“Maybe donning all the roles of life perfectly is possible for none.”

“Don’t they say perfection is in the realms of heaven, a myth any way, and not to be found on earth,” he continued. “Well, those joys ended as my dad shifted to a small town, where I joined Chandu in the second form, and when he suggested that being co-tenants, we better be in the same section, I sought the help of my father’s uncle, who was a teacher in the same school. I don’t know why, but he didn’t favor the move and to discourage me, he told me that with girls around, it would be embarrassing if I were to be unequal to the teachers’ queries in the co-ed section. So I had to wait till I got into a college to have a girl for a classmate, and as if to make good the school-time loss, I promptly fell in love with her; that’s another story any way. But what an irony it was that while the father denied me an administrative favor, his son granted me an astrological boon; I was too raw to appreciate the variety that is bigamy, and what a fuss I made at that like prediction! Maybe it was more a reflection of the times than my own naivety at that age; earlier, whenever the topic turned to her marriage, mockingly holding my hand, our village postmaster’s over-the-hill daughter used to say that she was waiting for me to attain the marriageable age; well there was no adolescent twist to it for, as you know, our family moved out of the village when I crossed ten.”

“Maybe I need a break before you move on,” I said lighting a Gold Flake King.




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