புத்தகம் மூடிய மயில் இறகாய்!

~ Chapter - 2 ~

The Pandian family paid a high price for the momentary selfishness of her parents- they lost the pillar of their family- Kathir lost his father. When she as a kid thought she had lost everything in life, hearing her aunt rebuke her family after her uncle's last rites- a week later, Kathir walked to school with her like nothing happened except for that he was not the usual happy jovial Kathir she knew of, from then on she had always seen him as a paragon of integrity.

She was even today extremely grateful that he neither abandoned her nor her family and when she one day mustered up the courage to ask him why he let a big thing go just like that, he replied calmly that his father had always taught him to never let one incident discolour all the other beautiful memories with a person that they had once cherished and thought the world of it.

He spoke only with purpose to her parents but still he spoke and with her, he did not utter a single word against her parents till the very moment. He kept him and her safely away from every chaos that happened to fill their life. He, at the same time, respected his mother's decision to never forgive her brother. Her emotions were hers to feel and he felt he had no say in it.

Lakshmi amma too never bothered him much even when she knew he visited Mullai's house quite often. It was more like an unspoken agreement between the mother and the son. Mullai, after the loss of her uncle, had not spoken to anyone else in the Pandian family except Kathir and it altered only when Meena married into the family, a year back.

She had met Jeeva and spoke before their marriage, she found him extremely devoted to anything his elder brother and sister-in-law said but he was still soft and genuine which Meena found to be well suited for her. He even till today never hindered her friendship with Meena and she was hugely thankful for that. He loved Meena with all his heart and that was the thing she had always wanted for her best friend.

Mullai's phone rang pulling the three out of their own swirl of thoughts, Kathir gave her a smile with a gentle tap on her cheeks, gesturing to her to attend the call, "kandatha yosikama sandhoshama iru... ellam seriya nadakum... anni vaanga neengalum oru vaati paathurunga velila ellam seriya iruka nu... nee phone pesitu vaa Mulla...".

Kathir moved out saying so and before leaving the room, Meena kissed her on her forehead, exclaiming to her again how angelic she looked. Mullai shook her head with a content smile looking at her retreating figure and picked up the call with an even bigger enthusiasm seeing the name that her phone flashed at her.

~~~~~

An hour after settling the left-out arrangements Meena and Kathir were about to go back to Mullai, when Pradeep and his family along with twenty others arrived home. Meena joined Parvathy in making the ladies comfortable while Murugan and Kathir took care of the men.

Pradeep too had not invited his friends and so within a few minutes, Kathir and him became too engrossed in their pally chit-chat. Pradeep only kept saying that it felt like he had known Kathir forever as he had quite often heard about him every time he happened to speak with Mullai in the past month.

Time flew much sooner than they could have a track on and Mullai was called upon by the elders to have the final talks. Meena, Parvathy and a few relatives from either side walked in Mullai's room to walk back with their family's very own favourite girl who was now being introduced again to all of them as an elegant grown-up woman.

Mullai had her eyes fixed onto her toes throughout her way across the hall until she was seated next to Pradeep. Kathir made a note to tease her later for it but as soon as he caught Meena's worried face, his smile was swept clean to have no traces of it left behind.

Meena rolled her eyes in anxiety, gesturing to Kathir that something had gone wrong with Mullai. He could see her unresponsive even to Pradeep's words and that's when it clicked Kathir that it was so not her to behave anywhere close to what she was into right now.