Dinakaran and Ranjan shared a smile and shook hands. Meanwhile Thulasi requested Shoba to order juice for both of them.
“Thulasi I need to talk to you about important news… Are you busy now?” asked Dinakran, slightly glancing at Ranjan.
Before Thulasi could reply to him, Ranjan replied to Dinakaran.
“Mister Dinakaran, it’s ok, you could discuss now… You need not worry about me… I am very much like a member of Thulasi’s family only…”
Dinakaran didn’t say anything. He stared at Ranjan for a few seconds and then shifted his eyes towards Thulasi with a question in his face.
“As I said he is a family friend and his father…”
Ranjan interrupted Thulasi and said,
“Come on Thulasi, let’s share the complete story… Mister Dinakaran, Thulasi and I were supposed to be married five years back but unfortunately there were some issues and the marriage didn’t happen… I went to United States for my job and I came back only today… I am convinced that I can’t have a better wife than Thulasi…”
Dinakaran looked at Ranjan sharply. He then looked at Thulasi. Thulasi was not able to withstand his gaze for a long time. She stammered,
“No… it happened some time back…”
Ranjan interrupted again and said,
“Come on Thulasi… You are still my fiancé… Our parents decided to postpone the marriage, not stop it…”
Thulasi didn’t say anything she kept quiet. She bent her face and kept staring at her fingers. Dinakaran stared at Thulasi for a few seconds… a smile appeared in his face. He was convinced that Thulasi has lost her heart to him… He felt very proud to have won her heart… But he also remembered the challenge that he had thought in his mind… he wanted Thulasi to accept her love and tell him about it… So he hid his smile and said,
“Oh ok Mister Ranjan, it should be fine, I guess… Thulasi, I have some updates for you about your father’s absconding friend…”
Thulasi looked at him surprised.
“Yes, Thulasi, I was following up with my detective friend to collect information about him… Ofcourse that’s why I was busy for the past 2 months…”
Thulasi got the message… So he was not angry with her…
“We got the information about this Kumar couple of weeks back… And I took these extra few days to talk to him and get everything finalized…”
Thulasi was surprised!
“What do you mean by finalized?”
“Oh yes Thulasi, he is not in bad shape… You would be surprised if I tell you that he has earned almost 20 times more wealth now… He is a popular business man in Patna now…”
“oh!”
“Yes… So I took the liberty of negotiating with him…”
“…”
“So Thulasi, Kumar doesn’t want you to pursue the police case… He is willing to give back your money with interest… To make things easy, I have asked him to pay back as a mixture of property and money… He is willing to give his bungalow in Anna nagar to your family… I have shared the list of all other properties your family lost because of him… he will compensate for everything… He will also give you 25% of the amount as cash… I thought it will help you and your family for other expenses… Ofcourse nothing else is finalized other than this bungalow…so here’s the list, you can look into it, discuss with aunty and Kavya and let me know… I will talk to him on your behalf and get things registered legally… Then maybe you can get back your police complaint…”
Thulasi was quiet… She could not believe what she just heard… Here’s a person who calls himself as her fiancé but have not even bothered to worry about her even for a single day in the past few years… And there’s Diankaran, who had taken the responsibility on his shoulders and have completed it too…
Maybe, Kumar thought three ladies can’t do anything about an absconding person… That’s true in a way too… They had tried to follow up with the case… But there has always been a hesitation on their part to follow up with police men… They could have never done this without Dinakaran’s help.
Thulasi wanted to thank Dinakaran, but no words came out of her… Dinakaran who was looking at her smiled as if he understood her condition. While they both were busy talking through the eyes via the silent language, Ranjan was saying something too…
Diankaran hesitantly turned his attention towards Ranjan and listened to his talk.
“… I know this will happen… Thulasi there should be no issues now… Thanks a lot Mister Dinakaran…”
“Stop Ranjan… We need to discuss so many other things… First I need to talk to Abirami aunty about Kavya’s marriage…” said Thulasi in an irritated tone.
“Kavya’s marriage? Come on you are her elder sister…”
Thulasi starred at him angrily. Dinakaran who was listening to their conversation eagerly hid his smile again and turned towards Thulasi and said in a very serious tone,
“ok Thulasi, you both are meeting after a long time… you will have lot of things to discuss… I guess I better leave now… “
Thulasi looked at him… She wanted to talk to him about so many things… But not even a single word came out of her throat… She was hurt by his business like serious tone…She somehow managed and said,
“But…”
Even before she could start her sentence Dinakaran stopped her in-between and said,
“Thulasi, Don’t worry about what I told you few days back… I can understand what’s going in your mind… I had no idea about all these arrangements… I am sorry about that... And you please forget those things… Now let me not disturb your meeting… You both carry on… I will talk to you later… Bye Thulasi… Bye mister Ranjan. It was nice meeting you…”
Dinakaran got up from the chair and left the room. Thulasi kept looking at the closed door… She never expected it to go this way… She could understand Dinakaran’s thoughts… May be he thought Ranjan and Thulasi are in love... But that’s not true… How can she explain it to him?
How can she tell him how much she loves him? Ranjan was saying something but her mind was not in a situation to listen to his words. She held her head on her two hands as if not able to withstand the pain anymore…
After leaving Thulasi’s shop, Dinakaran directly went to Thulasi’s house. He was so very happy. He was whistling all the way. He reached her house and rang the door bell. As expected, Saradha opened the door for him. Saradha was surprised to see Dinakaran at that time. But she managed to hide her thoughts and invited him cordially. She asked him to be seated and turned to go inside to bring him some snacks. Dinakaran stopped her and said,
“No aunty, I don’t need any snacks now… I came here in a hurry to talk to you about something important… Please sit down aunty…”
Saradha accepted and sat down and looked at him eagerly.
“Aunty, I don’t know how you will take this… But I love Thulasi so much and I want to marry her…”
“Sir!!!!”
“Please aunty, don’t call me like this again… First tell me what your opinion is?”
“What can I say, Thulasi is very lucky…”
“Thank you aunty… Now please listen to what I say…”
Dinakaran started talking to her in a serious manner.
To be continued...