Tit for Tat Story - Essay Example

Tit for Tat It all started when I turned 18. I was beautiful, slim, smart and tall. I had large lustrous eyes. I was the eligible bride for any rich man in the world. I had looks, but I didn’t have money. Money was what I craved. Mom, Sarah and I lived from hand to mouth. Dad had passed away years ago, and we didn’t have any brother. Our home was all the property we had. Mom had set the upper portion of the house on rent. She brought us up with that money. Sarah and I got educated in cheap public schools. Sarah is my elder sister. She was two years older to me. She is below average in the looks. She is not obese or short in the height, but she doesn’t look good anyway. However, she has always been content with whatever she has got. She doesn’t crave money. She has always been a down to earth person. This behavior of hers brought her all the content and happiness that I was deprived of. This is why I always envied her. Mom was not feeling well. She was a cancer patient. She wanted to marry both of us in her life. She wanted to see us settled. She knew there would be no one to take care of us after she was dead. Sarah and I were both young and eligible for marriage. Day and night, mom would pray and hope that we get our husbands soon. Tom is our maternal cousin. He is the son of our mother’s sister. In those days, he was a poor man. His dad had passed away, and he had no sister. Tom lived in his two-room apartment with his mom at a distance of a few yards from our home. Tom was studying. He had no work. Their financial condition was no better than ours. The only difference was that he had a motorbike and we didn’t have even that. Mom often called Tom to take me to the school in his motorbike whenever I was in a hurry or had missed the bus. Tom was always volunteering to do that, but I did not like going to school with him on his old motorbike. I did not want my friends to know how poor I was. Mom had always thought she would marry Sarah to Tom. Tom’s mother, Aunt Nora also liked Sarah for her modesty and obedience. Looks did not matter to her. She wanted to have a daughter-in-law with a down to earth attitude, and Sarah matched her choice. But when she asked Tom if she could take his marriage proposal for Sarah, he refused and said, “I want to marry Linta.” I was stunned to hear my name come from the tongue of Aunt Nora when she came to our home taking the marriage proposal of Tom. I had never thought about Tom like that. To me, he was more of a friend or a brother than anybody else. It was also no less than a shock for Sarah who had always hoped of getting married to Tom, and was also reassured of the same by Aunt Nora several times. When mom told me that Tom wanted to marry me, I refused saying that I could not break my sister’s heart. Also, I said that since Sarah was older than I, I must not get married until she did. Having given these reasons, I earned a lot of respect in the eyes of mom and Sarah, but deep inside, I knew I was lying. I had refused the proposal because Tom was as poor as us, and I wanted my husband to be way too richer than him. Just because this sounded too mean a reason to give, I kept from giving it. Aunt Nora was happy to hear the refusal from my side, since she never liked me a bit in comparison to Sarah. Somehow she knew how mean and selfish I was. After my refusal, she managed to convince Tom to get engaged with Sarah. Tom agreed since he had no hope for me anymore. Aunt Nora came to our home to discuss it with mom. She and Sarah happily agreed. Tom put the engagement ring in Sarah’s finger. Tom had a rich friend Deepak. Deepak was a foreigner, and did not know the systems of our country well enough to do business with his money. He had a fair amount of money for investment. He trusted Tom and gave him the investment to start the business. The two decided to share the profits equally between them while the equity would always belong to Deepak. The contractual conditions were settled and Tom established the factory with that money. He worked day and night to make the business work. Within days, the business flourished. Tom became rich! With his money, he bought a big house and a car. He was now a happy man. He dressed well. He looked handsome. Suddenly, he got all that a girl would want in her husband. Now when he took me to my school in his car, I didn’t mind. I introduced him to my friends with pride. Tom was always ready to give me the service. After all, he had proposed me in the first place. Although I had said no before, yet the change of circumstances made me repent my refusal. Tom loved taking me to restaurants and ice-cream parlors on our way back to home, and I also liked those expensive meals that I had always longed for. One day, Tom told me that he still wanted to marry me if I agreed. I told him that I wanted to marry him too. He said, “Then we have no reason to wait!” I said, “But Tom, you’re engaged.” Tom said, “I’m engaged, not married!” I said, “But Tom, she’s my sister.” Again, I started pretending that I cared, though I cared the least. Tom said, “That can’t make me make a lifelong compromise, specially that you are ready to marry me.” He said that he would talk to Aunt Nora about this very soon, and told me to take my mom into confidence in this regard as well. Next day was off from school. But I lied to mom about this saying that I have some important work in school. I took my bag and shut the gate behind me. Tom was waiting for me in his car, and we went to the beach. Uncle Joseph spotted us on the beach. He was our neighbor. He was aware that Tom was engaged to Sarah. I hid my face in the hat when I saw him. We moved away, but it was too late! Uncle Joseph called my mom and told her that he had seen the two of us at the beach. I didn’t know that until I came back home. Mom asked me where I was. I said, “In the school.” She called me a liar and told me what Uncle Joseph had told her. I said, “I tell you what! That’s right. I was with Tom.” Mom said, “Why the hell were you with him?” I said, “Because I love him and he loves me and we want to get married!” I said it all in one breath, knowing that I had never been as mean in my whole life. Mom said, “You know he is going to be your sister’s husband, don’t you?” I said, “He was, now he will not be! He loves me. And if you remember, he had first sent the proposal for me, not for Sarah.” Mom said, “And you must remember that you had refused.” I said, “I did, but now I have started to love him. I can’t help it!” Mom shouted at me and started crying. I didn’t care and came into the room, confronting Sarah. I told Sarah that Tom didn’t love him and that she would ruin her life if she kept expecting him to be her husband. Sarah said, “You can’t do this to me. You are my sister.” And I said, “It is in your best interest to return Tom the engagement ring, because he was never yours. He is not yours, and will never be yours.” I further said, “If you don’t agree, ask Tom to marry you. And if he does, I have no problem with that.” She knew Tom wouldn’t marry her now that I had started being in love with him. I left Sarah weeping in her pillow. She had a big heart, so it didn’t take her long to compromise. Within days, she was back to normal. Everything had settled now. Tom had taken Aunt Nora into confidence and I had told mom and Sarah my decision. Days passed by. Tom and I got married. Tom introduced me to Deepak. Deepak started liking me from the first sight. He was like a pleasant surprise in my life. He gifted me an expensive diamond necklace. Tom accepted it thinking it was a gift from him for both of us. Tom discussed with me how much he depended upon Deepak financially. One day, I coincidently met Deepak in the market while I was shopping. Deepak offered to buy me anything I wanted. I first hesitated in modesty, but then agreed. He bought me jewelry, designer outfits, cosmetics and what not. When Tom asked me where had I got them from, I told him that my friends had gifted me all of those things. Deepak lived near our home. I had married Tom for money, and could leave him for money. I became friends with Deepak. I daily went over to Deepak’s place while Tom was at work. Tom didn’t know that. One day Deepak said to me, “I love you crazily and would lose anything to have you.” I said to him, “O Deepak, I love you too, but I’m married.” He said to me, “So what? Divorce him.” I said, “How do I go about it? It’s easy said than done.” He said, “I’ll do it for you!” I said, “How would you do this?” He said, “I’ll gift you a car. Tom is too modest to accept it. I know him. He would never let you keep the car. You tell him that you’d leave him if he returns the car. Tom is too egoistic to keep the car. He will return it to me, thus providing you with a reason to leave him.” Deepak did as he had said and Tom did as was expected of him. I left Tom. I left him a letter. It stated, “I can’t live with a person that doesn’t respect my emotions.” When I came back home, a bigger surprise was waiting for me. A very rich man had proposed Sarah and their marriage was due within a month. Sarah and mom were taken aback to find that I had left Tom. They insisted that I returned to him, but my decision was firm. I made the legal proceedings and divorced Tom. I went to Deepak. He said, “Aha, glad to see you free. Glad to see you mine.” We went for the dinner in a restaurant. After we were done, he took me to his bed. He offered me some wine and made love to me. After a few weeks, I asked him to marry me. He said, “Why?” I said, “Deepak, you said to me that you could lose anything to marry me.” He said, “I never said I would lose anything to marry you, rather I had said that I would lose anything to have you.” I said, “You can’t do this to me. You must marry me.” He said, “Marry you! You unfaithful bitch! You left Tom for money and you would leave anybody for money, including me.” Today, Sarah has all that I had always wanted. She has a rich, loving and caring husband. Mom died of cancer. And I am alone, looking for work to bring up my one year old child who is Deepak’s son. Part II: Commentary Word Count: 500 This story is a wonderful piece of art, with a certain beginning, and a well-defined end. The story has been constructed in a meaningful way. Every paragraph relates to the preceding and succeeding paragraph. There is a smooth transition of ideas, with each paragraph discussing a certain element of the story. No two important elements of the story have been juxtaposed in the same paragraph. The story tells commences with a background. It tells the financial conditions of Linta and her family and Tom and his family. Discussion of the family background is a very important factor as it provides Linta with a reason to crave money and refuse Tom’s proposal. The story starts with the discussion of Linta’s beauty, which is a very important factor that drives the whole story. Linta’s beauty is not only the reason Tom wants to marry her, but also why Deepak wants to have her. Linta is the narrator of the story. She leaves it upon the audiences to guess who the narrator of the story is until she reveals her name through Tom. Linta is the most suitable person to be the narrator of the story because only she can express her emotions best. She does mention why she had initially refused to marry Tom and why she later started loving him, and also why she left him. The story also discusses Sarah’s and Linta’s nature in the beginning because their respective natures play a decisive role in their futures. Sarah is rewarded for the goodness of her nature whereas Linta is punished for the evilness of her nature. The story is a perfect combination of storytelling and dialogue. The turning points in the story have been enriched with dialogues to make them all the more easier and interesting for the audiences to understand them from all aspects. The first turning point in the story is when Tom tells Aunt Nora that he wants to marry Linta, so he is quoted at this point. The second turning point is where Linta and Tom discuss that they have to take their respective families into confidence to marry each other after Tom’s engagement to Sarah. The third turning point is where Linta makes her mom and Sarah that she is in love with Tom and would marry him. Fourth in the line comes the scene in which Linta discusses with Deepak how to go about parting ways with Tom. The fifth turning point is the last scene in which Deepak refuses to marry Linta. All of these scenes are in dialogues. Linta is the main character in the story who undergoes most of the changes in the story. Tom is second in the league and his life also changes before and after marrying Linta. The story ends with Linta realizing what her greed has led her to losing and what Sarah’s nobility has caused her to achieve. The story does not state a moral, yet there is an obvious moral i.e. “Greed is a curse.” Read More