Trembling Shadows
A romantic, psychological thriller
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
There was no answer from him. Now he opened his eyes and started looking into the emptiness before him, leaning back in his chair.
“Get out yourself too” Tanuja yelled angrily. “I cannot bear anyone in my presence now. You all people cheated me”
There was no movement in Rajesh. He did not try to say anything either. He could not say anything.
“I have asked you to get out from here. Why you are still hanging?” she yelled again.
Then he slowly got up from the chair and came out of the room without even turning back to her. He felt lot of fear even to look at his wife.
After coming out of the room Malathi slowly moved into their room while the other people remaining in the verandah itself. After waiting a minute or so Vinod too slowly went into that room.
Malathi laid herself on the bed there. She put a pillow under her head. When Vinod entered into the room she asked in slow voice “close the doors please.” She knew who could dare to enter into her room then. Vinod obeyed immediately and went near to her and sat beside her. He slowly put his hand on her right shoulder. He could understand how she was feeling then.
She turned aside and looked into his face. Her face was like a rock. There was no expression in it. There were no tears either in her face at that time.
“Why you still remain calm? I thought you might kill me on the spot there when you heard that” looking into his face Malathi said.
“So it is all true” he asked in a slow voice.
“You want a confirmation from my side first before any rough act” her lips parted with a wry smile. “Yes Vinod. It is all true. We used to get that occasionally. Even there was no love between us we just could not remain without that. We stopped all of that deciding never to do that again years back itself. But I must say in some very weak moments it happened between us both. We just could not stop it happen and I don’t know the reasons for it. Six months or so back… I can remember…it happened again ………in a very weak moment……….but for the last time.” Observing his face closely she said.
Vinod did not say anything at all. There was no regret, no remorse, no worry, no depression in his face. The expression was just the same as it was before.
“Vinod your silence is torturing me. If you want to kill me, kill. Want to beat me, beat. But don’t remain silent like that. You are so good to me all these years and you have every right to do whatever you want with me”
“But you did nothing that much wrong” with the same slow voice Vinod said.
“I just cannot understand what you are saying. Still you are supporting me?” Malathi astonished herself.
“Yes I am not seeing any wrong in doing so.” he said “I have expected this type of a thing even before our marriage as well. I prepared mentally to this.”
She sat up and there was a shock in her face then. “What you are talking Vinod? No man on the earth would tolerate this type of a thing from his wife.” There was lot of surprise in her voice and face.
“But I can tolerate Malathi. Everyone who could understand the viciousness of sex would tolerate.” there was no change in the voice of him.
. “Oh, Vinod what a good man you are! But it is not at all such a small wrong to be pardoned like this.” her mind did not grasp fully what he said. But there was some relief in her then.
“It is of course.” Vinod said. “It all depends how we look at the things. I am not as purified as you are thinking. I too did wrongs.” He patted her shoulder. “Control yourself. I don’t like you upset in this way. I never before have seen you in this way”
She hugged him and kissed on his right cheek. He held her strongly in his hands. He could sense her hot tears flowing onto his shoulder.
&&&
Sameera, Aravind, Anand and Sunanda came into the verandah. The sky was cloudy and it was raining slowly. It was indeed a very awkward situation to them four. They just could not dare to look into each others’ eyes at all.
It had become quite an embarrassing situation to Sunanda. First she was shocked! Wanted to kill Sameera for talking like that about her mother. But her mother remained silent agreeing with what Sameera said. So what Sameera said on that day in her room was true. Her long troubling doubt was proved true. Her heart filled with disgust. What a high respect she had on Rajesh and her mother! It was all shattered. She was trying to hate and get angry with that Rajesh and her mother but she could not. Why she was not feeling any hate or angry towards them she could not understand. There was another problem as well to her then. It all had burst out before Anand. She was feeling fear thinking how Anand would react and behave with her after he heard such type of a thing about her mother. She was feeling shame and embarrassed to look at any of them there. She leaned in the chair she sat and closed her eyes.
She opened her eyes and looked at when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Anand. “It seems that you have got disturbed a lot because of all of this” he said with a soothing tone.
“Yes Anand. Really I am.” Sunanda felt lot of surprise and relief at once. “If I know in before that it would happen in this way here, I would not have come at all.”
“Don’t feel too much Sunanda. It is not that much of a wrong that your mother and Rajesh did as everyone else thinks. Forget” Anand said with a light voice.
“Anand what you are saying! I just cannot understand it at all.” Sunanda astonished on hearing what he had said.
“I said what I really felt. Your mother and that doctor Rajesh did not do that much of a big wrong. When a male and female work alone in close proximity, there is a chance that a thing like that to happen. Moreover they knew each other for such a long time. It needs to be understood in right perspective”
“But they did that after their marriage with other persons!” Sameera intervened. She did not like his trying to lessen the intensity of the wrong that her father and Malathi committed.
“Sexual urge does not follow rules. It just looks for an opportunity. Its driving force you cannot understand. It makes us to do very bad things sometimes.” Anand said. “Just remember what you have talked one hour or so before in the upstairs middle room Sunanda. Have you forgotten about it? or are you thinking that it would not apply when it come to your mother?”
“I don’t know what to say.” Sunanda remembered what she talked. “But I did not foresee a situation like this. I have talked with my heart.”
“You need not tell me that you have talked with your heart. But you have talked then just facts. What you have talked then is applicable not to this world but the whole universe itself.” Anand said.
“You relieved me from lot of anxiety Anand” looking into the face of Anand, Sunanda said. There was respect in the eyes of Sunanda.
“It is not just a single person’s experience. These types of illegal sexual contacts are not uncommon. They happened in my home itself too.” Anand closed his eyes and said. “I already told you about them.”
The scene was quit afresh in his mind even after that many years. His mother was with another person! He was doing all the bad things to her. Anand was seeing them both through a half opened window unknowing to them. Then he felt a strong touch on his shoulder. It was the hand of his father.
“What you are doing here?” his father asked angrily but with a small voice.
“See yourself” he directed him to see what was happening in the room.
“Don’t try to see what the elders are doing ever again” putting a five rupees note in his hand his father said. He was such a small boy then so he could not understand what was all that happened at that time. He ran with the five rupees note in his hand.
“What you are thinking? You are feeling anger with me and my mother deep in your heart, is it is not? It is difficult not to feel so” Sunanda said.
“If I feel anger I would express that Sunanda. I am not a type to suppress my feelings. Just like you in the upstairs room, I also have talked with my heart. Not that much of wrongs committed by your mother, that Rajesh. I cannot understand why but whatever happened in your lives is giving me some solace. I am not feeling anger towards my family members now. I can understand now why they had behaved so then”
“I think you said some of that. But I don’t remember all that now.” the way her husband talking was making Sunanda felt lot of surprise.
“Whatever you remembered, remembered. I cannot explain all that to you now, my dear. Sometime later I may do that. But I want you to understand that I am not feeling any anger now on you or on your family members. Not just that I have developed respect on you for what you have talked in the upstairs room.”
“But you have felt anger on me in the recent days of our marriage. You tortured me then. Why could not you have understood in this way at that time?” even his words were good and soothing to her she felt needed an explanation for his past actions.
“That was for a different reason. I did not like that your beauty enjoyed by some other people. And I had got some pleasure in torturing you then. Later on, in fact, in this house itself I have discovered that I was going on a wrong track and changed myself.” He paused for a moment and said again. “In fact Aravind played a main role in changing me. What he has said to me made me changed. I started thinking and analyzing and realization came into me.” While looking appreciatively at Aravind, Anand said.
Sunanda also looked at Aravind thankfully and appreciatively. So he has put himself in the mission she requested and got success in it. She opened her mouth to say something more. But she was interrupted by Sameera. “Is there any necessity to probe into that more deeper Sunanda? He is now good to you and decided to be good in future as well. Leave it there”
Sunanda found lot of sense in her saying and remained silent. Then she heard Sameera again “You did not believe me when I have said that to you. Now what do you say? Don’t you agree even now that there is an illegal intimacy between your mother and my father?”
“Everyone does wrongs. Your father and her mother too did. Just forget about the whole thing. Your father said all that has stopped years back itself. May be that was the last time which you have seen six months back between them” Aravind thought it was time to his intervention. “What Anand said was quite agreeable here.”
“How you can believe that? What is the guarantee that they are not doing that now too?” Sameera asked with an accusing tone.
“Then you may do something. Leave your family and go somewhere else.” Aravind suggested.
“Where I can go suddenly? In fact that is what I am planning to do. I cannot stay in a rotten family. You and I both should go away and start our life together.” Sameera said.
(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.)
