Familiar Strangers

by Samah

  ‘Dinner will take some time. I’m sitting with Aryan for his test next week,’ she said, rummaging through her handbag, looking for the brown envelope in which she had kept the money for this month’s payments.

  ‘Okay, no hurry,’ Chirag said, grabbing his towel from the clothes line outside their bedroom window. He stepped inside the bathroom. He had almost closed the door when he remembered. Stepping outside again, he said, ‘By the way, say yes to Sakshi for the anniversary next weekend. We’ll go.’ He flashed her a brief smile, then went back inside and closed the door.

  15

  Once Priya seemed to have regained her composure, he suggested they go to her room. She walked with soft steps and he followed with a bowl of ice and a fresh napkin. He had never really been inside her bedroom. It was right next to Param’s, and similar in structure if a little bigger. A crowded dressing table was the first thing he saw when he entered. The walls were white, the things purple.

  She sat on the bed, he stood at a distance, unsure of what to say or do. He kept the bowl and napkin on her bedside table. Was it okay to leave now? Was he expected to give her advice? It didn’t feel appropriate to press her for details.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ Priya said, dabbing the wrapped ice on her cheekbone, covering one eye.

  ‘Please, Priya. Don’t be silly. Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. You should go to sleep,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure? If there’s something I can do, anything you need . . . or if you want to talk about it . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine, really,’ she said, managing a small smile.

  ‘Okay, then. I’ll let you sleep,’ he said, going for the door.

  ‘Chirag,’ she said. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, please.’

  He smiled. ‘I won’t.’

  He went back to the kitchen and drank a glass of water. He stood there for a few minutes, thinking about what had happened. Priya’s state was alarming. He wondered if he should tell Param about it even though she had asked him not to.

  In Param’s room again, he tossed and turned in bed. Thoughts of Kanika’s wedding had been pushed to the background. For the moment Priya held all his attention. He felt sorry for her and angry on her behalf. How could anyone do such a thing?

  The next morning, he wanted to check on her before leaving her house, but by the time he woke up she had already left for college.

  * * *

  As she made dinner—while frying the chopped onions and tomatoes, while adding salt and spices and diced potatoes and rice, while fastening the pressure cooker and unfastening it—Priya kept thinking about it. About Kanika—from the US, from Chirag’s past, from those photographs—attending Sakshi’s anniversary party. And Chirag agreeing to go for it a day after not agreeing to go for it. It seemed too big a coincidence to be one. It could not be. Kanika being invited was strange enough to begin with.

  The pressure cooker’s whistle blew twice more than it should have. Some of the rice got stuck to the bottom of it.

  By the time they finished dinner, she had talked herself out of her suspicions. If Chirag had something to hide, he would do a better job of hiding it.

  By the time she tucked Aryan in bed, the niggling doubts had resurfaced.

  The possibilities were driving her mad. Her head hurt as she crawled into bed. She was used to Chirag’s workaholism, his indifference . . . But never in all the years of their marriage, in fact never in all the years since they had been together, had she found any reason to question his loyalty. Never, until now.

  Chirag had acquired mild diarrhoea because of the chicken puffs he had eaten at work. The grumblings of his stomach kept him up for a good part of the night. Priya was awake too, even though she pretended otherwise.

  It was little after 3 a.m. when Chirag made his third trip to the toilet. Priya’s eyes flickered open as soon as the bathroom door shut. Should I? Should I not? She had to be quick. Should I? Should I not? It was unlike her to do something like this. But curiosity took the reins. She leaped towards his bedside table and grabbed hold of his phone. There had to be something in there that would either clear or confirm her doubts.

  Priya nervously looked through his phone and was relieved and almost happy to find no suspicious entries in his call log of the past ten days. The click of the flush sounded. Priya’s pulse quickened. Her fingers moved urgently. His messages still had to be checked.

  The sound of water in the washbasin was her second cue to abort the mission. She saw the first message, then the second, the third and then the fourth. At the fifth her eyes widened. Her heart sank. She stopped trembling. How could it be?

  She read the message over and over, clicking a mental image of it, committing it to memory. Chirag would be out any second. Why would Karan say that to Chirag?

  The bathroom door clicked open. Chirag emerged just three seconds after his wife retracted to her side of the bed. She seemed to be asleep, facing away from him. If only the pounding of her heart could be heard.

  Chirag slipped into bed and pulled the blanket towards him. Priya closed her eyes, Karan’s message flashed in her mind: I’ve invited Kanika for the party. She is coming.

  Her eyes flickered open instantly. How could it be?

  * * *

  Three days later when he and Param met over drinks, Chirag wanted to ask him about Priya every minute of their conversation but it seemed inappropriate and out of context. They were not in the habit of asking after family members. Priya had crossed Chirag’s mind more than once in the last few days. He wondered what had happened with her boyfriend before the incident and what had happened after and what she must have told her family and how they might have reacted. Surely that bruise couldn’t go unnoticed.

  He rang Param’s landline the next morning. When his mother picked up he cut the call. He rang it again in the afternoon. This time Priya answered.

  They decided to meet at a fast-food restaurant near Juhu Beach, a safe distance from both their houses. Param was not informed. It required too many explanations.

  Chirag reached before her, now worried about what they would say to each other. Was this a bad idea? he thought as he waited. They were not friends. She was Param’s younger sister. But when he saw her coming through the door, his worry was forgotten. Priya brought with her an ease that pre-empted any awkwardness.

  He ordered a plate of idli and instructed the waiter to bring the sambhar separately in a bowl. She ordered a grilled sandwich and orange juice without sugar. First they spoke about the restaurant, then about the beach.

  Halfway through the meal, Priya brought up the incident.

  ‘Chirag, I wanted to thank you for the other night.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I didn’t really do anything.’

  ‘It’s crazy. Everything. Jai, my boyfriend. He’s crazy.’

  Chirag was in a fix. How could he comment on their relationship? But then, how could he not?

  ‘Priya . . . I know it’s not my place to say this but how can you allow this? I mean . . . I’m sure he’s a nice guy at heart . . . but . . . how could he . . .’

  Priya looked down at her plate. She took her elbows off the table.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped the line. I didn’t mean to . . . you know.’

  ‘No, you’re right. I know. I know.’

  He smiled, but remained quiet.

  ‘I . . . I don’t like to break things up, Chirag . . . to end things . . . I’m not good at it.

  ‘In a way it’s my fault. All of this . . . I mean not what Jai did that day. There was no need for him to act the way he did. It was such a dumb fight . . . But the situation I am in . . . It’s my fault . . . You don’t know Chirag . . . you don’t know how against this relationship my parents were when they found out. I fought tooth and nail to make them accept it. Actually, I wasn’t going to tell them for a while. But when they found out I couldn’t lie. They had started looking for a boy for me.’

  ‘W
hy don’t they like him though?’

  ‘Mainly because he’s of a different caste. Jai is Malayali. And they want to get me married into a Punjabi family.’

  ‘But you’re too young to get married, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, try telling them that.’

  They resumed eating.

  ‘You know . . . Jai loves me, in his own way, I guess. But he is obsessive. His love is his excuse to disrespect me, abuse me, insult me . . . And now he has actually physically assaulted me. I just don’t know. It’s all such a mess.’

  ‘Leave him,’ Chirag said and immediately regretted it. He looked to see if he had offended her.

  ‘It’s . . . It’s not that simple, Chirag,’ she said, dipping the sandwich in mustard sauce. ‘I’ve made my parents go through hell to accept him. And now that they have, how do I tell them this is not what I want? I don’t even know. I’m not sure of anything . . . it’s just . . . forget it.’

  ‘They are your parents, Priya. They’ll understand. And trust me, parents love it when their judgement about something turns out to be right.’

  Priya laughed. ‘I agree with you on that. You want to try some?’ she asked, pointing at the orange juice.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said, finishing off the idli. ‘You can’t ruin your life because you made one error in your judgement, especially now that you know your mistake. How did uncle and aunty react to the bruise?’ And just when he mentioned it, Chirag realized he couldn’t see it.

  Priya looked down at her hands. ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘Really? And how did they not see it?’

  ‘I left the house before meeting anyone that day and stayed over at my friend’s that night. The next day I covered it with make-up. So no one could tell.’

  ‘Priya, you’re being ridiculous. You need to tell them. This is not a small thing.’

  ‘I know . . . I know. I need to figure out a lot of stuff. I don’t know why I ever agreed to this.’

  ‘Yes. Why?’ Chirag asked. He got the feeling Priya was not in love with this Jai.

  ‘Uh . . . it’s complicated. Honestly . . . it was just that he asked me so many times. He was my senior. I met him in my first year. He was in the third. I had never been in a relationship before so it was exciting, you know. My parents had started talking about marriage, so I thought why not be with someone who’s in love with me rather than a complete stranger? I don’t know, it sounds stupid when I say it, but it seemed like I was making a good decision.’

  ‘No, no. It’s not stupid. But I’m a bit confused. What’s the main problem?’

  ‘See that’s the thing. There is no problem. No real problem. I’m realizing now that he’s actually crazy. What looked like love is insanity. He just . . . he imagines things. And his imagination has no limits. His assumptions are baseless. I’m a very loyal person, Chirag. Yet he feels that I’m cheating on him. If I cancel a plan because I’m unwell, he thinks it’s because I don’t want to meet him or because I’m meeting someone else. I can’t even begin to explain . . . I understand “jealous”, I understand “possessive”. But we need a whole new word for what Jai is.’

  ‘Okay . . .’

  ‘I swear. For example, if he saw me here right now, I can’t even imagine what he’d do. A normal, rational person would ask for an explanation. But Jai . . . Jai would assume that you’re in love with me, and you’re trying to break our relationship because you want to date me and sleep with me . . . or worse that we’ve already slept together.’

  ‘Wow! That really is crazy,’ Chirag said, looking around on impulse even though he had no idea what Jai looked like. He could not stop himself from picturing the inappropriate scenario with his friend’s sister. He fought hard to stop his imagination from running riot to concentrate on the topic at hand but he couldn’t say anything insightful.

  ‘I’ve become so used to listening to all this rubbish that I’m not even embarrassed to say it any more. Why can’t he be normal?’

  Chirag couldn’t think straight; his thoughts scuttled in awkward directions. This was the first time in months that he was able to think of a woman, any woman, like this.

  Their meeting ended soon, and on a friendly note. They shared an auto rickshaw up to one point, then went their separate ways. In the next one month he often met Priya when he came by her house on the pretext of meeting Param. He came earlier than usual, left later than usual. The three of them usually sat in the living room. Chirag remained guarded in front of his friend because he didn’t want to offend him by openly hitting on his sister.

  After that first time they didn’t speak much of Jai. He just asked her once how things were when Param was out of earshot. She said Jai had apologized for losing his temper, but she was temporarily avoiding him. This made Chirag unreasonably happy.

  Sometimes he rang her house, hoping she would be the one to answer. Sometimes she would call him herself. They talked about books. About how she loved Wodehouse and he didn’t know who he was. They talked about movies. About how he loved Star Wars and she had never seen it. They talked about food. About how he loved south Indian food even though he was from the north.

  About six weeks after the incident with Jai, one evening, Chirag came over to Param’s house to learn to his disappointment that Priya and her family were going for a fortnight-long vacation to Priya’s mother’s home town. He thought of telling her how he felt about her, asking her if she felt the same. Sometimes, when she laughed at his horrible jokes he thought he stood a chance. When she asked him about his day, his job, he thought she was interested.

  But he couldn’t gather the courage to tell her. And they left for Agra.

  16

  Priya lay in sheer disbelief as she waited for Chirag to fall asleep again. She stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye. He was the same man she had been living with for the past decade, and yet, right now, he seemed like a stranger. A familiar stranger. Chirag hadn’t changed in appearance but he looked different because the way she looked at him had changed. She could not understand what was happening. Her back was damp with sweat. She let the moments pass in silence and waited for sleep to come.

  In the morning Priya saw reason again. She couldn’t let one text message shake the faith she had in her marriage.

  By lunchtime she was racked with doubt again, but on her way back from work she dismissed her fears as garbage. The constant shift between the confident wife and the suspicious one was exhausting. It kept her on edge all day. While clearing the dinner table, she decided to ask him.

  ‘Chirag, how come you agreed for the Karjat plan, Karan and Sakshi’s party?’ she asked, climbing on to the bed one knee at a time, twisting her hair into a bun simultaneously. She couldn’t ask him about Kanika directly. That would be bizarre. And it would require her to admit that she had gone through his phone. No. That was unnecessary.

  Chirag’s eyes visibly widened upon hearing his wife’s question; a question he couldn’t honestly answer. The alarm that flashed across his face for three to four silent seconds conveyed a lot to Priya. An uneasy sensation started to boil in her stomach—a gut feeling.

  ‘As in?’ Chirag said with a detached vagueness as he started to move about the bed in search of something.

  Priya could see through her husband’s lousy attempt to wriggle out of the discussion.

  ‘As in . . . you had said you’d be working, right? And you didn’t even seem that interested. Then how come you’re so willing to go now?’ she asked. It was the way she said ‘so willing’ that conveyed to Chirag he was in trouble.

  ‘I don’t get it. Why are you asking? And what are you trying to say?’ he said, looking at her directly.

  Wow. He has the audacity to seem offended.

  ‘Answer me before asking questions,’ Priya said, crossing her arms. Her legs were stretched in front of her, one on top of the other; the nightgown tucked between her calves.

  ‘Answer what? I told you yesterday and today . . . I don’t have to work n
ext weekend. The trials have been pushed ahead by a few days.’

  ‘Really? And that’s all?’

  ‘What is wrong with you, Priya?’ Chirag said with a matching hand gesture. When she looked at his upturned hand, asking her what was wrong with her, he withdrew it. He found the remote to the air conditioner and turned it on.

  Priya was convinced that her suspicions weren’t baseless. But there can’t be an affair. How is it possible?

  ‘Nothing is wrong with me. But something is definitely wrong. Are you sure that was the only reason?’ she asked, fervently hoping that Chirag would just confess to the truth. Honesty would give him some grace marks at this point.

  ‘Do you want me to put it on a stamp paper and give it to you? God, Priya! Stop watching these senseless TV serials. They are filling your head with rubbish. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, and I’m not even sure I want to know.’

  ‘That’s a very bad attempt at dodging the topic, Chirag. It shows you’re guilty.’

  Chirag jerked up from his reclined position on the bed and—turning to Priya, in a voice louder than usual—said, ‘Guilty? Why will I be guilty? What have I done?’

  What do I know!

  ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘When I haven’t done anything, what do I tell you ?’

  ‘Fine! Suit yourself,’ Priya said, exasperated. ‘But I’m not an idiot, Chirag. Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on.’

  She got out of bed, put one foot in a slipper, then the other and walked out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, before their argument could escalate into a full-fledged fight.

  17

  The first three days after Priya left were manageable. Chirag wasn’t used to seeing her on a daily basis anyway. But within a week he began to miss her.

  Two days before they were to return, he made a decision. He waited for a day after they got back to the city.

  It was 4 p.m., an odd time to go to Param’s house, but an appropriate time to go to Priya’s. Her mother usually visited her friends and relatives between 3 and 6 p.m. on weekdays. And Param and his father didn’t return from work until 7 p.m. Nervously, Chirag rang the doorbell and, as he had expected, Priya opened the door.