‘Why is life hard on some while being soft on others?’  Roopa contemplated after Sandhya had left. ‘The sastras would have us believe that it’s all owing to karma, while the philosophers stress that life is conditioned by a combination of circumstances. It could be true either way, but how does that help me anyway. For all that, does life play favorites? But that’s unlikely, for after all, why should it be partial to some when all bear its own patent. Yet, some like me get condemned, all the time, don’t they? But why is that so?’
 
‘It’s as though life has an obligation for itself as a whole and not to the beings that make up that whole,’ -

she tried to probe into the proclivities of life as though to solve the puzzle of her state.

‘It would appear as if life feels a monotonous regimen would bore people to death, bringing the creation to an unintended end. Therefore, for the larger good of itself, life could have found it expedient to take recourse to individual inequities to keep the general interest in it alive for all. Wonder how life prepares the black-list for the fate to act upon! As all are dear to it, were it possible that blindfolded, it would go in for random selection with a sinking heart! Once fate takes over the earmarked, won’t weddings come in handy for it to impart misery in many wrong permutations and provide bliss in a few right combinations! Then is there nothing left for me to do than to regret my fate, all my life?’
 
As though her pain infected nature itself, it opened the skies to shed its tears. Closing the windows to avoid the spatter, she felt melancholic, ‘So that’s how I’ve got the rough end of the married stick then. But why not grab the silken glove of liaison that is dangling before me now? Won’t that meet life’s need for variety as well? As it had imposed a husband of its choice on me, now let me choose the lover after my heart.’

An excerpt from the author’s novel – Benign Flame: Saga of love