CHAPTER. 19. HOW SHE BURNT HER PALM.
There was furor and activity in the house.
A great occasion had come in the family.
All were rejoicing gay and happy. It appeared a solution to a world problem was found out. The marriage ceremony was almost a nightmare. She was a spectator, quite dazed and dumb, to all, that was happening. It seemed to her that she was entering into an another world, in an unknown land where there was no familiarity. All were strangers to her. She did not know them well. She had not studied their nature. She was not aware of their likes and dislikes. Everything appeared upside down in her life and in her mind. A strange idea came in her mind.
She:- "Do I love him?"
He suddenly appeared to her like a stranger, whom she hardly knew. She had known of his existence only some time back. Now she was his wife. Why did it happen? Why she should fall into marriage so suddenly? She felt as if she fell into a hole just beneath her feet. There are mysteries of life that are carefully kept secret from children for a purpose. Now she was not a child. Young girls are thereby kept pure in mind body and soul. It is the husband's duty to lift the veil of secrecy about facts of life. She now entirely belongs to her husband. She was now married.
What had taken place within the few days appeared to her like a nightmare. She thought it was just a dream. There are moments in one's life when things appear changed overnight. Even the motions and movements seem changed.
The time in hours and days seem to be out of their usual time. She felt bewildered. Last evening nothing had as yet changed in her life. She felt. She had gone to her bed to sleep last night as a girl. And today !
She was now a married woman. What a change!
She had crossed a boundary, which promised all joy happiness and surprises of a new life. She felt as if a new door had opened for her in her life. She was nineteen. She was unaware of various arts of love-making. She was betrothed and marriage date fixed within no time. Her chorus of friends on the eve of the marriage-night, had appraised her of the ways of love. Ignorant of the tricks and means of making love, she was nervous.
She was ashamed within her heart, on hearing her friends describing the intricacies of love-game in detail. Suspense was mounting. She was nervous, dazed and wide-eyed at sudden change in her life. She experienced a sense of anxiety, shock and fear. She did not know what to do. She never thought love-games to be prolonged and so much detailed, like a rhythm. She was happy that she was alone in the room. She stood before the four-poster.
A huge shining yellow chandelier decorated the red brown table. There were other white articles of marble. There were sources of white light coming into the room by way of the open windows. Her face flamed in anxiety. She felt herself frozen in anxiety.
The bells of the adjacent tower were heard. That means the time was eight in the evening. Standing in anxiety, her back touching the edge of the four-poster, she was almost shivering. A thrill passed within her. The scream of a train whistle was heard through the window. She felt as if some one had pushed a dagger into her. At the foot of the window, of her room, traffic and noise, taxi horns blowing near the train station, was enough to shake her composure.
She moved to the two windows of the room. She tightly shut them off for peace and silence. There was silence in the room. Her hubby came to her around that time, with bouquet of roses, smelling of perfumes. He was dressed like a Prince. He checked to close the main-room light. They were already shut and there was only a candle burning near the table. The atmosphere was romantic. The room was well decorated with romantic surroundings. It smelled of roses every side of the room. Light music was heard. The atmosphere was maddening and intoxicating. Here both were alone and young. He was humming lustily in tune with the ongoing music. Both were engaged in preliminary small talk.
He narrated his life incidents in detail. He gave her some drink from the jug. Both took some grape and fruits. Time was passing by. He then took her in an erratic dance. They pushed and pulled and moved from one end to the other in an attempt to celebrate the occasion. She felt his arm pressed gently around her waist. She said nothing. Her breath came in quick gasps.
Her heart seemed beat fast. His fingers caressed her hair. He placed his lips to her ear and whispered.
He:- This evening you will be my wife!"
She felt surprised.
She:- "His wife?"
She:- “Was she not his wife already?”
He kissed her temples and neck. They were little light kisses. She felt startled each time by these kisses to which she was not accustomed. She felt his rough face skin with her smooth face. She found it tickling. She instinctively turned away her face to avoid them. She liked them. She felt embarrassed and shy. Her modesty was coming in her way. She had her eyes averted to the floor. She had gone numb. He withdrew his arm from her waist. They turned around and stood face to face. They were so close that they could feel each other's breath. He gazed at her with that gaze in which two souls seem to blend and dissolve into one being. After detailed preliminaries the inevitable happened. The love-game was about to begin. He took her in his arms and kissed her face, lips and neck and so on again and again. He lifted her in his arms. He placed her near the edge of the four-poster. She stood looking, all confused and bewildered at the turn of events in her life. He went into the dressing room. She heard his movements. He reappeared to put his wallet and other belongings on the room table.
He half-disrobed himself. He threw away his coat tie and the shirts. He was now in his pants. He grinned at her. He found a towel to rub himself. She looked up. Only the support of the four-poster kept her from tottering at the view of his bare hairy chest. He had a healthy muscled body with smooth shining skin. It was covered with hair at all places that ran down between his nipples, spread down to the belle-bottom. When he raised his arms, she had a glance of a tuft of black hair at his armpits. Sight of such dense hairy armpits mingled with the smell of perspiration and perfume maddened her. Never in her life, she had happened to see a man's bare chest so closely. The raw sensuality of his smell was intoxicating luring her to a sense of dream and culmination of her sleeping desires for a company. She felt she experienced a series of attacks of sentiments and emotions from all fronts. She was not her normal self. All she felt that she was flushed and aroused to no limit. He made her sit on the edge of the bed. She obliged.
She had never before seen a sight of a male leisurely opening the buckle of the belt, take it out from the loops with deft mechanism. Then he had unzipped pulled down his waist button and the pants had glided down the floor as if by magic. It was a sight to see how earlier he had freed himself from the tie and collar button like an athlete.
He had unbuttoned his sleeve and front buttons in a flurry, how he tidied his hair with his hands. All this amazed her to a great extent. Slowly, slowly and with rhythm he disrobed her. She felt hands tugging at her dress. She reached out to brace herself to keep from falling. She was completely nude now.
A strange hush fell over the room. Seeing her nude frame in the mirror opposite the bed, she was ashamed. She was perplexed. She was much nonplussed, shy and ashamed out of embarrassment and shyness and shame. She extended her hand on the burning lamp; that she put her palm on the candle-lamp; to save her from shame and embarrassment. The candle blew out, went off, a small circle of smoke spreading nearby.
The room turned dark with no light. He could not see her.
She was saved of exposure. In the process her palm got burnt. Next morning the family and the friends made a great deal of fuss about the burnt palm. She kept quiet. She offered no explanation. She smiled it out with a grin.
She could not describe what she felt.


People said many things about him.
No one could say that he was not handsome.
He was tall slender and graceful.
He had a sort of an animal type of grace that attracted
the ladies despite their unwillingness to involve in any relationship. He had a seductive youthfulness. He was a flatterer. He had the inborn quality to make out tales after tales which the ladies liked to hear him narrate again and again.


He often wondered how people swallowed his crap, and how he managed to escape himself unchallenged. He simply had no idea. It was luck or his instinct to make the right acquaintance at the right time, and make exit at the right time. His gestures were calculated with mathematical precision and his every smile wink handshake were well rehearsed. He had the neck to find out the families who would be useful.

She felt deep pity for him.
She saw him as a helpless captive in the hands of the church.
She also felt something else. She could not explain. It was an impulse but she experienced a physical need to touch him. This urge was so strong that when she spoke to him, she pat him on his hand or put her hand on his thigh etc. Such innocent gestures very deeply kept him disturbed.

Something really tangible happened today, He had finished his routine work and was about to retire to his place. She crossed the path and stood invitingly mocking.
She was absorbed in her game but at ease as she had seen him completing his outdoor job and returning on break for rest and lunch. She laid her hand on his shoulder dragging him near as if she intended to reveal a secret.


He attentively listened. Both with their hands entangled departed towards his room on the top of the mansion. His hand came to rest on her shoulder.
It moved down her back. She felt it went still deeper. She had a jittering of her body unknown to her. It came with an intensity which she never knew it was possible. It had lasted about a minute. It was total.

It was so full and all-encompassing that it had an effect of an explosion she felt for all the time.
She had lived and of all the years yet to be lived.
Now she was certain God existed. Now she could die without regret.