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बहुत दिनों के बाद होली पर घर आया, तो घर पर मेरे भविष्य की योजनाओं की चर्चा जोरों पर थी. हर कोई मुझसे यही पूछ रहा था, "पढाई तो कर ली अब आगे क्या करोगे?" मुझे कुछ जवाब देते नहीं बन रहा था. ऊपर से दादी ने शादी की बात शुरू कर दी,और जिद पर अड़ गई, और कहा की "तुम्हारे लिए जो दो-तीन लड़कियाँ देख रखी हैं, उन्ही में से कोई एक पसंद कर लो.  

Emancipation (Part 4)

(Last part...)

It was the midnight, my sleep was broken, I saw Rakesh, vomiting on the bed. He did not move any little. After vomiting he again slept. Prakash and Devangan were also sleeping. I left the bed and walked out on the veranda and find a chair to make myself comfortable. The sky was lit with the moon light and the town was looking very much calm and quiet. The roads were emptied and only few motors were running over the roads giving a gap of 2-3 minutes. Their sounds were tearing away the silence of midnights.

I was not feeling sleepy at all, rather than my eyes were wide open. I saw a silhouette, approaching towards me from the darkness. It was anyone whom I knew very well. As that person was coming closer to me, the face might be seen very clearly. I did not believe myself when I saw it and exclaimed loudly, "Varuna!.......Varuna! is that you?" Though I was not getting any answer, but It was the Varuna, and I was seeing her clearly now. But how can Varuna be here wandering over the roads in the midnight.’ It was not possible, I thought.

I convince myself, ‘Let us see the beautiful dream, if you don’t have courage to face the reality.’ I was dreaming with my eyes wide open. I approached her and hugged, kissed her cheeks, her lips. My hands were started struggling with her large bosoms.

She asked me the most difficult question, ‘Do you love me?’

‘I love you, Varuna! I love you very much. You are my heart and I can’t live without you.’ I was murmuring.

‘How much do you love me?’ she asked again.

‘I love you very much, Varuna. Although I am drunk today but a drunken man never tells a lie.’

"Then why have you betrayed me?" she asked.

"I have not betrayed you, Varuna! It started with just a mistake and due to a bet between me and Rakesh. Rakesh has challenged me to prove my manhood long before our affair started, and it was me who trapped in his net and proposed you that night."

"So it was a bet; and for only a bet you have cheated me." exclaimed Varuna.

"Yes; it is true that I have cheated you and played with your emotions; but after proposing you that night; I really fall in love with you, and this I came to realise only after breaking up with you. Believe me, I really love you now."

"Again a lie! I don't believe you any more." she said. 

"What I do so that you believe me and my saying." I asked her.

But it seems as the sillhouette was disappearing now and the sky was started beaming with the sunlight.

"Tell me, Varuna! tell me." I was saying and somebody was shaking me feverously.

"Wake up, Eishwer! wake up man, what are you murmuring?" Rakesh was saying to me.

I saw him and all the other colleagues, who were standing over my head. They were smiling. I could not speak a word neither I tried to explain anything. The same guilt haunted me often in my dream many times, and I tried many times to confess my guilt in front of Varuna, but I failed because I lack the courage to face her and now the college is over, I don't know where she is, and I am still in the search of my emancipation.......