16. Opportunity

Raghav stopped coming with Akshay to restaurants and only concentrated on his work. Then Akshay sometimes started taking Rebecca Smith, his colleague with him for dinner. Rebecca knew the family background of Akshay.

Akshay knew that she was a lady with liberating thoughts. He would share and discuss any topic in the world with her which he even sometimes couldn't discuss with his wife or even his best male friends.

In a very less time, his frequency matched with her. He also told her that he is attracted to Sofia.

One day he invited her to taste Indian food in the "Fairly Spicy" restaurant and to show her who Sofia is.

They ordered paneer butter masala and rotis.

Rebecca liked the Indian food. After some silence, she noticed Akshay looking at Sofia and told him, "Shall I ask you one thing? Why can't you go and directly ask her if she is interested in you?"

"Don't know. Haven't yet gathered courage."

"I don't think so. This may not be the reason. The real reason may be something else."

Akshay smiled and said, "Ok then, what is that you think?"

"Your conscience, your inner voice must be stopping you from doing this. That must be telling you that you are married and having an extramarital relationship is not good!"

"You guessed it partially right! That is why you are a very good friend of mine, Rebecca! You are more than a colleague. I know I still love Richa. I owe her a lot. She changed me a lot after marriage. Still, I didn't know why I am getting strong feelings for Sofia?"

Rebecca was anticipating what comes next. She was silent!

Akshay spoke further, "Can I ask you a question? Can one person fall in love with two people at the same time?"

Rebecca said, “Yes, you can fall in love with two people, equally. One might make you feel safe, loved, and connected while the other might bring out your sexy, wild side and you'll love them for it"

"This may be happening in your culture but for us..."

"Human feelings and behaviors don't change with geography. To some extent, the feeling might be less or more suppressed, but these feelings exist everywhere. Laws and concepts of sins may vary geographically but humans and their emotions are the same all over the world! And yes, don't feel guilty about anything. Accept your feelings for Sofia! Until and unless we accept something which is bothering us, we keep suffering from it."

"I felt relieved from a sense of guilt now!"

"Hmm. I would suggest you should go and talk to Sofia first. Check whether she is also feeling the same. "

"Ok, so can you help me now?"

"Help in what?"

"Can you talk to her on my behalf?"

"Okay. I can do that for you. You are clever and a very talented and expert manager. Someone like you deserves a girl like Sofia. But this is my opinion. I would be happy to do that for you!"

That day post-dinner, Rebecca initiated a conversation with Sofia and requested her to talk to Akshay. As Sofia knew English well, there was no problem with language.

Finally, Sofia became ready to talk to Akshay. Now she was waiting when Akshay to make advancements.

Rebecca moved away from them and waited for Akshay in her car while Akshay and Sofia sat at a table talking.

They just started discussing general things first when Akshay's phone rang.

His mother had called him. He cut the call twice but again the phone rang. Now he could not avoid it as something must be serious. He answered the call.

"Akshay beta, how are you?"

"I am good ma. And you?"

"I am good. Had dinner?"

"Just now. In an Indian Restaurant."

"Take care of yourself in the unknown place beta."

"Yes, Ma. Don’t worry. I am not a child now!"

"I know, and that's why I called you for your help."

"Help? What happened? Is everything fine there? Any problem in farming?"

"Yes. Nowadays due to the uncertainty of rains, we got less income from crops harvesting. But that's okay. Still, the real problem is something different."

"What ma?"

"Your brother Anil. You know how spoiled he is. He is careless about his future. After completing his engineering, he was not interested in doing the job!"

"I know. What can we do for that?"

"But he had started a new business for which I sold some part of our land, and also he took some bank loan!"

"What? Why didn't you tell this me before? And..."

"Sorry beta, but yet I haven't told you the real trouble!"

"One minute please! Hold on."

Keeping his mother on mute, Akshay told Sofia that he will talk to her some other day. His mood was gone.

"Yes, ma, tell me!"

The unmuted ma gave him surprises one after the other.

Ma said, "Anil suffered a huge loss in that business, one of the reasons is his carelessness. Now, we don't have money to repay the loan. We can't afford to sell more land now otherwise our source of income will be lost. You have to help him beta!"

"This is not fair at all ma. He should understand his responsibilities!"

"Now I am planning to marry him to a girl I know. After marriage, he will understand his responsibilities."

"Don't make that mistake ma. Girls are not someone who takes the contract of repairing their husbands after marriage! And I really feel bad that while taking some serious decisions like spending money, selling lands for a business, you and Anil even didn't think to inform me, let alone ask my opinion, and now when all the money is lost, you are coming to me for help? You are taking me for granted."

"Now you teach me the philosophy of life. And at your time? Even your education was not completed, and you brought that girl home. Forgot?"

"Ma, you are referring to Richa as 'that girl'? she is your daughter-in-law."

"She disappointed her mother-in-law in many aspects! I accepted her only because you liked her, otherwise, it is difficult to digest the Karva Chauth instead of Vat Poornima."

"Ma, be any festival, it is Indian culture only. And leave those things aside now. Let us talk only about Anil. And yes, talking about responsibilities, I understood my responsibilities very well when I and Richa got married and I earned money by doing some DTP and printing work to support papa."

"I agree but, we older ones had to take care of our younger ones!"

"Now that is your philosophy, ma!"

"Please send some money to him monthly. You are working in London and earning a lot. You must help your brother. You will also have to give me some money for his marriage and all."

"You have left no option with me. But tell me one thing ma. Why Anil is making you as a mediator to convince me. Why didn't he talk to me directly? Elder ones also have the right to reprimand younger ones when they make mistakes!"

"Don't do that. He is under a lot of tension and pressure now!"

"Waw. That is a great excuse!"

While driving back to the train station, Rebecca asked Akshay, "What happened? Instead of talking to Sofia, you were talking with someone. Was it your wife?"

"No, it was my mother. Asking for monetary help for the stupid things my brother did! After that, all the mood of talking to Sofia was lost. I will talk to her on some other day!"

Hearing the mention of Richa from Rebecca, Akshay wondered why didn't Richa recently call him? He was somehow missing her. He was missing Arpit and Rohini more, to be more precise. Lately, relations between him and Richa have been tense. Both couldn't figure out why? but something was wrong. Was it a lack of satisfying sex, lack of love, affection, need, or something else?