The Second woman

Sailarajan was an employee in a government organization. His wife, Nancy, was a administrator in a local Government college. Sumit, 14 and Suraj, 12 were their sons. He had no problems or issues to be resolved and life was moving on smoothly for him. His daily routine included waking up late in the morning and getting ready to go to the office very lazily. That ate up most of his mornings but once into the office; he was a real thunder and lightening in finishing off his jobs as he had an amazing knowledge and grip over his job. He was a good table tennis and Tennikoit player and spent his evenings by relaxing with these two games. His wife was very co-operative and allowed him to pursue his interests .Every thing was in place for a peaceful life for him. At that particular juncture, a 34 year old Pamela joined into his office upon transfer from a different place.

Pamela had a rollercoaster life in the recent times. She had to move to several places in her job as her husband Anthony was transferred to several places in his job as an employee in Newspaper office. Of late he started suspecting her for silly things and even caned her for a simple reason of coming home late from the office without informing him. In fact he started getting addicted to vices like alcohol. Another surprising thing about their relationship was that they were lovers from their college days. They had two children- a son aged 14 and a daughter aged 12.She also had a strong feeling that her husband was moving closely with Nargis, an up coming journalist, but he strongly refuted that by saying that it was part of his job.

Pamela was in tears in her room in the office and was almost sleeping on her table. Sailarajan entered into her room, knocked the door and said “Hello Madam what is the reason and why are you sleeping like that in the peak of office hours? “ Perturbed by this intrusion, Pamela was very curt in her reply and said” Please mind your business and leave me alone”. Her husband had a wordy duel with her over phone because she expressed her unwillingness to pickup the children from the school in the evening as she argued that she had to attend staff meeting and he is relatively free. Sailarajan noticed that she was not sleeping but actually crying for some personal reason and hence had to be rightly left alone. Pamela thus had a bad first impression about Sailarajan and later on as days rolled by she noticed that it was his nature to be intrusive with regard to the affairs of his colleague to the extent of boring them.

The year end Tennikoit and table tennis tournaments were to take place and the pairings list of the contenders were announced. Sailarajan and Pamela were placed as one pair. They started practicing together and this allowed for the developing of a strange relationship between them.

Every evening, after the close of office hours Pamela came to him and before starting the practice, she started to tell him about her problems and her uneasy and dwindling relationship with her husband. At first Sailarajan counseled her to be patient and not to spoil her health. Later on, one day, Sailarajan’s friend, Harish walked up to him and said in a low whispering voice,” Hello friend.. What is happening between you and that lady every day in the evenings-Are you trying to start a second innings? Do not spoil the life of Sister-in-law and your kids. I heard Pamela was previously a family-wrecker and that is the reason why her husband gets angry with her frequently.” Sailarajan got stung by these seemingly jocular remarks and had wordy duel with his close pal for years. He announced that he would not desist from strengthening his relationship with Pamela at any cost.

Finally the tournaments arrived and Sailarajan reached the finals in the table tennis singles egged on by the friendly encouragement of Pamela and along with Pamela entered the finals in the tennikoit also. The office started murmuring about their relationships and several rumors started making rounds that both of them were staying back in the office even late in the night. Both of them did not take steps to curtail the rumors and slowly they reached their better-halves.

An already incensed Anthony threatened Pamela that he had enough of her. He said “I saw you coming on the bike of your colleague, Sailarajan and you were sitting horribly close to him.” “No” She Shouted and continued “You either need Spectacles urgently or trying to further and legitimize your friendship with Nargis by taking this as a ruse.” Anthony threw a steel rod at her and walked away by shouting at her that she would meet her only in the court and that too with divorce papers. She wished him best of luck.

At Sailarajan’s house, a normally docile Nancy revolted. She asked Sailarajan to prove his innocence or else stop talking with her. She also took a unilateral decision to enroll their children in a boarding school to avoid any disturbance to them. Sailarajan argued that he did not have any ulterior motives and that he was just helping Pamela to come out through a difficult phase. Nancy refused to accept her husband’s version and questioned why he should only take interest and not others.

Amidst all these happenings Sailarajan noticed that he was indeed getting attracted to Pamela’s presence and whenever she did not come to the office, he felt bored and dejected. In fact he wanted to be with her all the time and he found it strange that the person whom he wanted to bring out of the crisis was attracting him like a magnet. As time progressed, he found her to be beautiful as he watched her closely from different angles. Rumors and allegations mounted on them but those did not deter them. Pamela enrolled her kids in the same boarding school as Sailarajan’s children upon Sailarajan’s influence and continuous urging. So whenever an opportunity presented itself he accompanied her to the boarding school and thus met his children twice-once with his estranged wife and secondly along with Pamela.

In between these happenings, one day, Sailarajan asked Pamela “why are you frequently attracting trouble with your husband what are exactly the differences between you? To this Pamela replied” See Sailarajan, I am a singer and I have the ambition of singing for the movies and that is the reason why I go to singing practice sessions in the evenings and some times they go on up to eight at night and my husband does not like my participation in such type of activities. This is the core issue between us”. To this Sailarajan replied “Why do not you tow your husband’s line.” On hearing this Pamela became angry and walked away by saying “All you males are of similar nature-why should I destroy my talent?” Sensing the brewing of trouble, Sailarajan said” Okay cool down-I will try to encourage you. My cousin is a famous music director in films. Though I met him a long time back and not exactly in touch with him, if you are really talented and if I recommend, you may strike a jackpot”. Immediately Pamela cooled down sensing that here is an opportunity for her to enact her childhood dream.

Soon a stage reached for Pamela that her husband would not reconcile to her and started having an altercation with his bosses over silly matters and got suspended from duty. Nargis ditched him as she noticed that he no longer wielded enough influence over the bosses to make up for her short comings. She developed friendship with a new young journalist and got her priorities settled with him. Pamela did not loose her stubbornness.

Soon the government organization announced that it would promote all worthy people and thus Sailarajan passed the promotion test and became eligible for promotion and posting to a different place. Along with him Pamela also passed and became eligible for promotion. The people in the office began rumoring that with his influence; Sailarajan would see that Pamela would get her posting to the same place as him.

Sailarajan also did try that way but for some other reason because he thought Pamela would be happy to realize her childhood dreams and his wife would recognize his absence as he would pass his time in his cousin’s house.

Once they moved out to their new destinations, no improvement took place on their domestic front. Nancy got accustomed to live as a single mother. Initially Sailarajan frequently visited his children’s boarding school and as they complained about their poor living conditions, unnecessarily strict rules, their longing ness to be at home and to see both their mother and father under one roof, he stopped visiting them as he could do nothing to influence a stubborn Nancy to change her attitude and also because he could do nothing to change himself.

As years rolled by Pamela attracted the attention of not only the cousin of Sailarajan but also other music directors and became a famous singer and career wise also she rose tremendously up in the organization. At first she was close with Sailarajan but later on switched loyalties and started being friendly and too close with the cousin of Sailarajan. Then Sailarajan realized his folly. He came to realize that he was ditched and all of his troubles were his own creation and no one should be blamed. But by that time it was too late.

In that way twenty years passed and he became a top executive in the government and was living in a place other than where Pamela was living. His private life was in tatters as Pamela left him and was almost rumored to be living permanently with the music director and Nancy and his children stopped communicating with him completely. Upon further promotion Sailarajan was posted to the place where Pamela was living. Nancy and his children were also living in the same place. Then suddenly he was diagnosed to be a severe heart patient and thus his health started deteriorating .He needed someone to look after him but there were none. His wife refused to take care of him. His sons refused to visit him as he ignored their frequent calls to take them out of the boarding school and also never took proper care of them ever since he developed countenance with Pamela. Finally Sailarajan visited Pamela. She was very busy with a number of guests and seeing him she called him to her private chamber and enquired about him just for the sake of it.” I thank you for your help. Presently I am very busy and I cannot be of great help to you. By the by why did you come?” she asked. Pamela “I have to visit the cardiologist. Recently he asked me to bring someone along with me. Will you accompany me?” “No”, she said “I have to go to a recording and all I can do is to send my personal assistant along with you and without wasting any time she called one of her personal assistants and asked him to accompany Sailarajan in her car.

While going to the hospital, he noticed that a meeting was going on and from the distance he could notice that it is in fact an election meeting of his old time friend Harish who in these twenty years rose from the ranks of a union leader in the office to being a contestant in the legislative assembly election on the Party for Social change ticket. He rolled down the glass of the car and waved his hand at Harish who was ready to give his speech on the Dias.

Harish quickly recognized that the car and the waving hand were that of his former friend Sailarajan and waved his hand in return and started his speech “Today the main problems are the taking care of increasing number of old people, improving standard of our education by promoting the cause of Government schools and colleges, educating people to desist from having illicit or and multiple relationships so that their children need not spend their childhood in boarding schools thereby spoiling their mental health. I still maintain that some of the problems of some of the old people- especially their children not taking care of them is an off shoot of them neglecting their children in childhood and their forcible admission into the boarding schools.” Sailarajan asked the driver to start the car as he noticed that Harish was indirectly referring to him in his speech. Some days later he noticed in the newspaper that Harish won the election with a resounding margin and that his two sons were the principal architects in the election campaign