THE SOPHISTICATED BEGGAR
THE SOPHISTICATED BEGGAR
Purusottam Jee lived in an adjacent house some fifteen years ago. They were my neighbours. He and his wife Sweta were competent gynecologists. They worked in two reputed private hospitals in the city. Jee was originally a Maharashtrian and his wife was from Utter Pradesh and was Hindi-speaking. Jee said his grandfather's great grandfather had come to the city of Cuttack two and half centuries ago. Jee was always easygoing and cheerful. His better-half had the looks of a beautiful goddess. I was convinced Jee was fortunate to have had such a paragon of beauty for a wife. The couple had a son doing software engineering in Mumbai.
Our interest in God and spirituality had brought us together. Those days I used to walk for one hour every morning. Jee had two luxury cars, one being Honda City and the other was a stylish Ford model. Jee and I often held discussions about our spiritual experiences. Jee would open his mother's vast treasure of otherworldly experiences. My pride that I could meditate undisturbed for three hours constantly was punctured when I learned Jee sometimes meditated for 24 hours continuously! His case was rare and unique. His wife was deeply religious and generous to a fault.
Things took a bad turn when Jee's wife Sweta developed a very serious, secret and dangerous relationship with a sweet-talking wastrel. Sweta was very active on Facebook and taking advantage of this, a good-for-nothing fellow named Raj who was on the lookout for moneyed women succeeded in capturing her motivated by pecuniary needs.He considered women his ATM cards.Raj had relationship with numerous women. In order to draw their sympathy he played various dirty tricks. Wherever he worked he clashed with his authorities. Egoistic and boastful to an unexpected degree, he expected unalloyed love and genuine respect from all. Worse, in his heyday he couldn't help cultivating illicit relationships with various young women and his office staffers. In addition, he loved his drinks. Janhabi, his wife found it too hard to go on with a man who was an egoist par excellence and a drunkard and behaved like an emperor.His speech was defective, and his English was terribly defective.She couldn't understand why a man who had neither any special talents nor any good qualities demanded total subservience from her. A selfish dirty creature to the core, Raj expected unselfish behaviour from all and sundry. His wife had abandoned loafer, and he was revengeful and perhaps because of this the crazy fellow wanted to help himself to other people's wives. The man's greatest enemy was his irrational anger,and the irresistible desire to be sympathised by women.He was not divorced;he wanted to marry a woman who could support her in his old days.He was already 58.
Sweta and her husband were no more the loving partners that they had been so far. Raj had destroyed their beautiful bonding and happy family life. Jee initially thought Raj was harmless but later he discovered the dirty game the crazy fellow was bent on playing. Sweta couldn't understand that his supreme concern was monetary;he wanted financial security in his old age. Sweta was fully sure Raj was the best man in the world. Only if she could marry him now. . ! Raj had not yet been divorced. That was the stumbling block in their relationship. They regularly met. The day they had sex in a secluded hotel room booked by Sweta the relationship was given the final touch. They never forgot to chat every night. Raj would express his false cloaked love for her indirectly and in the choicest flowery words. Night long chatting made her physically weak but there was so much mental happiness and bliss.
When Sweta went to her hospital, she would bubble with joy and excitement. She had the chance then to talk to her paramour freely. At home when she would be alone she would never forget to talk to her Prince Charming over phone. The number was there in her mind and after talking to Raj she would delete it from the phone to avoid detection by Jee.
Now the happy gynecologists intermittently fought very dirty verbal duels using sharp stinging words. Sweta loved to tease Jee. She openly regretted the fact that when she found the man after her own heart she was not in a position to marry him. This she said to Jee indirectly. Jee would be terribly upset. He burst into anger whenever he heard her lover's name. After some violent altercations Sweta told Jee that she was ready to sacrifice everything to save their marriage. Jee believed in her and forgave her.
Many storms had passed over the family and now Mr. Jee thought everything was okay. But he was sadly mistaken. He suspected her behaviour and decided to verify what was actually happening. He pretended sleeping on most nights and was shocked to discover that she stayed online at night and chatted away with Raj. The paramour put tremendous pressure on her to dump her husband and go to him and live in his house. She followed the policy:" The snake will not die and at the same time the stick will not break. " Raj got cross with her because of this.
Raj who was now orphaned was brooding over his financial security in future. His parents were no more living. He was leaving no stone unturned to extract money from Sweta who had gone to the extent of buying her paramour a Wagonr Car. She would be sometimes hard pressed for money yet she arranged the same for the man. Raj would be struck with boundless surprise when she gifted her something. Now they were regularly in physical contact and shared a very intimate relationship. Sweta never wanted that her lover should consider himself inferior to her husband. Raj was empty-handed and empty-headed too. One thing that astonished people was why Raj wanted to be sympathised by people and to be considered an important personage. His greatest defect was megalomania. Sleep never came to his eyes. He had to talk all night to his girlfriends who were his only source of income, his atm cards. Sweta couldn't understand why she was so sympathetic to Raj. Would the clandestine affair destroy her marriage? Her husband Purusottam Jee knew everything about them. Sweta,for no specific reason, often snarled at her husband who knew she didn't love him anymore.
I knew Mr. Jee very intimately. He was widely read in the holy books of Hinduism and those of others. He had told me everything in detail about his once sweetheart Sweta. He had even the fear that Raj and Sweta could take his life and finish him off. Mr. Jee often boasted of his knowledge of the Hindu religious texts. To counter him, his wife would boast that Raj too was highly learned. When Jee bought a beautiful SKODA car, Sweta informed Raj about it instantly and assured him that she would buy him a beautiful car too. Jee would often show me the poorly written English which Raj wrote to his wife Sweta. Jee would sometimes be so scared that he would express himself with panic:"Brother if I am killed,you will tell the truth to the police. . . "
I would say to him,"Don't be so suspicious of your good wife. She loves you too. "
I would then see tears in the doc's eyes. He often said, "Once I got a transfer order. She asked me twice or thrice when I was going to leave the city. They regularly meet in different places, drink tea, coffee and eat samosas. What is worse, they have developed a physical relationship. Now each time they meet, they hug each other and leave no opportunity to gratify their lust. "
"How do you know all this . . . " I asked him with disbelief. Jee narrated everything from a to z. I was hundred percent convinced of his wife's turpitude. But I asked him, "Did she actually gift him a car?" Jee said, "Sir,I know it very well. She is a stupid creature and behaves like that. She is completely unpredictable in this matter. . "
For some days I found Jee immensely disturbed and anxious. He even didn't come to my house for our daily dose of chatter. "What is happening to the good doc?" I asked myself every now and then. A month passed by and yet he didn't turn up.
One evening he tapped the door of my study. I was happily surprised to see the man. He was holding a newspaper. He said, "Sir somebody has knowingly knocked down this beggar. . The bastard . . . ! He was going to snatch away my lawful wife?"
We had informed the police and a powerful lawyer, and all the arrangements had been made for their interrogation by the police,but the fellow had to be crushed to death by destiny.
But now all the hell broke loose. Police came to Jee's house and interrogated the couple. Sweta was convinced her husband was behind Raj's murder. Jee came to know six other men were undergoing the same ordeal. . . !The womanizer Raj had been in relationships with them all. Very soon the culprit came to limelight. It was a Nepalese night watchman who lived close to Raj's house. When the watchman was arrested, he told about the affair between Raj and his wife Usha. Now the poor watchman's wife was pregnant with Raj's baby.
After a few days, I saw the couple as cheerful as ever before.