by Irfan Khan
I think even Reema instinctively wanted to keep both the worlds apart. Karan was her dopamine, adrenaline, cocaine and reason to smile. I was the compulsion, the man she married, took oaths to stay together and also the father of her dead child.
Some women will trade anything for the affection and adoration they pine for. In her case, deal was sweeter as the source of the adulation was an ex-flame-like Karan. Soon the trading started. Passion unleashed and million volcanoes burst open. I was clueless, oblivious of what was transpiring.
. . .
To Catch a Mouse
25 Days Ago
If I would have confronted Reema with my suspicions I would have just got back denials. That’s human nature, most people do that when faced with such confrontations. I wondered if this was a phase in her life and she would snap out of it after the initial euphoria dried down like the morning dew. This does not mean that I was okay with the happenings. Just that it was intriguing for me. I was trying to understand her real self because this turn in her personality hit me from a blind spot.
One day when I was home and Reema arrived a bit later, she apologised and I just smiled and said 'Love means never having to say sorry'. Then just to lighten the mood I added 'but that is if you still love me?'. Saying that I laughed out aloud as if I was kidding. Reema just smiled, without meaning it. Condescending vixen.
Late that night while working on my project I took a break and sat back looking at the pictures on my desk. There was that goofy picture from Manali, where they dress you in traditional costumes and click pictures. We both were laughing with embarrassment then. Just then a strong sense of jealousy hit me. How long should I just remain mute to this? I reasoned with myself. What if this is all in my imagination? What if it is just harmless old friends and I am not being told because of the fear of being misunderstood? Now that seemed a possibility. The way to mitigate that doubt was to get more details and then decide. I rushed back to my desk and logged into the ‘find my phone’ app and looked at the history of locations. There was a clear winner, I could see that there was one spot where she went often. Hotel Oscar.
. . .
24 Days Ago
I did not take my car to visit Hotel Oscar. I was thinking like a spy master and making sure I do not leave any trail of my activity. I thought about what I was doing and if it was wrong, but I did it all the same because that seemed to be the wise thing to do.
It was a decent hotel and did not give the feeling of a ‘shady meant for nefarious activities. I don’t think Sugaoni had any such shady place. I had prepared a very basic disguise of glasses and a fake moustache. I printed a few cards with an assumed name on it. I was ‘Rajiv Sharma’ senior manager for ‘Magic Eye CCTV’.
My prepared pitch was to sell them a CCTV system which is more advanced then whatever they are using. I met the receptionist who directed me to the Manager. I showed him a presentation and the company website. I made sure I hosted a website to make the whole thing look authentic. I had an unbeatable offer. I gave them a plan to upgrade the cameras to the latest HD quality with a superior DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and online access for the CCTV feed on his mobile from anywhere. All this free for the first six months. The manager got visibly excited. I told him, to enable the offer I would have to survey the present system. He agreed to show me the control room.
I set up a camera in the reception area just next to the previous camera. Back in the control room, I explained to the manager that the old camera's recording is very poor and to prove it I asked the manager to go and stand in front of the camera at the reception and hold a newspaper. Then he can see the difference between the two recordings. When the manager left the control room, I attached a pen drive to the old DVR. I had programmed the pen drive to execute two functions. First, it would copy all the footage. Second, it would install a link to allow me to access the cameras remotely over internet. I left Hotel Oscar with the precious data and a very happy manager who had signed the agreement for sharing the data in anticipation of a great CCTV system.
. . .
24 Days Ago (continued)
Back in my office, there were a load of things waiting for my attention. But my attention was captured by one task and that was to view the content of the pen drive. I could not escape my persistent chief developer as they barged into my room and started a meeting. I could barely keep my mind on the proceedings. Good that I was only reviewing the work they did. As long as I agreed and nodded, they were fine. My complete focus was the pen drive and I sat there playing with it on my desk. I was thinking if there was a technology where I could scan the pen drive by just touching it. Maybe someone is working on some such tech. I was experiencing the phenomena of attachment. The pen drive was driving me insane. I think I did too much nodding and forgot to scold and trash some of them. They could see, this was not the same Nikhil they met every day. Someone asked me if I was okay and I just blamed lack of sleep.
As soon as they left, I inserted the drive in my laptop and froze. Do I want to see the CCTV footage from the hotel? I was not sure if I wanted to be confronted by the truth. This was the moment when all doubts and ‘maybes’ would disappear. I would not be able to ‘unsee’ what I was about to witness. There was a part of me which kept hoping ‘there will be nothing’. The drive directory showed up on my screen and the cursor was blipping next to it. The cursor was taunting me with the blip like a finger tap when your finger prompts somebody to do the needful. I was gnawing on my fingernails and tried to look away from the monitor. I was about to click on the file when Poonam interrupted me with a request to take a day off for some personal work. I was so relieved with that distraction, I started a conversation and wanted to know all about her family. I asked her if she wanted some coffee and walked out of my cabin to the pantry, all the time talking to her like my best friend. I must have spoken to everyone on the way to the self-inflicted coffee break. As I yapped about inane things, I kept glancing at my cabin like there was a monster in there which would engulf me if I went back in there.
People started leaving for home in a while and I was left alone. I slowly trudged back to my cabin. A strange turn of temperament, earlier I was dying to look inside the pen drive and now I felt that if I looked inside, I would die. The latter became a prophecy. I started browsing through the video files on the drive. There were hundreds of files. They were indexed date wise and it started getting tedious and torturous. As I watched the footage from the camera at the reception, I kept expecting Reema there every time the main door would open. Every time a couple entered, I would be more attentive and many times I was convinced it was her but on repeat viewing, I felt stupid. I saw many people I knew and never imagined them in this situation. It was no secret what they were doing there as none of them were with their spouse.
I was getting restless. Then I put on my detective hat and decided that if I don’t use my power of deduction, I might sit here all night. I deduced that she was using Kitty lunches as an excuse to meet him. So, I should jump to footage from Thursdays. Now my search narrowed to a few days of last month and soon enough, I felt my blood go cold and my breath disappear. I could see Reema and a man at the hotel reception. I recognized this man as the one we met at a party but Reema behaved as if she did not know him. Karan collected the room keys and immediately moved towards the lift. Now I needed a drink. I was so mind blown that I wish there were some of my staff around to distract me. I wanted to shut down my computer and escape from this room. Reema’s call started ringing. This was the last call I wanted to take at this time. I put the phone on silent because the ringing was like a giant bell over my head. She stopped and sent a message about when I would be home. After a while, I gathered courage and opened my laptop and saw the clip again. This time I zoomed into the receptionist’s side and saw the room number of the key given to Karan. It was 305.
. . .
As a rule, I don’t drink in the office or allow anyone else. Today I needed a drink just to stop my overhyped min
d. My favourite pub ‘Urban Theka’ was open but I did not want to sit there. I got the bartender to fill a litre of my favourite cocktail ‘Long Island Iced Tea’ in a water bottle and left. I parked in a secluded spot and filled the car with some jazz music and sipped my drink.
I had opened a Pandora's box. I did not know how to put this monster back in. I had been to the hotel just to make sure it was not my imagination but now I can’t unsee that my wife went to a hotel with another man. I saw the phone ring, music was loud I couldn’t hear it, it was Reema. I didn’t feel like answering the call. I took a big swig of LIIT from my bottle.
If I look at the situation with trust in my wife then they could have gone there for multiple reasons. One has to give them the benefit of the doubt. Why should I imagine the worst? Maybe I should sit down calmly with Reema and tell her that it’s okay that she is meeting an old friend. She can meet him at home. Why go to some hotel and simply create suspicion? That would be the right thing to do, isn’t it? I became aware that I was talking to myself or maybe the liquor has hit the spot. Reema’s kept calling me continuously as if to protest and stop me from going deeper in the rabbit hole.
I started driving the car and continued sipping the last of the drink. I was buzzing happily and replaying what I would tell Reema. It all seems okay and ready to go. But we programmers work with flow charts when we are designing software. This flowchart is mainly made up of two options for every event. It is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In the flowchart of my conversation with Reema, there was a problem. What if she denied everything? I had the answer if she agreed to what I said but if she denied then I did not know what to do. I had to work out the next step. This is what is called a bug in the software. What would I do after that? But now I was in no condition to find a solution to that. I had reached my home.
Reema was waiting at the dining table, I was quite drunk and missing my step.
“You are drunk? Where did you go drinking? You were not answering your phone and no one could tell me where you are.”
I didn’t know what I was saying “It’s okay if sometimes you don’t know where I am. There are times when I don’t know where you are.”
Reema replied without blinking “What rubbish you are talking about. That has never happened. Why did you drink so much? Were there people with you”?
I got upset that she was casual about her absence “Shut up! I am not speaking rubbish. You were not at your kitty lunch and your phone was not reachable.” I let the cat out of the bag.
She was thick skinned. She did not even flinch “Nikhil, don’t scream. I don’t control phone networks. Maybe sometimes I have skipped kitty lunch because of something urgent.”
I was full of rage “Urgent like meeting your lover? Do you think you can fool me”?
I was screaming not because the drunken state was fueling my outburst. The only thing the booze provided was the courage to speak out. How can one confront or discuss infidelity with calm and composure?
She came back with an offensive “So now you are spying on me? You are disgusting. I am not supposed to meet old friends. Seriously, how can you think like that, you have a dirty mind.”
She turned in a huff and went up to the bedroom and slammed the door. An adulteress was taking the moral high ground.
I deliberately did not tell her about the video of Hotel Oscar. It would alert them to be more careful and secretive. I just flopped on the living room couch and passed out.
Late that night, I woke up and regretted getting drunk when I confronted Reema. The whole thing turned into a drunken brawl and I lost the moral upper hand because I was pissed drunk and therefore all that I said was gibberish. Maybe, I should not have talked about it at all.
. . .
23 Days Ago
Next morning was awkward. I was embarrassed about my drunkenness and feeling awkward about the ruckus. I felt awful as if it was me who has been discovered having clandestine meetings. Silence prevailed over breakfast and I ducked out when she was in the laundry room, just to avoid a clumsy see off.
That day she was going to be away at somebody’s pre-wedding function. This was my opportunity to initiate my next step. I installed miniature cameras in all the rooms at my home and concealed the video recorder amongst my gadgets. These cameras come hidden in household objects of decoration.
I felt accomplished after the camera installations. This achievement called for a drink and I headed to the Urban Bar which was at the other end of the town. I wanted to avoid meeting any known person. I needed to be alone and pat my back. As I sat there with the third drink, I became aware of something that I had not considered yet. The trap I set up was sure to give me irrefutable evidence but then what next. I would win the cat and mouse game without knowing the next phase. What will I do? Do I leave her? Do I get her arrested? No, what’s the use, women can’t be prosecuted for adultery. Forgive her? I had no idea what I would do. An hour passed by. Soon it started getting dark. No, I am not talking about the time of day, I mean my thoughts. Now my mind started exploring whether they needed to be punished?
An entrepreneur’s mind is always hyperactive. The moment we come across a problem; the mind gets into solution mode. I found myself making mental flow charts of how to murder my wife. I did not feel that I was a monster. At that moment I was a problem solver and the goal was to find the most effective way to get rid of someone. People who solve crosswords and puzzles would know what I am saying. I narrowed down to two good options. That gave me a kind of closure to the misery that was drowning me. Now I could walk away from drinking like a CEO who has finished the PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow’s board meeting.
Usually when I drive back home, my phone’s music connects Bluetooth to the car’s audio system. As I accessed my playlist, it started playing a clip of a conversation that I had with Aashar when we were learning how to pilot a drone. The state of mind that I was in, it was lethal for something like this to happen. I parked the car to the side and broke down. The pain and sadness of his death hit me like a storm. I was crying like a child and the solitude encouraged me to feel free. I haven't cried this much even on the day of his death.
. . .
How Aashar died:
It started with fever and stiffness of the neck. He could not bend his neck. We were worried and the school doctor said it could be a mild case of Meningitis. I looked up meningitis and understood that only 10% of cases are fatal.
I had insisted that we will bring him home that day and the rest of the treatment and studies can happen at home. The doctors at the school had said it’s an infection that's improving. The school also argued that it’s a matter of a few weeks then the holidays would begin. Reema seemed indecisive and the ball fell in my court. But I was outnumbered and my protest became feeble.
Then one day, the school called us. We were staying in Chamba for a week to be near him. Aashar was not showing any extreme symptoms in fact at the end of the week he seemed to have recovered completely. I asked him to tell me honestly about his health and he played a brave boy and said he is fine now and we can go back to work.
A month later I was on a trip to Delhi and Reema was with her parents in Jammu when the school called again this time to tell us that Aashar’s health has deteriorated. This was sudden because previous week we were assured that he was making progress.
I tried to fly back to Jammu but the earliest flight was the next day. I took a tourist taxi and started driving through the night. Reema was panicking but I was holding her back as I wanted to travel with her to Chamba. Finally, Reema took off without me.
We managed to reach and rushed Aashar to Chamba hospital but it was too late. We were shattered.
For weeks we did not know day from night. I cursed myself for listening to Aashar when he said he is fine. He was just being a brave boy who did not want to trouble his parents. Reema was in a bad state too. Her parents were a big support for her. That is when I missed having parents. I had lost my parents when I was
the same age as Aashar.
Life for me and Reema was like living with a hole in our heads. When my friend visited and saw our condition, he used his psychiatrist practice to counsel Reema and me. That helped us to slowly return to regular life. We could get back to work but something was not the same anymore between us.
. . .
The Voyeur
23 Days Ago (Late Night)
Reema was waiting when I stumbled home, totally sozzled. She asked me to sit down
“Nikhil, what is happening? Can you explain these daily drinking bouts”?
She did not wait for an answer and continued.
“I know you are disturbed but believe me you are imagining things but this is no way to behave. I went to the office and saw that your continuous absence was damaging the business too.”
I looked at her calmly without any histrionics, that was my resolve. As she spoke, I was playing the sequence of the flow chart in my mind. That was my shield to ward off all that she was saying. My secret plan was propping my self-control. Reema took my calm to be a sign of remorse and that to her, was reassuring. I guess she felt I was getting convinced. She took that as a sign that the worst is over and she has convinced me. I don’t know when I passed out on the couch.
I was up at 3 a.m. feeling dehydrated. Reema had left a bottle of water on the coffee table. This dehydration business is a big buzz killer. I think what happens is that first we drink alcohol and then the alcohol drinks from us, making us dehydrated. This was one of my stupid psycho-pop explanations for things that I couldn’t explain.
Since I was up, I decided to check up on the ‘fishes’ that my ‘net’ (hidden cameras) must have caught. I had configured it to my mobile phone so I put on my Bluetooth earplugs. I skipped the routine stuff and came to the point which was my jackpot. At least that’s how it made me feel. Reema made some calls from her mobile. She had called her parents. The conversation they had was mostly one-sided. She was answering in very short replies as most of the talking was being done by her parents. It was her father who was most active. I gathered that he was worried that I was troubling Reema and if she wished, he could teach me a lesson. That was so cute, a father standing up for his daughter. He would have supported her even if I told him everything about Reema. His classic defense would be that I deserve that. Reema hung up after a while. This was her daily routine call where she checked up on their wellbeing.