The choice - 2

I am running out of titles, I guess...my earlier story also titled "The Choice" here :)

I pass the card through the shredder and watch it strip one path of my uncertain fate into little bits. I switch off the light and sit on my chair next to the bed, in semidarkness. The curtains flutter as if whispering to me and I watch the moonlight filtering through it and falling on my wife's face, as if the heavens had made their choice. And I had made mine.

Shreya...Shreya. As if I had to shush even to say her name. Even her name must not escape my lips, aloud. A day away from reality and my life had changed. How did I let my mind waver thus? Seven rounds around the fire, three priests chanting vedic verses, even the sacred yellow thread that she still wore around her neck...none of them could shackle my fickle mind. No, I am not fickle. I did not as much as think for a second that I would stray for another woman. But, Shreya was different. Shreya never left me to reappear in my life now. She was always there. I just closed my eyes and thought she was not near.

She fidgets in her sleep, charming even with her mouth slightly open. Suddenly she knits her brows and pouts in her sleep, adorable, a child struggling with a bad dream. And I mirror her expression. Why did she have to be so perfect even in her imperfections? Maybe I need Shreya because I want to fight with a woman's irrationalities and her vagaries, to delight in her moods and quirks...I tire with a woman who offers me no excuse to sense that she is human as I am, and that she makes mistakes as I do. The more she struggled to please me, the more perfect she became, the farther away I reached, with someone who was as flawed as I am, with someone who did not make me feel guilty with her every gesture.

"How do you manage it, Arun?"

"Manage what?"

"Being married! Aren't you bored? Don't you look at other women?"

"Other women..."

"Take me for instance...aren't you wishing you can take me out on a date?"
and then she laughs, carelessly. Everything about her seems frivolous, irresponsible...exciting? As she talks, little curls of her hair fall over her forehead, her smile seems not to touch her eyes and yet I find her irresistible. I don't know why. Maybe because she is just the antithesis of Sumathi - playful and unpredictable. Maybe that's how the human mind is made, to want what it cannot have, to tire of what it should cherish, to beg for a change even when life seems perfect.

"Oh, come on, everyone knew you had a crush on me years ago! I don't blame you for that...but isn't it more than a coincidence that we ran into each other at a conference? Aren't the signs trying to tell us something?"
She moves her fingers as if she were a fortune-teller, reading the signs and she laughs again. It always threw me off. Is she suggesting something or just giving me a hard time?

And then my cell phone rings and the jangle annoys me further.
"Sumathi, yes, am busy...yes, I will be home before nine. No, don't wait for me! I cannot understand why you have to wait every night, stop being silly..."

and I hear the hesitant pause from the other end and say, in a softer tone, "I am not very hungry. I had a late lunch, take your dinner."

And I know she wouldn't. Stupid, old-fashioned woman! I look up at Shreya who seems amused at my embarassing conversation.

"How cute! The wife waits to have dinner with you!"

And suddenly, a trait that should have been endearing, grates me further.

"...while the husband flirts with his lady love!"

I flush and stand up and she puts a hand on my arm.

"Now dear, am just messing with you...sit down, we have so much to catch up on. Do you still play the guitar? Tell me all about your life..."

I must have been an idiot. I had been an idiot in love. Maybe I still am or maybe my definition of love itself is skewed up and I just liked to believe that what I felt was love. I sit down and we talk for a long time. And every fifteen minutes an image creeps into my head and I catch a glimpse of Sumathi hovering near the dining table, peeping out the window, waiting for me...and I resist and push it away. Is this the feeling that assumes the fanciful identity we call love? Or is this just my guilt appearing to frown at me? Something stings my eyes and her words float, meaninglessly around me,

"So, call me up anytime or email, whatever. Lets catch up...'s been fun talking to you!" and she leans over and kisses me lightly on the cheek. I take the card that she extends towards me and try not to think about my wife.

Shreya links her arm with mine and we walk out of the restaurant together.
"We should meet up sometime soon. I fly back tonight. If you ever do come to Washington, holler and I'll be there...have always been there for you, haven't I, Arun?", she winks at me and my heart skips a beat.

She leaves in a cab and I take a long walk before catching a cab home.

The house smells of incense, of Sumathi. The dining table is clean, as if she never waited the whole time for me. She sleeps curled on one side of the bed. So delicate, so vulnerable...her cheeks glisten as if a stray tear forgot to dry. I run my hand over her head and lean close to her just to take in her smell - a smell of anxiety, faithfulness and love. Something that I myself can only sense not experience.

She stirs again and this time, smiles in her sleep. I smile too. Maybe she can teach me to love as she does, completely and unselfishly...

I walk towards my window and stand staring at the darkness outside. The moon seems to wink at me, at a choice well made.

***Excerpt***

மனம் ஒரு குரங்கு

Author's annoying interruption: I could not think of a title for this short story that is more apt than "Manam oru Kurangu" (The mind is a monkey). I also wanted to touch upon unspoken assumptions of Indian marriage, fidelity and a few other things...but did not want to overload the title!

She woke up because she felt that something was wrong, even as she slept. She stared blankly into the darkness. Her eyes focused on the framed picture in front of her bed with the small heart-shaped night-lamp casting a cone of light on it. A boy and a girl walking hand in hand and scrawled below it the word Love and his signature.

Tonight, the picture did not reassure her. She gulped down some cold water and tried to will herself to sleep. It eluded her. She struggled not to remember the scene that had just woken her up from her dreams. The terribly inappropriate scene. She gave up the futile attempt of trying to distract herself with happy thoughts, thoughts of her honeymoon, their pleasant married life and tried to sleep again.

A few seconds of blissful darkness and then the same scene. There he was, laughing comfortably with her, both hands draped around her shoulder, leaning his head forward to touch hers. She woke up again with a start this time, more tensed than before. She picked up her cell phone to call her husband and dialed the numbers.

"He..llo", a groggy voice replied. She realizes her mistake and without thinking ends the call. Five anxious minutes pass and the cell phone rings. She flips it open even before the first ring is complete.
"Sunil, I am sorry...Ganesh is away and I could not sleep, had nightmares...", she lied, as she was expected to. She cannot believe how thrilled she feels that he had called, yet hoping for the sake of hoping that he would not.

"Shalu? I just called to say I reached safely...cannot hear you clearly...love you, will call you in the morning, bye". The call ended abruptly and once again, she was surrounded by silence.

***Excerpt***