Married Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

said the bureaucrat. ‘Of what made this country great. Know your artistic heritage, since your interest lies there.’
    Her mother decided that the virtues of tradition needed to be made more explicit. ‘Our shashtras teach us how to live.You will learn from the Gita, the Vedas, the Upanishads.’
    ‘I can’t read them‚’ protested Astha violently. ‘My Hindi is not good enough, you know that. It is your fault for sending me to a convent school.’
    ‘Your father happened to think that a convent gave the best education. That doesn’t mean we can’t broaden your base now‚’ replied the mother. And she began getting Hindi books and magazines from her school library, so that Astha’s Hindi could improve and the sacred texts of the Hindus be made available to her.
    The third consequence was that the parents tightened their surveillance. Getting to meet Rohan proved more and more difficult.
    *
    She didn’t want to tell him of what she was going through. He was preoccupied with his final year exams and seemed to have less time for her.
    ‘Why do you keep phoning all the time?’ he complained one evening when they met. ‘I have to study.’
    ‘I don’t phone you all the time. Once or twice a day to ask how’s it going.’
    ‘It distracts me.’
    ‘If you don’t want to talk to me, just say so. Don’t look for excuses.’ Astha’s voice shook. Rohan sighed and put his arms around her. Astha snuggled into him and slid her hands under his shirt.
    ‘Baby, don’t be unreasonable. A man has to do well. Get a scholarship. Go abroad.’
    This was the first time he had talked of going abroad so definitely. Astha shifted herself out of his arms.
    ‘Hey, little one‚’ cooed Rohan, reaching out for her. ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘Nothing‚’ she said forlornly.
    ‘Do you think I’m going to forget you?’
    Astha did think exactly that, but how could she admit it?
    ‘Let me just finish my exams, little one, and then—’
    Rohan’s words helped bolster Astha’s illusions, it was all right, she was still safe, their affair was going to end in marriage. But the cold feeling did not go away, though each time Rohan spoke, Astha clung to his assurances.
    *
    Rohan did very well in his exams, and on that stepping stone began the process of his going away. Away to the West, where ordinary mortals cannot go, where even the words PPE and Oxford showed Astha how great the distance was between them.
    ‘Oxford‚’ she breathed in awe. Suddenly her life seemed very small.
    Rohan looked nonchalant. ‘Might as well follow in the family tradition, keep the old folks happy. My father is an Oxford man, you know.’
    No, Astha had not known. ‘How lucky you are, Rohan‚’ she said.
    ‘Well, my father is keen‚’ continued Rohan, his gaze centred on the middle distance.
    ‘When are you going?’ she asked, and then hated herself for being in a situation where she was forced to prise answers from the man she had been so intimate with.
    ‘Soon.’
    ‘Doesn’t it cost a lot of money?’ asked Astha tentatively.
    ‘Lots‚’ said Rohan, lighting a cigarette and breathing the smoke sexily out. ‘But we are trying to manage something .’
    Astha thought it might seem rude to ask for more information, and waited for Rohan to tell her. Rohan did not. He looked at her briefly and smiled. ‘Come, let me drop you home‚’ he said, ‘There are a lot of things I have to do.’ He hadn’t touched her once. As he turned the key in the ignition, Astha thought, he was going to Oxford, he had the resources, his father was an Oxford man. What was her father? A minor bureaucrat, who had never studied abroad, whose sole possession was 280 square yards in the wilderness beyond the Jamuna.
    ‘Wait, Rohan‚’ she said, ‘I hardly get to see you nowadays, you are so busy, and it is still early.’
    Rohan continued drumming his keys against the steering wheel.
    ‘How come you never mentioned your family traditions