But whatever it was, every time I was on top of her, I prayed for Daadu’s long life. I must tell you, she felt like a totally different person when she was in bed. I think it was the reserve that we happened to maintain at other times that added a particular sexiness to our mating. Her skin was softer than that girl’s in the whorehouse, much softer… she felt like cotton to me. She was a petaline beauty in bed, shy and tender. She’d try really hard to suppress her cries of joy during sex. She merely moaned softly. And every night in bed, there was a certain compulsion, a certain fierce urge in me to make her let herself go. Piece by piece, I learned the tricks of the business and the night came when all her barriers broke, when she couldn’t keep it low anymore, when she couldn’t hold it, when suppression was no longer an option. I remember how she’d almost buried her nails into the flesh of my back the night she’d burst out loud. She had to give up… she had to accept defeat. She had to do away with her pledge of remaining silent and open the curtains of shyness.
I remember how we’d laughed after she’d screamed and we’d both lain together on the bed like that, soaking in our love juices.That night, we came to know each other a little more, but that knowledge was good enough to allow us to be a bit more open with each other, only while we were in bed.Yes, she conceived in the very first month of our coming to Bangalore and gave birth to a baby girl in the eleventh month of our marriage. But that’s a different story.
The reservations, the diffidence we maintained between us in the day, continued, without conscious effort. I don’t know if it was right, but I was okay with it, whatever it was. And I anticipate deep down that she too reciprocated my opinion. Perhaps, both of us liked it that way.
I think I was doing okay now. I think I wasn’t the same dork anymore, for Aarti seemed to be doing pretty fine with me. Day after day, the inferiority complex and lack of confidence that had infested me for ages, withered away as I was finally able to keep a woman happy. But with that also went away the charm that I saw in Aarti.To be frank, it wasn’t about her; she was all fine and sensual. No doubt her blooming beauty would’ve been the fantasy of countless men in the best days of her youth, but to me, she was a gift and she’d come for free. I’d had to do nothing to win her heart, nothing to earn her, to make her mine. Not that we didn’t sleep together anymore, but a year after our marriage, the number of days we had sex every week was dwindling, especially after the baby.
But I think it was all normal. I think it was a common man’s life I was living, where tiny daily problems and evening teas were your all-weather friends and you didn’t get everything you asked for. Fine, all my life I hadn’t been able to leave a single girl impressed enough to marry me. Fine, I hadn’t had the best childhood, but don’t all people have problems of their own? Given the chance to choose other people’s purses that contained their problems in exchange for ours, wouldn’t we choose our own? I’d once heard a story along similar lines in which everyone chose their own problems instead of those of others, because they thought they would be strangers to other people’s problems, but were familiar with their own, no matter how agonizing they were. And besides, it wasn’t as though I was not provided with all the good things in my life. I had an amiable wife, a beautiful daughter, a stable job, weekends off, and a good place to live in. Now those are things not everyone has. Lots of people would give an arm and a leg to have them.
All told, I was becoming used to my life… its boredoms and its monotony.
Chapter 17.0
I remember, it was a Friday afternoon.
I know Aarti does too and she will remember this day until the last moment of her life.
My supervisor at the office was a good man, a friendly one. ‘You don’t have work to do here today anymore? Go home, surprise your wife,’ he’d said to me.
The computer I worked on had stopped functioning suddenly, and we’d smelled silicon fumes. It was apparent that some hardware had baked up. It would take a hardware technician to fix it, and at least a day for things to return to normal. So, I was allowed to leave office early.
I boarded one of the many units of the busline I’d come to board for the last seven years to go home. I stepped down at the bus stop, from where I’d to walk for three-tenths of a kilometre to reach home. It must have been an hour past noon. Only when I was about fifty metres from home, I saw Aarti. She looked beautiful in the green saree she’d recently bought. She stood in the veranda and waved to a man. I’d never seen that man before. I stopped right there; I did not make a move. I watched that man wave back at her, as he prepared to get into an auto that stood halted next to the gates of my house.
He must have been my age or in his mid-thirties at max. He was wearing formal clothes: a plain dark-grey shirt, with the sleeves casually folded to his elbows and black formal trousers. He wore black derby shoes, a black leather belt and a metal watch chained around his left wrist. Perhaps that man had a thing for dark colours, but his complexion was fair and he was rather good-looking. I noticed he’d gelled his hair and guessed he’d applied fancy cologne. In a while, he moved into the waiting auto and the vehicle left through the other opening of the street.
In an unmeditated response to the departure of the man, Aarti turned left, only to find me standing there.As soon as she saw me looking at her, I noticed that the entire glow on her face vanished. She appeared rather stupefied, as though she’d seen a ghost. Perhaps, she thought I hadn’t seen her looking at me, because wee seconds after she saw me, she turned around, went back inside the house and closed the door, pretending she’d seen nothing odd. She moved at her usual pace and showed no signs of anxiety.
By now, I’d figured out that something was not quite right. I crossed the gates of my house and climbed the stairs to the plinth. I was just about to press the call bell when it occurred to me that I wanted to give her the benefit of doubt: have her believe that no, I hadn’t seen her looking at me. I knocked at the door, which she didn’t open instantly or it would mean that she’d been waiting for me.
‘Arrey, so early today?’ she said, faking it.
‘Yeah,’ I complied with her. I wanted to carry things out without friction. ‘The computer on which I work went bad so the boss let me leave early,’ I said and let her take my briefcase from me.
‘That’s good. I was bored myself,’ she said and smiled.
‘Where’s Shruti?’
‘She didn’t go to school today, as she wasn’t feeling well. She’s had something to eat and is sleeping in the other room.’
‘Okay, good.’
She returned after placing my case in the cupboard and said, ‘Oh, would you like me to make something up for you real quick? Maybe a coffee or something?’
‘Yeah, but first, I would like you come here and sit with me,’ I said, maintaining a calm tone of words.
‘Okay,just let me put the kettle on the stove,so the milk can boil while we talk.’
Perhaps she wasn’t ready for the questions and was buying time.
But I insisted, ‘Can it not wait?’
‘Umm, okay,’ she smiled again.
I took my seat on one of the dining chairs. She placed herself on another chair, facing me from the other end of the table.
‘Yes, what is it?’ she asked me, beaming an enchanting smile.
‘Who was that man?’
‘Oh, him? When did you see him? That was Rajiv, he’s a cousin,’ she said, without missing a beat.
But I could see it in her eyes.They say a woman’s eyes don’t lie, and I saw them betray her. I could see her pupils dilate. But mind you, had it not been for her eyes, I might have even believed her. Such was the confidence with which she spoke.
I realized I shouldn’t have been so forthright about it, sending the rat back into the hole, but could I take my words back? ‘But all these years I never so much as met him.’
‘That’s because he and his family don’t live in India. They’ve been all living in Australia for over a decade. He’s the son
of my mother’s cousin. So you see it’s a very distant relationship that we share. Plus, they hadn’t been able to attend our marriage ceremony either. How do you suppose you could’ve seen him or his family, Suraj?’ she asked, as if I’d said something stupid.
‘And seven years after our marriage, he came to see you, in an auto-rickshaw.’
‘Yeah, his company gave him a month’s break, so he’s on a vacation,’ she said, now unable to maintain eye contact. She was averting her eyes, looking here and there.
I took a brief pause. I took her hands gently into mine and looking at her, I said, ‘Aarti, don’t I make you happy anymore? Are you seeing someone outside our marriage? Are you having an extra-marital affair?’ I spoke as softly as I could, so she would be able to speak the truth, without having to be nervous about it.
But her action contravened my anticipation. ‘Suraj!’ she exclaimed, withdrawing her hands with a jerk. Suddenly, her breath came heavily. She was trembling. ‘Okay, I lied to you, I admit. But please, don’t say such things to me. Don’t question my character. I am not having an affair with anybody.’
‘Then tell me, who was he?’
‘He was my ex-boyfriend. His name is Adwit and we’d met each other in college. He belonged to another caste and my family had come to know about him.’ Oh, now I knew what’d made them rush into this marriage.
‘When he learned that my parents had fixed my marriage elsewhere, he panicked. He called me ten times a day, asking me to talk to my dad about him, but I knew there was no good in that. I knew my parents wouldn’t hear a thing about it. I knew that they would never say yes to an inter-caste marriage. So, one day when he called me, I asked him politely to never call me again and told him clearly that we had no future together. I didn’t want a scene to be created, so I even changed my number so he wouldn’t be able to call me anymore.
‘And then I met you. I realized you were a nice person. Suraj, I swear by all the gods I’ve ever worshipped, I’d liked you the very day you’d come to see me at my home and I’ve loved you, ever since Shruti happened.’
I couldn’t tell if she was putting on the act of a Sati-Savitri or was speaking from the heart.
‘I just don’t know how Adwit found out my number. He must’ve called up my friends. Seven years after I’ve been married, he calls me one day and asks me to meet him. Suraj, I swear I did my best to avoid him, to keep him away. I told him I couldn’t do it, I told him I was married to another man. I maintained my stance that I love my husband and that he wouldn’t approve of it. I even apologized to him for everything, for making him suffer.
‘But he didn’t listen to me. He just wouldn’t give up. He’d been calling me for two weeks, pestering me about it every day. He kept begging me to see him just once and when I still didn’t agree, he threatened me that he’ll come to our home and will meet me in your presence. I even thought of calling up the police, but I thought if I did that, everyone would come to know about it. I wondered what Daadu and Papaji would think about me,if they heard about it. I swear I wanted to tell you all about it, but I was too scared.I didn’t know how you would react.I was frightened, Suraj. I had no one I could talk to about it. So I gave up. I couldn’t handle his constant calls on my own anymore. I submitted to his obstinacy. I thought it’s just a matter of one meeting after all. How long would it last—just a few minutes? I thought I would agree to meet him and end the entire thing in one go.
‘At first, I’d thought of meeting him outside, but then I was afraid someone we know might see us and I would land into even more trouble. So I called him up one day and asked him to come home in the noontime on a weekday, when you wouldn’t be home. Everything was fine. He was finally leaving; I was so relieved.And at the very last moment,’ she started sobbing, ‘… at the last moment, just before he was about to leave, you saw him.’ Tears oozed out of her eyes, conspiring to invite my sympathy, as they trickled down her cheeks. She couldn’t level her gaze with me anymore. She looked at the table-top.
She looked more beautiful than ever. For a second, I felt like hugging her, but realized instantly that the occasion didn’t invite such a gesture.Then she looked back up. Right then, I looked into her eyes and at the same moment, I knew it wasn’t the end of the story. I waited, for over a minute, for her to unveil the veiled. I expected her to honour my courtesy, but she let me down.
‘Is that it?’ I banged my left hand on the table, only hard enough to make her only pair of glasses spring into the air, drop down, roll over, hit the ground, and break with a smash. She didn’t pay any heed to them. I watched the last bit of that sweetened version of her perpetual maturity she’d usually wear scrape off her face and fade into the limbo of nothingness.
‘Is that all of it?’ I yelled at her again. ‘Is there no more to it?’
Suddenly, she stopped sobbing, as the vacuum created by the absence of tears was occupied by a fog of tummy-turning fear. I couldn’t hear her even breathe. She sat like a goddamn statue. I could see droplets of sweat appear on her face now.
For a while, she didn’t utter a word and kept looking at me like that; like a scared little child. But then, she broke the silence:‘He kissed me.’
Before she’d opened her mouth, dead memories had come to life. I’d thought I was going to have to see another Geetika from the window, but that wasn’t the case. Nonetheless, the sting of pain her words had brought was no less agonizing.
For a minute, we remained seated like that and said nothing to each other. Time ceased to pass. All we could hear were the sounds of our own breaths. ‘Suraj, trust me, I protested. But he was so aggressive that I couldn’t do anything about it. I swear to God, I told him he was supposed to leave immediately. I had no part in it, Suraj. Please forgive me… please…’ She started sobbing again, only harder this time.
I didn’t hear anything. I was desensitized, incapacitated… I didn’t hear the air or the echo of her words or the noise of faraway traffic, the least bit of her repeated attempts at catching her breath, while she sobbed.
‘I saw you wave at him and smile…’ I said more to myself than to her.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked me, as I rose from the chair. Of course, she’d said nothing to my last words. ‘You’re not leaving me, are you?’ she asked, and burst into a pool of tears.
‘I’m going for a walk. Don’t worry, I’ll be back…’ I said, with as much calm as I could muster up.
I walked out the door.
Chapter 18.0
Something in me suggested that I make a round of the colony to try and imbibe some of its surface calm. It didn’t work the way I planned: one minute down that road and that funereal stillness began to haunt me. I was scared I might do something to myself and I didn’t want to do that, just yet. I wanted to love myself, be my own warmth, as I knew there was no one else who would cater to my needs…
So I chose to alter my route. I took the street that led to the bus stop.
I’d thought at first that I would like it, that I would feel better amidst the crowd, but that didn’t work either. Nothing worked, just as I’d expected. I only felt worse… each second.
Although it was a clear, sunny afternoon, it felt different. It felt gloomier than that evening.
I was walking the same roads I’d walked after seeing Geetika from the window that evening. I was seeing the same kind of people, the same billboards…everything was the same, if not worse. My past was unleashing itself before my eyes, hauling me out of the vulnerable shell of my uprooted present.
I’d lived many years in the shadow of a desire to heal the harrowing wounds I’d incurred on my way to love or something like that. I’d woken up each day to find my dignity lying unconscious on the bed. For years, I’d lived short of my self-respect and confidence; I had watched myself become devoid of my soul… piece by piece. But I’d gathered up those pieces, again and again; I’d told myself each day that it would all come right.And I’d never let go of my hold on the tail of that hope.T
hat one day, I would live a normal life. One day I would be loved…
When Aarti came into my life, I thought it was all going to happen… I thought everything was going to be okay, that I was going to have everything I’d ever dreamed of. I started looking at myself through her eyes and began to see respect, admiration and love for myself. But I didn’t know that I was only creating a fool’s paradise for myself; that it was all only a brutal illusion… Her love, her concern for me, the care she’d displayed, for years, was just a fucking farce… Nothing of that dream had ever existed for real.
After all those years, after having been defeated at the hands of my desire for love, not once but twice, there was one woman I’d thought who could love me. In the entire world, there was but one person I thought was mine. But no, I was wrong…
All I had was Aarti, my wife, my little family…And now I had nothing. I was robbed of the little I ever had…
I wonder if all those years she’d ever loved me, if she had ever kissed me as passionately as she would’ve kissed that man. It was no different for me than having to watch Geetika with her boyfriend…
I tortured myself wondering if she’d closed her eyes as she’d let him kiss her lips; I wondered if she’d let him squeeze her breasts, if she had moaned, with her eyes closed, as he had offended her like that. Well, they had a history. There was a certain time in her life of which I could never have known anything and he knew everything—the bond they shared, the chemistry between them or the way he made her feel. I wondered if she had allowed him to grab himself a nice piece of my wife’s hips. I wonder if she’d let him slither his hands into her saree and touch it, if she’d gotten wet, let him take his time soaking his hands in her feminine juices.A lot can happen in half an hour, after all. I wonder if she would’ve let him penetrate her even, let him do her… real hard.
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