Cheaters Read online

  You raped me and I didn’t say anything. Did you realize what you had done? If only you had understood my tears and read my silence, my disinterest. If only you had not forced yourself even on days when I was having my periods. Most men are emotionally illiterate. They don’t care about their wives, with whom they share a house, a bed, a life, let alone understand women in general. Such emotional abuse made me question my sense of self: maybe I was insignificant. Perhaps I didn’t deserve any attention. Maybe there was nothing noticeable in me. Today I know that’s the worst thing any man can lead a woman to believe. That she is shit. That’s how men control their wives. By gaslighting and drawing lines to circumscribe their movements, actions and desires.

  Remember when you had told me that one of your friends had had anal sex and that you wanted to try it as well? I was totally against it but you kept insisting and eventually I relented. I cried and screamed throughout the act; later you left me to my own devices after you were done. It hurt me like crazy for a good three days. I wasn’t even able to walk properly but that still wasn’t as painful as your insensitivity towards me. If I had told you that I would have liked to tie my husband up and slap him for a sexual high, would you have let me do it?

  What do I get in return for years of meekness? An accusation. Was I having an affair behind your back? Maybe you wanted me to have an extramarital affair. Why else would you coax me into wearing those backless blouses every time you took me to your office parties? You always wanted to present me as a prized catch but never treated me as one. Why would you try to convince me to drink alcohol when you knew I didn’t like it? Everybody else’s wives were drinking so I might as well. You have subjected me to such humiliation. Standing amid your colleagues and their wives, it dawned on me that I was perhaps some decorative object for you.

  For the world you were a liberated man, who didn’t mind if his wife showed off some skin, but I knew your reality. You just wanted your colleagues to ogle at me and wonder how lucky you were. The thought of being every man’s envy possibly gave you a kick. You think I didn’t understand all this? In spite of being aware of it, I still didn’t complain. Why? Have you ever thought of that? It’s the same reason why I faked my orgasms with you. To keep your self-respect intact. What if I had told you on your face that you didn’t satisfy me sexually and later to my friends? The man who flaunted his score with women didn’t really score with his wife. And then you had the temerity to ask me if I was having an affair?

  We had an arranged marriage. But I used to like a boy before I got married. He was a primary schoolteacher. He liked me too. Although we seldom talked, the exchange of glances was revealing enough. We rarely met. Scandals and slander fly thick and fast in small towns, especially when an unmarried girl is involved. Whenever we met, I wrapped a scarf around my face to avoid being recognized. I didn’t like it but we had no other option. One day I told my father I wanted to marry him after my uncle visited us with your proposal. My father argued that a schoolteacher wouldn’t be able to keep me happy. But you would. I could have any luxury I wanted if I married you. What my father didn’t know was when a woman truly loved a man she could make a comfortable home out of the most basic amenities. I told him I would be happy with the schoolteacher, but he was adamant. He didn’t understand. I don’t blame him for he too is a man. I never forgot the schoolteacher but slowly accepted my fate.

  I can’t be your shadow any more, Ram. I have other identities as well. I’m not just your wife. I’m tired of the society dictating my life to me. When was the last time we went out and had something of my choice? We would only go to movies starring your favourite heroines. The restaurant we went to after that was your favourite one. We had even had food that you liked. A third person reading this email might take me for a disgruntled, complaining housewife, but he will never know the pain of remaining invisible to your loved one. But when you had a doubt, I was suddenly all too visible. I suddenly became someone who could have an extramarital affair. We take a bath daily to rinse ourselves of dirt. Tell me, Ram, what kind of spiritual bath do I need to take in order to rinse away this allegation of yours? No, your apology won’t work any more. Nor will your pleading and begging. Don’t waste your time.

  As I mentioned earlier, Ram, I’m pregnant. Who is the father? You’ll never know. But I’ll give you some clues. If I tell you directly who it is, you won’t read this email again and again. He is someone you know very well and yet you will never be able to guess who he is. No matter how much you rack your brains you’ll never figure out the answer. And yet if you ever found out, you’d realize that it was so obvious. No, I didn’t have an affair with him. I only conceived a child with him. We only did it once. That was good enough. How do you feel, Ram, knowing all this? Yes, now you know how I felt when you asked me that unnecessary and deeply disturbing question last December.

  When Madhu, my friend, told me she’d separated from her husband since they were done with each other, I, to be honest, didn’t understand her. She too had an arranged marriage. But they lived in the United States and Madhu was independent unlike me. And her husband was truly liberal, unlike you. I couldn’t figure out the reason behind their separation. Madhu told me they had decided to stop living with each other and continue being friends. Not that either of them had fallen for anybody else. They just wanted to live separately and see if there was any place for the other in their lives or if it was all an illusion. It was an experiment of sorts. They stayed away from each other for two years and then realized that they should get back together. They are now living happily. This made me wonder if I could do that to us. Leave in order to understand the worth of living together. Sometimes we take each other too much for granted. I wish I could explain this to you. Maybe my absence will. Maybe. But then, even if it does, I’m not coming back. The father of the child isn’t with me. I didn’t want his support. If I can carry a child in my womb, I can protect it, shelter it and parent it myself. You probably want to know why I wanted to have a child. Why didn’t I stay alone? But understand this that the child is a symbol of all that I had expected from you. Everything that you didn’t give me. Whatever we missed as a couple. What we shall never have as a couple. Everything that has forever lost between us. That question was the last nail on the coffin. And believe me, the coffin had been ready from a long time. You got the wood and the nails. I only drilled them in. One day at a time.

  I’ve left the divorce paper, duly signed, under your pillow on the bed. Sign it if you want to, tear it if you want to, or do whatever it is that you want to. Nothing will affect me any more. I am not going to get married again. And I know you won’t be able to live without marrying again. Men like you need women for your survival. And then you tell the world that you are self-sufficient. I pity you. Your male ego will probably reject any realization that you might have from this email. It might lead you to call me names. You will add your biased perspective and call it a bitch’s story. But guess what, Ram? I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. Any more.

  Your once-upon-a-time wife,

  Siya.

  She presses ‘send’.

  Siya switches off her phone and fastens her seat belt, staring out of the window. She isn’t pregnant. She was bluffing. Her husband deserved it for disrespecting their marriage, making hollow allegations and convincing her that she was worth nothing. It was time to break away from the shackle that her marriage had turned out to be. And in return she shackled her husband, with shame. Ram would live his life believing he wasn’t good enough. Once he underwent the pain that she had endured all those years, maybe he’d be redeemed. Who knows? Or he might learn nothing from her desertion of him. If he still continued to believe that she was or capable of having an affair then he would even fail as a human being.

  Siya closes her slightly moist eyes and feels relaxed. After long time she is at peace with herself. By giving her husband a chance to further sling mud at her, put her on the societal pyre where everyone would judge her, she feels that she has a
t last freed herself.

  The flight takes off and she feels good that it is on time.

  Children

  Chapter One

  They had seen each other before. They remembered. He used to come to the small park in their block in Salt Lake, Kolkata, with his only child. She too used to come there with her only child. Their children attended a small karate class in the park. They had only ever exchanged smiles. Never words. It was only today that they learnt that their sons were in the same school, in the same class. Today they were attending a gathering organized by the school to mourn the death of the thirty-five students and five teachers who had died in an accident during a school excursion. The group was en route to Digha for a two-day excursion. On the bus were also Priyanjali’s son and Shayan’s. They were both six years old.

  They saw each other in the school auditorium, where the gathering had been organized. No words were exchanged. But this time there were no smiles either. They were with their respective spouses. Every parent who had lost their child in the accident was asked to come on stage and light a candle. Prayers were said for the deceased and then the congregation broke up.

  For the first two days Priyanjali couldn’t even tell herself that whatever had happened had happened for real. The people around her, including her husband, seemed representative of the incident. On the third day she woke up early, prepared her son’s tiffin and went to wake him up. She broke down after realizing that he wasn’t there, will never be there. Her husband took her to a doctor after she fainted. She was sedated as she had started hallucinating about her son. She was not allowed to attend his funeral lest she had a breakdown.

  Five weeks after the incident, the school organized the gathering. By then Priyanjali had slowly started accepting whatever had happened. But she still plodded through life with great difficulty. Her husband tried to be positive, but it only irritated her. Why did he have to behave as if nothing had happened? As if he had moved on when he clearly hadn’t? She started avoiding him without making it obvious. She no longer dined with him; didn’t wait for him to come to bed. She stayed busy in the mornings with the maid, the household chores and left before him, claiming that her office timings had changed. But all she did till it was really time for her to go to office was sit below a Banyan tree opposite to her son’s school and watch everyone and no one in particular enter and exit the premises. The hectic routine that she had been used to for the past six years had suddenly been called off. It was as if her limbs had been amputated and she was trying to figure out if her other parts could function the way her hands and feet had. She couldn’t adjust to her new routine: of doing nothing except being at home and in office. She always made sure to stop at the park for an evening walk at exactly the time when she took her son to the karate class. The park was the same. The kids practising karate were the same. But the feeling that the sight triggered in her was different.

  On one such day when Priyanjali had made herself comfortable on a bench in the park, she realized that someone else was also sitting at the other end. It was the man who used to bring his son to the karate class. He had also lost his son like her.

  Shayan had had a nightmare a week before the bus accident. He would break into a cold sweat every time he thought about it. When his son had approached him with the teacher’s note seeking permission for the excursion, he had been dead against it. But his wife thought he was being too protective. She convinced him into letting their son go. And now when he was no more, she had packed her bags and left for her parents’ house. She had shut herself completely from Shayan, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to meet his eyes again. Guilt is a strange emotion. It creates an emotional quicksand that swallows you in bit by bit.

  Shayan stayed alone in his huge ancestral house in Salt Lake, with emptiness around and hollowness within. He had been a single child himself; his parents had died a few years ago. But their deaths hadn’t been sudden. His father had died of throat cancer and his mother of dengue. In both the cases, he had been ready. But the sudden death of his son haunted him like a vengeful spirit. He wanted to talk to someone. He had always found talking cathartic. He found containing emotions within himself suffocating. But that had become his way of life for the past few weeks. Many a time he felt as if he was having a nightmare, that it would be a matter of minutes before he was woken up by his wife or son. Maybe his wife was a tad too fastidious for his liking but he still loved her. His last words to her before they had sent their son on the excursion were: I told you not to send him. He regrets telling her that. Those words perhaps tightened the noose of guilt that had already wound itself around her after their son’s death. He didn’t want to but ended up blaming his wife for his death. As if she had sent him knowingly.

  After the congregation he went to stay with a friend. Then he shifted to a cheap guest house in the area. He couldn’t go back to the house; the empty corridors haunted him. He wouldn’t have come to the park either. Although Shayan was quite expressive, he was also non-confrontational. Perhaps that’s why he needed his wife now more than ever. It was while crossing the road to get to the guest house that he noticed the woman that he would see when he would take his son to the karate class enter the park. He had no reason to but decided to head towards the park as well. He sat on a bench watching her take a walk around the park, stop next to the karate class and then walk towards him. She sat on the same bench. She looked lost and withdrawn. The natural glow that she always had seemed dulled. He was in two minds about whether to initiate a conversation or not. He was aching to. For the first time in his life he was desperate to have a listener.

  ‘Shayan Ray,’ he said when he caught her eye.

  ‘Priyanjali Chatterjee,’ she said softly.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  He only said those words: I know. She didn’t know why but Priyanjali thought he understood as well.

  Chapter Two

  Priyanjali had left quite abruptly. She didn’t even bid Shayan goodbye. He kept sitting on the bench till hunger compelled him to leave the park.

  The only thing Priyanjali was looking forward to the next day was a visit to the park in the evening. She had felt as if time had stopped when she was sitting there yesterday. She went to the park in the evening and sat on the same bench. Her eyes were not fixed at anything in particular; her mind brought back memories of the day she had given birth to her son, the labour, the pain. She had opted for a natural birth against the doctor’s advice to get a caesarean done. She will never be able to describe how she felt when she saw her child for the first time. Certain emotions are indescribable. They can only be felt, embellished with tears and smiles, but never shared through words. Motherhood, for her, was one such emotion. The memories brought a faint smile on her face, which she was unaware of.

  ‘They were friends.’

  Priyanjali heard a man say. She glanced to her right and noticed Shayan sitting at the other end of the bench. When did he come? She hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Who? Our kids?’ she asked. Shayan nodded.

  ‘I didn’t know. What was your son’s name?’

  ‘His daak naam (nickname) was Titu; Shagnik on the dotted line. Your son was Ashish, right?’

  ‘I called him Binny,’ she said, averting her gaze.

  ‘He loved video games. I was supposed to gift him a new one on his birthday,’ Shayan said.

  ‘He loved Maggi noodles. Every day he demanded the same for tiffin,’ Priyanjali said. They were talking but not looking at each other.

  ‘They used to share it. Titu told me he too loved the way you prepared it.’

  Priyanjali looked at Shayan incredulously. Her face slowly broke into a smile.

  ‘I can’t believe that Binny shared his Maggi noodles with someone!’

  Shayan smiled and said, ‘Yes, they were good friends, it seems. Sharing your favourite noodles isn’t easy.’

  Priyanjali wanted to laugh but checked herself. The smile remained a smile. This time she really looked
at him and took in his face. It stayed with her.

  ‘They lived a stop away from each other. Titu would want to walk till Ashish’s stop almost every other morning.’

  ‘You could have listened to him once,’ she said and immediately realized that the line had been slightly loaded. It might convey a different meaning.

  ‘I mean you didn’t listen to your son much?’ Priyanjali asked.

  ‘I did, but there were a few occasions when I didn’t. For example, I had supported him when he had expressed his ambition to become a soccer player one day.’

  ‘Binny didn’t have any ambitions as such. He lived in the present. Of course, he did so unknowingly, but there was no room for the future in his life. It inspired me because I am someone who is always caught in the past and constantly worry about the future.’

  ‘We rarely realize this but sometimes our children are our sorted versions. Even I saw it in Titu.’

  ‘What did you see in him that you had wanted to correct in yourself?’

  ‘I can’t take a stand to save my life. And Titu took a stand for our neighbour’s son while playing together. I was blown away.’

  ‘How is your wife taking it?’ she asked. Shayan didn’t respond immediately.

  ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t answer if it’s personal.’

  ‘It is a personal injury, of course. But not between two people who have the same injury.’

  They looked at each other momentarily. It brought them closer than it ought to have.

  ‘My wife is with her parents. She has shut herself totally; gone on an indefinite leave as well.’

  ‘Where does she work?’

  ‘Cognizant; she is a programmer.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m a management professor at a private university in Salt Lake. What about you?’