Till death does us apart
The mobile in her hand twisted and twirled and finally slipped out of her long slender fingers onto the floor leaving a permanent scar on the display. She cursed, picked it up from the floor and started fidgeting with the keys. Locking, unlocking and locking them again until it suddenly started to ring. She stared at the number for a long second, cut the call, dropped the phone in her hand bag and stared at her fellow passengers in the train - tired men oblivious to her presence making their way home and drowning daily woes in center spreads. She looked away through the window and caught a faint image of herself on the glass pane. Her cheeks were puffed, her eyes red and a lone strand of hair demanded to be ducked behind the ear.
How could she have let it happen? When did things go so far - He had filled her life in every way - touched every corner of her heart, lived through every fantasy in her head. She felt his presence everywhere - in the glistening drops of the shower, in the caressing wind on the way to work, in every accidental touch; She brought him to life in those last few moments before sleep and let him live in the dreams that ensue. Every trivial fact, every amusing gossip, every dog, every cloud, every baby she wished were hers were part of those long evening conversations when she walked holding hands with him. He was her shoulder to cry, wings to fly, excuse for an adventure, standup comedian, knight in the shining armor, her secret fantasy. With him, she could be anything - a kid, an angel, a bird, a dream ...
... And a faithful wife to her husband. A moral obligation that she wakes up next to everyday, watches in the dining table every evening as she waltzes her way home. Felt like ages since she even saw his face clearly or had a proper conversation with him. She was the perfect wife - She cooked his lunch, washed his clothes, walked and waltzed him in weekend parties, held his hands in family photos, sat on saturday evenings and watched movies on TV until both of them got bored and slumped on either side of the bed with the world in between.
A faithful wife who never let another man touch her ... until today. The train entered a tunnel and the clatter of the tracks seemed louder through the enveloping darkness. She closed her eyes and watched herself writhing in his bed, tried hard to erase the image from her mind but realizing more and more that she wanted to hold on it. She wished she could just pluck him out of her dreams, take him out of her life, fall on his arms again, and feel those lips again. She cupped her mouth in horror but found her fingers tracing her lips and touching memories.
She wanted her old life back - her life like it was last night before sun dawned and changed it forever where late at nights, she could love him in her dreams and run her fingers through her husband's hair and convince herself that she is a faithful wife.
posted by Rathish at 9:50 PM
29 Comments:
hi Rathish, dont know if u remember me...Art & D Days :-)
Your diction is very good...enjoyed reading ur posts...guess am gonna become a regular visitor
Hi Aarthi, Of course I remember. 96 batch right! .... right!? (give my standard confused look :) Thanks so much for the compliment and do keep coming :)
bloddy good boss!
Evolving!
Apart from it being well written, i love two more things about this post - the title - it somehow has so many layers to it and secondly the photograph - absolute work of art!
there are moments in every faithful wife's life when she wonders if it was worth giving up those dreams for the reality that engulfs her and smothers her into nothing but a pound of flesh and in one of those vulnerable moments she escapes to the world of dreams beyond reach to be with him...she is faithful coz otherwise she wouldn't be here.
Good post more coz you wrote what i always shroud in a veil of happy indifference.
yeah, u got it rite..96 batch :-)
@kripa - thank you sir! guess we are "meeting" after a long time.
@poorna shashank - thank you sir! Is there any other name I can call you in? Pardon my laziness :)
@Samudraa - I really don't know if it's a compliment or not :) But as long as I have a choice, thank you :)
@Anonymous - I am not sure whether you are talking to me. My symapthies to comscore. Thank you and come again :)
@Anirudh - I am usually Xtremely lazy when it comes to titles (check the previous post!). But am glad the effort is appreciated. Thank you! As for the snap, frankly thanks to google :)
@anonymous2 - thank you :) I agree with you totally. My personal opinion - I don't think we humans are genetically programmed to be monogamous. Commitment and monogamy are essential and important cultural memes. But what all does it cover? Is fantasising another man/woman being unfaithful? Is emotional betrayal acceptable? Is it only about sleeping with another person? I guess we just live with assumption s, don't talk about it and pretend it doesn't exist!
Two more cents to make it 4 :)
Most, infact all of our rel'ships are 'need-based'. How much ever hoarse one might cry about love being selfless, it is our need to claim someone as our own, someone to reach out and hold that makes us love. We can be committed and monogamous if that one person satisfies every need that may arise as the rel'ship evolves which knowing how humans are built, is very difficult. So that's where we pull in our friends for that emotional support after watching 'Ghost', or family or just anyone besides the chosen one...just to be only with the chosen one.
I don't want to generalize but in most cases(there are very many exceptions) drowning the loss of India's match to Australia in a bottle of beer instead of feeding the squirrels nuts and watching them play is all the emotional support a wife receives 'till death does them apart'. So you can't really blame her or him( for his reasons).
So technically, me venting my thoughts on this page of yours could be construed as emotional betrayal as per the cultural meme. So be it. But in my opinion all that is beyond the realm of social , moral and ethical obligations. Emotions have no logic :)
Sorry for taking so much space.
--Anon 2
@kopos - and kopos it shall be :)
@Anonymous - I concur.. completely! I am not sure of the emotional support that couples get but I have always believed that marriage would work when a couple grows up together and when that doesn't happen, they draw their respective boundaries and start to coexist rather than live together.
I have probably never met you before. But you remind me so much of someone I know (very well!)
PS: You don't have to apologise for the long comments! I am glad you took the time and penned your thoughts!
A faithful wife has nothing to do with a faithful lover... they're two different entities... sometimes bound in the same physical being and many times not... there lies the crux... and how that is brought out is the woman's own whim... nothing a man can do can change that...
"Need based relationships" aren't relationships at all... they're semi-colons used in the place of full stops.
Guess you do know me (very well) after all ;)
Hmm...have to agree with anirudh, the tunnel somehow makes it more intense, dramatic...her own dark tunnel of thoughts...well written.
@RT - I am glad I got right :) Like I said before, do keep coming.
@Anonymous - you put things beautifully in the first para. But you lost me on the second one. So you are saying there are relationships that are not need based? While need based ones are ephemeral and the other ones are not?
@Anonymous2 - what can I say? :) I think I know who it is but I really don't want to guess coz I am hoping my guess is not right. Let this be another secret we will live with.
@RS - thank you :)
ok, its like this... "need-based" means as long as the need exists, the relation exists... once the need goes, the relation goes... so it is ephemeral in that sense... coz as humans, no one need, not even the need to "belong" to someone lasts for every single second of our existence... and the need that you talk about in this sense is the need to satisfy one's ego... nothing more and nothing less... someone who satisfies your ego is not your lover.... he/she is a play(boy/girl)...
but love as a feeling is not a "need"... you cannot claim anyone and love them at the same time.. you claim an object, and one who lets himself/herself be claimed is not worthy of love, he/she is worthy of being possessed like an object, just like a car/house/any other inanimate object. You can show off such a person to the world as a possession. Kiss and hug him/her and show your feelings, for others and for the person to see.... love is not "I cannot live without you..." ofcourse we all can live without anyone... as humans we've learnt to live without the very mother who gives us our life... any other mortal stands nowhere near...
i call "need based relations" semi-colons... sometimes in a sentence you dont even need semi-colons... you need only ellipses... :)) they're like whores... fill the void but still leave you empty... the same way, spending a night at a whore-house or having one-night stands are also need based... but they're not relations in the slightest sense of the word... and an extension to that is the usage of a semi-colon... almost the end, but not quite so... not so lost as with the ellipsis... but not quite as perfect as the period.
talk of love... NOT "need-based sensations"... a mother for her kid... the kid might hit/kick/abuse his mother... she still will love him.. he might laugh at her folly, she still loves him... whats her need? she doesnt expect gratitude/love/praise/money/any damn thing for that matter in return for her love... and when a man and woman can love each other so, that's love... it no longer remains need-based... because what happens then is that the ego is dissolved... all needs are because of human ego... no ego, no needs and hence pure love is born. and one who can make you shed your ego and who can shed their own in front of you, who can accept and be accepted in that state is a lover.
but most human "relations", for as long as history goes and I'm sure even before, arose out of needs.. the need to procreate, the need to settle down, the need to own, the need to spread amity, and a million other needs.... and somewhere in between people forgot what it meant to love/be loved... because they got so used to possessing/being possessed... and they started thinking that "that" is love... like a tiger cub being brought by a dog... the cub knows no better... and thinks the dog is its biological mother and of the same species like itself... it doesnt look the same, but it feels alright, coz it knows no other feeling...
good one dude...another classic...
Dats woweee Anon...it does make quite a lot of sense :))
Dats woweee Anon...it does make quite a lot of sense :))
sounds like a scene out of MURDER/UNFAITHFULL.. although i think ur narration is way too good w.r.t bhat ji's
Hey Rathu !
Scintillating stuff dude...
keep posting such stuffs and hey, u can write a novel of ur own....
my hearty wishes for that..in advance !
Cheers,
me
@Santhosh - thanks man!
@Me - When I started writing, I knew there was a parallel. The fundamental difference I guess is that I didn't want to create titillating stuff :)
@Avinash - would love to write a book da. But that requires a lot of patience and commitment :)
@Anonymous - Really really appreciate you taking the time and writing your thoughts! And your example of a mother for love is most appropriate. Guess that's one relationship that keeps our faith in humanity intact.
Guesss I am reiterating what you are saying. Relationships are always formed out a need. The need can be anything ... and there are some relationships that are born out a need for love. Not just to be loved but to love someone - that moment when you are feeling genuinely happy for someone's good even if it is at your cost is worth a lifetime.
But the question here is about commitment, about exclusivity, about a moral obligation to be "faithful" because it's part of the contract. I guess over the years, we have overemphasized processes and undervalued the underlying reasons that we finally are working on operational level details of "what is acceptable in the society" rather than being driven by a greater reason.
That makes it 22 cents in all :)
Very poignant, rathish and thought provoking too.
EVERYTHING about this one was good.
@Praveen and MintChutney - thank you :) I have linked both of you to my blog. Hope you don't mind.
Mind? I'm honored. Thanks!
Once again, you've done it. Gone and painted a picture in my head that won't go away, and I HAVE TO WORK! Damn.
Bloody good, old chap! Write more. More!
Very Nice Blog site you've provided.Keep it going.
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@Senthil - thanks man! have just had a hectic week. Shall write more soon :) And what's with this old chap????
@all you anonymouses - really appreciate. But can you stop by the trillion other blogs next time please! I seem to be getting a lot more than usual :(
Hey Rat,
It's great. I usually don't get the time and patience to read blogs. Was thinking about what we used to have back in college and it made me look you up here. And I've been reading your blogs for the past hour. Just couldn't stop reading and go home.
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