Love Story #1 to 14

by Annie Zaidi

  ‘Give that here. Nonono. I can’t let you.’

  ‘Just for a while,’ I said. ‘Until we find a jeep or bus. You enjoy the view.’

  She stopped.

  ‘Listen, if you keep doing this, I can’t –’

  ‘You don’t like people being nice to you?’

  ‘I’m just taking so much. And you don’t even know me.’

  ‘Are you afraid I’m going to ask for something in return? Some kind of favour? You think I will force a friendship. Some people do that, don’t they? They keep doing things for you, obliging you so you have to be nice to them. Then you feel trapped. Is that it? Don’t worry. Remember? Strangers, disappearing into the mist. That’s the plan.’

  I walked on and after a moment, she caught up with me. I slowed down for her. The sun was higher. She shook her hair loose and began to run her hands through it.

  ‘My boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I was in my final year when I met him. I was at a girls’ college, did I tell you? Anyway, a lot of guys stood at the gates, with bikes. They waited for their girlfriends, or waited just so they could stare at us. I used to take a rickshaw. His ex-girlfriend introduced us. She was my project partner. So we got talking and he began to offer me lifts. Helped with getting printouts. Paid for lamination. Gave me gifts – friendship day, birthday, valentine’s day. Red roses.’

  ‘Frankensteins?’

  ‘I didn’t want to study. I mean, I didn’t know what I wanted to study. Dad kept hurrying me up. He has only four years before his retirement and he wanted me to finish everything – MBA, job, marriage. Quick-wrap me, sort of. Gift from him to the world.’

  ‘That’s not so –’

  ‘Shut up. Let me talk. What is this culture of quickly-quickly? Do everything in sequence and on time. First you study then you study some more then you work then you marry. That’s what bugs me. Nobody cares about what happens after I get married. Not my parents’ headache. Some other fellow can feel anxious on my account. Do you know, when I said I wanted to come up here, my mom said, you can go after marriage. Go on your honeymoon. I’m telling her I want to travel for me. To discover new people, think about what I want. And she says go on a honeymoon. So I asked, why? She said that’s safer. Safer! Safe from what? Landslides?

  Snake bite? So she said, well, you will be with someone. So basically, I cannot even die alone. Have to have witnesses. My husband should be able to watch me getting buried alive or writhing in pain. It doesn’t matter if I am dead. Just as long as someone is around to talk about it afterwards.’

  ‘And I thought I had this huge mound of resentment inside.’

  ‘I am resentful. You know, other parents stop their girls from having affairs. When I failed to submit my MPhil form, my dad just asked me to get married. To find someone at university, or else, let him do the looking. But basically, to get out.’

  ‘Being harsh on your dad.’

  ‘He didn’t like my boyfriend, you know. But even that didn’t matter. As long as I was married off. If I tried to work, dad wouldn’t take a paisa from me. We have this thing about not touching a daughter’s money. I interned a year ago. Ad agency. They paid me, but dad wouldn’t touch the money. So even if I want to help, they won’t let me. They just want me gone. It’s the truth. And I can live with it. I just hate the hypocrisy.’

  We heard an engine and I caught her hand and led her to the edge of the road. It was a jeep, crammed with hill people and baskets of groceries. A lamb too.

  Once we had managed to squeeze in, she began to play with the lamb. The owner of the animal was an old, old man. Maybe in his eighties. It is hard to tell with the hill people. He never stopped grinning. She took a chakli out of her bag and tried to feed it to the lamb but the creature bleated in protest. The old man grinned some more.

  ‘So, your boyfriend . . .’

  ‘For two or three years, he did the usual things. Bought me things, took me out to eat. Then he began to snap. He accused me of being useless, playing the helpless woman all the time so I could use him. I stopped asking him for favours. Then he accused me of sulking. Tired of me, I suppose.’

  She paused to grin widely at the old man and to offer him some chakli. The packet was passed around to other passengers. She stroked the lamb’s wool.

  ‘I told him I didn’t like the way he was treating me. He said then go find someone who will put up with you. Drove me to the point where I had to break up.’

  I stroked the lamb until I could find the words.

  ‘You did right.’

  ‘I know.’

  The jeep stopped at a tea-snacks shack and the old man began to gesticulate. I guessed that he was suggesting that we get off here if we were headed for the valley. I paid the driver.

  We went to the shack first and looked at the options. She began to laugh.

  ‘The tyranny of parathas!’

  I laughed too. ‘Actually I was kind of looking forward to them.’

  We sat down to wait. The woman at the stall did a mean job. Fresh coriander, onions, extra chillies, white butter.

  ‘So, now tell me,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your story.’

  I shrugged. ‘Nothing much to tell.’

  ‘What? Is it a classified document? Top secret? The nation’s security will be threatened if someone finds out about your love life?’

  I shrugged. ‘I came to Joshimath because I wanted to seriously think about sanyas.’

  Her brows went up. ‘Because you lost a job.’

  I laughed. ‘Okay, listen.’

  ‘Listening.’

  ‘Things were wrong. I thought and thought about all the things that had gone wrong.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I lost a woman, a job. But I managed fine, for about three years. Jobs came. Girls were always around. I thought it was okay. This last job, it didn’t hurt to lose it. I just walked out of the office and I felt . . .’

  ‘Free?’

  ‘No. No, not free. More like there’s one less reason.’

  ‘Reason?’

  ‘To live.’

  I knew she was looking at me. I didn’t want to look at her just then. I bit into the paratha and chewed steadily. I gestured to the lady at the stall. I watched her put the kettle on.

  ‘It just didn’t feel like it was worth the trouble,’ I said, as casual as I could make it sound.

  ‘Because of your first girlfriend?’

  ‘Wife. But we got divorced last week.’

  She was staring. I continued to eat.

  ‘Yes, I know. Too young to be married.’

  ‘No, I am burning with envy. Twenty-six and divorced! You’ve had such a headstart.’

  ‘I didn’t see it coming. The divorce. I was doing things right. I even went to a counsellor. And she had never really complained, not when we were together. I anticipated her needs. I gave her a really long rope. She carried my credit card. She decided about family planning. I was cool with not having kids. She didn’t want to socialize with my friends. I didn’t insist. I did her friends all kinds of favours. I didn’t cheat. She had free access, my email passwords, everything. I shared my whole life with her. And then one day . . .’

  ‘What was wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know! Still don’t know. One fine morning, she wakes up and says I am cold. Says “you don’t love me”. I kept saying, what rubbish. She said she had read my old emails. Something I wrote in school, some awful rhymes for this girl I met on a chat site. We never met in real life. It was all just online. I used to write to her. It was more like having a pen pal. But . . . I don’t know. Maybe I . . .’

  She was frowning as if she was afraid for me. Afraid of what was going to happen, except that it already had.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It was stuff you don’t even think about as meaningful. Asking her to send a photo. Sending her some photos I had taken. City monuments mostly. And my wife, she said, the ph
otos were more full of love than anything I ever said to her. I was twenty-three. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said that I didn’t take photos of her. That proved that I didn’t love her.’

  ‘And you are a photographer.’

  She was looking at me rather sadly. I got up to wash my hands, and then went to pay for the food. I bought a few packets of biscuits and refilled a water bottle while she finished eating. As we left the shack, I picked up both bags and this time, she didn’t protest.

  We didn’t talk again until we hit a narrow trail that would join a bigger, more frequently used trail ahead.

  ‘If I had been your wife,’ she said. ‘I would have preferred to be photographed. Next time, you must take photos. Women expect it when they are with a photographer.’

  ‘I don’t take photos of women. Anyway, I sold the camera before I came up here.’

  ‘You can’t forgive and forget?’

  ‘Nothing to forgive. I botched things after she left. Booked a flat, found a better job, and in five months, dated a new girl. Even if my wife had wanted to come back, there was no window open. I thought she was bored, just looking for an excuse to leave. What was the point of trying to convince her?’

  ‘But listen, didn’t you miss her?’

  I shrugged. Did I? Didn’t I? What am I doing here, up in the hills, trying to become a hermit?

  ‘I was in shock. No contact for three years. Then wham! She said she’d settle for the car. I could keep the house. Her lawyer said she had entitlements. Then my family got me a lawyer and he said I had entitlements too. And loans. So I offered to split all loans with her. And credit card bills. She didn’t want any bills. So she said she would settle for the car. And the DVDs, and the fancy bed linen.’

  She was still waiting for an answer, though. Did I miss my ex-wife?

  ‘I was taking time off from work, for courts and lawyers and buying new bedsheets. I snapped at colleagues. Didn’t get a raise. Argued with my boss. Lost the job. Sat at home for a couple of months. Stopped paying the EMI on the flat.

  Family people came to say you must not be alone. “Do not lose heart, have faith, god will heal.” Don’t know about missing her. Just felt like too much had gone wrong.’

  ‘So you never fell asleep dreaming that she’s back in your arms?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you didn’t love her all that much. No need to take sanyas.’

  Didn’t I love my wife all that much? And did I need another woman to tell me how much I loved? This woman walking beside me in my North Star shoes, this practical to-be bride to a stranger, how did she manage to sound like she had loved so hard that she was willing to go without for the rest of her life?

  ‘You know,’ I said. ‘You don’t have any idea. About love. This attitude of yours, it’s really very inconsiderate.’

  ‘Sorry, I –’

  I interrupted her. ‘Think of that poor fellow who is waiting to have dinner with you. He is expecting that you will fall in love with him. Just like he will fall in love with you. You know he will. You will make him fall for you. Then he will expect you to love him back. He will want red roses and long phone conversations. You will have to coo. “Misshh you babay!” Every night. If he feels like you’re faking it, he will not marry you.’

  She aimed a kick at my shins. I darted away.

  ‘You think you’ll get away with duty? Doesn’t work. Guys want love even in these arranged deals. That full monty of the heart. It’s worse if you fail. Lawyer’s fees. Wasted dowry.’

  ‘I won’t have to give dowry,’ she said. ‘And we know what arranged marriage means. He’s old enough not to expect any romantic bullshit.’

  ‘You’ll be surprised. I know lots of men in their thirties, forties, who want that scene. Cooing into telephones, sighing over flowers, wishing on stars.’

  ‘He’s not like that.’

  ‘You haven’t met him.’

  ‘He’s steady. Cool-headed. Doesn’t waste time talking too much. Doesn’t read books or watch films. He’s also busy. Family business. There won’t be any sentimental rubbish.’

  ‘You don’t know men. Men like that are the worst. No social life, no time to date girls, no spent passions from early youth, no hot ex for furtive afternoon rendezvous. The wife becomes their whole and soul. You will be his focus number one. He will turn to you – for ironed shirts, for sharing of unspoken feelings, for holding hands. You wait and see.’

  ‘You shut up. You sold your camera! You have no right to talk about sentimental guys.’

  ‘It was a very practical move. I sold it for decent money.’

  She stopped. I stopped too. She was glaring at me.

  ‘Smartass theories over? Let’s talk about you. You keep those photos, don’t you? All those emails to that pen pal girl. Your wife left you but you still have the emails, and all your chat history. You know what I think? I think you wanted your wife to leave you. You didn’t know how to do it without feeling like a shithead because your wife never complained about anything. She was sweet. Normal, quiet, content, respectable housewife. So you gave her the password to your account. You know she’s bored. You know she’s going to look. Maybe you even organized your old emails into properly labelled folders – and one of them had the name of that other girl. And so your wife was bound to see a folder with another woman’s name on it. It was like you wanted her to find out. You wanted to break her illusion of being loved.’

  I began to walk away.

  ‘Hit home, no? What? Running away?’ she shouted at my back.

  ‘You don’t know me,’ I called over my shoulder. ‘And I don’t need faaltu application of psychology.’

  She ran behind me, grabbed my arm and stood in front of me. ‘So say it if I’m wrong. Look into my eyes and say I’m wrong.’

  I tried to step around her but she kept dancing about, blocking me, grabbing the front of my shirt. She looked like an aggrieved child of six.

  ‘I’m wrong? Say it, na. You look at me first. You were madly in love with your wife? You never wanted her to leave? It wasn’t a mistake to marry her? Say it. You felt betrayed when she asked for a divorce? That chat history was all just pen pally friend-friend stuff? Say it.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Just admit it. You were the one who was bored. Gave her a really long rope to hang herself with. Poor woman. Gave her all the tools to make the mistakes other wives make. But she didn’t. So you let her see that you didn’t love her. And she saw how you wanted to rub it in her face. She must have had some self-respect, that’s why she left.’

  I sat down on the grass and pushed both bags off my shoulders.

  ‘You need a sip of water? I think you should drink some.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘It was the past,’ I said. ‘My wife, ex-wife, she could have dismissed it as the past. She chose not to.’

  ‘Women aren’t stupid, you know. There are ways of cheating. Cheating doesn’t mean sex. It means “I don’t want you; I want someone else”.’

  I lay flat on my back and squinted up at the sun. She was standing over me, her hair whipped by the breeze. She caught it up and tied it in a bun, but it came undone a few seconds later.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  I shut my eyes. A moment later, I sensed that she had knelt down beside me.

  ‘You’re upset.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Shall I ask you something? Just an academic question.’

  ‘Ask.’

  ‘Do you think you can have love – man-woman love – without sex?’

  ‘You could fall in love without sex, but it would come down to sex one way or another. You can go get sex elsewhere, but then that would disrupt your love affair.’

  ‘So you see, it was messy. So many things can destroy love. Not accepting that you love, not accepting that you don’t love. Sleeping around. Not sleeping around. Like this girl, my fri
end’s sister, she hung around with a white boy from Birmingham. Three years. But he never acknowledged it. Never introduced her as his girlfriend, or even his date. And then he left. She kept saying, “He loves me so much that he’s afraid of the intensity of his own emotions”.’

  There was silence for a minute. The mountain air was in my ears, on my face. I could hear her settle down on the grass. Maybe she too was stretching out beside me. Her voice sounded really close to my ear.

  ‘I was once sent to a temple with an older cousin and her fiancé. I was the chaperone, though I was only about ten. Like a child can prevent intercourse between adults. But anyway, I was sent off. And these two kissed. I saw them and they saw that I saw. My cousin’s fiancé was saying we have to, everybody does it before marriage. I was told to shut my eyes in front of the god’s image. Then he kissed her. She seemed reluctant. When we returned home, my cousin developed a fever. I thought he had done something to her, made her ill somehow. So I whispered in her ears, “Should we complain about him to daddy?” And she grabbed me tight and then she began to cry.

  She kept saying she was so frightened. And I kept saying, let’s go complain to daddy. She said no, she wanted to marry her fiancé, but he frightened her. I remember the words she used: “He will destroy me, he will make me suffer”. I still remember I was so afraid for her. I thought he was going to kill her.’

  I opened my eyes. She was lying beside me, her head resting on her bag.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m thinking of your cousin.’

  ‘Stupid, no?’

  ‘No. She was right to be afraid. She was probably in love. You can analyze love in twenty different ways. Put in all the psycho angles – self-esteem, image, motivation, conditioning.

  But for everyone, it is the same. Love will lead you to suffering.

  No way around it.’

  ‘So that’s why you are taking sanyas?’

  I sat up. There was a deep silence when the wind dropped. I was about to reach out and smooth back her hair when she suddenly sat up too. We looked at each other. I was afraid to move an inch. It was like there was a spell around us, and who knew what would happen if we moved now?