Madhuri Banerjee is an Indian bestselling author and writer. She is a blogger at CNN-IBN, a columnist with The Asian Age, an Ad film director, a screenplay writer for Bollywood films, and a mother. Madhuri has won a National Award for her poignant and realistic documentary on the issues that women face, Between Dualities. Madhuri Banerjee is the bestselling author of five books including Advantage Love and Scandalous Housewives.
Madhuri is available on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Madhuribanerjee with over 18,000 followers.
Her personal blog www.madhuribanerjee.blogspot.in has nearly five lakh views.
And her Facebook account is https://www.facebook.com/banerjeemadhuri.
She is a world traveler, an avid reader, a coffee addict, an amateur photographer, an Instagram addict, a doting mother. Know more about her on www.madhuribanerjee.in.
Published by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2016
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Copyright © Madhuri Banerjee 2016
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN: …
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First impression 2016
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This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
Ariaana—For being the only Princess in the world for me.
You make me so proud every day. Never change who you are.
You are perfect for me.
Bala—For choosing to be in my life every day with all my ‘nakhras’. Love you forever.
Kiran—For showing me new perspectives and giving me strength every day. Grateful.
Prerna—For thinking beyond and loving me no matter what. Humbled.
Tanveer—For your creative ideas and everlasting dramatic scenes. Truly thankful.
Mom—For ‘Like’-ing everything I post on Facebook and trying to understand me better. You are my backbone. Xoxo.
Table of Contents
Naina
1
2
3
4
5
6
Ayesha
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Kavita
18
19
20
21
22
23
Kaajal
24
25
26
Intersection
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
3 Years Later
40
41
42
43
Epilogue
44
NAINA
1
Naina: Born and brought up in London to Punjabi parents. Smart as paint with an Honours degree in English Literature. Uber cool. Supremely sexy. High exotic cheek bones over her porcelain white skin. Sparkling brown eyes. Long, dark brown hair. Model features but more sophisticated, with curves. 34 DD chest. Takes oomph to another level. Excellent cook.
Met Kaushik, her husband, in London. In a bus. They both went for the same seat. ‘Ladies first,’ he had said. She was playful that day, ‘No no, it’s reserved for the elderly.’ It was instant attraction. They decided not to sit. Chatted for hours in a coffee shop. Till the rains came and went. It was love at first sight. A well-meaning friend would later try to warn Naina, ‘Men who fall in love so quickly fall out of it just as quickly.’ By then the advice had come too late; Naina was in love, she didn’t care: the chemistry was electrifying. The first thing she noticed about him was his hands (‘love those fingers in my hair…pulling me back hard…’) He was captivated by her no-nonsense attitude. Her drive to succeed. Her gorgeous breasts.
‘Ask me a dirty question,’ she had brushed her foot against his leg at the coffee shop on their first date. That had immediately given him a hard on. He’d never met an Indian woman like this. She was different from most Indian women he had ever met. Probably because they were all so homely. This one? This one was challenging.
‘How long does a shag last?’
Without blinking she had answered as if it was most natural for two strangers to talk this way, ‘10 to 20 minutes. You?’
‘About 40 minutes.’
‘Liar.’
An hour later he would prove he wasn’t a liar. They went to his place and she didn’t leave till the next morning. He was right. Forty minutes.
Six months later, they were married.
Naina’s parents loved Kaushik. They couldn’t have arranged it better if they had put an ad in the matrimonial papers. Tall, good-looking, cultured, studying to become a lawyer. Enamored by their daughter. Born of cultured Bengali parents who lived in Chittranjan Park. Soft spoken. A family man. Perfect.
But Kaushik’s parents were apprehensive about her Punjabi background. ‘Too much rowdiness don’t you think, Kaushik?’
‘Oh yes,’ Kaushik had replied. ‘But I like it like that.’ They gave in. He was their only son and they wanted him to be happy.
Kaushik and Naina couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They would find ways to meet up in the middle of the day for a quick shag. They worked round the clock at their jobs. Both were passionate about their careers. He loved that about her: a woman as driven as him made him wild with pleasure.
They would drink at bars and dance the night away only to go back to work in the morning. London allowed them to do that. The city demanded more out of you. Their love gave them that stamina.
As soon as they got married she moved into his apartment in Soho, giving up the rented place which she shared with a roommate. She wasn’t homely at all except for the cooking. She made elaborate dinners for Kaushik, fattening him up with her food and her love.
After six months of marital bliss, she was pregnant. She held the pregnancy stick, leaning against the bathroom sink, staring at the clear, two lines, ‘Fuck! How could this be?’ They were so sure they were doing the withdrawal method properly! It was too soon for them to have a child.
They discussed if they should keep the baby. ‘I’d like to spend more time with you,’ Kaushik had said. But what else could he say? It was her body, after all. And he did want to be a father at some point. He was hoping, though, that it didn’t happen now.
‘I still want to work,’ Naina had disclosed, unsure, a train of thoughts trailing behind what she spoke.
But then they went for their first sonography, and they heard the baby’s heartbeat. So fast! And alive! That’s when they knew they were ready to have a baby.
They moved back to Delhi. Both their parents were there; it would be easier to take care of a child. He got a job with an international law firm in New Delhi. At first Naina was hesitant to leave London and her career. But with a little convincing from her parents that she could soon find a job in India and manage a child, she was eager to come back home.
Her parents were happy. They didn’t like her working in London anyway. They always said she didn’t come down to visit often enough. She would always say she couldn’t afford to take leave from work, getting only two weeks off in a year. ‘I’m a chef at Four Seasons, Ma,’ Naina would remind them. ‘Someday I’ll bring you here and you’ll see for yourself how packed we are and how busy I am all the time.’
Her parents didn’t have to worry once they were in Delhi. They saw her all the time. A little too much for Kaushik’s liking, though. ‘Please don’t make me go to their house again,’ he would plead ever so often. She had her complaints too: she was tired of all the Bengali food at his parents’ place, to start with. ‘I want to stay at home and have pizza, Kaushik,’ she would whine. ‘I can’t have fish curry-rice again for Sunday lunch!’
Soon their daughter, whom they would name Shonali, was born. A year later Shiuli came. Naina cursed herself for being so fertile. Things began to change between Naina and Kaushik; their new life unraveled. Dirty nappies replaced dirty talk. Sleeping replaced shagging. Love replaced lust. Conversation dwindled, caring increased.
Naina slowly lost her friends from London and the old ones from Delhi—who were still single, clueless and intolerant about conversations of cracked nipples and postpartum depression. It was too much for them. ‘Babe, where’s the Naina who used to dance on bar counters and rub against strange men?’
But Naina liked being a mother. Sleepless nights and body changes notwithstanding, she wanted to be the best mother she could be to her two girls. She used to think she didn’t have it in her to be nurturing; yet here she was, turning into a fierce, protective caretaker of her children. A biological instinct was evoked and Naina became more soft, caring and gentle. She listened more, read more. She even started doing laundry!
The wild Naina was tamed. Sex took a back seat. Who had the time? And her body changed. Her moods affected her. As her friend had warned, Kaushik’s love faded and they grew apart. It took only five years but it happened. Couples stay together for the sake of their children. Never for the sake of the love that brought them together. Too often even the memories of the love fade away. Or the demand for it to return brings with it a burden. Couples easily move into new roles as parents, or some ‘in-law’ to someone in the family. People flood their lives. It pushes the love towards the back.
Naina tried to get Kaushik to love her again. But he was so busy with work that he forgot what it meant to be passionate for her at all. She tried every trick in the book but often enough she was tired. Motherhood was too damn tiring. Two small children who constantly needed her attention and her milk. It left her body depleted. And when a woman stops giving her body to her husband, the husband finds a way to stop giving his time to his wife.
After five years of looking after two children, Naina started working again. She gave cooking classes to batches of four people every alternate weekday, for six weeks at a stretch. It gave her the opportunity to pursue her passion and still be able to have the time to fulfill her other duties, like picking up her children from school. She eventually found a group of mothers with whom she was comfortable, and they met every Monday for lunch that lasted several hours. They kept in touch often and formed a WhatsApp group. All this gave her some relief, though sometimes she found their lifestyle to be very alien to hers.
These new friends of Naina’s organized parties that were so elaborate. Their clothes were always designer. They travelled abroad for vacations and called celebrities to their homes for musical evenings. As much as she wanted to fit in with the South Delhi crowd, Naina couldn’t. Sure, they loved her British accent, but there were things about her they didn’t relate to: she was cautious with her money, she didn’t flaunt her possessions like they did. She knew the value of money, having worked hard all her professional life in London and having the sense to save. She couldn’t join them for all their outings to eat out or shop for new bags as often as she liked. Still she made an effort, as these shallow activities stopped her loneliness. Sometimes.
She devoted herself to her cooking classes. In one of the batches, she met a producer of a TV channel who encouraged her to audition for the Masterchef competition. She did, and she got in, and eventually she won the title. It was grueling but she proved to herself and to Kaushik that the fire within her had not died. Everyone was so proud of her Masterchef stint. Kaushik threw her a party the evening that she won the title. Everyone said she should just cater her party herself. She had fun that night. It would be the last time Kaushik did anything nice for her.
She soon realized that he did nice things only when people were around to see what a good husband he was and how lucky she was to have him. It made her blood boil sometimes when he refused to lift a finger when she asked him for help but would do the same thing when her parents were visiting. They couldn’t understand why she complained about him; soon she stopped.
‘You’ve had a love marriage, Naina. Now make it work!’ her mother had told her. They were conservative Punjabi parents who lived in Karol Bagh. They had a mundane existence and barely understood their daughter. Her need to cook for a competition, her need to live abroad, her supposed wild ways were alien to them. They loved her but never understood her.
For sure, though, they were proud when she became famous. Since that day, life became hectic. The kids needed to go to school and she had work to do. Her WhatsApp group helped her whenever they could. But they missed her being around to gossip with them. Her parents came more often to look after the children. She began to work on a cookbook and started her own cookery show on a channel.
In the midst of all this madness, Kaushik and Naina’s marriage took even more of a back seat. Their conversations dwindled to, ‘Will you be home for dinner?’ While he encouraged her to live out her dreams, his actions did not back his rhetoric; he wasn’t supportive enough to look after their small kids in her absence. A part of her resented him for not taking a step back from his own work when her career was taking off. Why did she always have to make the sacrifices? It was fine for Kaushik to imply, ‘I will love you as you earn a handsome income while I sit at home and look after the kids.’ But when the time came to live up to his words, Kaushik had always felt that this was nothing more than a temporary arrangement in Naina’s life and therefore he shouldn’t give up his own career. What would society say, after all? His ego would take a huge blow.
Eventually, Naina took a step back. Even though she was outstanding—less than seven years of working in Delhi since she moved from London, and she had already reached the heights where she was—and she was being given more offers, she stepped back. She went back to giving cooking classes at home. And even though her parents told her to continue with her TV shows and travelling around the world to cook with renowned chefs, she wanted to be there with her children. She needed them to know their parents hadn’t abandoned them.
‘They’re in good hands, Naina,’ Kaushik told her once, impatiently. ‘They are your parents, for God’s sake. And I take them to my parents’ house on the weekends when I’m free and they visit here when they’re free. We can focus on our careers. That’s what we wanted in life anyway. That’s why we moved from London, wasn’t it?’
Yes! That was what she had wanted once upon a time. But she had changed. And Kaushik hadn’t. Could that be the reason why marriages fall apart? Naina didn’t want her small girls not to have their parents around. She appreciated having help from both sets of grandparents but, like all grandmothers and grandfathers do, they tended to give the girls everything that they want. She didn’t want her girls to end up spoiled.
So she gave up a flou
rishing career. Because Kaushik wouldn’t. ‘I’m going to be made a partner in the firm soon,’ he said to her. ‘I need to put in the hours.’ He worked with Mukherjee & Partners, an extremely prestigious law firm with an international base and high-profile clients. ‘This was my dream. Please don’t expect me to be there for the kids. There are enough people looking after them. That’s why we’re in Delhi and not in the U.S.A. or London, where my work is better. I’ve made the sacrifice. Don’t expect more.’ He was matter of fact and clear. He had no time for his family right now; he would spend time with his daughters when he needed a break. Not when they needed him.
Naina needed to be there for them. And so she pulled herself away from Kaushik. And he plunged himself deeper into work. More than mutual respect, marriages are about sharing your daily life, understanding each other’s dreams and supporting them. Naina knew they had stopped doing that. If marriage was about surrendering your desires to make the other person happy and then loving the person for what they become, rather than hoping they’ll change back to what they were—then sadly, Naina and Kaushik did the exact opposite.
Kaushik stopped speaking about his work and Naina stopped asking him. If he wanted to speak about his projects, he should have when she made time for him every evening. But he was always late from work. Kaushik was unlike other Bengali men, Naina knew. He was driven. Motivated. She loved that about him. And suddenly she didn’t when she wanted him to be as motivated to spend time with his children. He missed concerts, ballet recitals, parent teacher associations. She had to make up. Her children were too small to really miss their father. They had enough people in their life. But she missed them being a family.
The last two years had been tough on their marriage. With his constant travelling and her career taking off, they barely had time together.
‘Do you feel we had a better life in London, Kaushik?’ she asked one night when he was at home and they had some free time.
‘Yes. But we were younger then. Without kids. Broke.’
‘Do you regret me getting pregnant so fast?’
Forbidden Desires Page 1
