by Shobhaa De
She laughed and asked, ‘Or else… what?’ I promptly shut up. My staff complained about her and said they will not listen to her instructions, after she told them to ‘fuck off’ because they refused to go out and get her a packet of ciggies at 10 pm. Bahadur reminded her that there was a night curfew on… and she yelled, ‘Fuck the curfew... fuck everything... get me those fucking cigarettes.’
I couldn’t say a thing, and I couldn’t control her, either. Finally, I phoned Sweety. She was the only one who would know what to do. And she did. At first she pretended to be shocked and enraged. But I could tell from her voice that she was acting - how could Bahadur not have told her about Ronita? I started by saying, ‘Sorry... Please, please, please baby... forgive me.’
I was ready to tell her everything, start to finish. But she wasn’t interested and cut me short by saying, ‘Shut up... idiot! Such a chhoot you are!’
I had gone to the guest bathroom to make the call. I sat on the potty and talked to Sweety using my honeymoon voice. She knew me inside out, and said sharply, ‘Forget all your jalebi dialogues - let me figure out how to get rid of that randi in your bed. I hope she has not stained my beautiful linen.’
Oh God! So Sweety knew about the achaar stain! I lied and said, ‘No no no… Sweety baby... don’t worry. You just tell me how to get out of this bloody mess. And what to do with that bitch.’
Sweety paused, ‘There is only one way out… tell the driver to pretend he is ill and you make a fake call to a doctor. Tell her you suspect the driver is positive and that the house will be sealed when that gets confirmed. Sneeze a few times in her presence and make a fake call to Dr. Aggarwal. Look worried. Summon the staff and tell them to pack a bag for you since you were certain you would have to isolate yourself one way or the other. Keep repeating strict quarantine, strict quarantine, whenever she’s around. Tell the bitch she will have to get out somehow as you don’t want her to die, too. Scare the shit out of her. Lie that you fall into the most vulnerable category since you are diabetic. Make it sound authentic - say diabetes runs in both sides of the family, for three generations. Tell her to move into the guest room for her own protection. Phone me openly in her presence and talk about missing the boys and all that senti stuff. She will shit bricks - trust me! And she will go running back to wherever she came from.’
Sweety was so right. Sweety is always right. Ronita fled. And I have placed an online order for an identical duvet from the same London store. It will arrive as soon as deliveries start happening. The stained duvet has been given to the driver. He has kept it carefully packed in a thick plastic cover. He said his wife in Kathmandu will need it during Nepal’s harsh winters. And she won’t notice or care about the achaar stain because she is not a memsaab.
PEACE, AT LAST
I knew I had married the wrong man on the wedding night itself. My husband got it up, but he couldn’t get it in! He struggled for a few seconds, pushed my body around, muttered under his breath and finally gave up. I kept mum. He didn’t.
‘It’s your fault… the position of your legs was all wrong,’ he said.
I apologised and stroked his back, ‘Let’s try after some time… I will adjust my legs.’ My voice was soft and humble, my eyes were downcast. I had apologised for something - but what? I had apologised for nothing! But I had unwittingly given him an alibi. A face-saver. He was a lousy, inexperienced, inept, clumsy, insensitive and selfish lover.
That’s the truth. I had nothing to apologise for - but I had done it. I had said ‘Sorry!’ How stupid of me! Just to maintain peace and not damage his ego. I didn’t want my marriage to start on the wrong note. His ego. It was always about his ego. What about my ego? Was it less precious? His hurt feelings - no thought spared for mine?
So many years later, I now realise, had I saved the apology right then on our marital bed, I would have saved myself several subsequent hurts and insults. After that fateful flop of a sexual encounter, our sex life fell into a predictable groove. We had a pattern in place - if he couldn’t penetrate or couldn’t achieve an orgasm it was because the fault was entirely mine. Either, I did not know how to ‘please’ him, he said, or my body was ‘of the wrong shape’. Had he not seen his own shape?
Sex is the key to marriage. Good sex keeps a marriage going. Bad sex kills it. When sex stops - the marriage ends. I know when my marriage ended. It was the day I decided to end sex with my husband once and for all. Not because sexual desire had left me. But because I was finally strong enough to say ‘no’ to my husband’s unreasonable and far- too-frequent sexual advances. I felt my ‘duty’ was over. We had three children, who looked just like him. So, the world would know our marriage had been ‘normal’. No fooling around! Paternity well established and stamped all over the children.
But now, I had made up my mind that enough was enough. My body was my own. And I could no longer oblige my husband sexually. This decision was taken a good ten years after menopause. Ten long years during which I did not protest or resist, even though my hormones were rebelling and my heart hurt. I tried. I didn’t want him to lose interest in me and start looking for sex outside the home. We were set in the standard comfort zone of most middle class marriages. Enough food. Zero sex.
So, for ten long years, I would automatically part my legs and let him in - even though my vagina was dry, and I was in pain. He would curse under his breath if he couldn’t penetrate me as easily as in the past. I would stifle my cries somehow. But I couldn’t stop my tears. My entire being was in revolt. Not just my body. I started dreading the night - the thought of sleeping next to him. I would light a diya at sundown and pray to God to spare me the torture.
‘Please… let him be too tired. I beg you, dear God, make him leave me alone. I need to sleep. I am fatigued. I am sick of pleasing him! It hurts!’ I tried telling him how menopause affects a woman. How her hormones change. How her vaginal muscles lose elasticity. How the mucus lining can no longer release sufficient secretions to keep the passage smooth and moist. But he’d be too busy roughly thrusting. I don’t think he heard me. Or if he did, he didn’t really care. For, he didn’t stop.
Not that day, not the next day… not for the next decade. His body repulsed me. His breath made me want to push his face away. I had stopped kissing him much earlier, but just the proximity of his mouth so close to mine, as he grunted and heaved, would make me want to throw up. I would hold my breath, shut my eyes tight, my arms would lie lifelessly, or I would tuck my hands under my buttocks, so as not to embrace him.
He noticed nothing! He didn’t sense my rejection, as he pinched my nipples, and cupped my breasts. I refused to look into his eyes - the same eyes that ravaged my body even when I was fully clothed. How could he not feel terrible, and small and diminished and…? Did nothing matter but those few seconds of penetration? The ‘union’ as he called it? Did he really believe all that nonsense about ‘feeling as one’ or ‘feeling complete’ when he had forced entry into me? What about my emotions? My responses, as he clumsily climbed on top of me? How could he have been oblivious to my loathing? Was he that thick-skinned? Or that selfish, he simply did not care?
I didn’t matter. My contempt didn’t matter. My lack of interest didn’t matter. So long as he could release his sperm freely inside me - freely and confidently. No chance of pregnancy at my age! So forget the condom. The condom he had always hated to wear. Now, it wasn’t required! Let him drip away… down my thighs, on my belly - that sticky, smelly, viscous fluid I would hastily rub off - with tissues, with a hand towel, with my discarded saree… with anything that would cleanse me.
Did he not feel bad that I reacted this way – like he had polluted me? Did he not notice me running to the bathroom the minute he was done, to wash myself clean - of him? I would stay inside, scrubbing and scrubbing myself, much after every little trace of his sperm had disappeared from my body. Often, I would weep - in rage. Feel used and cheap and violated. Would hate myself for not having the guts to tell him to go to hell
. For not pushing him off me. For obediently undressing - just for him, because I was too scared to refuse. Scared of what? Would he have struck me, for refusing sex? Who knows?
He was a man prone to violent outbursts. After a couple of drinks, he could be vicious and aggressive. I didn’t want to risk being hit. It was simpler and quicker to submit to his demands and get it over with. I started to keep a count of how many times he ‘did it’ in a week. Twice? Thrice? When did it become once a fortnight? Then once a month? And finally - the day of my release - it stopped altogether? It took him ten years for him to get the message.
Imagine! Ten years during which I felt nauseated each time he touched me. Knowing there was no love in that touch. Just lust. Or a warped idea of love. For if he had loved me, he would not have forced himself on me - no matter what. He would have been sensitive to my changed body, which could no longer accommodate his hunger. He would have felt tender and protective, when I pleaded it was difficult for me to participate in sexual bouts. When he could see I was in pain, my thigh muscles contracted, my knees reluctant to part. And yet, he would mount me with cold, calculated determination, uncaring about my resistance.
There were times when I felt murderous. Had there been a knife by the bedside, I might have plunged it into him. Anything to escape sex. Sex… something I had once enjoyed. But which had now become the worst punishment. Sex… something I had once enjoyed. But not with him. With my first boyfriend. We were college mates and I suppose it was puppy love gone nuts. We couldn’t wait to be together, grabbing any and every opportunity we could find. Thank god we had a common friend whose liberal parents looked the other way when he let us use his bedroom and sat outside reading a book till we finished our business. Those three years was when I discovered my body and all its pleasures. When did I allow sex to become the worst punishment imaginable? What a great loss! I had forgotten my body was like a sitar that could produce the most beautiful music if played right by a talented musician. The man I married was not even a talented plumber! As for music - only false, discordant notes from his side. And a besuri, off-key raag from mine.
It was during the Covid-19 lockdown crisis that our relationship collapsed completely. I was sick of pretending. I could no longer endure his demands. I was just too fatigued! I would stare at my dull eyes in the bathroom mirror. My tears had dried up, and my heart had turned to stone. This man! I must have slept with him thousands of times over the years. Thousands! But not once had I felt desired. Suddenly, here we were, dealing with something bigger than our miserable lives. And because it was so much bigger, every emotion got exaggerated. And I decided to tune out completely. While he followed each new piece of information about Covid-19 this and Covid-19 that, I slipped further and further away into my own world. And all of a sudden, I found myself in a new universe which was calm and soothing. How and when did this happen?
I think I know. It was when I started enjoying my own body and what it was capable of, when I finally let go of my inhibitions. Sexual. Emotional, mental. My energies were invested in my breath. Each breath I took, became a chance to live again. My husband had become incidental. He was merely an instrument who let me create my own music. Nobody could rob me of those symphonies. My ear pods have saved me - I swear. These days, I go about my housework, since we have no live-in staff. He watches TV all day and for half the night, while I busy myself cooking our daily meals, and keeping the house clean. I have shut out the world, the same way the world has shut me out. I am not complaining. I have never been so much at peace.
WEDDING CANCELLED
‘Beta, just try one more time, na? That designer’s second assistant used to be in college with you… explain to her… what use is the lehenga now? Where will you wear it?’ Mummyji could be so insensitive and crude, sometimes. As it is I was feeling terrible… like, crying my eyes out. And she had to bring up the lehenga! As if the lehenga is more important than my feelings. She keeps saying Pappaji will feel better if we get a refund for the lehenga. That too, we got a good discount when I ordered it, knowing how kanjoos my parents are. Like… man… it is their daughter’s wedding! Come on… if they can’t spend generously on it, then when will they spend… and on what? But that is not my main point.
Okay. Here’s my main point - my shaadi got cancelled. Theek hai? That ass cancelled it. Which ass? My fiancé. Rather, my ex-fiance. I still love that shitty ass - that’s the main problem. Even after what he did! All because of bad timing. As if we knew in advance that this corona-sharona rubbish would come like a toofan and destroy the world! We were to marry nicely and properly and have a destination wedding.
After a lot of thinking, budgeting and bhashans between the families, we had finalised Colombo because the rates were cheapest there, and at the same time, it was ‘abroad-wali shaadi’. We would need passports and visas, vaghera. And most of our relatives didn’t mind spending a little more going to Sri Lanka, since they had never been and decided to combine the children’s summer vacation with my shaadi. Ditto for my office ke log, and a few close friends. I had spent hours and hours, like realllllly slaved, to get good rates for everything.
My fiancé - oh - his name is Ruchir, didn’t bother one bit. He’d left all arrangements to me. ‘Yaar… it’s your call. You handle it.’ I was so touched and flattered! He had full faith in me, my tastes and my judgment.
His parents also agreed and told my Pappaji, ‘Dekhiyeji, the shaadi is always from the ladkiwale log in our family. We will come as your mehman. So, we leave all arrangements to you, ji. You just have to hand us our airline tickets - bas! Baat khatam.’
My parents took it in the right spirit. I was the last daughter to marry off, and they wanted to be free of all responsibilities after my shaadi. This was understood by me, and I wasn’t being unreasonable at all. Both my sisters had enjoyed a full on, dhoom dhadaka Panju wedding, but I knew when it was my turn, I would have to compromise. Pappaji was still paying off the earlier debts from those two traditional, arranged marriages. Ruchir was also most understanding. He kept saying, ‘Jaanu, I want to marry you - I don’t care about anything else. Let’s not spoil things by discussing budgets, vaghera.’
I told him firmly, ‘But we have to discuss a few basics, na? My Pappaji can only spend what he is comfortable with spending at this stage.’
Ruchir smiled ‘that’ smile of his and said, ‘Dude… you are too hot, yaar. Just pull your bra down, na? I want to see your tits.’
Ruchir was like that only. Every time we needed to talk seriously, he would turn sexy and avoid the topic. But I had fallen for him big time, na? I didn’t see through his tricks.
That way, Mummyji was much more shaani - she told me straightaway after meeting him, ‘Munda changa hai. Job-wob sab theek thaak… but solid nahi lagta.’ I was furious!
I asked her, ‘Solid ka matlab?’ But she shook her head and kept quiet. This was soon after he had proposed, and I had eagerly accepted. I mean… Ruchir was quite a catch in our social circles. Ex-bureaucrat ka ladla puttar. Handsome, flirty, six pack… he was trying out a new business, a small Chinese restaurant in Noida. Really small. Serving that yummy Chinjabi khaana office workers love… It was taking off nicely… and then the lockdown happened, and he got screwed. He had to shut down, like everyone else… he had borrowed money to start the place, so naturally he was very tense about the future. Our future.
It was not his fault this virus had come out of the blue and ruined all businesses. Suddenly, his income came down to zero… and his mood changed. Besides, we could not meet since I was stuck in Delhi and he was with his parents outside the city limits. Had we met during this awful period, I am sure all the issues that came up because of this Covid nonsense would have worked out between us. There were so many things that had to be finalised about our shaadi, now that Sri Lanka was out. We needed to fix a new date, and cancel all our bookings.
‘I leave it to you.’ Ruchir had said indifferently, when I brought it up, once we knew we would have to resched
ule and rebook events. But after that first conversation, when I was too shocked to even express my disappointment about the postponed shaadi fully, he stopped talking about the wedding altogether.
I also didn’t push it, knowing he had a lot on his mind - what with ‘Mr. Chinaman’ shutting down abruptly. I told him I was likely to get laid off myself - we were in the same boat. And he snapped, ‘Dude… drop it, yaar! What shaaadi shaadi shaadi… where’s the money to get married? All you chicks can only thing of one thing - marriage! See what the world is going through! We are all bloody broke, yaar. The economy has tanked. People are crying everywhere. There’s no fucking money in the market for anything. India is bloody fucked, yaar. Another five years of this - take it from me. All that bullshit about stimulus package and what not. Where is the fucking package, I ask you? Where is the money?’
Maybe Ruchir had a point. I tried to reason with him that everybody was feeling bad. But that didn’t mean people had stopped getting married!
I told him sweetly, ‘Don’t worry about the money, Jaanu… we will scale it all down. Do a simple wedding without any extra ceremonies. Just our two families and a few friends.’ He pretended he had not heard me and changed the subject.
I was already making calls to a few wedding planners - the chhota mota ones, and looking for venues close to our home. Since the trousseau had been ordered well in advance, I didn’t have to worry on that front. I had organised Ruchir’s clothes along with mine - it was just more convenient. And that way we could colour co-ordinate our looks. It’s important to plan properly - especially for Insta and all that. We had to look amazzzzzzzing in our videos.
Why not, yaar? Half the fun of getting married was to make others ‘j’ – hai ki nahi? Be honest! Ruchir was so sporting and sweet, he didn’t interfere or make any fuss. He said, ‘Dude… you know I look great in anything. Worry about yourself! And hit the gym… okay?’ He always teased me about my hips and thighs. Not in a bad way, but I did feel conscious, especially when I had especially dressed up for him and he’d take one look at my outfit and say, ‘Shakira… Hips don’t lie!’
