by BS Murthy
"I suppose, there can't be any intellectual disagreement over it," he said overwhelmed.
"I'm glad you've agreed; had you differed, I couldn't have faulted," she said and continued. "You may know that Hindus proclaim Lord Rama as maryada purushottama, an ideal man, and leave it at that but I understand that Muslim men not only consider Muhammad an exemplary man but also strive to emulate him. And from woman's point of view that bothers me. Rama was not only monogamous but also vouched by the sanctity of marriage but Muhammad, besides being polygamous was not wedded to the idea of marriage. His dalliance with Mariyah in spite of a dozen living wives, including Ayesha the young thing, is illustrative of that."
"No denying it from a woman's POV," he said admiringly.
"That's not all," she continued spiritedly, "my dharma and culture, never mind the aberrations, grant women social freedoms that I've come to enjoy. What's more, the Hindu winds of social change are going to pickup by the year. But with burka and all, same is not the case with Islam, and what's worse, Salafism is at pushing the umma into medieval Islamic times. Who knows, once I convert, if I'm compelled to move in the tent of a burka, where I would go then? Besides, my Muslim daughter would be a poor cousin of her otherwise Hindu sibling. Don't I owe modernity to my posterity?"
"Of course, we do," he said.
"So, you're agreeing to disagree."
"No, I've disagreed to agree with my religion," he said smilingly, and continued in a serious tone. "I was struck by what I've read in Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad and by hearted some of the same, 'since man created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation'. After completing The Upanisads and Bhagvad-Gita, as I began reading the books you were reading, I could see my prophet in a new light and the Koran in its true context. Now I see Islam as an Arabic sectarian cult but not an egalitarian religion of the world, and that made me help my family to shed much of their Muslim overburden."
"So," she said.
"Gayatri weds Syed," he said extending his hand.
"If Islam is another 'ism' of Hinduism in our sweet home," she said holding back her hand. "Imbibing the ideals of maryada purushottama," he said taking her hand.
"And that will be our love jihad," she said pressing his hand.
Madhuri Banerjee's prompt [*]
Story 10 - Tenth Nook
It was the first thought that came to her as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in whose eastern corner it sat, and the tiny garden outside with its gnarled old red hibiscus and the half-grown mango tree they had planted together, all those would be gone as well. It was the strangest feeling ever. [*] It was as though she could hear the receiver's knock at the door, followed by the echoes of the auction bids - eighty-five lakhs, ninety lakhs, ninety-five lakhs...., she could hear no more. That was until the hammer struck, sounding the beginning of the end of her innings at Tenth Nook. And to herald her return to her parental place that he nicknamed Square Peg, her square one from which he promised to take her to the Seventh Heaven. Of course, he did take her there, never mind the means.
"Why am I bogged down with this man-made thing without a thought for the man who made it all happen," she thought on second-thought. "He's only to be blamed for that. Why not, he's the one who maligned my mind with materialism, didn't he? Or is it Mammon who had seduced my soul to the core? But how does that mater any way. He did desert me at the first post of adversity and that's what matters. How shameful. Is it cowardice or callousness? How am I to know? Let him go to hell and I'll brave it out regardless. But what about our kids, won't they be worse off, left in the lurch?"
The thought of their children, a boy and a girl, twins, aged twelve, led her to their first-floor bedroom of their duplex dwelling.
"Oh how he raised their hopes sky-high!" she thought on her way. "Didn't he tell her he was cutting corners for their crowning future. Doubtful, after all this, isn't it? No doubt it's his vanity to cut a figure for himself and his family that could've been at the back of his mind all through. That much is clear in the hindsight, isn't it? But what about me, am I not equally guilty? Well, that's the fallacy of falsity that we shared but this is the burden of deceit he thrust upon me, really. But am I any less callous than him when it came to our kids? Being a mother, shouldn't I have been more concerned about them than him? But how do I measure up? He left all of us with equal abandon but lo. I'm worried only about losing the dwelling! Did I think about their plight all this while? Shameful, isn't it? Could it be the material loss that obscured my maternal vision? Maybe, it's their bleak future that benumbed my mind. Why this
hypocrisy? It could be both, what's the hell about it. But what a double jeopardy, twice over that
Seeing her children asleep on a bare floor, as tears gushed out of her eyes, she checked herself as though afraid of inundating them in a flashflood.
"Am I not privy to their deprivations for long?" she thought. "And yet his largesse turned our ancestral dwelling into a two-storied building. That was in his heydays. Won't it help us tide over the rough tide of life now? Was it his foresight or just one of life's ironies! But still, if I had a sibling or two that would've made a difference. Yet, how can I sustain their dream of becoming doctors? Who knows? Living in that Square Peg, did I ever dream of Tenth Nook? Maybe it's all about destiny, regardless of modesty of birth. Won't my life prove that, what a journey it had been from there to the zenith?"
Born and brought up in a canalside dwelling in an agrarian village, she was the only child of her parents, who cultivated assorted vegetables in their meager backyard that barely sustained them. Thanks to her scholarship, she got a degree in arts from the government college in a nearby town, where she wanted to take up a job to support the family. While her mother was averse to the idea for its attendant perils and as her father found it hard to clear the dowry hurdle, she stayed put at home. But life seemed to ensure that love had its share as well as say in matchmaking.
One fine morning, she noticed a youth ogling her from her neighbour's place; obviously he was a visitor and probably their relative. Though enamored of him, out of shyness, she kept herself aloof all day long. But driven by anticipation, she ventured out in the evening as if to meet his expected advances, and kept vigil on her neighbour's house. That is reading some romantic novel while resting her back on a coconut tree in her front yard. When she lowered her guard absorbed in the story, unknown to her, he gave her the slip to sketch her picture in her romantic posture. As he approached her with his artwork, alerted by his shadow to his impending presentation, getting up reflexively, she stood there nervously. When he introduced himself by the pseudonym of a budding short-story writer she happened to admire, as she stared at him wide-eyed, he made bold to present her that picture perfect. How thrilled she was at seeing her likeness in his work, and how glamorous he seemed to her enamoured eyes for being an artist besides an author!
He was city bred, though on a poor diet, like hers. But for a sense of exaggerated self-worth, he had no vice to name. The little fame that a few short stories earned him made him believe that it was demeaning for him to work under someone. Thus even as his bloated ego and the meager means denied him to gain a foothold in life, his foolhardy made him daydream about unassailable heights. But his freelancing didn't take him far and so he remained an ineligible bachelor, in spite of his admirable demeanour. That was when fate brought him near her, and life took over to make them man and wife. But not before she batted for him hard and true on her home turf.
Her parents felt her beauty, eclipsed though by poverty, would enable her to punch above their weight; so they were not enthused about his offer to take her hand. Moreover, they felt her ascending the altar with him was like falling from the frying pan into the fire itself. But as she was bent upon seeking the pleasure of passing through the pathless woods with her fancied man, they relented to let her become his woman,
and so led them to the knlyana mandapam of the village temple.
"And what a life it had been!" she recalled her early times with him. "How weary our legs were in our wild goose chase for a 'To Let' board of some cheap and best place. Could we believe our luck clinching that outhouse on rent? What a dream place it was, set in a garden, in the heart of the city at that! Maybe, it's beyond anyone's dreams. Can't believe, how much space we provided for happiness in that tiny abode to make it our happy home! That was being hand to mouth, and when there was nothing on hand, how we used to cater to our pangs of hunger! Come to think of it, with each other's saliva in never-ending deep kisses! Can any better it? (She paused for a while as the thought of it whetted her memory) What a flattering feeling it was seeing him write intriguing tales out of my story ideas, and how fulfilling were those moments to hear him say that I was the soul of his muse. And when we were blessed with the twins, didn't we feel it symbolized the unision of our division? Sadly, all that changed with the avarice he acquired, well, with the helping hand of his acquired fame."
As fate would have it, the corrupt "head" of the health department, of the state government, lost his large heart to her man's short-stories. Seeing his idol in near penury, the 'head 'felt, deep in his heart, that it was a blasphemy of goddess Saraswati. So, he took it upon himself to redress the wrong, so to say, and misusing his official discretion, he bestowed upon her man the 'concept and creation' of publicity material; that's at an exorbitant cost with decent cut for himself. And as her man, in an act of one-upmanship, over-invoiced the supplies, the 'head' was too pleased to nod his head as though exaggeration was a writer's birthright.
While the 'head' diverted the bulk of the budget money for 'publicity', they lost no time to live even beyond their newfound wealth. He borrowed heavily to build Tenth Nook to make it the envy of the nouveau riche neighborhood. What's more, donning Aramanis, as he flaunted his Rolexes and Mont Blancs, she was bejeweled from head to foot, that's besides being the best dressed dame in the lane. Neither did they deprive their children in any manner what so ever. However, alerted by their profligacy, the lenders began pressing for the return of the principal amounts, and that put pressure on him. And to tide over the crisis, he mortgaged Tenth Nook to replicate the modus operandi in the portals of the central government. And that turned out to be a golden mirage they chased together.
While he borrowed more to bribe his way for a foothold in the centre, he lost his ground in the state itself as those 'left out' by the 'head' brought their political clout together to bust him and blacklist her man. That was their just deserts. And that's not all, as the leaches-turned-lenders sucked all her jewellery, she became bare necked, bereft of even her mangala sutras. Was it
portended, sentiment apart? Maybe that he was gone just scribbling 'SORRY' on their bedroom wall? Unable to believe her eyes, how she thought it was just his prank. But when the reality dawned on her, how scary she became? The hurt he caused and the scar it left, she only knew.
"What's next?" she tried to gaze into the crystal ball. "Back to Square Peg for now, but what's from then on. Will he come back, once the dust settles down? Given his vanity, it's unlikely. After all, he may not like to show his black face to us, ever. But what if he returns? The kids may still love him, but can I have him? I might, for old times' sake that is if he comes back in time and not after he became a thing of the past. But then how long is 'in time'? That's for life to decide. Let me see what it has in store for me."
Jaishree Misra's prompt [*]
Story 11 - Eleventh Hour
All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am, [*] Chitra by name. But what if past catches up with the present? Well, as the moment of reckoning is dilemma, before I come to that, I will take you to my past.
When I completed my course in fashion designing, fate seems to have patterned the woof and weft of my love life that was a score of years back. Landing up with my first job in a reputed company, so to say, I landed in Gopal's lap. He was smart and handsome, witty and humorous, enough to enamour women that's besides his conversational skills. Well, if man dents woman's heart with darts of his eyes, it's the tenor of his words that grips her mind. So, at the threshold of seduction, words are weapons of conquest for men that pierce the chinks in women's armour of chastity! Whether it was his conquest of me or my surrender to him that tended our union is immaterial to my love but it is material to his morals.
As he began courting me, I started taking solo rides into a dream world that is besides our long drives into the wilderness on the outskirts. How the prospect of life as his spouse seemed a dream in itself? Why not, yet to cross thirty, he was the head of fabric design of a blue chip company. Does man's status add aura to woman's love? If so, is love as pristine as poets tend to picture it? Or is it that women have an innate weakness for successful men? What about man's love, isn't it beauty leaning? The bard said that beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold and it can as well be said that it influenceth men to alter their amour. It's not as if women give a damn for man's looks, maybe some of them do, why, isn't it said that some dames prefer ugly men. Lo, some men, rare though, are taken to mustachioed women, oh, what a messy human emotion, this so called love! Then why blame love for its fallibilities? And yet, if urgency for possession symbolizes man's love for woman, her prudence lay in not putting the cart before the horse, so it seems. If woman were to serve man on a premarital platter, won't she let herself bereft of that for which he would die to tie the knot with her? And marriage is no guarantee either for her to keep her man all for herself, as men, rarely, if ever, fail to explore the avenues
of fornication for sexual exploitation. And that's what Gopal did. That I realized long after I lost my virginity to him.
As he averred that he was constrained to lead me to the altar forthwith for his only sister was yet to be married, I believed him as that's the prevailing custom. That's fine, but what was fatal in the end was his proposition that it made no sense to waste time before our nuptial time. Yet what a time we have had on the sly till I discovered, on that accursed day, that I was but his other woman; or was it a moment of deliverance from his deceit? When I happened to see him from afar with a woman and two kinds in a cinema hall, I thought she could be his cousin of sorts. Not wanting to embarrass him, I refrained from approaching them, but settling behind them, well after the movie began, I couldn't take my eyes off them. Courtesy the kids, it didn't take me long to know that she was Usha his wedded wife. What with my decency of not hurting her overpowering my instinct to shame him, I left the theatre to bring the curtains down on our affair. Back home, I reflected hard and long as to how to deal with him. First I was tempted to get even with him by pulling him up for his shameful act but on second thought I felt it was too lenient a sentence for his utter perfidy. That way, he would know why I walked out on him. But what if I put in my papers to leave him in the lurch guessing as to why I had left him; was it owing to my discovery of his double life or did I ditch him for he never knows why.
Shrugging off the past, though I readily wedded Murali, it took me a while to shed the baggage of guilt from his bed. Though it made no difference to the physicality of our sex, as it bogged me down in the emotionality of coition, I could see that past is the future of the present. Added to that was Murali's confession about his own past - an unfructified love between him and his classmate owing to her parents' superior status. Thinking it prudent to keep mine away from him and determined not to let the sapphire of my life turn literally blue, I began applying my mind.
What's the big deal about premarital sex that woman should feel self-condemned when men shirk if off after they jerk it out? But then why do women tend to linger on to the sexual acts, emotionally that is? Is it because they are the recipients of male cum in their female receptacles? And what about the sexually adventurous dames, after all there could be some, though none of them can get away like Cat
herine the Great that is after boasting about bedding with hundred lovers, or whatever was the number. By any chance was it the source of her greatness, I shall Google that later. What a variety it could've been for the queen of yore in comparison with the sex workers of the day, well, isn't it like comparing apples with oranges? Surely, the queen could've chosen her mates but the whores can't deny any Tom, Dick and Harry, even as they can pick and choose, and that's man's world in woman's backyard. How strange! When it comes to parity in sexual choices, won't legalizing sex-work make it a level playing field for women? So went my reasoning for sexual smooth sailing in my marital bed that fetched two off springs.
When all seemed settled but for children's settlement, how has my past caught up with me today to usher in this moment of dilemma, that too in a novel way, beyond the realms of fiction itself. When I returned home at an unscheduled time, I was surprised to find Binny in the corridor of our fourth-floor apartment, and what's more it kept on pulling at my pallu as if to prevent me from unlocking the door. Perplexed at its uncharacteristic behavior, as I entered the bedroom, lo, what I saw - Murali in an uncompromising position with a striking woman. How taken aback I was seeing that scene, well, taken aback, but not disgusted! Strange, isn't it? Maybe I couldn't believe my eyes for once as he never gave me any reason to suspect his fidelity all these years. So, I withdrew into the drawing room wondering why I didn't barge into them.
While I still in a state of disbelief, at length, they entered the drawing room, hand in hand, and, so to say, the boot was transferred to the other leg. Dumbfounded, as he fumbled for apologies for his perfidy, I was sizing the woman who seemed to be familiar. When he said she was Usha his old flame, I could place her as Gopal's wife and saw the irony of it all. What I felt then I better leave it to your imagination as I am not equal to penning those myriad feelings for your marveling. But, I can place their confessions before you for your appreciation of their situation.