Most often when a man's casual words surprisingly turn into reality, God knows whether there is any heavenly power working behind it. God doesn't spend sleepless nights to respect the combined willpower of the common man. Even the essence of a painful curse is no different from that of a searing inability. Still, often, those casual words come true—appalling and deadly.

Who doesn't know that earning means bringing other's money into one’s home, and doing this efficiently makes a man rich. Just as there exists no such thing as a forsaken woman, there is no forsaken money except that which being lost from one’s pocket, finds concealment in a roadside garbage heap. That is why honest toil and twisted intellect are the only acknowledged ways of earning money, big or small. If you want to live a meek and ordinary life, without harming anybody, earn a penny at the expense of five hundred drops of sweat: everybody will bless you, patting your back. But if you want to become rich, cheat people, ruin them. Before your birth men have taken possession of all the wealth of this earth. By some means or other, they occupy that money, making other's treasuries empty to save them in their bank account. People will humbly beseech with tears and curses simultaneously.

There is no other way to become rich. So, it can be said that Jatin's father, seeing no other means, made a huge sum of money by ruining numerous people. If there was any other option available to earn money by doing good to others, perhaps he would never have chosen this way. That is why, he can't be held solely responsible for the countless curses and grudges of the deprived in this process of earning money. Despite that, as if just to prove that inevitable truth that virtue always wins in the end and the wicked get defeated, Jatin became inflicted with leprosy at the early age of twenty-eight years before he could even relish his father's money.

People predicted it accurately. It appeared to be leprosy. One day Mahasweta asked her husband, "What has happened to your finger?"

“God knows. It was something like a blister initially.”

Mahasweta, after carefully looking at his finger, said, “It doesn't look like an ordinary bump, the surrounding area has become red.”

“The finger seems to be numb Sweta.”

“Can I apply some tincture iodine on it? Or else let me kiss it. That will cure it at once.”

After kissing his finger, Mahasweta smiled.

“As if you have borrowed your finger from Urvashi or Menoka, it’s nothing like a man's finger. It's so surprising that even a finger can look so tender, as if blood is oozing through it.”

Mahasweta took his hand around her neck. She once again said the same words that she had uttered a zillion times in her life, “This is very unjust of you, you know? Your beauty mesmerizes me. I don't understand whether I love you or your body. Not only that. These thoughts drive me crazy all day and night. I burn out of jealousy.”

Then there was something more which was beyond her comprehension. Not only on his finger but on a few other areas of Jatin's hands, appeared round blemishes just like shiny copper coins. Even after that nobody understood. To Mahasweta, it only seemed as if Jatin's health wasn’t quite well. His complexion had turned pale due to some underlying issues in his blood. He only needed to take some kind of medicinal tonic.

“See you should take a tonic.”

“What's the use?”

“I insist! Maybe it will improve your health.”

Jatin consumed the tonic but saw no result. No tonic would cure his disease. With time, a few more bumps appeared on his fingers. His skin looked rougher and more lifeless. The corners of his eyes and lips had gotten swollen like some unhealthy pile of dead mass. The sensation of touch gradually decreased. He no longer felt pain at being pinched by someone. All day and night, a kind of blunt deleterious feeling kept him depressed and irritated.

The finger on which Mahasweta kissed and applied tincture iodine showed the first sign of decomposition.

The doctor, who charged sixteen rupees fees, said, “I am hesitating to tell you that you have been affected by leprosy.”

The doctor with thirty-two rupees visiting charge said, “The type is bad, it will take time to cure fully.”

“Is there any cure possible then daktarbabu?”

"Why not? Why are you getting nervous? If a disease has occurred, it can definitely be cured."

The way he said it and his false endeavour to console Jatin became so evident that no one was left to understand that this disease of Jatin was beyond cure.

A doctor with a whopping hundred rupees fee opined, "There is no other option left than to localize the infection as much as possible. Doing more than that is impossible. You know that the disease is highly contagious. So, stay cautious, and also, having children will be riskier, do you understand?"

Does he not? Jatin understood, and Mahasweta too. But only if it could be known six months earlier. As if Mahasweta saw death itself, she exclaimed with utter horror, "Have you been afflicted by leprosy? Oh God! Leprosy?"

Even then Jatin was not dead, he was dying slowly. Ignoring all the rhythms of an ordinary speech he just said, "What sin have I committed Sweta?"

"Why would it be your sin? It's my fate."

Jatin remained untouchable among his own family members. Although nobody could prevent him from roaming around his own house according to his will, what he yearned for was only privacy. He kept himself secluded and isolated in a deserted part of his home. Except Mahasweta, no one was permitted entry into his secret abode. His friends and well-wishers were all denied access. They failed at their attempts to show verbal empathy to him. Jatin did not give consent for the exposure of his degenerating distorting body before anyone else. He took refuge in his room, taking some comfort through the radio and the piles of books among which he arranged to spend his limitless time. He connected with the outside world through the phone. All of a sudden, his usual lifestyle and habits changed drastically.

Though he untied the knots with everyone around the world, he could not leave Mahasweta. It can't be said how he managed to acquire the strength to reject his very near relatives but remained childlike and innocent in the case of Mahasweta. The oath he had taken to contain his infectious disease within his body till his death and then burn it off in his funeral pyre didn't seem to include Mahasweta in it. He took no notice of Mahasweta's possible affliction, while being too cautious regarding others. It was taken for granted that Mahashweta wouldn’t have much objection to sharing this ugly disease with him since they had, so far, always lived together.

He always sought his wife's company; tried to keep her around him every time. He wanted her to talk with him, and read him books by sitting close to him. He didn’t enjoy listening to songs alone without the company of Mahasweta. Even if it were not so, he...