eyes of Aravind, Anand asked.
“Some problems we cannot express or solve that easily.” He paused for a moment and then said. “But I think whatever hurdles between us to love each other freely would be removed so soon”
“If you want any help from my side don’t hesitate to ask.” Anand said
“You are the only thickest and closest friend to me. I cannot rely on anyone else as I do on you” conveying his feeling in full measure through his expression while looking into the face of Anand, Aravind said.
‘How could I have become his thickest and closest friend just in one day or so intimacy with him?’ Anand thought. But he could not doubt the genuineness sounded in his voice.
&&&
‘It is indeed very difficult to pass time here’ coming out of the old woman’s room Sameera thought. She could not think of anything else to do then. She was feeling quite bore and started to think deeply for what to do to kill the time. After talking a long time with Sameera, Sunanda went into the upstairs middle room again and started sleeping on the bed there. Sameera also went with her. In fact Sameera wanted to lay herself on the bed and sleep sometime even she was not feeling sleepy only to kill time. But as Sunanda had taken the place like that on the bed so, Sameera came downstairs again. Even that bed was big enough to accommodate three sleeping people at one time, Sameera suddenly lost interest in that room then. As she was worrying for what to do she found the kitchen. That was one place in that house which she did not explore until that moment.
She slowly went into the kitchen. Just sometime back her mother and Malathi spent sometime in this kitchen. Even she wanted to come into the kitchen then itself she postponed her desire then to talk with Sunanda. The kitchen was appearing quite differently to her. It was indeed a very big one. What was the necessity of such a big kitchen in that house she could not understand. If it was meant only for grandmother then it would be unnecessarily big. Then she remembered her father’s saying on one occasion that this house was built by his grandmother’s father long time back. He was a very rich man and his family used to have servants too. As there were that many people then, the grandmother’s father planned the kitchen this much big. No one bothered to switch off the forty waltz electric bulbs there and they were still filling the kitchen with their dim lighting.
One after one she found in the kitchen what her mother, Tanuja and Sunanda found just before her. The gas stove, rice, pickles and other provisions there proved that the grandmother was cooking in this kitchen. Was she cooking for some other people as well? Sameera could not think of. Whenever she thought about the old woman she was getting an eerie feeling. As long as she was in the room with the old woman herself, she did not feel otherwise. But after she came out of that room and thinking about the old woman she was feeling quite odd and fearsome.
She tried to remove those unnecessary thoughts and concentrate on the kitchen. There was only one small window in the kitchen. The small doors of it were opened but as the sky was still cloudy there was not enough lighting through it. There was a door beside the window to go into the garden but it was latched from inside. If the climate was good Sameera would have gone into the garden by opening that door. She did not know how badly the garden in that continuous rain and what dangerous creatures in it at that time. So she could not dare thinking to go into the garden at that time.
Suddenly then she remembered that Sunanda had got that eerie feeling just some time back in this kitchen itself. She felt a cold fear to her spine. How she had forgotten about that? She had got an immediate urge in her to go away from that place. But she controlled herself. She decided to overcome her fear. There was nothing to do by going away from there. Now she has no mood to sleep in the upstairs middle room. Except Sunanda other people were settled and talking in the downstairs rooms and she was not interested in involving herself in their talking. So even there was not much to see in that kitchen, she stood there thinking what would be better to do then.
Then her eyes automatically turned towards the window of the kitchen once again. She thought that it would be interesting to go near to the window and see outside through it. She slowly started walking towards that window. Then she suddenly stopped. Her eyes became quite wider in their sockets. It was not immediately registered in her mind but when it was registered her mouth automatically started producing loud yells.
As it was in Sunanda’s case this time as well all the people gathered into the kitchen at once. Except Sunanda on the upstairs room and grandmother in the downstairs room everyone else rushed into the kitchen. Rajesh ran towards his daughter and clutched her both shoulders tightly and jerked her strongly to make her come to her senses fully.
“What happened? Why you are yelling in this way” he too has to yell very loudly to put his questions in to her mind.
Then Sameera held her hand up and directed towards the window by her index finger. Everyone there instantly looked at that direction but there was nothing there at all then.
“What you are showing to us? There is nothing at all. It seems you are also imagined something just like Sunanda.” Rajesh irritatingly said.
“No it is not at all so.” Sameera said with a shivering and faltering voice. “I have not imagined anything. I did not have any feeling like Sunanda has in this kitchen”.
(I hope that you enjoyed upto here. I shall publish the next chapter as soon as possible. Please don’t forget to rate and review.)
