The first discussion: Huajin and Weimin

from 

Prologue

I decided to reach out to all friends, readers and guests with my thoughts on 'An Other Tale of Two Cities'. I have to start with an excerpt from the book first to make it meaningful. So starting from this week I will be presenting short interesting samples, snippets and quotes from the book, that could give you a pulse of 'An Other Tale of Two Cities'....

Before that let me start with the legal declarations;

Disclaimer: 
'An Other Tale of Two Cities' is an original work of fiction written by me, Ravi Krish. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are purely products of the author’s imagination and have been used in fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. 

Copyright:
The Book 'An Other Tale of Two Cities' is copyrighted. All passages of the book that are presented as Excerpts - Samples, snippets and Quotes in these blogposts are also protected by the copyright.
Copyright©2015 K.Ravichandran.

Now I present you an excerpt from ''An Other Tale of Two Cities'..Happy Reading"
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       Huajin’s son had two fathers. One was ShanJuan, who, though wasn’t the biological father, lent his name to him. Another was Weimin, his step father. May be he had three, if you counted BoJin, the real biological father. Or was he? It could have been any one of the thousand or more eminent personalities of Shanghai that Huajin met regularly at the parties. Only HuaJin could say for sure. But she wasn’t even thinking about that. She didn’t seem to care who it was... 

      When Huajin left Bojin and married ShanJuan, Bojin had committed suicide. Some said he had poisoned himself due to shame at the loss of his position as World Badminton No.1 to his friend ShanJuan. Some said he poisoned himself due to the loss of Huajin, to the same friend. Some said Huajin poisoned him to free herself in favour of the new World Champion. Whatever, ShanYuan had a troubled conscience for a few days. But he convinced himself that all is fair in Love and War. He also told himself that a dead friend, however dear, wasn’t worth a fraction of Huajin, lying in his arms.

       Within days of of moving in with ShanYuan and death of Bojin, Huajin announced that she was five months pregnant. ShanYuan knew it wasn’t his child. But by then he was enslaved to HuaJin’s beauty and poise that he claimed that the son was his to avoid the risk of annoying her. He was ready to lend his name to the child to be born to his wife. 

       Huajin always exercised such control over her paramours. They knelt, crawled and begged before her, so that she wouldn’t leave them, every single night that they got to spend with her. She had the capacity to bring them to life. She had the capacity to drive them to death.

       After her son was born, Huajin got into the social circuit quickly, getting back to physical shape and exercising all her charms on those who could shower wealth and power on her. She had all the fun at the expense and humiliation of ShanYuan. In the next two years, she discovered what she really wanted from life. It wasn’t money. Money didn’t interest her any more. She could get however much she wanted, at her command. But ‘Power’ was what she liked to possess. She toyed with several party members till she found the fastest path to the Corridors of the Power; Weimin.

       Weimin, as his name suggests was a People’s Hero. He was thirty, when she first met him and she was twenty three. Her son was still two year old. Weimin was the fastest growing power center in the Party. He had ample help from his father, who was the right and left hand of the then President of China. The President owed it to him to become the President. The power of the father-son combination was such that, when Weimin showed his interest in Huajin, the thousand and odd eminent personalities of Shanghai deserted the streets that she strode, in favour of Weimin. Those few that crossed either his or her path were turned to nought and they had to desert the city, any way.

       It was no secret that Weimin and Huajin were living as husband and wife, but never married for several years. ShanYuan was broken, first of his heart, then of his game and then of his money and then of his health and then of his mind. By the time Weimin and Huajin decided to wed, ShanYuan had become a mental wreck and behaved unpredictably. He was full time drunk and became a permanent junk. In this condition, ShanJuan protested and would not free HuaJin for her to marry Weimin. He even slapped her once and humiliated Weimin in public. ShanJuan made two mistakes. He had become a nuisance for HuaJin and he crossed the path of Weimin. In the next few days, the news was that ShanYuan died of ‘illness of the heart’. And in the next few days, Weimin married HuaJin and they went out on their honeymoon to the Hawaii.

       When Weimin was forty eight, he was a member of the Poliburo and was considered the most influential among its twenty five members. He was strongly recommended for a position in the Politburo Standing Committee, which was a select subset of the Politburo, with seven members and was more powerful than the Politburo itself. But his father, the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was already a senior member of the Standing Committee and so Weimin wasn’t considered immediately for the position. His father had offered to step down, without in any way diluting his powers, under a deal, in favour of his son. Weimin was promised to be elevated at the ‘next available opportunity’, by the then President.

       But four years since then, the opportunity never had favoured Weimin. Weimin’s father, had been the king maker and the maker of all Presidents since in the last two decades. He actually ruled China by default, whoever was President. The current President also owed his Presidency to him, but once elected he did not surrender to Weimin’s father’s commands; who was demanding a much bigger price. He wanted the President to be subservient to his son, Weimin. The President did not relent and harboured contrary ideas of being independent, incensing Weimin and his father...."

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Thanks for participating.. I welcome you to share your thoughts on the post or the book excerpt or on the book.. through your valuable comments..  

See you soon with more of insights into the book, The circumstances under which it was written and it's author..

Ravi Krish