DK didn’t say anything but placed his mobile phone back in his pocket and started walking towards the exit.
I followed him out on to the footpath.
We started walking. No holding each other’s hands or smiling at each other. We didn’t talk for what seemed like ten minutes. We just walked. Silently.
People make all kinds of new-year resolutions, don’t they? I’d made a few too. And the most important of them was to go out on a dinner date with DK and talk and smile. Like normal couples do. But four months into the new year, we were going to counselling sessions. Dinner dates? Never mind.
I glanced at DK. The frown on his face was still there.
I sighed.
‘Remember the day we first met?’ I asked him. This is what Anitha had told us to do, right? And this is what we both always avoided talking about.
DK looked at me and hesitantly said, ‘Hmm, yeah. Why?’
His brow seemed a little less furrowed.
‘Remember how scared you were?’
‘I wasn’t scared, alright?’
‘You weren’t?’ I smiled.
‘Okay! I was,’ DK agreed. ‘And who isn’t scared on their first day in a new school, eh? I was sitting alone in the canteen and . . .’
‘And that’s when I came and sat beside you,’ I said, cutting him off.
‘Yeah, I remember. You came to me with your two long plaits and this really innocent and cute expression on your face.’
‘I was scared too. I mean, boarding schools, by default, are scary. I was scared and I was hoping I would find friends, and then I saw you sitting alone, nervous, and I thought I’d found one.’
‘Well, you did,’ he said, and seeing a smile on my lips, asked, ‘You did, didn’t you?’
I smiled.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
Still smiling, I said, ‘Remember what you told me when I asked you your name?’
‘Don’t,’ DK said. ‘Don’t go there.’
I laughed and imitated him, ‘Hi. I am DK’
‘Please, yaar. You would do the same if your name was Dilkush Kulkarni.’
‘Okay, Dilkush Kulkarni. Sorry!’ I mocked.
We broke into laughter in the middle of the road. The moon was now visible in the pale orange glow of the evening sky and the traffic was now building up, along with the honking. The evening bazaar was slowly coming to life. People were crossing the road, a few with their heads bowed over their mobile screens. Some smoked a cigarette right under the no-smoking sign. And among a zillion other people going about their business were a wife and her spouse reminiscing about their good old days, as advised by their counsellor.
‘Weren’t those days beautiful?’ DK asked.
I nodded.
‘You didn’t talk to me for quite a few days after that day in the canteen,’ I reminded him.
He was silent. I looked at him questioningly.
‘Hmm . . .’
‘Ahem?’ I cleared my throat.
‘Well, okay!’ he said, avoiding my gaze. ‘You know how things work in a hostel, don’t you?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know, apparently one of our seniors saw us in the canteen. Later that day, in the hostel, he called me to his room and asked me to stay away from you.’
‘Really? You never told me this. Who was this senior?’
‘I would rather choose to not say the name of the senior who had a crush on my wife,’ he said teasingly.
Was he flirting? Wow!
‘Okay, Mr Husband!’ I grinned.
He shrugged.
‘So then why did you start talking to me again?’
‘Because you were persistently trying to talk to me and I felt guilty about ignoring you—and you were sweet too. So, yeah . . .’
Anitha, this is working. He called me sweet!
‘You know, Aditi?’ DK started, ‘I never said this to you and maybe I should have said this to you earlier, but I didn’t want to be called desperate or something.’
‘What is it?’
‘That first day in the canteen, when I saw you, I felt a connection between us. I mean, there were so many other newcomers, but then only you came and sat with me. I know it sounds silly, but for a nervous fifteen-year-old boy, this is a legit reason to feel special about a girl.’
‘No, it doesn’t sound silly, because, strange as it sounds,’ I sighed, ‘fifteen-year-old girls have similar feelings too.’
He stopped walking and looked at me. I looked back at him.
Okay, this was really working.
‘I am sorry, I guess,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair.
We resumed walking. He held my hand. Our fingers interlaced. Our arms touched. This was equally strange and beautiful. We had never talked this way after our marriage. This was like a romantic walk on a pilgrimage of love.
‘Do you remember when you got caught that one time?’ I asked him.
‘When?’
‘When you sneaked into the girls’ hostel?’
‘I wanted to surprise you on your birthday,’ he said, after thinking for a minute.
‘And our warden surprised you before you could surprise me!’
He laughed, and I laughed too. It is strange, isn’t it? How a couple finds certain things funny, which others would not even bat an eyelid for?
‘You know, Aditi,’ DK started, ‘I lost count of the times I did the FLAMES test with our names.’
‘Really? What did you get?’
‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘And, honestly, it doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, when you are doing the FLAMES test, something inside you tells you what you want the result to be. I wanted the result to be love. I wanted it to show marriage too. And friendship as well. I know it sounds silly but it made me so happy just to link our names together.’
A smile spread across my face.
‘Then why didn’t you ask me out on a date?’ I asked, trying to not show my silly smile.
‘Well, I didn’t know how you felt about me and we were fifteen-year-olds then, and I didn’t even know if fifteen-year-olds went on date.’
I laughed. Yes, he was innocent back then. He still was.
‘But you did take me out, didn’t you?’
‘Hmm . . . To the Hanuman temple near our school.’
‘DK, really? Who takes a girl he loves, or thinks he loves, to a temple? That, too, a Hanuman temple!’ I teased.
‘I told you,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know what to do. But I knew that I liked being with you and talking to you. And . . .’
He paused.
‘And?’ I asked.
‘And before I realized you were special,’ he said coldly, ‘you left school, and everything was so confusing thereafter. I think I didn’t talk to anybody for days. I didn’t know if I’d lost someone I loved, but I knew I’d definitely lost a friend—my only friend—and that disturbed me. Angered me.’
‘But I tried calling you—’
DK cut me off. ‘I didn’t answer your calls,’ DK said, looking up at the moon. ‘I guess I was angry with you and after a few days you stopped calling, and I tried to forget you and I think I did.’
He sighed.
‘Dil, I didn’t know what was happening. My father got promoted. He decided to send me to a better school. I missed you. I did. No one at the new school looked at me the way you did. Or whose jokes were as lame as yours. How I hoped for you to take my calls. How badly I wanted to talk with you, Dil.’
DK stopped walking. He pulled me to him and teasingly said, ‘Did you just start calling me “Dil”?’
‘I did. And this is how I intend to call you from now,’ I said with an air of authority.
He laughed and obliged, ‘Okay, madam.’
‘And then fate gave me a second chance,’ DK continued, as he looked at me. ‘Gave us a second chance. When my mom, out of the blue, showed me your picture last year and asked if I was ready for marriage. I didn’
t answer for days.’
DK softly continued, ‘All the confusion that I’d tried to forget returned and brought the forgotten anger with it. But I was happy because I saw your picture after years. My parents didn’t know you were once a very special friend to me. They didn’t even know I once took you to a Hanuman temple for a date. Was that a game chance was playing with us, Aditi? I don’t know. But, eventually, I told them that I wanted to marry you. Because that was what I wanted.’
‘When my dad showed me your picture,’ I said, ‘I . . . I was happy too.’
He paused, turned to me, held my hands and said, ‘Listen, Aditi . . . I know I messed up, okay? And I am sorry. I think it was the anger that you, my only friend, had left me alone when I didn’t have anyone else to talk with that made me sulk all this time. That stopped me from telling you how tasty the food you cook is and how beautiful you are and how deeply I love you. I think that I knew it all this while but I didn’t want to accept it. But now, Aditi, I think we don’t need Anita’s help any more. We will work things out—together. I mean, look, you are with me now and I loved you. I still love you. And I think you love me too.’
He looked at me, waiting for a response.
‘Of course I love you, Dil.’ I said. ‘I have been waiting for a year for you to tell me this.’ I stepped closer to embrace him.
We hugged for I don’t know how long. It felt as if time had stopped, like it happens in the movies. It was magical.
The crescent moon hung high above our heads. The clouds covered the stars. A street vendor was frying fresh fish on the other side of the road. Hadn’t I wanted to go on a dinner date with DK?
‘I want to eat that fish fry,’ I told him, pointing across the road.
He looked in the direction I’d pointed in and said, ‘It’s not healthy.’
How typical of him!
‘I want it. Please!’
He sighed. ‘You do realize that you are cute when you do this, don’t you?’
With this, he turned and crossed the road. Once he reached the fish-fry vendor, he turned to me and signalled that it would take five minutes. I nodded. I wanted to eat it with him. Our first dinner date. A romantic roadside fish-fry date.
After five minutes, he turned around with two plates, one in each hand. And started crossing the road. I could see his face glowing. I could feel that he was equally excited. He climbed the divider and jumped down. I was already making plans for when we got home—the playlist we would have on while we danced, the way we would contradict each other’s Harry Potter theories while gazing at the stars, with our backs against our balcony wall, and laugh and maybe kiss too, with the bracing night breeze whistling around us. DK raised his left arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead. A car honked.
I looked to the left. ‘D-I-L!’ I screamed, my eyes wide with fear. I was sweating and my heart was pounding. The car sped towards DK. The two plates he was carrying fell to the floor, its contents strewn. I screamed his name again.
DK looked at the car that was now speeding away and mumbled something under his breath. It had missed him by inches. He got up and came rushing to me, and hugged me tight. He kept telling me that he was all right, but my heart was beating too fast to respond. My mind was numb. He kissed my forehead. And at that moment I knew that I loved him. And he knew it too.
After what seemed like an eternity, we started walking again. In silence. He put his arm around my shoulder, glad that fate hadn’t let the car separate us. Again.
Inches. It had missed DK by inches. But what if . . . ? I didn’t want to know.
I took my mobile phone out and texted Anitha: ‘The doors of the closet are now open.’
4
A Cocoon of Love
Ruby Gupta
Mala stretched languorously on the dishevelled bed and grinned joyously. She had not felt this good in years. A long-forgotten feeling of exhilaration coursed through her veins. Impulsively, she jumped out of bed and did a jig, laughing out loud. Whirling around, Mala suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She moved closer and inspected herself.
The animated eyes, full pink lips, flushed cheeks, endearingly tangled tresses, glowing complexion, all seemed to belong to some attractive stranger. Her luminous eyes seemed to contain within them some mysterious, delightful secret. An impish smile of exultation further intensified the beauty of her countenance. She leaned forward and kissed the charming woman in the mirror.
Involuntarily, her mind went back to her wedding night almost a decade ago . . .
Mala was an exquisitely beautiful, coy bride, eagerly awaiting her new, yet-unfamiliar husband. The mandatory wedding night of the countless Hindi movies that she had watched flashed through her mind. She smiled to herself in anticipation.
Of course, her husband was a far cry from the fair, well-fed Hindi-film hero.
‘A man is judged by his position and not by his looks,’ her mother had admonished her when she had raised the subject after her marriage had been ‘arranged’.
‘A plain man will love you all the more for your beauty,’ her mother had consoled her, softening a little.
And so now she waited, expecting her husband to lovingly and tenderly initiate her into the joys of marital life.
Just then, her husband, Shankar, entered and immediately locked the door, shutting out his numerous relatives who thronged outside, joking among themselves.
Mala shrank within herself.
Shankar moved up to her and lifted her chin. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, smiling gloatingly. ‘I’m going to really enjoy being married to you.’
Mala gazed at him with a smile.
‘I’ve hated my colour for as long as I can remember, but I couldn’t do anything about it. So I did the next best thing. I got a milky-white bride for myself!’ Shankar grinned triumphantly.
Her mother was right, Mala thought to herself. He will really, truly love me for the rest of my life. What more can a woman ask for? So what if he was too tall, too thin and too dark? After all, he was a civil servant and, to top it, was madly in love with her.
‘Let me see what you look like.’ Shankar reached for her sari.
Alarmed, Mala jerked back.
‘Your innocence is really exciting,’ he moved closer, oblivious to her trapped expression.
His fingers were upon her sari now. She stared in horrified fascination at the long, large-jointed, bony fingers against the crimson silk.
‘Remember, your married life will be hell if you displease your husband on your wedding night,’ her mother’s words rang incessantly in her mind.
Shankar was sitting so close to her that she could feel his breath on her skin.
A shudder went through her as the image of a furry spider crawling up her untouched body darted through her mind.
‘Beautiful . . . really beautiful . . .’ murmured Shankar gleefully, as he seemed to drink in her beauty with his lustful eyes.
Much later, as Mala stared at the long snake-like back of her sleeping husband, she was unable to come to terms with what had happened. She had expected Shankar to go into raptures over her beauty, proclaim his undying devotion to her, maybe even say a poem in praise of her. Instead, he had simply violated her. It seemed like a nightmare. But the searing pain was real. Numbly, she looked at the whirring fan overhead, waiting for the agony to subside.
After a while, Mala dragged herself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. She bathed vigorously, trying to wash away all traces of her husband.
Later, restlessly tossing and turning, she tried to sleep. But her mind was too agitated. Thoughts of running away plagued her. Had she married an animal? How could Shankar have been so insensitive, so selfish, so callous? Mala had never been treated so badly in her entire life.
The fact that Shankar had utilized her for his gratification in such a coarse, barbarous manner distressed her.
Gradually exercising all her willpower, she calmed down. Consoling herself that in time it would be
better, she fell asleep.
But it was not to be. In the early hours of the morning, rude hands woke her up abruptly. And once again she submitted silently to the torture her husband meted out to her.
When, after several weeks of the daily torment, Mala protested, Shankar countered pompously, ‘Any other woman would be pleased to get so much attention from me. But you! If it weren’t for your beauty, I would never come near a cold woman like you!’
Mala began hating her looks. She wished fervently that she would turn into an ugly hag. Then perhaps she would be spared this daily humiliation by her husband.
One day, when her mother persistently questioned Mala about her constantly sad expression, she broke down and related everything.
‘But, my dear, this is the fate of every woman. I had thought that by now you would have learnt to accept it,’ her mother counselled.
‘But, Maa, I hate it—and I hate him. How can he be so insensitive to my feelings?’
‘Stop pitying yourself. You are not the only woman in such a position. It’s a wife’s duty. Be thankful that he has not strayed but has provided you with everything any woman can ask for. Look at your status as an IAS officer’s wife!’ her mother’s tone hardened.
‘Oh Maa! You don’t know what it’s like . . .’ Mala wailed piteously.
Cutting in, her mother retorted, ‘I know what it’s like. Do you think your father and I live as brother and sister?’
‘Maa!’ Mala was shocked. ‘But Papa is such a tender, loving man,’ she protested.
‘Isn’t Shankar extremely gentle with his nieces and nephews?’ her mother countered.
At this, Mala was left speechless, trying to come to terms with her mother’s words.
After a while she said, ‘But Papa . . . I don’t believe it.’
‘Believe me, all men are the same,’ her mother said bitterly with pursed lips.
So it was, day after day, year after year. It was just as T.S. Eliot had said not so long ago:
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defense;
You Are All I Need Page 3