Gayatri was forced into marrying Sudhir, a bank employee, when the offer came their way from his family, quite unexpectedly. She asked her mom to let her finish HS at least. But Moitri Devi was adamant. The boy was said to be a good match. Such opportunities didn't knock on the door everyday.
The marriage was a grand affair. Moitreyi didn't leave any stone unturned to ensure that the wedding of her only child had all the glitter and grandeur.
Gayatri knew she had to be honest with Sudhir. So, she told him on the night of the "Phulshajjya" of the man who had come to her life for a short time. She thought she was smart enough not to disclose the name or anything else to her husband. The disclosure brought the world crashing down on Sudhir.
(The distrust born in him that night, couldn't be regained as long as the marriage lasted.)
"Tell me more about how you fell for him, " Sudhir, having awakened his wife, would ask her.
"I've already told you what there's to be told. There's nothing more to be told. He's a neighbour who utilized me… Gayatri replied in a trembly voice.
Looking at his wife, Sudhir would restrain himself from asking her the question that was on the tip of his tongue :
"Was he the only man to have 'utilized' her or were there… ?"
Three years after his marriage, Sudhir's mother, the woman he had always looked up to as the ultimate of womanhood, had to be admitted in Merryland Nursing Home where she was diagnosed to have some urinary infection. When things became critical, she was rushed to Peerless Hospital. She remained in a coma in the ICU of the hospital for the next ten days.
One evening Sudhir was getting out of the General Ward on the third floor where his mother had earlier been shifted from the ICC on the top floor. ICC meant heavy expenses. The doc, Mr. Ghosh sympathised with the young man's repeated expressions of financial worries and had her shifted as soon as she showed some signs of improvement.
Unfortunately, she had to be taken up the same night itself as her conditions deteriorated again. It was after she had been rushed in due to what the doc said, some kind of concussions or seizure in the brain that Sudhir, walking up on his way to the fifth floor, met the lady. She was in her mid-fifties, bespectacled, in a sari. .
"If you don't mind my saying so, young man, I think YOU SHOULD LET GO OFF your mother."
It took Sudhir some time to realise that the woman was talking to him. He just uttered something incomprehensibly before turning away up the sloppy stairway to the fourth floor. As the woman's words kept ringing in his ears, he felt like shouting back at her to go fuck herself. It was His Mother she was talking about. His mother. Not any other woman!
That night as Sudhir retired to his usual place in bed beside Gayatri, it raged and thundered outside. He couldn't go to sleep for a long time. As flashes of lightning, accompanied with a heavy downpour,reflected on the dressing mirror through the chinks in the curtain, Sudhir could feel tears coursing down his cheeks as if someone was taking her final leave.The imbical chords that held him to his roots all these years, were finally being cut off to help him b a man of the world.
Gayatri, away from him on the other side of the bed, was smiling in her sleep!
Sumitra Devi passed away the next day. As the hearth carrying the dead body wrapped in a white cloth, was racing through the bypass, sitting in the cab behind, Sudhir looked up at the azure sky through the window and whispered :
"Now, you'll have peace, Ma. Something I couldn't have provided you… "
(2)
Gayatri shut the door quietly behind the shadowy figure of Durjoyda retreating through the path underneath the trees. The lights on the lampposts were slowly coming to life.
"Thank God," she uttered,"Ma is yet to be back home." She dreaded her mother encountering Durjoyda at their doorsteps someday. Anyway, the affair of Durjoy and Gayatri was to remain unknown to the world till she filed for a divorce from Sudhir.
Gayatri was in standard XII of the only girls' school in the town. Her widowed mother, Moitri didn't go back to any of her relatives after her husband's death. She decided to stay with her only child. The one storied house with the two rooms separated by a wall, was lonely in the absence of Gayatri's father. But with time, they came to terms with the loss.
After dinner one night, Moyitri, while pleating her daughter's hair, looked at her from behind lovingly. How fast she had grown up! How healthy and rounded she looked! It was as if she had overnight become a woman without Moitri having really noticed it!
How Gayatri, almost eight years younger to Durjoy, fell for him would remain a mystery though. But he made one thing clear from the beginning- their relationship should be nothing more than a fling. His marriage was being finalized and he valued his social status more than his life.
Lying in bed, Gayatri watched Durjoy put on his shirt. She heaved a sigh. What a handsome man he was! He was any woman's dream lover. A sharp and successful man with a physique that made it hard to believe that he was a teacher by profession. That too an English teacher fancied by most of her friends who used to come to his house for tuitions! Gayatri was one of them.
It was nearly a year later that Durjoy, who had stopped seeing Gayatri for some time, paid a visit to her house in the evening. After Moyitri had offered him some tea and sweets, Durjoy told her the reason for his visit.
"Masima, I'm getting married coming Friday. I've come to invite both of you to attend the Reception at Madhuri in the evening. Hope you won't disappoint me.." Saying so, he cast a quick glance in Gayatei's direction. Finding her with the head down, he got up to his feet.
"It's already 9.30. I still have a few more places to go. So, can I be excused now, Masima? "
Moitri walked up to the door as Durjoy got onto his two wheelers outside. She didn't even notice that her daughter had hardly uttered a word to her teacher throughout!
On the day of his wedding, when Moyitri Devi was leaving for office, she found Gayatri in bed, face buried in the pillow. Thinking she might be sick, Moitri asked her :
"Aren't you feeling well? We've this marriage party to attend tonight, remember? "
Gayatri turned reluctantly to the wall and covered her face with the back of her hand.
"What's wrong, dear? Want me to stay back? "
"No, Mom, no. I'm alright. You leave now otherwise, you will be late for office," she pleaded.
When Moitrey returned, Gayatri was in the bathroom, showering.
"Don't take too long, Mom. We'll get there early and leave early as well." She told her mother, taking the towel wrapped around her head off.
An hour later, Moitrii told her daughter, once she was done with applying the lipstick,"You look gorgeous, dear. I doubt if anyone, including the bride, can hold a candle to you at the Reception." She concluded by casting one fond look at her daughter.
Looking at the beautiful bride and groom from a distance that night, Gayatri thought to herself that let alone Durjoy, even her mother would never get to know the truth.
(3)
On his return home early one evening, almost a year into their wedding, Gayatri told Sudhir, "Can I read out to you one of my stories published in today's ToI after dinner?"
"That'll be nice. You know how I hate reading anything by myself." Sudhir answered bluntly.
""Love Doesn't Happen Twice". Do you like the title?" Gayatri, positioning herself comfortably in bed, with a folded newspaper on top of a pillow, asked her husband.
"What kinda title is that? Don't tell me it's a love story. 'Pushpa, I hate love stories'" Sudhir remarked as his pretty wife winced at the rephrased quote from a popular movie. Realising the hurt, he hurriedly added, "Anyway, go on. Let me see how good you really are."
Gayatri had hardly finished reading the first few paragraphs of the story when, looking down from over the edges of the paper, she found her husband snoring! Gayatri stopped reading, sighed to herself and leaned over to arrange the pillow properly under Sudhir's head.
In the wee hours of the morning, a loud noise coming from up, awakened her. Some time later, Sudhir, bare-chested, in pajamas, hurried back to the room.
"I heard a thud from Ma's room upstairs and rushed out to see if she was all right… Thank God, she's still asleep. It must have come from somewhere else," Sudhir told her, finding her groggily awake before plunging back under his Korean blanket.
Gayatri looked up at the wall clock, and knowing she had not much of the morning shut-eye time left, turned her back to him to get back to sleeping!
Exactly nine months after their marriage, a daughter was born to the couple. Gayatri and Sristhi, became the best of friends in due course of time. Gayatri doted on her daughter.
It was when she was in class five that Srishthi, coming back from school one afternoon, found her parents quarelling over something.
"Thik achhey. I made a mistake. What shall I do to undo it? Will touching your feet do? " Gayatri was hysterical.
"You don't have to touch my feet. Touch the feet of God, if you can.." Sudhir, pointing upward, replied curtly,
"God? Oh, really! Is there anyone called God? Could all those sinners have gone Scott free then? He should have punished those bitchy, double-faced people long back!"
Realizing who Gayatri was hinting at, Sudhir fumed, "I think this shows the kinda upbringing you've had."
"Don't you dare bring my mom into this, you mother fuc—." By the time Gayatri realized her mistake, it was too late. She committed an unpardonable offence in the heat of the moment but Sudhir's spontaneous reaction was no less shocking. The sound of his palm striking Gayatri on the cheek, brought tears to the eyes of both mother and daughter. The first argument between the couple proved to be most telling in their relationship as well.
Later, after she had retired to her room, her eyes still red as were the marks on her cheek, Sristhi asked her mother why she did not move away to some place else.
"Where can I go? After my marriage Didun sold the house off. You know what happened after that?" Gayatri started weeping as she couldn't imagine a cool headed guy like Sudhir ever smacking her like the way he did it. "There's simply no place for me to go!" She said ruing her fate.
"I was telling you that something like this shouldn't have happened between you two. Sometimes, it's better to stay apart than… "
"I know but there is simply no place to go, " Gayatri sighed.
It is difficult to guess what made Gayatri leave Sudhir's that same black night. Sristhi accompanied her mother.
Gayatri expected Sudhir to call at her friend's. When no such calls came she herself decided to ring Sudhir up instead. The conversation had hardly begun when Sudhir started yelling at her, calling her names for spoiling their marriage, snatching their daughter away from him and what not. He disconnected the line threatening her not to try to contact him again.
Gayatri called him once more after the call. This time a far more calm and composed Sudhir entreated her to move on with her life. He would get on with his. Did she not know that he loved staying by himself?
So, Life moved on with Sudhir devoting himself to realizing a couple of his mother's last wishes, and Gayatri gradually coming to terms with the reality and deciding to raise Sristhi, her only link to the memories of her first love in life.
DoubleSpeak 