Agni Chakra

-(The circles of fire)-Chapter 4

By Kathleen Jayawardene

I wonder whether I really loved Shantha? The next doubt that arose in me was "whether there was anything called love in the world". Whenever I try to figure out love, I feel that it is something beyond the vision. I feel that love is not something concrete. It is a continuous movement like that of breeze or wind. It is like an endless journey. If so can love be grasped? But I begin to feel gradually and in a complex manner that every aspect of life is a tragedy. However, I have not reached the target yet. Sometimes, I may experience a kind of happiness and a sense of equanimity after I reach the goal. I should patiently wait until then.

Therefore, my objective is to keep the confusing notion that everything is a tragedy in suspense under the tongue like a bitter pill that would be gulped in one-go so as not to sense its bitterness.

For Shantha, I am a world or its her imagination. I know for sure that love springs from egoism. Is it because of this that lovers always impose restriction on their partners? Can love that does not respect freedom be truly love?

By now I have realised that the inherent nature of women for probing the past and going into the minutest details even on an insignificant matter is also common to Shantha, They, who look at a man' extra-marital affairs with an eagle's eye and in a sarcastic manner, believe that their puritan moral criteria should strictly prevail with regard to each and every man. When and in which person can this prerogative be realised? Now, Shantha's beautiful face or her tender body would not make me excited. I consider that beauty comes second or third in attracting the human mind.

It is because that the pleasure of beauty would fade away in a few seconds. I thought if a woman wanted, somehow, to win over the heart of the man she admired, what she had to do was to allow him to be married to another woman. I said so as my mind began to be excited from time to time by the memory of Sitara's glance and her smile at the Faculty of Sciences.

For a long-time, I had been noticing that Sitara who was a second year student wanted very much to be intimate with me. Her gaze in the sparkling eyes suggested that she was inviting me. Before the marriage and when I was courting Shantha, I saw Sitara as a depressed and gloomy figure.

But, that gloom and dejection gradually vanished off. Her entire disposition suggested me that she wanted to take the friendship, which began with her returning me a textbook which I had left at the Faculty of Science, to a deeper level. Her chubby body with over-hanging lumps of flesh from unnecessary parts and her face with protruding teeth in confusion that looked like she was always smiling hitherto had generated no happiness in me. I heard some students bullying her shouting "a mountain of flesh".

I did not encourage her in any manner considering that an affair with such a girl would be a scar on my reputation.

Nevertheless, from yesterday on, I began to see in Sitara's face and body hitherto unseen pleasantness. Yesterday I saw a deep anguish at the bottom of Sitara's rather opened up eyes. Was it because only half of the pupil was visible in the anterior? A single hand could not embrace her vest for sticking out lumps of flesh. But the poet who said that a woman's vest should be so slender as to be abled to embrace with a single hand? Was it because that I felt now that Sitara's body was the most attractive female body in the world? What a great change that had occurred in me within a couple of hours between yesterday and today!

Yesterday Kalinga visited me on his way to a propaganda activity of the revolutionary political party which he and I represented for many years. He came with a girl named Rita. Since the public transport on Sunday was mostly disrupted and it was late in the evening, I invited them to spend the night with us. I did not think that it was necessary for me to explain Shantha that Kalinga and Rita were relatives or they were married or not. For, I had no difficulty in assuming Rita as Kalinga's wife.

I felt that Shantha was not in a happy mood since their arrival. Though she had treated them at all times with worm hospitality, she showed a frown-face. As it was a real headache for me to face Shantha's cross examinations, I went to bed early. I felt Shantha though lying beside me, was also awake.

"Is Kalinga married?" asked Shantha tapping on my shoulders after a long-time after crawling on the bed for a long-time. "Yes, for legal requirement" My voice represented sarcasm and insult. I wanted to imply that for me "Marriage is not such a sacred institution" for me. "Then, this is a rest-house" Shantha's shaky voice caused disturbing feeling in me. I felt that she was crying. Should Shantha be disturbed so much even though Kalinga and Rita are married or not?

What's the hidden meaning of this shock? Should she be so inquisitive about these matters? Should she go into rights and wrongs of these? Should she repeat them over and over again? Should these things be harbour in the mind like cancer cells and allow causing the mind decay? For me, it was only a natural relationship between man and woman. I had no need to get myself disturbed by such a trivial matter. On the other hand, I never harboured long memory of others' affairs. Whether it was good or bad, this was the case.

I did not endorse the fundamental classifications by Shantha and her mother. They had demarcated one's good and bad in a line of separation, figuratively constructing prisons for the culprits and sacred places for the puritans. I did not have this habit. I easily forget peoples' bad characteristics or else I would not consider them as bad and it would be the same for good as well. "Can you hear that person sobbing?" I remained silent as I felt that Shantha wanted to arouse me. It seemed that my silence made her more and more restless. "Remember, once we met Kalinga in Kadugannawa.

That day he was not with the same girl". "I cannot remember", I told to stop talking. "Why should I remember these things?" I did not pose the above question as I thought Shantha would cry.

"Sin!. Yesterday when I took coffee to them in the living room, I overheard; why are you treating me in this manner, how sincerely I trusted you!" "Really, what else have you by-hearted" I asked smilingly.

"Yes, it is true that there is an ethnic issue in this country. Injustice is caused to minorities", she said launching a sharp attack on me.

"What?" "How could one say, that there isn't an ethnic issue when Sinhalese internationalists play with the lives of Tamil girls in this manner?" I was deeply hurt by that biting remark. "Let us sleep", I said rolling on to the other corner of the bed. Though I closed my eyes, I did not fall asleep. I felt as if Sitara was roaming in my mind.

I experienced how she absolutely warmed up my cold heart. Though I drew Shantha closer as rays of the dawn swept on us, it was Sitara who dominated my world. Do the wives themselves push their husbands towards other women by harassing them with nasty questions? How nice if they had self-control?