Rain Flower
Kotra Siva Rama Krishna
“So, you are in love with my daughter.” Once they both have settled in her room Margaret asked him straightly. She did not let Jasmine stay in her room then.
“Sure I am.” He smiled. Even he was not feeling pessimistic, he felt little tensed. ‘I am often doing that also to her.’ He thought in himself.
Suddenly the seriousness in her face was vanished. “If you are thinking that I am going to angry with you, you are just mistaken.” She smiled. “I know you for a long time. I have a good report from Williams also on you. I am really happy that you are in love with my daughter.”
“Thank you very much.” He said with a smile. So far from her facial expression from the beginning, he expected it like this.
“My son and I also know you for a considerable period of time and you are a nice man. If it is with you my daughter is in love why I do object to that?”
“How nice of you! I am really feeling very happy.” A happy expression came onto his face.
“But she is very sensitive. She becomes upset for very pretty things also.”
‘You don’t know how much sensitive she is on the bed.’ He involuntarily smiled. ‘Do you know about your daughter more than me?’ he thought in himself.
“You are smiling for what?”
“Just for nothing. I am feeling too happy.”
“She has become pretty upset because of her brother’s condition.” Suddenly her face clouded with worry.
‘That much is true.’ He thought in himself. “I agree.” He said. “It is pretty reasonable also.”
She nodded her head. “We both have become completely upset on that. We just don’t know why it happened so. The recent information that Tippu made him see something in that place which caused that, made us even more unsettled.” She paused for a moment and said. “I must thank you for your trouble to go to Tippu’s village and came to know about that all.”
“You need not thank me, once Jasmine requested for that I thought I have an obligation for her.” John said seeing carefully into her face. “But still we cannot know what he had seen in that palace on that day.” He paused for a moment and then said again. “Now I am on the mission to know about what he had seen in that palace on that day. Jasmine requested me to know that also.”
Margaret startled at once on hearing that. “Jasmine asked you to do that? Really you are trying to know what my son had seen on that day?”
“Of course. I am confident I can know about that.” John said firmly.
“No.” Margaret’s voice shivered. “I am not thinking that it is a wise move.” Her voice was low.
“Why you are thinking like that?” John asked her surprisingly.
She hissed out heavily. “It has such an effect on Williams. What is the guarantee it does not have such an effect on Jasmine also?”
“May be you are right. But Jasmine is adamant to know about it.”
“And that Tippu was murdered like that! Those people with whom Tippu conspired are appearing very dangerous! They may try to do harm to you also.” Suddenly there came a fearing expression on her face. “I am thinking whatever Williams saw in that palace on that day has a link with that Chief also. He did not leave Tippu. If you try to know about it he may not leave you either.”
So far Jasmine reported everything to her mother also.
“I shall be in my care. Don’t worry.”
“I just don’t know who this Chief is, what link Tippu has with him, what he made my son saw in that palace! I just cannot understand and it is all quite puzzling! In my own palace how something linked with those people could be present to be seen by my son? What happened to it just by the time I went there? I cannot understand any of this and it is giving me a very heavy headache.” Rubbing her forehead with her right hand fingers Margaret said.
“You are right. It is all quite puzzling in fact.” John nodded his head.
Margaret was about to say something but then Dibbu entered into that room with two coffee cups in a tray.
“Get out. Why the bloody hell you entered into my room without knocking before?” Margaret shouted loudly.
John astonished on hearing her shouting so. He had never seen her that angry. It was not just anger, there was anxiety and tension also in her face.
“Sorry madam. I forgot.” He put the tray on the table there in the middle of their both chairs and turned back.
“Never dare to come into my room like this again.” She shouted once more.
Dibbu moved away fast from that room.
“Oh, I am very sorry.” After few seconds she turned towards John and said. “I am upset. I should not have shouted like that.”
“Its alright. I can understand.” John thoughtfully said.
***
“It is not unusual. I don’t know why my mother gets anger like that sometimes.” Jasmine smiled and said. “Particularly on Dibbu. I asked her not to get angry on him so. But she never heard me.”
“Do you know where from this Dibbu has come?”
“No chance. He has been in our house from the point of time even before my brother’s birth. Very loyal and staunched. Only that much I can say. ” she said
He paused for a moment looking into her face so. “Do you know about your maternal grandparents? I mean your mother’s mother and father?”
Immediately there has come an irritating expression on her face.
“This is quite a useless question, is it is not?” she said angrily. “What difference it would make whether I know about them or not?”
“Just curiosity. Why should not I try to know about? You are my lover and we both are going to be married?”
“My mother has come from a very poor family. Her parents died few days after her marriage.”
“Then how it happened that your mother married your father who was such a rich man?”
“My mother joined at my father’s office as his assistant. They both fall in love and my father married my mother. It has come like that.” She smiled.
“Then your mother proved herself. After your father’s death she became the backbone to the Mammooth. She is indeed great!” John said.
“You can say that again.” She laughed.
***
“What do you want to talk to us?” Peterson sternly asked him. John’s attempt to make a friendly talking with those people did not work out. From the beginning the father and daughter’s response was hostile.
John really felt troubled to start talking. “I am the friend of Jasmine. She was very much upset with what happened to her brother.”
“It is not unusual. Any sister who feels genuine love towards her brother becomes like that if something like that happens to her brother.”
“I have come to know some startling things recently.” Then he narrated to them his going to Tippu’s aunt’s village and what Tippu had said to his friend Micheal there.
“I cannot know who that Chief is. I just want to ask you if you are having any knowledge about him.”
“Why you are thinking that we do have any knowledge about him?” knitting his brows together, Peterson asked him.
“Just curiosity. I know that you are a family friend of Margaret madam.”
“How because of that I can know about that Chief whoever he may be?”
John could not think of what to say to that. In fact he had visualized a situation like this even before coming here. Still he wanted to take a risk and he was taking it.
“I may be wrong that I am asking you like this. But what I am doing is just a general questioning with the hope that you may know anything about him since I am thinking that Chief might be known what Williams had seen in that palace.”
Rita and her father looked into each other’s faces. “Why are you thinking like that?” this time Rita asked him.
“Just a strong feeling that he has known about it.” John said.
“May be you are right. But we don’t know who is that Chief and how he looks like.” Rita said.
“We do also wish good health to that Williams. I am feeling sorry that we cannot be much help to you.” Peterson said.
“There is no necessity to worry about. Somehow or other I sure do know what Williams had seen in that palace on that day.” With firm voice John said.
“We both wish you best of luck for that.” Rita said.
John thanked them both and came away from there. The feeling that these two people knew certainly the necessary information had become more and more stronger in him. He felt bad that he could not get much useful information from these two people.
***
Liza once again became prey to her thoughts. She just could not escape from the troubling thoughts. Especially from the moment she had received the phone call from that boy, her mind was strongly urging her to love him back and marry him and she could not feel relaxed at all. She could not think of why she had got into a situation like this. It all has started with the idea of helping him and landed her in a situation like this. It was not so that she did not like him. In fact on the first day itself she was attracted so strongly towards him. The main problem was he was too young. Just twenty four years old. Nearly fourteen years younger to her.
On that day she saw him again in her chamber waiting for her. “You came again! It is a surprise to me.” She said looking straight at him.
“Why it is a surprise? Should not I come and see you?” there was a change in his manner which amazed her.
“Sure. But in which way? As my client?”
“No. As your friend.”
She smiled. Luckily there were no clients waiting for her then. She did not know why but felt happy on seeing him so.
“I am also happy. To have a friend like you.” She was feeling embarrassed because her clients soon start visit on her. “I really do like to share many of my things with you.” Why she said that so she did not know. Why she was feeling close like that with him?
“My feeling is also just the same.” He paused for a moment. “I am having friends but I have not felt close like this with anyone as I am feeling towards you.”
She smiled again. She immediately took a decision. She was not going to waste this wonderful opportunity. She also wanted a good opposite sex friend.
“Come. We both go somewhere where there shall be no disturbance to us.”
They come out of her office, she closed her office and locked the same. She knew a place which she liked a lot and they could talk everything with open hearts there.
***
They both sat on a rock on the beach where there were people around in far but no disturbance whatsoever.
“Are not you feeling anything at all that you have separated like this from your wife?” she asked him.
“Not even a bit. In fact I am feeling happy and relieved. I suffered hell these six months or so.” He hissed out.
She was waiting to hear if he would say anymore.
“It is not just my impotence that irritated her that much. On the whole she disliked me a lot.”
“Why did she marry you in the first place if she does not like you at all?”
“That is what a thousand dollars question to me also. Why she has married me if she not liked me at all?” there came distress into his voice again.
(I hope that you enjoyed the story till here. I update the next chapter as soon as possible. Don’t forget to rate and review this story)
