Yakshagni - An odyssey of unbroken devotion

A New Beginning

The Present Era:

Rashika anxiously paced up and down her room. She was clad in jeans and a crushed silk chiffon top, and there was a geometrically patterned scarf around her neck. She was put together perfectly and the red silk looked striking on her pale skin. But her disruptive thoughts left her fuming. She was to go on a date with Maurya for dinner but he called at the last minute to cancel it. Such incidents had happened many times before and it had never bothered her. She was confident enough in her feminine wiles to be able to persuade him. But not anymore! She didn't understand the reason for Maurya's recent withdrawal or his mercurial temper. She had ignored it at first but now it was becoming increasingly difficult even to have a civilized conversation with him. Every time she suggested a short break together, he would bark at her with stinging replies.

Rashika had been fascinated by Maurya since he arrived at her house with the aged family astrologer when she had been eight or nine years old. Maurya had been twelve or thirteen then and to her, he had looked like the epitome of a prince charming. Her crush had turned into love and now this obsession to spend every minute with him was creating a chasm between them. Her parents were willing to wait for another couple of years to conduct their wedding but Rashika was not. She could sense the envy with which some of her friends regarded her relationship with Maurya; some had even openly flirted with him although he had never shown any inclination to draw away from her. He had always been the same Maurya since he appeared in front of her parents from a town down south. Her father respected him immensely and her mother adored him. When Rashika had been desperate to make him notice her as a woman, her aunt, her mother's sister had advised her on a game plan. Rashika had told Maurya that her father was searching for a groom for her. And lo behold, he had proposed to her a week later. She had been the happiest person and had fallen deeper in love with him. She had taken the lead to extend their relationship to the physical level and had spent many weekends at his apartment. While in school and college, Rashika had her own set of admirers, but in her reckoning, everyone paled in comparison to Maurya. Her friends and cousins had often commented that they made a great couple. Added to his striking looks, were his wit, his caring nature, and his single-minded focus on work which made him a man of many layers. He had never actually said that he loved her, only smiled whenever she confessed to him. Maurya's indifference to everything except his work complemented Rashika's inquisitiveness about everything around her.

Now Maurya was distancing himself from her. She could feel it in her bones. Why was he avoiding her? Was he having an affair with his secretary Rita? Rashika hated that woman. Every time she visited Maurya in his office, she adopted an air of derision around the other woman. If she could, she would throw her out of Maurya's office. Kicking her sandals off, Rashika flung onto the bed with anger.

It had been ages since she and Maurya had spent a weekend together. While she mulled over it, her mother walked in, stopping short at the sight of Rashika on the bed.

"Rashi, you haven't left yet for dinner?"

"Arya cancelled it."

Her mother caught the hurt disappointment in her voice, "Hasn't it been happening too often these days?"

"I don't know. He seems preoccupied these days," Rashika mumbled regarding her phone with a scowl, as if it had an answer to her problem.

"It must be work. Your father has practically entrusted the whole business to him, the number of meetings and work must probably be keeping him away. He is coming with us on the trip. Isn't he?"

Rashika sighed in mournful sadness, "No mom, we had a fight about it last week. He says it is difficult for him to take time off from work."

"I will ask your father to talk to him. Maurya never refuses your father's requests."