However he tried, his background, his family, religion and good breeding haunted him day and night.Vinod Pandey promising young lawyer and a most eligible bachelor, in J.B.Nagar area in Bombay, had never wanted what the destiny had offered him to be.
He had come to Bombay when he was eighteen years old, an extraordinary student with a Bachelor’s degree in Law and legislation from Allahabad University. Though his parents had sent him to his uncle’s, who was a reputed advocate in central Bombay, Vinod had other plans in his young mind. He had striven hard to persuade his parents to send him to Bombay.

When he came out from Bombay Central station, a gust of sea breeze caressed his long curly hair. He took a deep breath, and hailed an auto rickshaw to stop. It was his friend Hamid’s house he decided to go to.Hamid used to live in college hostel in Allahabad in their college days.Vinod and Hamid had developed a very intimate friendship between them.Inspite of Hamid’s stay of two years in Allahbad, Vinod had never dared to invite Hamid to Vinod’s house, for he knew what consequences would have been there had he ever done so, for Hamid was a Muslim and he a Hindu boy. Vinod’s devout Hindu father, Mr.Badri Prasad Pandey, would never tolerate to see a Muslim boy in his house. Many a time Vinod had been reprimanded by his father for not mending his ways. He was a so called modern boy, who would never take his father seriously. But all this had been ten years before.

Reaching Bombay, he had succeeded to get a job through Hamid’s father, and they had compelled Vinod to stay with them until they arranged a separate room for him. Vinod began to work with M/s P.K.Legal Consultants in Bombay. The start of rupees nine hundred was more than he had expected. He began to study LLM course, and in the following three years he successfully passed the exams.

After about a month’s stay with Hamid’s family, Hamid’s father, through his influence upon the local tough boys, managed to get a room on rent for Vinod. It was a family of four, Mr.Juman, his wife Rasheeda, and their two young daughters Neha and Rehana.Vinod was given the room adjacent to the main door. The door to his room faced the narrow street across which there was a small tea shop, with two long wooden benches in front. Although the young local boys gathered there in the evenings, pretending to have come for tea, while chatting in a group in high-pitched voices, accompanied by frequent slaps on one another’s backs, their furtive eyes never escaped Vinod’s judgment that they wanted to get a fortunate glimpse of either Neha, or Rehana, who would often come to the window for nothing.