The horror of her mother, on her return, at seeing her four month-old pregnant daughter only amplified as her errant son had hanged himself, leaving Mithya to bear their shame, for abortion by then became out of redeem, forcing her parents to let her deliver her sin in secrecy. As her father gave away the girl child to an orphanage, given the abnormality of its being, she too could discern the dichotomy in its separation; even as the deprivation of her child afflicted her maternal condition, at the same time, it eased her from the grip of guilt complex, and as a way of psychic escape for all of them; her father sent her out to let her pursue her higher studies.
While the nuptials with Ashok erased the shame of incest in her subconscious, as she was morally constrained in rearing a child having orphaned one, the prospect of conception instilled in her a sense of guilt. But while she was coming to terms with her life, her man lost his moorings in moneymaking, and though she tried to stop him from entering into the rat race of life with a no-win goal, he was bent on becoming somebody in the society never mind the sacrifices they might have to make. So he left for Dubai for raising the capital for a grandiose venture, leaving her to fend for herself, and to engage herself, she took up a job but as his letters failed to fill her emotional void, for they failed to pen his longing for her, she saw the futility of holding herself anymore. Pondering over how to go about her peccadilloes, she opted for one-night stands for they wouldn’t be intrusive, but as her escapades though catered to her sexual needs, yet failed to address her emotional owes. Added to that, but for his yearly sojourns, as her man showed no inclination to return into her arms, she felt as if she were reduced as his distant mistress. As if to address the emotional neglect and to shore up her self-worth thereby, she started an affair with a colleague she fancied, which ended abruptly when his distressed wife committed suicide, and she fared no better with her next paramour, as he deserted her, when his spouse threatened to divorce him.
Wearied of wooing married men, she sank into a bachelor’s arms at the next turn, and as his virgin ardor matched her craving for love, she felt that she was in the seventh heaven. But as his innate need to have a family of his own broke their affair in time, she was back to square one, and vexed with the vagaries of liaisons with peers, she thought of a live-in with a lowly a la Bona Sera, Mrs. Campbell the movie she happened to see. Like Bona Sera did before her, she too set up a grocery shop, and took the young Dilip to assist her at work and cater to her in the bed.