Backyard of Life

The next day, when Radha reported for work, Dhruva led her into his study to throw open his library of crime, as he put it that included the collections on Holmes, Mason

et al for her to pore into, and as she was engrossed with the former, Raju went up to her to usher her to join his master at the dining table. But as she reached him with the lunchbox she brought along with her, Dhruva said that the perquisites included free lunches, and smiling coyly, she said that she won't mind working extra time if she could've free dinners as well.

While Radha came to spend long hours at 9, Castle Hills, Dhruva lost no time in initiating her to drinks with Gin and Sprite as he had his Old Monk with Thums UP. When he asked her if his smoking a cigar was any bother for her, she said that having savored the smell of pogaku in his breath, she was all-eager to have a feel of its smoke as well. So, as he lit his lanka, maintaining that she enjoyed its aroma, she wondered whether he could make rings out of its smoke, the way Pran does in the movies. So, as he exhibited his prowess at it, she wanted an encore, and he too goaded her to repeat her booze. While he was mixing a drink for her, she said that but for her abstinence then, her fate would have been tied up with the illicit couple, and added that to usurp their properties, Pravar might have aimed at poisoning three of them with the same drink.

At length, what with Radha's seductive balm soothing his jilted wound, and her eagerness to come ever closer to him dissolving his resolve to be tightlipped, Dhruva appraised her how Pravar was fixed in the fake-notes case. When she said that maybe the dubious means justified the deserving end, he told her that Pravar had already confessed to the cop about his nefarious role in the double murder, though it was of no avail to book him for that. Saying that just the same she was glad to hear that, she said cheers all again, and clinking her glass with his own, he told her that he saw a possible role for her in tackling the peculiar challenges Kavya's psychic aberrations the Stockholm Syndrome might pose in Pravar's case.

By the time Raju was ready to serve them dinner, Radha had a drink too many, and as Dhruva led her to the dining table by her waist, he was struck by her silken skin. However, after a sumptuous dinner, when she said that she would like to go home, he suggested that she better stayed back for the night, at which she turned coy and said that it might be risky. When he said that though a ladies' man, yet he was a gentleman, and having had a hearty laugh at that, she said that what she meant was about the risk he ran in her nocturnal company. Meeting his flummoxed look with her lowered eyelids, she told him that she heard that a man lets a woman into his house only as a prelude to letting her into his heart. Elated at her advance, he told her that he was not the one to shy away from such a welcome prospect, and she coyly reminded him about the proverbial camel that took over the tent when it was allowed only to cool its head. Saying that his heart and hearth were too big for any to fill them, he cajolingly led her into Mithya's room, and as he enabled her onto the mahogany cot, she pulled him into her ardent embrace to anoint herself as the reigning queen of 9, Castle Hills.

Next morning, ushering in a new era in his life, as she served him bed-coffee; he caught her hand and said that she was hotter in his arms than the steamy thing in his hand. Turning coquettish, she said that she knew his ardor would keep her ever eager, and watched him joyously as he savored the strong coffee; when he took her into his ardent embrace, she entwined with him amorously.

After breakfast, with him in tow, she went to her Red Hills house to fetch her wardrobe as a prelude to let her transport herself into his life. So, feeling at home in his house on their return, and later seeing him eating her preparations greedily at lunch, she said coyly that she had some dessert to serve as well; while he played innocent, she pushed him all the way to Mithya's room that by then, she had already made her own.

Later, breaking up his siesta before her, he went into the study to check the mail, and began reading a letter in Rani's hand that read.

Dear deadly:

I'm glad that your child is taking shape up in my womb, and it's no blackmail. As I thought he would, my man came around. But if I were to be widowed when I still have it in me, you can count on my availability that is if you need me then, and God forbid, should fate orphan our offspring, I hope

9, Castle Hills' gates are ever open for it.

Love,

You know who.

Seeing the smudged defacement of the postal stamp on the envelope, he saw the irony of his only progeny being in anonymity, and secured the letter in the chest of drawers.

When Radha came to serve him some steamy tea, finding him morose, she said playfully that she was disappointed that even the newness of her charms was of no avail to enliven him; and as he took her into his arms, as if to underscore her position in his life, she told him gravely that not all his virility would help her as she underwent hysterectomy, and added in jest that she wondered how he yet failed to father Mithya's child. When he told her that Mithya had had a couple of miscarriages, as she wanted to know more about her life, he said that she would have that by and by. However, when she said in half-jest that as she waited for a peep into Mithya's past, what if he took her to the backyard of his life, so he led her there, saying mockingly that it was no Garden of Eden.

Possibly a lovechild, he was abandoned at the gates of an orphanage in Devarakadra, and an ayah there named him Dhruva for she felt that he shone like the North star. When it was time to put him in school, since none knew his surname, the headmaster lent the village name to it to make him Dhruva Devarakadra; but as he showed some prowess at catching the kitchenware- thieves at the orphanage and retrieving the 'lost' pencils from the wrong boxes at the school, he became Detective Dhruva to all. Thanks to a Good Samaritan, who funded his higher education, he graduated in humanities and joined the police department to have a hands-on-experience in dealing with crimes.

While his ignorance about his caste and creed made him blissfully immune to pride and prejudice, and despite the deprivation of parental love, he managed not to carry any emotional baggage. Maybe to retrieve the lost ground of affection, he coveted women's love and so courted the desirable with some luck in between. Though he made a mark at his work, owing to his lacking a caste identity, none knocked at his door to invite him to lead their daughter to the altar. However, thanks to the women who fancied him, he didn't miss much that way, to talk about which to a lady may not be chivalrous for a man; though all that changed when Mithya came into his life; but her untimely death brought him back to square one.

Saying she would strive to make good Mithya's irreparable loss, as she embraced him ardently, as if to draw comfort from it, he rested his head on her ample bosom.