by Sid Bahri
The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. I needed money, more money than what I earned today. More money to be able to be a good son, more money to be an able suitor and more money to drive a car better than the flimsy four wheeler I was driving today.
The more important part was to be the able suitor, and how could I be an able suitor to a woman who was already married. It wasn’t long after she had met me on the terrace and asked for forgiveness that I had agreed to marry her.
I went back to work on Monday, after the amorous weekend on the terrace and looked at the sales figures on my desk. They were less than promising. My next promotion depended on the numbers being miles ahead of where they were. I had to secure a promotion in April, eight months away. I knew I was being overambitious to expect a promotion within a year, but I was committed.
I saw the promotion as a means to an end – more money, able suitor, marry Radhika. I didn’t realize when I changed, but money was beginning to be a priority. I was finding ways to save a little money. I was certain that I wouldn’t ask my parents to support my wedding. I would do it on my own.
Now, when the time was nearing, I realized that I wouldn’t even have money to take her for a honeymoon. It gave me a sense of urgency that had made me question Robin about the kitchen expenses last week. He had looked at me strangely, wondering what had prompted that question. I had even cut down on going to Barista, choosing the Nescafe counter downstairs. It was cheaper. There was always something to talk about and really, the ambience didn’t matter.
April was going to be an important month. If I did get the promotion, then I would speak to my parents about her. Maybe, it would put an end to my mother’s concern regarding my marriage.
Radhika
At Shipra’s party, I try to make myself unobtrusive by supervising the caterers. I think Shipra is able to see my discomfort and maybe that is the reason why she introduces me to another lady who feels almost as out of place as I am feeling.
The conversation veers towards what I do for a living and I have nothing to say. I am just a very bored widow who lives alone in Delhi. I could’ve chosen to tell her that I run a make shift school but I don’t. I don’t think she is the sorts who will appreciate it. I ask her the same and she says, “I work for an advertising agency”. I learn that she is a divorcee.
I think that she is another one of those people who will come and go from my life. When I meet her at Shipra’s party, I find her a little pushy and demanding. I don’t like her enough to exchange phone numbers but she is insistent. I don’t see too much harm in it, so I give her my number hoping that she will not call. I type the phone number first into the phone and then reach the field where I have to type in her name. Slowly, I type in the letters D-I-V-Y-A.
Divya starts calling often and then we start meeting often. It isn’t my company of choice but at least she is here. So often, during our conversations, she excuses herself and makes phone calls. I wonder if they are all really related to her work at the advertising company because she speaks in such a hushed voice.
My school is beginning to do very well. When the results came out in April, almost all my students scored better than their previous result. I am overwhelmed when their parents come to see me. They thank me profusely for helping their children. Even more overwhelming are the sweets that they have brought. It has taken me a week to finish off the sweets and will take months to lose the extra weight that it has left me with.
My days are passing faster than they used to. I am not the same whining woman that had moved to Delhi six months ago. Maybe, it’s because the winter is behind me. I have been able to make my life a little more useful. I know that the pigeons are feeling neglected, but even then. Sometimes, I think that it is about time that I can have a partner. I am just readier for a relationship now than when I had come from Lucknow.
I call out to Laxman to pull out the car. I am going over to meet Shipra today. Ever since I have been introduced to Divya, my trips to her house have become a little less frequent. I feel guilty that I am not being such a good friend. I feel that I have been using her when I didn’t have company; but ever since I have met Divya, I have shirked away.
When I reach Shipra’s house, I realize that I am not wrong in thinking this way. Shipra’s house is half packed when I get there.
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“Sidhu’s being transferred again,” she says.
I am hit by anxiety. I know that people in the Army get transferred very often but I have taken Shipra’s presence in Delhi for granted. I can’t fathom myself being without her support.
“Where is he getting transferred?” I ask her.
“We’re moving to Ranikhet,” she says.
I don’t know why but I break down. I don’t want her to leave. She isn’t just another friend. She is the only family that I have, now that my parents are estranged and I have no other family to speak of.
“Don’t cry, Radhika. Look at it this way: it’s only an eight hour drive out of here,” she says.
“I know but I just can’t drive over there like I did today,” I say through my sobbing.
“Let me just get settled there and then you can come and stay with us for a few days,” she says.
I am halfway back home when Divya calls to ask me if I am interested in watching a movie.
I look at the watch, it is only seven-thirty and I agree. It has to be Shipra’s going away that has made me agree so suddenly. I am now left with only one friend and I can’t afford to lose her. Even if she is not someone who I really like.
I ask Laxman to take a detour to Vasant Vihar. Divya said that she was already at Priya, the cinema hall at Vasant Vihar, and would arrange the tickets. Surprisingly, the place isn’t bustling with activity as it used to. The restaurants are empty. The crowds at the movie halls are thin. The recession isn’t leaving anyone. I wonder what those jobless people do. It is quite a dichotomy that when they had work, they would go out for entertainment and now, when they don’t have work they choose to stay at home.
I find Divya in line, still waiting for the ticket counter to open up.
“Hey, you didn’t take very long to get here,” she says.
“I was on my way back from Shipra’s when you called,” I say
“It’s sad that she’s leaving,” Divya says.
Divya is quite a social butterfly. Sometimes, I envy her for her social skills. She always knows what everyone is up to. She already knows that Shipra is leaving, when I have only found out today. I am about to ask her how she manages to do this when her cell phone rings. She fishes into her large purse and excuses herself. I take her place in the queue while she goes out of earshot and has an animated discussion with someone on the phone. One of these days, I am going to ask her who she speaks to, I say to myself.
The movie is a disaster and we walk out even before the intermission; it was unbearable. I wonder if the recession has anything to do with that. Maybe film makers also don’t have the budgets that they used to have. We have dinner at a restaurant and somehow, I gather the courage to ask her about her phone calls.
“Who do you keep talking to on the phone?” I ask her.
“Clients,” she says.
“Do they have no respect for personal time?” I ask her. Her last phone call had been well past eight.
“Well, these clients are different,” she says without explaining much further.
I want to probe further, but I don’t do it. I don’t want to seem like I am trying to pry into her life.
“I was thinking about visiting Shipra once she’s settled in,” I say.
“Count me in. I have wanted a change for some time now,” she says.
We walk to the car park and just before we are going to part and go our separate ways, she asks me, “Do you ever feel the need to have sex?”
I am not sure that I have heard correctly.
“What?” I ask. I am a little surprised and maybe even a littl
e offended. Divya isn’t close enough to be asking that personal a question.
“I mean, you’re pretty much in my situation. We don’t have partners so just thought I’d ask.”
I shrug my shoulders. I don’t know the answer and I think it is best not to answer that question until I know for sure.
Aditya
It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t rhythmic. It wasn’t even passionate. It wasn’t even innocent. It was everything that I had thought it would never be. We made love but there were strange thoughts that ran through my mind. Did he give her more pleasure? Was my performance good enough? Did he have an organ larger than mine?
Maybe, the questions were natural but in the labyrinth of those questions was the answer that it could never be the same again. Yes, we were together as we had intended it to be for an eternity and now that we were together, there was the burden of the past that we carried. I didn’t ejaculate and I wondered if she had come. I didn’t ask, instead just turned over and slept hoping that sleep would give me some answers.
Her divorce had happened a few months ago, giving us the moral high ground to be able to make love. We lay in my apartment on the same bed that we had lost our virginity on and yet, we were unable to have satisfying, gratifying sex. She put her arm around me and slept, completely ignoring my underperformance.
I woke up first and saw her form under the sheets. My hand was under the covers as my finger created imaginary images on her thigh. It was enough to wake her up. She turned her head, until I could kiss her. I kissed passionately and ran my hand up to her breast and cupped it. She let out a sigh as I gently plucked her nipple. She turned around a little more. My hand ran down her stomach, stopping momentarily on her navel. My index finger probed the depression and then the hand went on downwards until the stubble of recently shaved hair stopped the smooth slide. She opened her legs a little farther apart. My middle finger found another depression to explore, a moist depression this time. I felt my lower back stiffen as her hand moved down my back. It only took a few minutes before I was inside her, the gyrations started, a little better than before, the rhythm a little more harmonious until it finally ended on a high note.
Wasn’t this Nirvana? To be in the arms of the one that you love – sweaty, tired and spent, yet happy. The human need was to copulate before social structures had denigrated it with marriage. Even now, when we weren’t married, we were so together. We just lay there immersed in our thoughts searching for answers in the whirring of the ceiling fan.
I turned around and whispered into her ear, “I love you”.
She whispered back, “I love you too”.
I had been the industrious ant all winter and now, when spring burst through, my hard work was beginning to be recognized. My conversation with my boss had been fantastic for he had committed to promote me in April. Life was on a high. As things looked, I would be the only person amongst my peer group that would get promoted as a manager. Rightly so, given that they weren’t a patch on me. I had done it; I was king – God’s gift to mankind. If not, for Citibank India, I certainly was.
There was just one more thing that was pending on my plate – to marry Radhika and make her my own. That’s when I made a trip back to Chandigarh to broach the subject with my parents. I didn’t expect resistance, especially when they had been more eager to see me married than I was. It would just be a formality.
I entered my house through the narrow winding stairs that took me to the two bedroom house on the second floor. I couldn’t but notice that the paint on the walls needed to be redone. The house needed urgent repairs. Had I been ignoring my parents while I blissfully carried on my life in Delhi with Radhika?
My father was out, but mother had been expecting me. I hugged her and touched her feet like any good son does. My father returned in the afternoon, looking harried and frustrated. His turban was soaked in sweat, even though the weather was at its best in February. I thought about bringing up her topic now, but maybe it would be better to wait until he was in a better state of mind.
“How’s the job coming along?” my father asked.
“Very good, dad, spoke to my manager last week. He’s promoting me in April.”
“Congratulations! Good thing that you chose to work a job instead of a business. It’s so much easier,” he said and then embarked on telling me a tale of the woes that he was up against. The shortage of labour, the shortage of raw material, the poor quality of labour and the inspectors of the government who would constantly demand bribes on one pretext or the other.
I caught up on some sleep in the afternoon, a luxury that I could hardly afford on the short trip back home, but I was exhausted. My mother had attempted to make some of my favourite dishes and they were horrendous. I wondered how she could mess up something as simple as a salad. Her affection for salt had smothered the salad into bitterness. And yes, there was the infamous pineapple jelly that wiggles. I don’t know how she managed it but Robin was a godsend. I stopped myself from critiquing her culinary skills. It would certainly spoil the mood and I didn’t want anyone upset when I brought up Radhika’s topic.
I didn’t even know how to get to the topic but I gathered all my courage and said, “Mom, I want to marry this year.”
I directed my statement towards Mom, knowing that I would find an ally in her. She had been after my life for over a year now.
“Finally, I hear you saying it. Just last week my friend was talking to me about her girl,” she was so visibly elated.
Oh, no! I wanted to make it amply clear that I had found my girl. I didn’t want her to find me one.
“That won’t be necessary; I’ve found the one for me,” I said
“Good going” Dad said, participating in the conversation for the first time.
“Who is she?” my mother asked.
“Radhika. Works with me in Citibank Delhi,” I said.
“Hindu?” They asked in unison. I saw the expressions on their face change. Just moments ago, there had been elation and that was quickly changing into something else, something indescribable.
“Yes, but you’ll love her,” I replied, suddenly aware that this conversation may not be the breeze that I was expecting it to be.
“Where is she from?” my father asked.
“Chandigarh. She was with me in school too,” I replied. “What does her father do?” he asked.
Why was this important? What if she had been an orphan? Would they still care to ask?
“I think he’s retired. He used to work in the gulf as a mechanic before that.”
They exchanged glances and then looked at me.
“Anything else?” he asked.
I wondered if there was merit in telling them that she was a divorcee. Somehow, your parents always know who you are and there was only one reason that the last question had been posed. They knew that I hadn’t told them the whole truth. In some uncanny, strange way, they were able to decipher that I was withholding something.
“Yes, she’s a divorcee,” I said.
“Are you crazy?” my mother asked me.
She was holding her head in her hands, as if someone had just died. I ignored her posture.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My son is telling me that he wants to marry a Hindu, a daughter of a mechanic, who was once married, now divorced,” she asked me to reconfirm that she wasn’t hallucinating and that she had heard what I had told her.
“Yes, Mom. I love her,” I implored.
“You’re too naïve. What has she done to you for you to lose your sanity?” she had tears in her eyes.
This was absurd; why would she do anything? Maybe I wasn’t making my love of her clear for them to look beyond their prejudices.
“Mom! I’ve loved her since school,” I said.
The voices were a little louder than normal, “And she loved you in return? Then, why did she marry someone else?”
They won’t understand, I told myself, but still attempted it, “Beca
use, I wasn’t settled”.
“So, she leaves you when you’re unsettled and comes back to you when you’re settled? She’s using you! Can’t you make out?” my father pitched in.
In a realistic, normal world, this was the truth; but they didn’t know her the way I did. They didn’t know our love. They wouldn’t understand the depth if they continued to look at the surface.
“I don’t think she is, and I am going to marry her,” I replied back.
Uncharacteristically, my father, the usually boisterous Sikh, lowered his voice and said, “Now, you listen to me. You want to marry her, go ahead. But don’t expect us to approve. I don’t care if you love her or if she married someone else or she divorced or she is the daughter of a mechanic. Above all, she is a Hindu and I will never have a Hindu girl be married to you. They killed my father.”
I walked out in a huff. The next morning, I boarded the bus back from the ISBT in Chandigarh, confused and stressed. What I had thought to be a cake walk wasn’t turning out to be one.
I was a smoker; I hadn’t seen the insides of a Gurudwara in over five years; I had had my hair cut when I was seven and I was referred to as Aditya Sharma. And yet, I was to believe that I was a Sikh? I was doing everything that the Sikh religion forbids and still I could not marry the girl of my dreams because my grandfather had been murdered by some fanatics posing as Hindus? This situation was ridiculous and so was my father. I wished to rebel and tell them that I would do as I pleased. Only the gratitude of having been brought up by them stopped me. If I didn’t remember the sacrifices that they had made to bring me up, I would’ve definitely revolted. I remembered, so I chose to linger on.