Shantanu and I are married for three years now. I’d first met him at my cousin Manas’s place eight years ago. Manas was my favorite amongst all my cousins and Shantanu’s best friend. I was more close to Manas than I was to my brother.
For me, it was love at first sight. At twenty, you do believe and fall in love at the first sight. The first meeting was followed by a series of meetings, first along with Manas, then without Manas.
Shantanu was fresh out of MBA and very different from all the twenty year olds at my college. I was very attracted to his shirt, trouser and laptop bag look after work. He was such a welcome change from all the jeans and t-shirt clad guys in my college. He was mature, intelligent, good looking, well read, funny, caring, soft spoken and had a flair for language. Falling in love with him was extremely easy.
It was after two years of knowing each other that he finally asked me to marry him. I was preparing for CAT but with marriage on mind, CAT went for a toss. I’d never wanted something so bad in my life like I did marrying Shantanu.
I’m a Gujarati and he is a Bengali. It was tough for us to convince our parents for our marriage. My parents were strictly against me marrying a fish eating Bengali. And his parents wanted a good Bengali speaking girl with thick, long hair, who made excellent fish curry. I didn’t have any of these attributes. It was difficult, but we stood by each other. Finally, after one full year our parents gave in and we got married.
I knew all of Shantanu’s friends. I recognized each of them when they came for the wedding, except one. She was a woman in her late twenties, very beautiful and flawlessly dressed. I wouldn’t have remembered her had it not been for one thing that she did which others didn’t. Like everybody else, she congratulated us and then she started to cry and ran off the stage. Later one day I asked Shantanu about her. He said that she was an old friend from MBA who recently got divorced and that’s the reason she gets emotional at weddings.
We’d been happily married for over two years now. One day Shantanu urgently wanted to forward an email to his friend and he didn’t have access to internet. So, he called me and gave his password and asked me to forward that email to his friend. While I was searching for that email, I came across an email written about four months ago by some Sameera Sharma. The subject being, ‘I can’t get over you’. I was extremely tempted to read that email but found it inappropriate to do so without Shantanu’s knowledge. So, I just forwarded the email he had asked me to and went back to doing my chores.
While sleeping that night, several times I felt like asking him about that email and Sameera but I refrained.
Next morning, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. After Shantanu left for work, I signed into his inbox and opened that email. It read:
Dear Tanu,
It’s been exactly two months and three days since we last met, still, I can feel your fingers stroking my face, your lips pressed against my lips and your body entwined with mine. I still remember every word you said about how you love me but you cannot continue this relationship any longer. I know that you decided to cut all ties, but Tanu, I love you. I just cannot get over you. I don’t want you to marry me; I just want you in my life in any form whatsoever. You stay with your wife and your kid, but let me be a part of your life. Please.
Love,
Meera
My first reaction was that of disbelief. Obviously Shantanu couldn’t have done something like this to me. He loved me way too much to cheat on me. I read the email several times in the vain hope to find something which proved that Shantanu had not cheated on me. I tried to read the lines, read between the lines. Then I saw that the email was replied to.
Dear Sameera,
I told you the last time itself that my wife is pregnant. I love you a lot but I can’t continue with this relationship any more. I want to be a good father to my child. I want to give my child a good family and a respectable upbringing. Our relationship will not be healthy for him.
Please stop mailing, messaging or calling me. I do not want to put ideas into my wife’s head. It’s anyways a complicated pregnancy and I do not want to make it worse for her.
Take care.
Shantanu
I remember being in trance for a long time. I didn’t move from the bed at all. Suddenly I heard someone calling my name. It was Shantanu.
“Aaru, are you alright? I’ve been trying to call you from past six hours. What’s wrong with you? Why are you sitting like this?”
“Shantanu, I just want to sleep. Please let me sleep.”
I turned my back on him but didn’t sleep for quite sometime. My mind was flooded with questions and I wanted answers. I had to sort this out. I didn’t know whom to talk to. I decided to meet Manas the next morning.
Thinking about the email, I realized that the Sameera had last met Shantanu on the day of our wedding anniversary. We were to go out for dinner to celebrate our anniversary and my pregnancy. But Shantanu had returned home at one in the night. When I asked him why he couldn’t make it on time, he shouted back at me saying that no one understands him or his pressures or his state of mind. Everybody thinks only about themselves. I found his behavior strange at that time. But now it made sense.
Now it made sense as to why he hated it when I called him Tanu.
Now, it even made sense that why, exactly four months ago he changed mobile service provider.
Suddenly I started feeling sick. I rushed to the bathroom to vomit.
I don’t know when fell asleep. I got up pretty late the next morning. Shantanu was still home.
“Aaru let’s go to the doctor. You don’t look too good.”
“I’m alright. I need to meet Manas. I’ll take a shower and I’ll leave for his place. You didn’t go to work?”
“It’s Sunday Aaru.”
“Oh!”
“You take shower and get ready and then we’ll head for his place.”
“No Shantanu. I want go on my own.”
“Are you alright? You aren’t even looking at me while you are talking to me.”
And it was the first time since I’d read the emails that he touched me and it felt disgusting. I immediately took his hand off my shoulder and said, “I’m good. I’ll get ready, cook lunch for you and leave.”
“You won’t be back for lunch?”
“No. I’ll be late.”
“Oh. OK. Don’t bother. I’ll manage.”
Manas, as usual, greeted me with a warm hug. He immediately sensed that something was wrong.
I couldn’t wait any more. I took Manas to his room and the first question I asked him was that who was Sameera?
Manas looked shocked for a moment. Then he said that she was his batch mate from MBA.
“That means your and Shantanu’s batch mate.” I replied.
“Ya. Obviously. I mean, if Shanu and I were batch mates, then Sameera and Shanu would also be batch mates.”
“Were they going around?”
“Who?”
“Manas, do not pretend like you don’t know what I’m asking. Were they going around?”
“No.”
“Then what’s this?” I threw the mails at him.
He read and reread the mails. His expression changed from that of being stunned to being angry.
“I can’t believe the bastard did that. I just can’t. He had told me that it’s over between them. He used to meet her even after getting married to you?”
He sank in his chair and with a look of despair on his face.
He looked at me and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Would you please tell me everything?”
“See, it’s over now and there’s no point in talking about these things.”
“Don’t you realize that it’s not over? This mail is just four months old.”
“But he replied saying that he won’t keep in touch with her any more.”
“You know what; I think after all this you would still prefer to save your friend’s ass than help your cousin.”
And I started to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Wait, I’ll drop you.”
“No thanks.”
“Please Aarti, let me do that for you.”
“If you really want to do something for me, then please tell me everything.”
“Aarti, is it necessary?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Sit.”
“Sameera was our batch mate from MBA. They fell for each other the day they had met the first time. Their affair lasted the entire MBA programme. Then she joined work and met someone there. She dumped Shanu for him. Shanu was devastated. It was just after their break up that Shanu met you. He liked your company. He enjoyed being with you. You had become a very good friend of his. When all his friends were busy with their lives, you had been there with him and unknowingly helped him lead a better life. When I came to know about you guys I didn’t stop him because I wanted to help him and see him happy. Also, he wasn’t harming you in anyways. I mean he never got physical with you. And you liked him. So, I thought why not? My best cousin and my best friend – it seemed good to me. After two year Sameera got married and the next day Shanu proposed to you. One month after her marriage, that’s just two months before your wedding, Sameera got divorced. Shanu had invited her to the wedding. I don’t know why he had called her. I do not have the least idea. This is the last I heard of her or saw her. This is all I know. I do not know anything about these emails. Aarti, do you want me to talk to him?”
“Can I stay here tonight?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll inform Shanu.”
“Please do not tell him anything yet.”
“I won’t. Trust me.”
“I’ll go to the kitchen and help Mami.”
“Aarti, you trust me, right?”
“I’ll see you later Manas.”
“Shanu loves you Aarti. He takes such good care of you. He’s so much better a husband than most of the guys I know.”
I quietly left the room.
Shantanu called me once. I didn’t answer.
I stayed at Manas’s place that night.
Next morning I got up to find Shantanu at my bedside, ruffling my hair.
“What’s wrong with you Aaru?”
“I’m ok.”
“No you are not.”
“What happened? Tell me Aaru.”
“You don’t love me Shantanu. You never did. Right? You always loved Sameera. I was just a medium of getting over her. Wasn’t I? When Sameera got married and your remaining hope died down, then you decided to marry me. Didn’t you?”
And finally I started to cry. He immediately embraced me. It was weird. I wanted to take his hand off my body, but I wanted him to hold me. The one man who could give me assurance was the one to hurt me. I didn’t know whom else to go to. I’d never given such a big piece of me to anybody else. I wanted to break free of his hug but I was feeling extremely weak and only his hug could give me the strength I needed.
“I want to meet my parents Shantanu. I want to go home.”
“We will go and meet them, before that we need to talk Aaru. Let’s go home. Please. Let me explain everything.”
I left with him. I was too weak to fight, too weak to think.
On reaching home he made me sit and started to talk. I could hear bits and pieces of what he was saying.
“Met in college….. were going around……. she got divorced… called me six months after our wedding… crying… went to comfort…. got carried away… sorry… not in touch with her any more……”
His voice faded. I wasn’t listening to him any more. I could hear his voice but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
The next time I got up I had a nurse checking my temperature. Shantanu was on the chair at the far end of the room. When he saw me get up he came up to me, held my hand and said, “Aaru I love you.”
I didn’t reply.
I would have gone back to my parents place, but I couldn’t. What would have I told them? The one guy I fought with them for had betrayed me. I wouldn’t have been able to see them in the eye. Being just a graduate I wouldn’t have got a job decent enough to feed my baby and me. So, I stayed.
I bore him a son, Aayush. Shantanu loves him. I’ve never seen him so happy in his life. I’ve not spoken to Manas since. I tried, but I couldn’t. I don’t have an option but to talk to Shantanu. So, I do, for Aayush, for our families and for the society. People think we make a perfect couple, only if they could see the truth behind the smiles.
They say that time erases all scars, but mine are still fresh. Being betrayed and lied to by the person you love the most in the world is very difficult to take.
Now that I look back, everything that Shantanu did for me seems a lie. The times when he held my hand and walked in rains was a lie, the first time he kissed me was a lie, the flowers he bought me were a lie, the confession of his love to me was a lie and the love itself was a lie. The past six years of my life have been nothing but a lie.
I’m paying him back, by being a dutiful wife, for giving me a roof to live under, clothes to wear, food to eat and Aayush to live.
If the greatest happiness in life is to be loved by the person you love the most, then the greatest grief in life is being pretended to be loved by the person you love the most.
