KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE --CHAPTER 83

                                    KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE 83

The Super Star thought, “Ok, our boy is coming slowly to the Time Machine. Good! Ok, if your wife did not have it in her that would make her understand your greatness, leave it, man. It’s not your mistake. ”

“She could not go to a cinema. And Chennai was new to her. So she could not pluck the courage to go to a cinema with our child. She could not attend a party. In our community, someone would be giving a party often, as you know, sir. But she could not go to any of them. Because I could not go with her. She knew how fanatically I applied myself to the study of the Vedas. She wouldn’t insist on my accompanying her. And when I asked why she shouldn’t go on her own with the daughter, she would say, “others ask why you never give a party. And moreover, they ask about you and ask, ‘Why is your husband an introvert? He doesn’t move with us freely!’ and at such times she would naturally have to cut a sorry figure.”

There was silence for some time. “God!” the Super Star thought, “People like Manikkam should never marry in life! And if at all they married, it should be with a girl who could understand his genius better.”

“For me, there was a tension-filled search. And she hated it. She would scold me often. ‘You around your small world’, she would advise me, sir. ‘See if there is one person like you. Why are you this way?  And why did you marry me? You must have known about you. Why did you marry me? To kill me by not giving your society like this?’ she would ask me, teary-eyed. But however I tried, sir, I couldn’t change myself. Every day I existed only for the study of the Vedas. Slowly and inexorably the Vedic saints and sages started to have an overmastering pull on my psyche. It was as if I could not live away from my books. Though my educational qualifications were enough to become a clerk or something like that, I deliberately opted for the watchman’s post, sir. Because I could write down some hymns and go through them while I was sitting in my chair and ruminate over the hymns!”