Ravindranath was studying then in high school at Trivandrum. Those were the days when the freedom struggle was in full swing. Mahatma Gandhi used to extol the virtues of Brahmacharya or absolute celibacy from every forum. The youth of India, he said, should be pure - manasa, vacha, karmana - in thought, word and deed. Such teachings produced a new breed of human species - The great Indian suppressed male. Ravi was one of them.
They had just moved into a new neighbourhood which was less stifling than the previous one. Rose, the girl next door, was almost Ravi's age, though two classes below in school. She quickly made friends with his younger sister and gradually with the whole family. Sometimes she was even able to drag him, a shy person, into conversation with her.
By and by he could not help but notice her smooth complexion, her clear forehead and the arch of her hairline. Her eyes would transform into narrow slits when she laughed. All these gave him sleepless nights - such was his age.
When he told a good friend about his feelings for Rose, the friend said, "You are so simple and good. She is not fit for you, look at the way she casts sidelong glances!" This made him think more about her, secretly, though accompanied by guilty feelings.
One lazy afternoon when Ravi was standing alone in a far away corner of their vast compound, Rose went to him and struck up a conversation. After a while, she was suddenly silent and went closer and closer to him. So close he could smell the fragrance of her body and notice the helpless look in her eyes. It was when her breath was upon him that Ravi panicked. He was gripped by an unknown fear - the fear of the novice, the uninitiated. The fear of a person afraid of violating the moral diktat, the fear of one afraid to take the responsibility of a long involvement. He ran a short distance away from her, and stood facing the compound wall, his whole body trembling. At the moment, he felt very much inferior, very inadequate. Rose, dumbfounded, walked away quietly back to her house.
They avoided each other after that.
Circumstances following his father's death soon took Ravi to Bombay.
Three or four years later, when he was studying for his degree, he ran into Rose and her husband on a busy footpath there. She gave him a broad smile and introduced him to her husband. He was tall and handsome. "Better than me," Ravi thought.
Her husband said, "Excuse me. I have to attend a board meeting at Colaba now. I accompanied Rose for a bit of shopping and have to hurry up. We live close by. May be you can escort her back and chat for a while." Then he got into his car and drove off.
Rose led Ravi to her well-kept apartment. They talked for almost half an hour. She gave him cakes and tea. She remarked that he had tanned a lot and grown thin. While parting, she smiled in a superior sort of way - here she was, a proud housewife and he, a mere student so unsure of the future.
On the way home Ravi wondered whether his life would have taken a different course had he not thwarted her advances earlier. Perhaps she would have been his good angel.
