Talk of the Town

21 //

Not a week later, Miraya's life falls apart.

It is humiliating enough to have a picture of yourself broadcasted without your knowledge. It is mortifying to have your picture circulated among others and commented on. But what happens to Miraya is worse.

A picture of Miraya and Shray being intimate with one another is stamped on every entertainment headline in the state. There is one of Shray draping his jacket over her shoulders, one with her hands pressed to Shray's chest, one with Shray kissing her hand. She feels invaded, insecure and destroyed. She isn't stepping out of her room. Her phone is blaring with calls, most of it from Shray and the rest from Amma.

Her life is ruined. All over again.

If the pictures were blurry and vague, she could have easily come up with lies stating that it wasn't her. She could have asked Shray's PR team to not put a name to the face next to him. But her face is vivid, as if shot in broad daylight.

As if that's not embarrassing and life-threatening enough, Shray's fans were quick to match her face with her name only to find out she was the one who had written the article about Shray and Ria's friendship. They are linking up one another, spinning cute romantic history between them or making up nonsense stories of how they met.The article she had written is blowing up, bigger than before. MIRROR is calling her. Fiya and Mrs Nandhini are calling her. Kishore is calling her, no doubt having heard about it from Dakshina. Dakshina and Ranav are taking turns to convince her door to open up.

Everything is a mess. A fucking mess.

She wants to run away.

The knocking on the door stops.

"Miraya, you better open the door or I am breaking this down." Amma. She is here. She is furious. Miraya cannot face her again.

"Aunty, please. Let me talk to —"

"Dakshina, you don't have any idea what is happening, do you? She just uprooted what's left of our family's dignity by getting herself photographed in the night with an actor. Do you even know what that means for us? No one will ever want to willingly propose marriage to her. Because now, the whole world knows she is the type of person to spend late nights with men. They know she is having an affair with an actor. Who will ever volunteer to marry her now?"

"But still, Aunty. Miraya is hurting. She clearly didn't know —"

"You stop talking, kanna. I know all about you. This won't seem like a big deal to you because you are used to fooling around with men. I know what kind of woman you are. We are not from that kind of a family."

There is not a word from Dakshina after what Amma says.

"No one cares about your opinion of Dakshina. I am her fiance and I know her and love her for what she is. That's all will ever matter," Ranav says.

Miraya closes her eyes. Amma is making things worse. She is hurting Dakshina and Ranav. Because of her.

"No one taught you to speak to your elders with respect?" Amma asks.

"I have no respect for someone who treats the woman I love the way you did," Ranav retorts.

"How dare —"

Miraya opens the door. "Stop it, Ma. I know you are angry but you have no right to insult my friends."

Amma glares at her. "You have no right to talk. You are the one creating problems everywhere you go."

Something bubbles inside Miraya. Like lava inside a volcano ready to burst. She wants to open her mouth and scream that it's not her fault. That she didn't do anything wrong. She was twenty-five years old, for fuck's sake.