It was a poignant day somewhere in early November. Midweek and busy. Exhaustion was slowly creeping into the routine. There was this little headache lingering at the back of my head at the end of every day – clothes were strewn on the chair, one set arriving each day of the week, (the one I threw off after getting back from work), a little tug had nestled at the calves; a tad disorder had crept into the kitchen. You know those small mid week woes, they had been slowly setting in.
I had just then come home with a bag full of onions and other cheap vegetables picked up on my way from work. Rakesh returned home later than me, often around dinner time. His contribution to the household other than adding to the family income was barely recognisable, if I counted petting the dog or feeding the fish as work in any sense that is.
Rahul, our six-year-old son was on a high, running from one room to another, sliding in the house with skates on. Lakshmi the maid, who had opened the door with a plastic smile had walked into the kitchen tucking the edge of her saree into her waist, bracing herself to do the dishes.
I slammed on the tiny space left on the sofa beside all the toys and the unfolded dried clothes lying on it and stared around. Newspapers of the last three days was lying on the teapoy unattended. The television remote was on the carpet and Toby was lying next to it licking it now and then. The clock was ticking towards 6, the sky was turning darker. From afar it would have looked like just another evening in an urban nuclear family. What wasn’t evident was the heaviness building in my chest and the cobwebs slowly weaving in my head, entangling over the years. I recognised it as boredom of middle age or monotony of married life. I had no ways to confirm.
The last time I told Rakesh about it, lying on his outstretched arm, burying my head in his chest, almost ready to sob, he had slowly pulled away from me to reach for his mobile. ‘I need to check on this urgent mail. Why don’t you start working out, it will raise your spirits.’ He had said, lightly pecking on my forehead.
He was a sensitive man, I knew he had got it. I am certain that he had felt the same occasionally too. I remember because on such days he had made impromptu plans to meet his friends at some pub and had come back high spirited. But then, I had no such escapes.
When Amma (my mom, not his) , visited us last summer, I had asked her if she ever felt bored this way. It was a hot afternoon and we were sipping on some mango milk shake, sitting in the balcony. On hearing the word ‘bored’, she had stopped sipping, knitted her brows and had spoken non stop for an hour about how boredom was a sign of laziness, how I had to get busy, busier than I already was that is, find new hobbies, be more appealing to my husband, learn new dishes and start doing yoga to beat it. I must have anticipated her lecture. After all she had been a teacher all her life. Even after years of retirement she was still an enterprising woman who attended laughing clubs, visited parlour once a month and had potluck parties with her kitty friends every fortnight. Boredom ventured nowhere close to her.
Her advice as always didn't soothe my nerves. I was still left searching for that missing piece in the strange puzzle that my life had suddenly turned into.
I had tried speaking to Suma, my best friend as well. She was this petite upper middle class girl who had chosen to remain a house wife. She was someone who appeared perennially happy, at least in her facebook updates and I had hoped to get some answers from her. On the weekend that I met her at the park, I asked if the secret of her happiness was her love marriage.
‘Are love marriages more exciting? Do they make life more adventurous in any way?’
She had eloped with her neighbour after graduation, married in a temple and returned after a month. There was quite a drama that had unfolded in her family who had later quietly accepted her husband. They now proudly introduced him as their beloved son in law to all and everything was hunky dory just like that.
‘Well, love reaches a plateau after few years. It is like any other marriage eventually. We have our fights and bad days and then we make up.’ She had said with an ease that was enviable.
‘Fight and make up?’ I had repeated.
I wondered what was making my days heavy and suffocating? I longed to escape, to fly.
I got up, turned on the fan, opened the windows and took in a deep breath. The television was running at its max volume. An alien superhero was sliding down a parallel universe in a tight fluorescent green outfit and the elated alien in my house was jumping around with his toy gun.
Our wedding photo was hung on the wall next to the balcony. I gazed at it amid the noise. Rakesh looked eager, interested in me. The back of his hand was seen grazing mine.
Me, barely 22, stood in the bright red kancheevaram saree with a fancy hairdo, looking not so much like myself, a little sweat trickling along my neck, my eyes anxious, my hands fisted, grasping a hanky that I had been rolling all through the reception.
A shrill breaking noise sprang out of the kitchen. A porcelain cup had been broken by the maid. She came rushing out to the living room holding irregular pieces of the white cup, the one from my favourite set with the flowery print. The peach flower on it was half torn.
‘Rahul dashed into me Akka...’ Lakshmi was defensive before I'd had the chance to ask.
Rahul zoomed out of the other end of kitchen on his skates, grinning and slid past me before slamming onto the sofa.
‘Leave it in the dust bin and make me some tea.’ I ordered Lakshmi.
I pressed my temples hard after removing my cat-eye shaped branded spectacles. My anger often settled there, on the temples. It very rarely boiled over as verbal outbursts. Specially on those days. Rakesh handled such episodes with grace, staring up from his mobile for a while and then walking out of the room silently. It often mellowed me down. And when we sat for dinner later, he would ask random questions like, ‘What curry’ and I would say ‘bhindi’ or ‘Gobi’ as I served. He would then ask Rahul to eat without spilling and help me clean the table. We would then retire for the day after briefly watching the news like there had never been an out burst at all which made the outbursts themselves less fulfilling.
We often slept, our backs facing one another. On some nights we conversed, facing the ceiling, watching the fan swirl in slow lazy circles. The talks were mostly about finances or the kids school schedule. And though his entire arm grazed mine as we slept, there were no more sparks flying by. It was just another piece of skin.
Rahul slid again by the side of the dining and hit his head at the edge of the table. The house echoed his shrill cry. Lakshmi removed his skates while I rubbed the lump on his forehead.
‘Let’s go out to the mall and play in the funky monkey trap!’ I offered to bribe him in return for some silence. He shrieked louder in excitement and ran in to get into his good dress to go to the mall.
As we left, I locked the door behind me, leaving the tea on the dining table to sulk alone.
When I walked into the Spectrum mall, the biggest in Bangalore, a tiny new wave of joy surged through me. I felt like Rahul. He was jumping on his toes anticipating the excitement of sliding down the colourful slides at the amusement centre. The new games, the new slides.
I gazed around. Bright light, fragrant air, designer clothes hung on sale, soothed my senses for that minute. I dropped Rahul into the secured amusement zone, paid for an hour of indulgence, bid him bye and decided to up my spirits by roaming around in the mall.
After some window shopping, I sat at the Star bucks sipping on my favourite cappuccino with the a plate of chocolate cookies, brooding over absolutely nothing. The ceramic cup holding the cappuccino was plain white with no flowers on it. Slender artistic lines in dark brown colour had been drawn on the froth on top. The lines vaguely depicted an apple. Oh perhaps it was a slightly bloated heart that I did not notice. As I stirred the froth, shredding the apple shaped heart into miscible pieces, a man in beige jerkin walked to my table. His was a familiar figure, a nostalgic image.
He hit my shoulder with his large palms like I was his childhood buddy who had played marbles with him on his street. Startled, I looked up, removing my spectacles. There he was, Aakash, my friend in flesh and blood and smiles, right in front after 10 long years.
I smiled a deep smile. The feeling was great. You see there are no real reasons to smile so deep in nine year old marriages otherwise.
I sprang to my feet, rushed to him and hugged lightly. There it was, my new slide, new game.
We spoke, like old times, laughing out loud and thumping the table hard when conversations turned uncontrollably hilarious.
I saw that he had grown a beard. It covered most of his cheeks and made him look wiser or older. His teeth sparkled from in between the thick lips when he smiled, which he did ever so often. His jeans looked rugged, his hair, well styled and his cologne, intoxicating.
He sipped on his coffee slowly as he narrated his life adventures as a wild life photographer. I pictured him walking through thick rain forests capturing hidden birds on his DSLR. I could feel the heaviness of the lens in the bag that he carried on his back and the dampness in his gum boots as he crossed marshy lakes.
He had traveled half the world, he said.
‘Amazon jungles are the best and South African safaris,a treat to any photographer’s lens.’ He claimed.
He had always wanted to travel, I remembered. The day he left for his photography workshop to be held in Shimla, soon after engineering, he had stopped by my house to say good bye and propose something.
‘I really like you’ He had confessed. ‘I wish to travel the world. This is how I want my life to be, nomadic, adventurous. Will you come with me?’ He had asked plainly , unwavering in his voice or expressions.
‘I will be back in three months, think over it Sneha.’ He had offered time when I looked unsure.
I was amused at the clarity that Aakash possessed so early in life. At an age when I wasn’t sure which salon was better for my eyebrows, Aakash knew how his entire life journey was going to be . I had envied his vision and his ability to abandon the stereotypes.
Three months later when he dropped by as promised, Rakesh was already my fiancée. A masters from IIT, six figure salary, clean shaven face and neat leather shoes on feet was any day a more secure option than walking on swamps in wild forests. We had politely stopped communicating with each other from then on.
Laid back on his chair at Starbucks, Aakash was scrolling down his gallery showing off his latest clicks. The sunsets were tantalising, the birds flying with large spread out wings were breathtaking. I craned my neck to catch every tiny detail of the landscape in his pictures.
‘I am going next week to the Gir forests in Gujarat for a two week stay. Want to join?’ He stared for a while seriously into my eyes almost getting me to imagine breaking my marriage and eloping with him on a bike. I could even see my backpack bulge and my hair fly as we sped on it. I felt cold.
Before I could answer, may be affirmatively, he ended that conversation with a big guffaw, clapping his hand, making me blink and look away, stung by the coldness of his laugh .
‘I was just joking.’ He added.
‘So, do you have someone else accompanying you?’ I dropped the words itching on my tongue.
‘You mean girl friends? Well, I got engaged.’ He wriggled his right hand ring finger. Four diamonds arranged in a square, sparkled as he did so.
‘Sheetal, my fiancée doesn’t like much of travelling. She is a chef in Delhi. She is fine with my lifestyle, this arrangement. We meet once in a few months.’ He said , going back to scrolling his pics.
I could feel the excitement of such far flung meetings with a fiancée. They would probably walk around the Red Fort, hand in hand, stealing pecks, exchanging meaningful glances or just trot along slowly , discovering new lanes, tasting parathas in a narrow street, exclaiming how spicy the chutney is, may be offering water to each other or him just letting her take a bite of his rasgulla.
‘Do you have any pictures of her ?’
I felt an urgent need to see her face to make my imaginations of them together more vivid.
‘Why don’t you follow me on insta ? I have plenty of pictures there.’ He shut his screen.
I pursed my lips and nodded my head.
There was an uncomfortable silence as we walked towards the amusement area to pick up Rahul.
Rahul ran to us when the gates opened . His jumps had become less bouncy and his eyes had withered.
When I introduced them to each other, Aakash squat on his toes to reach Rabul’s face and offered him a hand shake which Rahul ignored.
‘Amma, I am hungry.’ He growled instead.
‘Let me take the little champ to an ice-cream shop. My treat.’ Aakash announced.
We walked holding each of Rahul’s hand on either side. From afar we would have looked like just another urban nuclear family but no one would know the smouldering longing for the unknown that was lurking underneath my heart.
‘Keep in touch.’ We said to each other as we left the mall.
Rakesh was home when we entered. The familiar fragrance made home feel homely.
‘Did you get my message that I was going to the mall?’ I asked, dropping the keys in the drawer.
‘Yes. I came home just a little while ago.’ Rakesh said without taking his eyes off the television. He was in his pyjamas and was sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the teapoy, watching cricket. His cheeks had a faint stubble which was greying in irregular clumps and his hair had overgrown.
My body was aching. I longed to sit beside him and place my head on his shoulders. Rahul was tired of the new games too.
‘Hey young man ? How was the trip ? What did you play?’ He walked over, picked up a hunched Rahul and I went to the room to freshen up.
‘I made you some tea. You had left behind yours on the table.’ He said, when I came out of the bathroom, pointing to the cup of piping hot tea on the kitchen counter. Fragrant steam was rising up the edge of the unbroken porcelain cup with intact flowers on it.
I sipped the elaichi tea. A wave of heat and freshness spread through my throat and chest.
Rahul slept early and we had a quick dinner.
Before going to bed, I checked the mobile. Aakash had sent a pic of himself and his fiancée, smiling against the backdrop of a snow capped mountain. They were wearing similar looking blue jeans and white shirts with leather jerkin and long boots on. Akash had put his arm around her shoulders and she had cuddled up in his embrace. His bike was seen standing next to them. Her hair was flying. I wondered if she was feeling cold.
I sent him a thumbs up and closed the mobile.
I curled up next to Rakesh, my head on his arms, my arm over his chest and my legs flung on his thighs. He pulled me a little closer. It felt warm.
‘I met an old friend today.’ I said.
‘Hmm... who?’ He asked, scrolling through his messages with the other hand.
I narrated most of what I knew about Aakash except his old proposal. I even told the thing about his fiancée who was probably feeling cold.
‘So, you want to go on trips like that too? On a bike ?’
He kept away his mobile and turned to me, smelling my sweaty hair.
‘No. I like being warm at home.’ I hugged him tighter.
As he began to kiss, I checked if Rahul lying on the other side of the bed was asleep enough to not notice us. His eyes were half open, his arms were flung up but there was a subtle smile on his lips. He appeared calm and contended. And, so was I.
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