Rangaiah: Once Ramya beti notices the change in you everything would change.
Rajiv: But sadly I’ve pushed her beyond the point of no return. More than my abominable offence, the deceitful way in which I had committed it might have broken her heart.
Rangaiah: I don’t know why but I’m still hopeful.
[Exit: Rangaiah.]
[Rajiv in contemplation paces up and down the room for a while and settles at the desk and pens a letter and reads it aloud.]
“Dear Divya
Oh how fate had contrived with my ambition to make you a victim of my pique. What irony that I should’ve felt robbed by Deva when I was myself trying to loot Sampath! What perversion to hurt you to redress my own hurt. That’s the ironic tragedy of my final fall!
It pains me even more that I failed to give a thought to what Nayak said only a few days back. Didn’t he tell someone had felt that life becomes unimaginably confused when we think of ourselves but it becomes very simple when we think in terms of helping others? Now that I missed out on life, what death would hold for me? Why wouldn’t it become simpler if I were to erase someone else’s shame through it? Won’t my end help the two women I had wronged begin life afresh? It would for sure. Isn’t the very thought impelling me to embrace death.
I suggest that you too should see the past in a fresh light. Why feel humiliated thinking about the old fiend who had hurt you. Why not let the pristine soul of the dead Rajiv elevate your life. Well, to begin with, it may seem hard to believe but if you dwell upon the difference, it would be easy to grasp the nuances of it.
Forget the old fiend and forgive the new soul for denying you.
Rajiv.”
[Rajiv hails for Rangaiah]
[Enter: Rangaiah. Rajiv wants him to deliver it to Divya (mime).]
[Exit: Rangaiah with the letter. Rajiv paces up and down and ensures that Rangaiah had left the place. He was about to enter the bedroom.]
[Enter: Ramya and Rau and Rajiv turns back.]
Rajiv: Ramya, you may relieve Rau as any way I’m going to release you. Well, my trial is over in my court of conscience and I need your pardon as I undergo the punishment.
Ramya: It’s easier asked than given. How is your change of heart going to redress my hurt and her shame? Whatever, I’m at a loss to react to your self-discovery after ruining three lives including yours. I wonder how I can help you rebuild your life when the next fourteen years of it is going to be behind the bars.