marriage

I first realised the error of my ways when, out of sheer boredom, I typed my married name in Google. It promptly asked me to think it over, and asked me in with full seriousness: did you mean Aastha Atray ‘Banana’. No, obviously I didn’t mean that. But then there are many things you don’t mean, but still end up saying or doing once you get married — that too if you’re a North Indian married to a South Indian. Now, I am not being prejudiced. I wouldn’t. Because, here, I am the victim of prejudice. I, who has been labelled a stuck-up North Indian and an incorrigible “Delhi brat” — all by my own husband.
I am also loud, domineering, spoilt, irresponsible, an insufferable snob and a show off, vain to the bone and also completely useless around the house — again, all because I am from Delhi. According to my husband, it’s because of my North Indian mentality that I am immune to what is truly life. My inability to pay the bills, get the rice cooker repaired and monitor our errant bai, form the basis of my spoilt existence. Our fights usually begin with small sparks, which are obviously set off by my ‘Delhiness’ —food being the biggest drawback. If I refuse to eat yellow dal for the 3rd time in a week, and order pizza instead, I am sure to be greeted with the brat expletive. And though he indulges my shopping sprees, if there are no vegetables or bread or butter or milk in the fridge next day, the favourite rebuke is, “You can remember to buy yourself unnecessary clothes, but this, you don’t have a clue. So Delhi!” And God save me if I ever interrupt his lectures addressed to me with an “okay, okay, I get it now”. Because, according to him, that is where I show my Delhiness the most — being a little miss know-it all.
My defense to all his misconceptions has always been the same — does living in a city with wide roads Mumbaiites couldn’t even begin to imagine, affordable real estate, honest to God dal makhni and ample parking space make me an arrogant know-it-all?
Most of the times, I squeeze out of these North-South squabbles with my sweet Delhi drawl and fluttering North Indian eyelashes. Anyway, love conquers all, doesn’t it? Just in case it doesn’t, I’m going to hide this edition. If my husband dearest does manage to read it, I have just one thing to say, in the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.” Sp I guess, we will be, just alright.

unititled- still waiting for the end to hit me

I was getting grouchy. My legs were moving restlessly and my stomach cramping. The song on my iPod was thumping…thump…thump…and I could feel his face forming in front of mine slowly and clearly. His tall frame, those soulful eyes, the way you couldn’t tell if her really liked you or were you just a lunch date. The way he indulged me so intimately sometimes and sometimes left me feeling a little out of the loop. The way he stood a little loopy, with a cigarette dangling off his lips, and that hair in his eyes, listening to a comedy show on his phone, as he waited for me outside pizza hut. The way he casually hugged me for the first 5 dates and then as I drove off after a morning rendezvous on our 6th date, pulled me just a little from my car window and gave me a sweet kiss. It had been a wonderful day.
I remember a few years ago when we had a small fling, just before we went our separate ways for a really long time. He had ended it by sending me a message on my phone that said, the flame has died out. When I had asked me forlornly what happened, he said that the passion had just subsided. We never spoke about it again. I look back and wonder why I didn’t react the way I usually did in such circumstances. Why didn’t I sulk and brood, cry, call and message him. But as strange it may sound - I know I didn’t go all ballistic because he had always been the tall, cool one – a la Jim Morrison. And I couldn’t let him think I wasn’t cool. So I couldn’t tell now. And when we had got back together, he was still the cool one, and I was still the uncool one pretending to be cool. So I could never tell. I had not been able to tell.
He had stood with a bunch of posies in a light beige shirt that looked so good with his flawless face. The only thing I remember other than the shirt was his face. Ho could I forget that? The expression was a mixture of long longing and strange apprehension on how I was going to react. There was joy too, the bubbling under kind of joy. A joy that was so innocent and so large in measure that I had felt shy as I walked up to me. He had slowly put his arms around me and lent down slowly. And then he just held me. My toes were off the floor and my arms around him. “People are looking’” I whispered smiling into his ears. I don’t think he heard me because he stood like that for a while before he finally let me go. “You’re here now, and you’re mine.” I had always known with him, I could always tell. It had been just so much easier.

I went to watch the movie alone. It was about a woman who loses her husband in the war and then spends her life pining for him as his brother tries his best to keep her happy. Her last words are, “It was never anyone but him. I could see him till my dying day.” I felt like that sometimes. Especially when I saw him sitting on a car, parked in a colony on one side of the rail tracks, as I stood on the edge of the women’s compartment. I used to smile at him sometimes. And then here he was, sitting next to me, just sometimes leaning towards me, smiling a little, and then nodding in despair, the way he used to when I put on his favourite perfume. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he used to flirt. “I can’t concentrate now….”
I slipped out of the theatre and put on my wedding rung. I couldn’t wear it when I was sitting with him inside, could I? Granted, he wasn’t actually there, but his thought was. It would have been a betrayal. But wasn’t just thinking about anyone else a betrayal?
He was suddenly talking to me. He was whispering in my ear. I tried to shake it off.
“You know you want to call me. Please dial my number…you remember it. I am here. I thought you’ll change your mind. You had kissed me that night you remember, that last kiss. When I wasn’t letting you go. And you suddenly had slammed the car door and run away. You perfume had lingered in my car for days.”

There was no doubt that I loved him. Every time he held me tight on a Monday morning before I left for work as I cried lofty tears at the prospect of being away from him, I knew I loved him. Every time he carried me from the door to my bed when I came home from a long day at work, I knew I loved him. Every time he nestled his head in the nook of my arm and begged for forgiveness, I knew I loved him. I loved him and I knew I would never ever leave him. So why was I doing this.
“That’s the real question. Why are you sitting here with me, when you say you love him,” he smiled cockily at me. His fingers were in my hair and I could feel him laughing behind my back. “I can’t explain it. But when you ask me questions like these, it makes me not want to be with you. It makes you mean,” I said and looked back at him. He wasn’t there. Oh how I wished he was there.
Was I going to get in touch with him? Just a message…no, then he would know my number and if he ever called me or messaged me…no, no, no. May be I’d call from office or from the office or form a colleague’s phone. No, that would still be traceable. I had to leave no trace. I just wanted to hear his voice, tell him how I was, ask him how he was. I just wanted to hear that he missed me. That he was trying to forget me and that he was delighted that I had called. Just or a bit, just to hear his voice. I wanted to call him, but I didn’t want to stay in touch. Would he understand that? I held the phone in my hand and dialed his number for the 100th time. No, no, no…this wasn’t how I was going to do this.

I was standing below his house. His car was parked in the driveway at a strange angle, leading me to believe that he was not okay. The stairs just seemed too many to climb, and at each I stopped and turned around. I couldn’t do this to the one I truly loved. But I had to do it for myself. The door bell boomed in my ear and I suddenly before I could even breathe a breath, he stood there….What had I hoped would happen? What was going to happen?
I walked in and sat on the bed and looked around. The dust just sat there and I was part of it. Dull, lifeless and dirty, I was nothing better than the dirt on his books, on his music system, on the floor. He touched me on my hand and suddenly as if on cue, my phone rang.