An Old Bachelor's Illicit Relationship

 I had long suspected that Himesh and Panda’s wife were entangled in an affair too shameful to discuss in polite company. Himesh Patra was an odd mixture of boastfulness and misery. An ageing bachelor with no steady job, he proudly introduced himself as a “social worker” and a “human rights activist.” One afternoon I said to him, “Himesh, you must be above forty-five. You were my brother’s friend Dhiraj’s batchmate!” He froze for a moment, then dramatically exclaimed, “Me? Forty-five? Uncle, my bald head has deceived you! I’m only twenty-eight! I swear in the name of Lord Jagannath!”

His answer startled me.

 I examined his hard-lined face once again, regretting that I had raised the question at all. His greatest grievance in life was his bachelorhood. He nursed a deep dislike for the gossip-loving housewives who gathered outside in the afternoons, discussing everything—from their children’s homework to their drunk husbands, from government raids to the glamorous wives of tainted officials. They envied their luxury cars, foreign holidays, and audacious outfits, and Himesh despised the very sound of their voices. Rumours had begun floating that something improper was happening between Himesh and Julie, the beautiful young wife of Jagannath Panda—the proprietor of Unique Communications, a flourishing advertising agency. Panda was always busy. He had neither time for himself nor for his family. Julie, strikingly pretty and far younger than her husband, was often seen alone. Many wondered how such a glamorous woman had married Panda, a burly man with a protruding stomach and an inconveniently shiny bald head.

 I asked my wife once, “Why does Himesh slip into Panda’s house the moment Panda leaves? I’ve been noticing it.” Without looking up from her papers, she said, “Why don’t you mind your writing and teaching? Why poke your nose into others’ matters?” I wondered how she managed to be a successful school principal with such stubborn trust in people. She always dismissed my observations as cruelty or prejudice. Panda, though not my close friend, treated me with warmth. He spoke of my teaching with such exaggerated praise that parents often found their way to my house for tuition enquiries. But his cheerful nature began to fade. One evening, while I was feeding my beloved stray dogs outside my house, I saw Panda approach me. The streetlight revealed tears trembling in his big eyes. “Sir,” he said in a broken voice, “Himesh has brainwashed my wife. People are laughing behind my back. He’s trying to snatch her away from me.”

 His pain ran deep. I told him gently, “Stop listening to these life coaches and motivational speakers. They are cheats clogging the internet. What truly helps is prayer to my Supreme Master Shri Sai. I’ll send you the Sai Satcharitra in Odia. Read it with faith.” Himesh, however, continued strutting around with his thick moustache and carefully shaved face. He boasted of travelling across all the countries of Europe and Africa. He even gifted me three poetry collections full of obscure verses. When I confessed that I couldn’t understand a single poem, he smiled with such pride that I instantly understood why they were incomprehensible.
 Inside Panda’s house, matters worsened. The couple fought almost every night. Panda would return home drunk and hurl accusations at Julie. Utensils clattered, curses flew, and sometimes the quarrels were audible through the slight crack in our bathroom door. Their daughter, Swati—a strikingly attractive engineering student—always sided with her father, who tipped her generously every morning. Their son, Preetish, adored his mother and defended her fiercely. He had a narrow fox-like face, a passion for motoring, and a cruel hobby of stoning stray dogs and pigeons. I had warned him several times to stop hurting innocent creatures.

 Himesh treated Swati with special tenderness, fully aware that she knew of his closeness with her mother. How both the grown-up daughter and her mother tolerated him was beyond my understanding. My wife once remarked, “They belong to the same category. They therefore put up with each other.” I chose not to reply.

 Panda spoke to me often about his troubles and his frustrations with God. “Shri Sai isn’t listening to me,” he would say helplessly. “Have patience,” I told him. “Faith must be firm. Baba loves devotees who endure.” One stormy evening, rain lashed for hours. The thunder shook our windows, lightning split the sky, and there was a power cut. After an hour, the rain softened to a drizzle. Just as we were waiting for the electricity to return, a loud thud echoed downstairs, followed by a terrified scream—Julie’s. We rushed down. The lights flickered back. Himesh lay unconscious on the ground floor, unable to speak. His aged parents and elder brother arrived in a panic. He was taken to an expensive private hospital and kept in the ICU for days. But he slipped into a paralysed state. Treatment yielded no improvement. His brother, a top bureaucrat in Delhi, finally took him there for long-term care. The elderly parents refused to leave their home—they feared their modern daughter-in-law too much to shift. Months passed. Gradually, Panda’s life transformed. Swati eloped with a tribal boy from Jharkhand, relieving the household of constant friction. Preetish joined his father in business. Panda, now untrusting of everyone, even engaged Julie in the office.

 And he changed—profoundly. He read the Sai Satcharitra every day, built a Sai temple on a plot of land worth twenty-five lakhs directly opposite his house, and came to believe firmly in divine protection. When he speaks to me now, he narrates only how Shri Sai saved him from disaster. The once rough, loud man now melts into tears whenever I mention the name of Sai. The hard, burly Panda has become gentle as sugar candy.

 As for Himesh—the old bachelor—his story ended the night he fell. The rest was written by destiny