Malathi charitham (The history of Malathi) (Kalarikkal series - 2)

8. The guilty past

The shock written on his face as he jumped up from the bed was unmistakable.

"What have I done!" he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked in confusion.

"Malu, I thought this must be a casual affair when you agreed to sleep with me. I did not know it would be this deep a feeling for you", his face wrung with concern.

"You thought I would sleep casually with anyone?" she asked.

"No! I did not mean that. I thought that you had a crush on me, from what I gathered from the talk about thunderstorms yesterday", he replied.

"How does it matter Vishnuetta?" she asked.

"It matters Malu, I can't be with you, I can't marry you, I can in no way express my love for you without....." he stopped.

"I only agreed to sleep with you; I didn't agree to anything else. I am a grown woman and take my word for only what it means. But the fact is, I love you, and a part of it for me was to be intimate with you, and I only wanted that. I understand; we can't be together; your family, status, wealth, caste, and looks are entirely different from mine. There is nothing common between us. I would be a fool to think we might end up together. ", she replied.

"Don't you understand that none of those matter to me? Malu, I love you, and I have loved you for some time. I had a great sense of relief leaving Prayikkal, because it hurt me to see you without you being mine. I thought this might be a casual encounter for you, and I will bear the brunt of never being with you in this lifetime. If I knew you loved me, I would have never done this with you and made you feel the pain that I have felt for the past three years", he said.

"I am used to it by now," her eyes were brimming with tears. "I have always tried to reach you and yet have pulled myself away at the same time because I thought you might never accept me," she replied.

"Accept you? I would consider myself lucky!" he replied. "But I can't be with you, for your own sake," he replied, sitting beside her on the bed. He searched her eyes, weighing in his mind whether he should tell her and risk losing her.

"What is it Vishnuetta? Why for my sake? Is it the thing that makes you feel guilty?" she asked.

Vishnu slowly nodded and finally said, "Malu, if I tell you about my past, I risk your goodwill, and I know now, I will risk your love as well. But I have to tell you for your own sake".

She drew the blanket over herself and sat in attention next to him.

"I have a younger sister, Gopika. She is the darling of our family, but you can imagine what kind of a strict life she had to lead in our household. She had everything; except freedom, but then neither did any of us boys of the family have it until we moved to hostels. She got admission to a college and moved to a hostel. In the first semester of my M. Tech, I was called home by my grandfather. He told me that she had gone wayward in the hostel. They all thought that she would live the way in the college the way she lived in our home, wearing davani and coming to the hostel right after class and not talking to anyone, especially boys. Only I knew how lonely and self-conscious she was in college. Nobody wore such old-fashioned clothes in the colleges anymore and she looked out of place. So when I got my first GATE scholarship, I sent her some clothes in the latest fashion, selected by my friends in Bombay. She was always restricted from making friends of different social standing, and I gave her the courage to talk to other people. She slowly started making friends with everyone, especially a Christian boy. From what I gathered he was a very nice young man and.... she loved him. My family got to know about it and she was immediately brought back. But that boy tried to reach out to her and that was when I got to know why I was called back home by my grandfather... we had to get rid of him.