The Private Life of Mrs Sharma

by Ratika Kapur

  From time to time I miss my husband. On a night when I feel like this I miss my husband very much. I want him to be here. I want him to start the washing machine and take off his clothes quickly, then take off my clothes, then I want him to do what a husband is supposed to do, as he used to do when he was here. And when all that is finished, when our bodies have become hot and our hearts have become happy, I want him to wash himself and wear his night suit and lie down next to me and close his eyes and go to sleep quickly, so that I can then talk to him, his sleeping body, a sleeping body that listens quietly, that listens without giving more words, as I used to do when he was here.

  14

  Saturday, 16 July 2011

  Then there are days when you could tell me to run all the way up to Vaishno Devi and down again, and I would be able to do it without any effort at all. I would be able to do it carrying an elephant on my back. Today I feel lighter again, but strong. I can move. That stone-heavy feeling has lifted. Now I actually feel warm blood flowing freely through my body. I feel good, finally. I feel well and truly good and strong again. I think that I could float.

  I met Vineet on Thursday, his off-day, and it was nice. He invited me to his house, and because Bobby was going to Nehru Place after school with his friend Ankit, I agreed. And I don’t think that it was wrong.

  Do you want to come to my house? he had said on Monday morning when we were on the train.

  Your house? I said.

  Yes, my house.

  I did not say anything.

  Then he said, My house is just a house, it is not some disco bar.

  And your mother? I said.

  She has gone out of station, he said.

  And so I went.

  And what did we do? Most of the time we only talked. We talked about many topics, like the bomb blasts in Mumbai the evening before, his mother, hill stations. I like to talk to him. He does not talk too much, he never talks without reason, but when he speaks, he speaks intelligently, whether it is about the problems with Muslims or about women’s minds or about the Himalayas. And he did ask me about Bobby again, How is your brother? he said, and I did not mind. I told him about how Bobby wanted to leave school, how he wanted to be a cook of all things, and that nobody at home could understand what to do. But this time, after listening to me quietly for quite a long time, Vineet actually offered me advice, which he had never ever done before.

  Maybe your parents should not force him, he said to me. Maybe they should make him understand it for himself.

  You know a lot about all this, I said jokily. How many children are you hiding from me?

  He laughed, and then he said, Do you remember that TV serial Fauji?

  I did remember it. My father used to go to the neighbour’s house to watch it. The Shahrukh Khan serial, no? I said.

  Yes, but at that time nobody knew him, Vineet said.

  So? I said. You wanted to be a soldier?

  I think that I was only seven or eight years of age when it started, he said. But, you know, I watched each and every episode, even during my exams. It used to come on Wednesdays. I never ever missed it. I wanted to be a commando. Even after the serial ended, for years and years that was my only dream. To be a commando. But my parents were totally against it. How can we give our only child to the army? they used to say. How can we let our son die? For years and years my father shouted at me and my mother cried, but I refused to listen. Then one day when I was in the eleventh standard my father enrolled me in the NCC and I was sent for one of those training camps.

  And you couldn’t eat the food? I said.

  And I couldn’t shit in a mud-hole, he said.

  We both laughed, and I understood what he was trying to tell me.

  See, this is the type of person Vineet is. When he says something to you, there is a proper reason for it. There is some lesson. That is why I like to talk to him.

  After we talked for some time I told him that it was getting late and that we should eat our lunch. What can I say? He had cooked for me. There were eight dishes, I think, all from different parts of the world. He had made baked vegetables, pasta in red sauce, Chinese noodles that was nothing like the chowmein we normally eat, but something so tasty, with mushrooms and broccoli, and then paneer and dal and vegetable biryani and salad. Nobody has ever cooked for me like this before. And so we spent the rest of the afternoon just eating and talking. We ate all this tasty food and then we just talked, and that is all.

  When I came back home from Vineet’s house I decided to make an agreement with Bobby. I told him that as long as he gets good marks in class and comes back home by seven o’clock and studies properly at night-time, he could go and work in Ankit’s father’s restaurant two days a week after school. I also made him promise me that he would take no money, not one paisa, from Ankit’s father, because as soon as somebody gives you money, no matter what the reason for it is and no matter how big or small the amount is, that person, that person who pays you, will now have power over you, will now be able to control you. I set these conditions and Bobby agreed to them happily.

  I know that this was probably a foolish thing, but what could I do? Day in and day out Bobby had been lying around the house with a long face, telling me how he hates school and how he wants to be a chef. My hands were tied. And the truth is that I don’t want to be like those other mothers who discipline their children with a stick. So, I thought that if I let him go to that restaurant he will very quickly understand for himself how foolish he is to get into all this cooking business.

  I should thank Vineet for this. I should thank him for this clearness of mind and lightness of body. But is it only men who can do this? Why is it that when I come out of the prayer room or walk out of a temple I don’t feel this clearness, this lightness? Is it only men who have the words and actions that make a woman feel fine? Is it only men who have that magic?

  The nuns at the convent school used to tell us that God did not speak for four hundred years. But that was their God. Let those Christians wait another four hundred years for their one and only great God to speak to them. But what about You, Durga Ma? You can’t just quietly stand there draped in pretty cloths and pretty flowers and pretty scents. Speak to me, my Durga Ma. Come to me. Don’t make me go to men.

  15

  Friday, 22 July 2011

  Now I know why Durga Ma behaves the way that She does. Now I know why She is always quiet. It is not because she is God. No. It is because She is a woman, and only a woman understands that life is complicated and that life’s problems cannot be solved with ten or twenty simple words. But if you tell a man your troubles, he just quickly throws a solution to you, and because you are hungry and desperate for it you quickly swallow it up, like a desperate and hungry dog you swallow it up. And then what happens?

  I told Vineet about how Bobby wanted to be a cook, he told me what to do, I listened to him, and you know what happened? I smelt alcohol. This evening, when Bobby came back from the restaurant, I swear on God, I swear on my husband, that I could smell alcohol. I was not born yesterday. I know that smell, that too sweet smell that attacks your head and your stomach, and makes you want to vomit. And I am sure that this was the smell that Bobby brought back home today. Even now, as that boy sleeps here on his cot, I can smell it.

  What a fool I have been, what a stupid, stupid fool. I thought that everything was fine. Since my in-laws left, Bobby and I, the two of us by ourselves, have been spending a lot of time together, and after I allowed Bobby to work at the restaurant, he has been in such a good mood, and we have been talking and laughing such a lot together. And the truth is that for all these weeks I had actually removed from my mind that time in June when Bobby went to hospital. I had told myself that after the type of scolding I gave him he would never ever do such a thing again, and then I forgot the matter, totally forgot it, because difficult times have to be forgotten, they have to be left behind in their place in the past so that we can move forward.

  What a fool I
have been. What a fool I was to listen to Vineet.

  Men like Doctor Sahib drink alcohol, but they are different to our men. They drink for different reasons. Men like Doctor Sahib drink because they are happy, not to become happy. Drinking for them is timepass, enjoyable timepass, like watching a film or eating in a nice restaurant. They drink to celebrate their life, not to escape it. You come to know this just by seeing how they drink. Doctor Sahib and his type of people sit in their own houses in beautiful rooms on soft sofas and slowly sip imported whiskey from crystal glasses. They are not trying to escape anything. They are just sitting in their houses, enjoying their life. But our men run off with their cheap alcohol to some dark shady place and try to drink away their troubles straight from their cheap half-bottles. They run away to drink and they drink to run away.

  Still, why did Bobby drink? Why did he drink then, in June? And then now? Because I don’t let him bunk school? Because I did not let him subscribe to Active Cooking? But two months ago I bought him one of the latest Micromax touch phones. And one month ago I bought him dumbbells because he said that he wants to be fit and healthy, even though I think that it is actually just to impress the girl with the green eyes at the bus stop. And last week I bought him another pair of new shoes, and even though the brand is not some big name, they are costly genuine leather shoes. So, why?

  All evening I have wanted to ask that boy one question. Why did you drink? Why did you drink, my son? What did your mother do or not do that pushed you to that poison? Can you imagine this? Can you imagine a mother, a mother lying in her bed at night-time who should be thinking about what to prepare for her son’s tiffin tomorrow, but who is thinking about her son drinking instead?

  All evening I tiptoed around that boy. I wanted to ask him, I wanted to shout, and just now, this second, I want to wake him up and shake him hard. But I can’t ask him. How can a person ask a question whose each and every answer will be wrong? So, I still just tiptoe around him quietly.

  Where is my husband? Where is the father of this child? He needs to be here with his mad wife and drunken child. He needs to be here to hold his woman and thrash his son. The scene just now should be a little bit different. My husband should have come back home from the hospital in Vasant Kunj, had his tea, had his bath, then, while lying down on the divan, I would have told him about Bobby and then he would have beaten him, because it would have been his duty to beat him. And then after that, at about this time, when Bobby would have gone to sleep and the flat was dark and quiet, he would have started the washing machine and pulled me into bed without a sound and everything would have been just a little bit better.

  But am I so foolish to think like this? He is just one more man, one more man who will say some useless words to me, do some stupid things to me. And then what?

  16

  Sunday, 24 July 2011

  That day when I went to Vineet’s house and he cooked for me and we talked about Bobby and what not, that Thursday I did not only share my thoughts with him, but I also shared my body. Yes, I had sex with another man. And, actually, I also had sex with him yesterday, and I don’t think that it was wrong.

  It is not that shocking, actually. Everybody knows that everybody does it. Man or woman, everybody does it. Look at my husband. He happily told me about how the men he lives with go to some Anglo nurse from the hospital, but that he, my sweet and innocent husband, he just thinks about his wife and masturbates. Was I born yesterday? I did not ask him that day, but I want to ask him some questions now. My dear husband, when the bodies of those around you are blessed with sleep while yours lies alone on its bed restless and desperate to be held, what do you do? Tell me. Do you actually just masturbate with pictures of your faraway wife in your mind? Is that actually the truth? But what happens when your own hand is now not enough, when your body screams to be touched by a hand that is not your own? What do you do then, my dear? What do you do? You are not supposed to lie to me. And you don’t need to lie. I am your wife, remember? I am your wife, and a wife knows. A wife has to understand. I see the quiet in your eyes every Friday and Sunday, I see the peace in them, the type of peace that can only come when the body is also at peace. You can tell me the truth. You are allowed to tell me that you also line up outside the Anglo nurse’s room like those other men do.

  I think that my husband is right about one thing. I have become a bold woman. Still, what does it actually mean? What is a bold woman? What does she do? Isn’t she just a person who, like the men around her, does certain things without feeling scared? When people say, Oh, look at that woman, she is so bold, what are they saying? Actually, the only thing that they are saying is that she is not scared to make certain types of decisions. It is just like what I say about poverty, about how poverty is like being in jail and you can decide to suffer in your cell or you can decide to be free. I decided to free our family of its suffering and so I convinced my husband to go to Dubai, and many people said that I was so bold, and some people said that I had gone mad, but what do these people know? It is the same thing here. See, what did I do? I had sex with Vineet. This time it was not about my family but about my body. I decided to free my body. I decided to free my body of suffering, another type of suffering, obviously, but actually it is not that different. It is still the type of suffering that comes from the pain of need.

  So, call me bold and also call me mad, because sometimes it seems that bold and mad are one and the same things, but, yes, I had sex with Vineet. And what is this thing called sex? It is just a natural thing that the body needs, like food and water. I read about it in a magazine at the clinic. A bodily need, that is what the article called it, and the article was written by an American doctor. A bodily need, that is all. If the washing machine was working, if that useless mechanic had actually come to fix it, maybe I would not have had sex with Vineet. Maybe, as I normally did, I would have just switched on the machine, and thought about my husband and me when he was still here in Delhi, and touched myself, and everything would have been fine.

  Still, everything will be fine. Anybody is free to call me bold or mad or both, but nobody can point a finger at me and say that I am not still a respectable woman. And I think that Vineet is also still a respectable man. Both of us have duties to our families that we fulfil, duties to our jobs that we fulfil, and we fulfil each and every one of them without fail. So, if for just one or two hours we put those duties on one side and took off our clothes and put those down on the other side, what was wrong? Can you actually say that this, these small, little actions, made us less respectable people?

  And there is one more thing that I have to tell. The day before yesterday when Bobby came back home smelling of alcohol I was very troubled. I was so troubled that I could not cook, I could not clean, I could not eat or get sleep. I had a bath, I tried my level best to pray, but nothing brought me peace. The fact that my son, Renuka Sharma’s son, had drunk alcohol was already so horrible, but what made everything more difficult, much, much more difficult, was that I was all alone. The one and only other person who could have helped me, the person whose duty as the father of this boy is to discipline him and whose duty as the husband of this woman is to help her in difficult times, this person was not here.

  So then what did I do? What did I do when the smell of alcohol filled my nose and made me want to vomit out each and every grain of food in my stomach? What did I do when the sight of my son made me want to catch him by his hair and throw him out on to the road? I could not call up my husband and tell him to come back and take control of his dirty son. And I did not go into the prayer room or to the temple, because we don’t forget our problems, we don’t forget our children, in the presence of God. I know that praying gives us great strength and without God’s blessings we cannot survive, but actually, the time we spend in God’s company is the time when we remember everything that troubles us. So what did I do? What could I do? I called up Vineet, because the truth is that just now no husband, no God can give me the calm that he
can give me. I called up Vineet, and I told him directly that I had to see him because I needed to do what we had done that Thursday before, and he said, Fine, and he told me to meet him at his hotel on Saturday afternoon, which was yesterday.

  When I got on to the train to meet Vineet, the only thing that I wanted was to have sex. All that I wanted was a man, the weight of a man, on me, and just like I wanted my body to be crushed under him, I also wanted each and every thought in my mind to be crushed. But what actually happened?

  Vineet and I did have sex. Because it was the weekend and the hotel is a business hotel, many rooms were empty. Vineet kindly let me choose a room and I chose a beautiful room with a huge window from which you could see the IFFCO Chowk Metro station and the Kingdom of Dreams, which looked so grand. So, we had sex, and it was very nice, it was even nicer than the first time, but that is how it is, that is also how it was with my husband, when each time we had sex it got better and better, so we had sex, Vineet and I, but then what did I go and do after that?

  I told Vineet everything. After we had sex and we were lying on that beautiful hotel bed and looking out of the window at the colourful buildings of Kingdom of Dreams, something happened to me and I said, Vineet, I have to tell you something, and he turned his eyes to me, and even though I did not see this, because how could I look at him while talking to him about such things, I could still feel his eyes on me, and then he said, Tell me.

  And I told him. I told him everything. I told him that I was married and that my husband works in Dubai. I told him that Bobby is my son, not my brother, and that like him, Vineet, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I told him about my parents and my in-laws and everything. And then I said that I would understand if he was angry, even though he did not have any reason to be angry because I did not purposely lie about my life or hide anything and that actually there were many times when I had wanted to tell him everything but he had never, not even one time in all these months, bothered to ask me and so that is why I did not tell him.