Maya's New Husband

by Neil D'Silva

  sadhana: meditation

  sadhu: ascetic

  salwar: the loose pants of a salwar-kameez, the traditional female attire of Indian women

  shakkarparas: an eatable made using flour and sugar and cut in the shape of small rhomboid pieces

  Shakti: power; also a name for the Mother Goddess

  shavasana: the yogic pose of the corpse

  sindoor: a mark of vermillion that Hindu women wear in their hair partitions to indicate their marital status

  suhaag raat: the first wedding night of a married couple

  tadgola: fruit of the sugar palm tree, Borassus flabellifer, which is used to extract an alcoholic beverage known as toddy

  tapasya: penance, atonement

  trishula: a long-handled trident, a favored weapon of Lord Shiva

  upma: a breakfast preparation made with flaked rice and spices

  vasna: lust

  The Beast Within

  TRILOGY

  Maya’s New Husband is the first book in a trilogy, which is titled as The Beast Within Trilogy. This is a series of three books:

  Maya’s New Husband

  Sapna’s Bad Connection

  Kalki’s Bundle of Joy

  The series tells stories of three women of Mumbai — Maya Bhargava, Sapna Damle and Kalki Fernandes — unrelated to each other and lead different lives. But, all of them face horrors in their relationships. All of them are lonely if not alone. They may be surrounded with people, but are still left to fend for themselves when they have to face their horrors.

  Maya lives with a husband whom she knows nothing about. Sapna is electronically stalked by a boyfriend whom she has ceased to have any relationship with. Kalki finds that her son, the apple of her eyes, is born with a devilish secret buried within his cute exterior.

  Maya finds her marriage is an illusion, Sapna finds romance is not a dream, Kalki finds she is heading for doom.

  In all these stories, which are modern versions of Beauty and the Beast, the beast is not apparent. Rather, he is hidden deep within the relationships these unfortunate women harbor.

  Here are initial chapters of forthcoming books in the series.

  ~ Forthcoming ~

  Sapna’s Bad Connection

  Chapter One: Dancing with Shadows

  Irrespective of who one is, what their age is or what social stratum they belong to, birthdays hold special meaning to everyone. They create in people a different demeanour; people do things on birthdays that they would not normally do on other days. Birthdays make people feel free, feel important for that one day.

  Even Sapna Damle could not escape these feelings on her birthday. She was not the same woman she had been years ago. She was now at an enviable position in her company, with only a few superiors bossing over her, and even that number was receding quickly as she climbed up the corporate ladder.

  She looked like a satisfied tigress, sitting in her blue-knit sweater and rimmed glasses at her computer; and the satisfaction was wrought out of the fact that she had come as far as she wanted to at her age. Things were still looking up, and there were still ambitions to achieve, but she had the obstinate confidence that she would reach there soon. Everything was going right and she could happily look forward to her thirty-third birthday, which was about to commence in just a few more minutes.

  She sat at her computer, with all her social networking profiles open, waiting for the flood of messages to begin pouring in. Living alone made her feel lonely at times like these. There was a time when she had been a wife and a mother too, but now that was all in the past. Her husband Sahil — ex-husband now — stayed only a few blocks away, but there was quite a difference in their houses. She lived above him in the true meaning of that word — hers was an eleventh-floor swanky three BHK apartment in an upmarket colony, while his was a fifty-year-old crumbling third floor house near a fish market.

  A divorce only brings about a legal separation, but there is no device to eliminate the memories, both good and bad, for a marriage is constituted of both. And a marriage of five years, such as which they had, creates several indelible memories. In Sapna Damle’s case, it had created a child as well. She had loved her daughter immensely for a year, and loved her now as well, but she loved herself and her profession more. The maternity and post-maternity breaks had already put a dampener on her budding career; she could not have allowed that to go on further. With pretended heaviness in her heart, she had sought the divorce, and then found the lightness of independence.

  She knew that both her ex-husband Sahil and her now five-year old daughter Ananya would not wish her at the midnight hour. There had been times in the past when Sahil had surprised her with all kinds of birthday wishes, but now she had effectively managed to kill the romantic in him. She thought that Ananya might call in the morning, probably even Sahil would, but she was not really expecting those calls.

  Thus she sat anticipating birthday wishes from purposeless friends and acquaintances, all alone in her apartment, at her computer desk next to the window. A single Black Forest pastry she had bought from a local store lay at her table, with a solitary candle on it, waiting to be lit. Next to the cake was a bottle of champagne, again one that she had bought for herself, waiting to be opened.

  The window was such a good thing! It showed the busy road below, a road that led out to a beach further on, which was a popular tourist spot. Even at that late hour of the night, revellers kept returning from the beach, which kept the road inhabited almost 24/7. The sounds of the busily moving traffic mitigated some of the solitude of the house and gave her courage.

  With only a few seconds to go for her thirty-third birthday, she lit the candle. She stood up, did a little slow dance pretending to hold someone in her outstretched arm, and sang the birthday song to herself. The scene reeked of tragedy for anyone who might have witnessed it, but in Sapna’s confused state of priorities, living alone was contentment. She might have missed company for today, but this was only one day in a year. If only there were a method to have a companion when you wanted and oust them when you didn’t! It was good like this—she thought—dancing to herself, with herself, and celebrating her special occasions with herself.

  Then she blew off the candle without making a wish—her vanity never permitted her to make requests—and ceremoniously cut a small slice of it. She put it in her mouth and sat down to check the messages. The earliest ones had begun to appear.

  On her Facebook profile page, she could see several messages already. She did not open them immediately though; she sat there eating her cake and seeing how the number increased in the red notifications box. She waited for them to pile up. It made her happy to see the number of wishers going higher. She would devour all these messages later, at one go.

  Every year, she made new friends and acquaintances, and some of the old ones slipped into inconsequence. But, on days such as these, all of them came crawling out of the woodwork with their greetings. It did not take much effort on their part. There were auto-reminders, and it took only a few seconds for anyone to type in a birthday greeting. But for Sapna, who wanted to be gullible on such self-centred occasions, these messages were a validation of her existence. It reassured her that the world had not forgotten her yet.

  Now she sat down to business. She clicked on the notifications box. She had more than 33 notifications now, which was her age. It was all right to check now. That was one of the few silly superstitions she harboured just to make life easier, as she would have said. The usual culprits were there, wishing her happy returns of the day, and she began responding with meaningless Thank yous.

  She moved on to her Gmail. She opened the first email, which she noted, was at exactly 0:00 hours.

  It was sent by an automated responder, an electronic birthday greeting card. She saw the name of the sender and a slight smile escaped her lips. Debashish Sengupta. He was the new guy in her company, a kind of PA to her, and thus directly the brunt-bearer of her whims and fancies. He was young and
raw, uninitiated in the ways of the world, both professional and social, and Sapna didn’t mind toying with his youthful passions. She needed company after all, and he needed the experience.

  The email contained a caricature of a bee wearing glasses and a corporate suit, flitting over several flowers. The message read:

  Happy Birthday to the Busiest Bee in the World.

  A smile escaped her lips. She thought of his floppy hair perched over the computer sending this email to her. She typed a short reply to him.

  Content and almost purring like a kitten, she was about to go back to Facebook to check the new entrants when she was suddenly arrested by a sharp sound.

  Ding.

  It unnerved her for a moment, but then she realised what it was. She had received a message on GTalk. That in itself was surprising as she never used GTalk anymore; she hardly had any contacts there. It occurred to her that an old friend could be wishing her. It made her feel warm and fuzzy.

  But then the warmth and fuzziness disappeared in a trice when she saw the name of the sender.

  Kedar Kulkarni.

  “What is this?” she said aloud in utmost surprise.

  She opened her eyes wide and saw again. The name flashed bright and clear in the bottom taskbar — Kedar Kulkarni.

  There was nothing strange in the name itself. But what was sinister about it was that the name belonged to a past friend — a friend who had died eight years ago.

  This was a message from a dead man.

  For a long moment, she could not gather the courage to click on the flashing button. She sat still, just staring at it, listening to the traffic noises from the window.

  “It must be a joke,” she muttered. “Yes, that’s what this is.” With that realisation, she broke into a slight laugh. “It’s a birthday prank, I know. But you cannot scare me.”

  Pulling herself together, she clicked on the flashing tab. It opened in its full glory. There was a single-line message.

  Happy bday Sapna.

  She thought of playing along. “Someone is just playing a prank,” she reassured herself. She typed:

  Thank you.

  The return message was prompt, appearing almost the very second she had finished typing hers.

  So wassup? Long time, no? The last time was eight years ago. But no, u ran away somewhere then, right?

  The memories of that fateful day of 2006 still lingered like a bad nightmare. Kedar had planned a whole gig for her birthday, but she had brutally ditched him. Despite having an idea of his birthday plans for her, she had absconded to Goa on the sly. That was cruel of her, but hadn’t Kedar and she agreed on an open relationship with no commitments? She felt she was free to do whatever she pleased.

  She shrugged off the uncomfortable memory. “But of course, this is not Kedar. He’s dead and gone,” she said to herself. Then she typed:

  Who is this?

  Again, there was a prompt reply.

  I m who u think I m.

  You really want me to believe that?

  Without a doubt.

  That you are Kedar?

  I m Kedar.

  Kedar who died eight years ago?

  Yus, I died 8 years ago.

  She stayed silent for a moment. Then she resumed.

  Just tell me who you are and get lost.

  U don’t believe I m Kedar?

  Yes, I don’t. Dead men don’t chat.

  LOL. Here’s my bday gift for u. Open it.

  The message was followed by a file asking to be downloaded. Sapna saw the .jpg extension on the file and stalled for a moment. The only way to find out its contents was to open it. She clicked on the download link.

  She extended the GTalk window and looked intently at the file as it began to download. It began loading from the top, and as the pixels began to load, her eyes grew wide in horror.

  It was a picture of her. She was sleeping in her bed, and the picture seemed to have been taken from above. She had a sheet over her, but in the throes of the night, the sheet had moved, and her shapely leg jutted out of it. But what alarmed her more was the nightgown she was wearing. It was a very new nightgown; she had bought it just last week.

  She sprang up from her chair so violently that the chair moved on its casters and hit the wall behind. She ran into her bedroom and flicked the lights on. She looked up at the ceiling, from where the picture seemed to have been taken. A ceiling fan hung innocently from the ceiling. She climbed up on the bed below it, and tried to reach up to the fan. She surveyed it for any hidden cameras. She felt it everywhere. She could not find anything.

  Meanwhile, she heard the repeated dinging of the messages on the computer.

  When she came back, she saw a barrage of image files waiting to be downloaded. In a frenzy, she clicked on them all. Without protest, the files began to download one after the other.

  Each one of them was a picture of her, in different places in the house. One showed her by the kitchen platform heating her food, another showed her on the treadmill in her study, yet another showed her on the couch watching television. There was also a picture of her in the bathtub covered in soap suds. All of the pictures were quite recent, of the last few days.

  If the circumstances hadn’t been so bizarre, her vanity would have goaded her to appreciate the pictures. Each and every picture highlighted her beautiful self, which she had striven so hard to maintain, and captured her different moods around the house. If there had been a temple for Sapna Damle, these pictures could have very well adorned the sanctum sanctorum.

  Driven senseless by the inexplicability of it all, she ran from room to room, switching on lights everywhere and checking for hidden cameras. But there was nothing she could find. The bare walls and ceilings bore no testimony to any mischief whatsoever.

  There was another ding, and she nervously brought herself back to her desktop.

  U like the gifts? Awsum no? Neway I know u won’t thank me; that’s just not ur nature. Here’s a final prsent.

  There was another image to be downloaded. She clicked on it. It was another picture, but this one was the scariest of them all.

  It showed her in the very same hall where she now sat, wearing the very same clothes that she now wore, miming a dance.

  It was the same air dance she had performed only a few minutes ago.

  The picture seemed to be taken from the wall opposite to the computer, where now only a wall hanging made of shells stood. She walked up to the shell piece almost on tiptoe, as though there was someone in the room that she should not disturb, and surveyed the wall ornament. She did not expect anything to be there though, and there was nothing. Frustrated, she tore off the ornament from the wall and dropped it to the floor, where it broke into smithereens.

  And, as the sound of the bouncing shells on the floor echoed through the room, she collapsed on the floor as well, and everything was darkness.

  Coming Soon…

  For further details, subscribe to http://www.neildsilva.com/

  ~ Forthcoming ~

  Kalki’s Bundle of Joy

  Chapter One: The Little Rascal Who Bites

  It is truly bizarre how we — seven billion of us — live on this planet we share, most of the time completely unaware of what goes on in each other’s lives. Man is truly a selfish animal, only interested in self and those who are associated with self. But, is it not possible that people with whom we share our bodily appearances and mental setups and even history and experiences may be connected with us in a much stronger way than we are prepared to accept?

  In the bustling city of Mumbai, in one of its busy suburbs known as Malad, in one of its most crowded localities was situated a housing complex known as Blossom Cooperative Housing Society. On the seventh floor of one of the buildings in this complex, a celebration was going on. It was a celebration to welcome a newly born member of the human race. The baby — a boy — was swaddled in a blue blanket and placed in its crib in the center of the room. All around the baby were seated various l
adies and gentlemen of various age groups, eating, drinking and talking loudly about things that interested them.

  This was the house of Jay and Kalki Fernandes. Most of the people present at the celebration were relatives, friends and neighbors; and they had all come to wish the very young couple a happy life ahead.

  An elderly woman with her white hair neatly tied in a bun came up to Kalki. “Kalki,” she said, “you must take the baby inside. There is too much noise here.”

  “Oh Ancie amma, he seems to enjoy it though, doesn’t he?” said Kalki with a short laugh.

  The baby lay almost still in his crib, moving his limbs only when there was a need to move them. He looked here and there with his large, completely black eyes, but did not make as much as a whimper.

  “He’ll grow up to be a very wise boy,” said Ancie amma. “See how silent he is! Other children would have created a ruckus in such a crowded environment.”

  Just then, three heavily made-up women came up to them in a group, their silken sarees swishing as they moved.

  One of them said, “What a dreamboat your child is!”

  Another said, “May I hold him?”

  Kalki opened her mouth to say something, but by then the woman had already lifted the baby in her arms.

  “See, he doesn’t cry at all!” said the woman.

  “Yes Rashmi,” said Kalki. “Aryan goes to anyone without a fuss.”

  “I liked the name as soon as I heard it,” Rashmi said. “Aryan! Such a universal name.”

  “Look, he’s looking at you,” the third woman told Rashmi.

  “Indeed he is. Isn’t he an angel? He’ll be a lady-killer when he grows up. Oh! Wish he were 20 years older.”