An excerpt from Benign Flame: Saga of love by BS Murthy

‘Why didn’t I take him out on some pretext,’ she lamented no end for her failure to seek an avenue to let out her love to Raja Rao. ‘Oh at least I should’ve come out to see him off. But then, wasn’t it all so sudden. And lo, before I could gather my wits, he was gone!’

‘Anyway, next time when he comes, I shouldn’t slip up at any rate,’ she resolved at length. 

‘Didn’t he suggest that I could scribble something, for him to pick up? Given the constraints for a dialogue of love, wasn’t it his innovation to let me bare my heart to him. Won’t he come up with his missive of ardor to be on par after all? Well, I’ll make it a memorable one for him, nay for us.’

‘Can I ever express my love to him in writing as I experience it?’ she felt as she sat down to write to her Raja that night.

‘Would a ream of paper do to picture the craving of my soul for him? Even otherwise, won’t borrowed feelings mar love letters, robbing them off their originality? How else can a woman let her man see her soul than in lovemaking? Why not I simply write, ‘Raja, just take me into your arms to know how you’re loved.’ Yes, that will tell all, where a million words might fail even.’ 

At that, she waited for her Raja’s visit in all anxiety, and for his part, back at the Ritz, Raja Rao was pensive.