Kama

by Gurcharan Das

  ‘And she broke down again,’ said Kamini Masi.

  ‘That awful woman is young; she’s so good-looking, you have to see her hair!’ Avanti went on bitterly. ‘Look at me, my youth is gone, my looks are gone.’

  ‘No, no, you are still very attractive!’ I reassured Avanti. Gradually, she began to calm down.’

  ‘He is such a noble person—why did he do it?’ Avanti kept asking insistently.

  ‘I had no good answer to give her and merely said, “Do we ever really know why we do the things that we do?” She grew thoughtful again and I said to her, “I don’t know how much love there is still in your heart for him. You alone know whether there is enough to be able to forgive. If there is, then forgive him!’

  ‘Yes, but he has kissed her . . . he has slept with her. What am I to do, Kamini Masi? Help me, I have gone over and over this all night and all day and I can see no way out.’

  ‘I couldn’t think of anything to say, Amar. Every word she uttered went straight to my heart. She is not your average woman. She has dignity in the way she controls herself and doesn’t give in to emotional displays. Neither is she your typical Bombay society lady—she means what she says. She is not only the mother of your two daughters—she is a person in her own right. She is natural, elegant, without guile. And then she has another dimension which is beyond my reach.’

  ‘But why do you think there is hope for me?’ I asked with desperation.

  ‘By what she said at the end. Avanti will forgive you for having an affair because you didn’t flaunt it—you didn’t make it public. You protected her. She may think that you lied to her, but in fact, you were safeguarding your investment in a life together. Infidelity is merely a matter of the flesh—a weakness that humans are prone to, like needing to pee. Loyalty is a matter of the heart.’

  I was completely overwhelmed by what this wonderful woman had just said.

  ‘And there is something else we talked about. Betrayal. There are many ways to betray a person. Certainly, adultery makes for news but there are lesser, though no less powerful, ways to betray, including not talking to your wife, being ill-tempered, seeming distracted, or simply being bored and boring. All of us know people like that.’

  ‘If anyone can save my marriage, Kamini Masi, it is you!’ And I hugged her impulsively.

  ‘You do love her, don’t you?’

  ‘I love her with all my heart . . . but the thing is that I also love Amaya.’

  ‘Well, you will have to choose.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You can’t have both.’

  ~

  Kamini Masi was right: I had to choose. So, I engaged reluctantly in the unhappy task of comparing the two women. The affair with Amaya had certainly brought the excitement of variety, the thrill of the unknown and the pure physical bliss of sex, untethered by any emotional attachment or anxiety. On the other hand, my marriage to Avanti had created a deeper, longer-lasting and more fulfilling relationship that had enhanced other aspects of my life. They had both brought happiness but it was of different kinds. It would be ideal, I thought, if I could combine the two—to have the security and a deep, enduring sense of emotional satisfaction that comes from marriage with the animalistic thrill and pleasure of a novel, uncommitted affair. The more I thought about it, the more impossibly utopian the idea seemed.

  Divorce is, of course, the natural alternative to adultery. I examined the possibility of leaving Avanti and marrying Amaya. Curiously, I had never given divorce a second thought because I could not imagine a life without Avanti. I had told Amaya at the outset that I loved Avanti and the children and would never leave them. While divorce has the advantage of being open and legal, I reasoned, it is no better than adultery in breaking the ethical duty of fidelity—the promise of the wedding vow. It also does more damage to the children by making the break permanent. Its main advantage is that it breaks the deception that is usually associated with adultery. Divorce might present greater harm to the relationship since it is final—a marriage cannot survive divorce whereas it can survive adultery. Besides, I could not even begin to imagine a final break with Avanti. Hence, I concluded that in my situation divorce was not viable (and might not even be ethically preferable to adultery).

  This conversation with my conscience was not taking me anywhere. I didn’t want to lose Avanti, but I found it difficult to break with Amaya. I was genuinely torn. There must be something wrong with me to love two persons at the same time. The two seemed to fulfil different needs but both loves were real. Many will judge me badly, I know, but that would be wrong. Why can’t a human being genuinely love two people at the same time? I also wondered if by loving both Avanti and Amaya, whether I was unavoidably shortchanging both. After all, you cannot love a second person without taking something away from the first. Right? No, wrong. This assumes that whatever you give when you love is limited or scarce, so that giving some love to Amaya means giving less of it to Avanti. This might be true with things like money or even time, but not with affection. If a parent can love more than one child equally, why can’t a romantic lover?

  Perhaps the answer to this frustrating riddle of kama lies in the distinction between desire and love. Desire is a mysteriously vague wish, a helpless craving, a sharp longing, and confusingly out of control. Love, on the other hand, is a steadfast, continuing presence. If desire is brief, love is lasting. If desire drifts beyond the veils of propriety, love is generally confined within social expectations. It does not need constant sexual expression to affirm it; it is mostly there and sometimes does not even expect a response. Yet, it is as vulnerable as desire because memories make you feel as though it is forever. At that point, you feel liberated as though your love does not depend on the beloved, just as the beloved does not depend on your love.

  What all this mental debate was leading to was a realization that my feelings for Amaya were closer to desire and for Avanti closer to love, although it was not as clear-cut as it appears in black-and-white prose on this page. And it was natural for Avanti to expect fidelity from me. Moreover, I was supposed to love her exclusively as a part of our wedding vows. But what if, theoretically speaking, Avanti had not sought exclusivity? What if we had made clear to each other from the beginning that we would not restrict our affections? There do exist such marriages although they are rare. Deborah Anapol, a clinical psychologist, helped to found a movement in the 1980s based on the idea of ‘open’ relationships. She invented a new word, ‘polyamory’, in her book, Love without Limits. The movement caught on and the word entered the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘The practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.’ It is based on the assumption that love is by definition not monogamous.

  Although we had never spoken about it, I knew that Avanti was essentially oriented to monogamy, believing that love included the promise of exclusive affection. But I could imagine another woman who might see things differently. Sociobiology, as I have said before, tells us that human beings are by nature polygamous. It is social customs, laws, religion and conditioning that have forced us into monogamy. In other words, monogamy and fidelity require effort whereas polygamy comes naturally. But customs and habits do change and in the contemporary West it is rare to find anyone who has had only one sexual partner for an entire lifetime. The issue there is not so much whether to love one person or more than one—it is whether to have multiple partners sequentially or at the same time. There is no scientific evidence that monogamy is better in terms of health, happiness or longevity. Nor is there evidence that women are biologically inclined to prefer monogamy; they are just as capable of having ‘secret affairs’. Of course, neither men or women like being lied to or treated with inconsideration.

  There is a long tradition of ‘free love’ movements in the West; polyamory is only the latest. The intellectual basis of this tradition lies in the liberal idea of choice and freedom from state regulation and religious in
terference in personal relationships. Although ‘free love’ is identified in the popular imagination with promiscuity and the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, free-love movements have historically not promoted numerous sex partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has opposed state regulation of sexual relations. Utopian movements advocating free love go back to the second century ACE; Adamites in North Africa rejected marriage and original sin; the Cathars in medieval Europe lived simple, vegetarian lives with similar social freedom. It was the French Revolution and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that gave impetus to choice in love and feminism. Utopian socialist communities came up in many places in the early nineteenth century, which promoted divorce, women’s rights, contraception, passion, and in some cases, even extramarital sex.

  ~

  In the end, I decided to break with Amaya and immediately went into a depression. I couldn’t sleep at night. I lost my appetite and couldn’t focus on my work. She had been one of the great experiences of my life, and how could I just walk away? How could I inflict so much pain on her? It went far beyond the extraordinary pleasure that we had tasted—I was in love with her very being. And if I were to give up this happiness, I feared that I would become completely flat and impoverished, doing a grave wrong to both of us. But Kamini Masi was right—I had to choose, and I had chosen Avanti.

  So began a very unsatisfactory period in my life. After many restless nights, I phoned Amaya and told her that I could not leave Avanti. She could see that I was torn and in anguish, but she also realized that our relationship had come to an end. She tried to hide her bitterness and suggested we meet.

  When we met, Amaya stared at me silently for a long time and then she said, ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’

  ‘But you have such a predictable life. Tennis at six, dinner at eight. You should be sleeping well.’

  ‘I don’t think I slept at all last night.’

  ‘Domesticity is killing you—you’re in chains.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right but the thing is I like those chains—I’m not wild like you.’

  ‘Wild?’ she cried.

  ‘Yes, that’s what gives you the guts to . . .’

  ‘You are wrong. I used to be a staid, sensible person . . . until you came along. It’s your fault. You’re the one who untamed me . . . who has made me feel this way.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Amaya.’

  ‘Come here and give me a kiss.’

  ‘But I love Avanti.’

  ‘But you love me too!

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘You don’t want the same self-satisfied routine, day in and day out.’

  ‘You’re wrong—Avanti is different. How can I explain? There is a saint in her. She’s forever reaching out. She makes me feel cheap and vulgar. She is a cut above me.’

  Amaya laughed.

  ‘Why do you laugh?’

  ‘If I don’t, I’ll cry.’

  ‘Don’t, please.’

  ‘I want to burst into tears.’

  ‘I want you to be happy.’

  ‘Come here then, my love.’

  ‘I want everyone to be happy: you, Avanti, your husband, everyone.’

  ‘Stop it! You’re my man, come and make love to me.’

  She pulled me down and we kissed. It was slow, long and lingering. I tried to extricate myself but Amaya grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. We kissed again. She let herself go entirely limp and passive in my arms.

  ‘You have to understand, I love Avanti.’

  ‘She has god on her side. I have only you. So, who needs you more?’

  ‘Amaya, please . . .’

  ‘Ever since I was young, I have hoped that one day I would meet a person like you. And I did . . . after a lifetime of thirsting . . . I found you and I can’t just let you go.’

  ‘I must, Amaya.’

  ‘Please don’t go.’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘Then make love to me before you go.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I beg you.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  I flew out of the room, shattered. I vowed that we wouldn’t meet again. But we did. I wanted greedily and desperately to see her for one last time. I told her on the phone that we couldn’t make love. I didn’t trust myself. I suggested we meet in a public place, not a hotel.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I trust myself?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘But I want to make love . . . even if it’s for the last time.’

  ‘But that will defeat the purpose.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we won’t be able to end it then.’

  ‘Who wants to end it! You’re mine forever.’

  There was the additional obstacle of finding a public place where we could meet and talk freely. I was afraid she would burst into tears and we would make a spectacle. I couldn’t think of a place. And when I did, Amaya vetoed it. There were unhappy phone calls over the next few days in which I suggested alternative spots but she found a defect with each one. She wanted to meet only in ‘our’ hotel. This rigid impasse made us both irritable. We felt the sordidness and the humiliation of the whole thing, and this added to the imminent wound of the impending closure. She was hurting. I wished I could lessen her pain but I was not sure if there was a graceful way to end things. I felt an awful sense of doom when we finally met a few weeks later in an anonymous Udipi café near Bombay Central.

  ‘You’re blindingly beautiful,’ I blurted out thoughtlessly and regretted it immediately.

  ‘You can’t just leave me,’ she announced.

  ‘I must.’

  ‘You have broken my heart. I’ve lost you.’

  ‘Can you forgive me?’

  ‘So that you can sleep better in your comfortable, middle-class bed, surrounded by your wife, your children and your dog? Well, I’m not going to give you that satisfaction.’

  What an amazing transformation, I thought. She looked the same as the day I had first met her but inside was another human being.

  ‘Please try and understand.’

  ‘So, I was just a diversion?’

  ‘No . . . you know that I love you. I always will.’

  ‘Are you really abandoning me?’

  I was silent.

  ‘Do you really love me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why are you doing this to me? Why are you leaving?’

  ‘We’ve been through this so many times, Amaya.’ After a pause, I added, ‘At least, you have been honest and consistent, which is more than I can say about myself.’

  ‘There’s no comfort in that.’

  Gradually, she grew quiet. There was a long silence. And then without ceremony, without saying goodbye, she got up and left. For a brief moment, I had a terrifying thought that she might hurt herself. I ran after her. She was walking in a daze to the station at Bombay Central, where she bought a ticket for Baroda. On an impulse, I decided to accompany her. I wanted to be sure that she reached home safely. She hardly spoke a word during the journey. My attempts to make gentle, affectionate conversation failed. Proust says, ‘When two people break up, it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches.’ We reached Baroda in the middle of the night, where I said goodbye. She handed me a letter. I thought I might have to wait in the station for hours for the train back to Bombay. But as it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long.

  ~

  On the train rushing back in the dark, I discovered that the window next to my seat had become a mirror, and Amaya’s beautiful face kept mocking me, gazing penetratingly until the first light of dawn appeared. Proust says, ‘The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment,’ and Amaya’s image seemed to evoke a lament at the passing of moments made even more miserable by an imagined, happier world. Suddenly, I remembered the letter. It was crumpled in
my pocket. I pulled it out and read it hungrily:

  Dearest, it breaks my heart when I realize I may never see you again. I’m writing to say that the happiest moments of my life I owe to you. What happened is not your fault . . . it just ended the way it did. You are not to blame yourself. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Your love made me come alive, even for a short while, and that is good enough. Love, A

  Amaya knew better than me that I still loved her and her letter was a reminder. Her absence had left an ache that seemed impossible to heal, but I have memories of her that no one can steal. I realize now that every moment of our life together held far more meaning than I dared to acknowledge. I appropriated her love and her laughter cheaply and didn’t pause to consider that they were sacred. Although it was a flawed love, and even though we shared it imperfectly, I reawakened to love’s beauty.

  I am still puzzled about how I happened to love two people at the same time. Once you reach your fifties, perhaps you understand that just as there are many paths to God, there are many paths to happiness. It is a false myth that there will be only one great love in your life. To believe thus is either a sign of emotional immaturity or a wish on your part to make you believe that your life is more interesting than it is. Whether the myth is true or false, the truth is that in the end I failed to protect Amaya as I tried to save my marriage. Ironically, it was that marriage now that was in the greatest danger.

  Happy love has no history; it exists only in fairy tales. In real life, passion is a misfortune. As I think about it, my love for Amaya was doomed from the beginning; it could only take the form of adultery; she snatched at it blindly, becoming obsessive and permanently insecure; in the end, love proved most untrustworthy, leading to humiliation and defeat.

  It was beginning to be bright outside and the window was no longer a mirror. In the clear light of day, I was stung by a nagging feeling that I never truly understood Amaya. Was it because it is ‘difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language which is chiefly made by men’? Yet, her letter showed she remained a kama optimist till the end. She instinctively understood that kama was the most powerful force within us, the most mysterious and the most deeply bound with human life; she venerated it even though she knew that love had no afterlife.