Life Is a Paradox.

Chayadevi’s childhood friend, found her in a desperate condition and brought her along, to reside with them. The couple treated Chaya like a daughter; she began to take over all the household work herself. Sumathi died suddenly. Seethapathy and Chaya were great help to each other in tiding over the tragedy. Seethapathy was tormented by his body’s physical urge and began going to the New Club for relief; he became friendly with Rajani. One day she came to their house and persuaded him to marry her. Chaya who had been feeling insecure, became concerned and wanted to secure her future by marrying Seethapathy. She spoke to him about it several times but he always refused. He continued to treat her like his daughter and was in search of a suitable alliance for her but he was reticent and was unable to tell her. She was baffled at his continued refusal and tried all methods Rajani might have used; she did not succeed. She felt insulted and became very angry. As usual, he came to the dining table for his coffee before he went for his morning walk. As she added sugar, she happened to see rat-poison in the bottom shelf. In her anger bordering on frenzy, she added rat-poison to his coffee! His newspaper hit and tilted the cup; coffee fell on the table and dripped to the floor. She was in the backyard, watering plants. He went into the hall and waited for her to prepare and serve him a fresh cup of coffee. He became involved in the news item till he heard the sharp shrill wail of their dog, followed by an eerie silence. He went into the dining hall and found that the dog died; there was black sediment in the coffee on the table and on the floor. Truth suddenly flashed in his mind! A chill fright overtook him and he shot out of the house without any idea of why or where he was going. When she returned and saw the scene, she realized the gravity of her foolish act and began regretting it deeply. She got the mess cleared up. She hoped that he did not taste any coffee. She reported to the police that Seethapathy went for his morning walk on Saturday from which he didn’t return. Sub-inspector Murthy took up the investigation. Chaya misled Murthy and brought Rajani and Venkat into the orbit of suspicion. Murthy trusted whatever Chaya told him, under her guise of innocence. Rajani brainwashed him to make him realize how intelligent she was. Murty tried to trap her but she could win with the help of her fabricated stories. Finally Murthy also adopted the same tactics and cornered her. She continued to mislead him but he was able to fool her. Just as he was about to arrest her, Kamalakar came with a letter and money from Seethapathy and frustrated Murthy’s action. Seethapathy continued to travel till he swooned and fell down. A poor farmer couple arranged to take him home, kept him for two days and nursed him back to health. He continued his journey and reached Mamidypally; after his lunch he rested on a seat on the last row of seats in the large bus shelter and went to sleep. Later during the night a policeman, Obulu accosted him from sleep. A bag containing valuables was found next to him; suspecting that he was a thief, Obulu put him in the lockup room of the police station. Mutyalu who made his living by drawing pictures of Gods on the edges of streets, was already in lock-up. The body of a swamyji who died on the train just before reaching Mamidypally, was also brought into the lock-up room. Obulu handed over the bag of jewels to the inspector; he and the head constable planned to surrender only a small portion of the contents and to share the rest among themselves. Seethapathy was able to hear their entire conversation. Swamyji carried a bag of books; they kept Seethapathy engaged through the night. Both Mutyalu and Seethapathy were amazed to find that swamyji closely resembled Seethapathy. He took the books along with him when the detainees were released. He sat at the bus shelter and read all the books till late in the day. The swamyji was Chaitanyam and he wrote all about his experiences and how his relatives were exploiting his Kaluvakolanu estate. Seethapathy helped checkmate police fraud. it occurred to Seethapathy that he could impersonate Chaitanyam, go to kaluvakolanu and set matters right in the estate. He convinced Mutyalu to cooperate in his plan. Seethapathy became Chaitanyam. He ended Viswanadh’s hold on the estate, became a MLA and improved the estate. An incident induced him to return to Chaya intending to marry her. He found her married to Kamalakar. As soon as she saw him, she confessed her guilt and surrendered to him but he felt that it was his own mistake. He felt that God was advising him to renounce the world and he became a sanyasi.