The Contentment of Marital Bliss

Smells. Thoughts. Feelings. Emotions.

Memories.

Blending into an incoherent whole, crystal clear sequences that merge into a mass of nothingness, leaving behind a sunny, happy feeling, which starts the cycle all over again.

Mrs. Sonia Varma. Mrs. Sameer Varma.

I let the words glide over my tongue, before I speak them aloud. Already the words are registering in my head, for me to say the next time I open the door to a salesman or receive an unwarranted call from a bank-loans executive, just like the glass nameplate on our door- Sonia and Sameer Varma, with its floral edged design, proclaiming our shared existence with a few mere black letters.

Is that all to it- a name change- a few letters of the alphabet, juggled this way, written differently, and you become a different person, another identity, a separate concept?

It would have been so easy if we weren’t stuck with the same name throughout life. In a way, I envy actors for their ability to portray a different name in each film- Raj, Aryan, Siddharth, Rajvir, Sunjeet, Paul...the list is endless and so full of possibilities. Their ownership and responsibility for that name ends in three odd hours, while we battle with the steadfastness of our names through a lifetime. I would’ve liked it if one day I wanted to be Sonia, the next day Sameera, the next day Aarti, or a Pooja. Or if I am in one of my stoutly spiritual moods, a Mahalaxmi or a Gayatri. And if I am feeling particularly adventurous, and one with my rock idols, an Alanis or a Janis. 

I imagine Mrs. Sameer Varma as the suave, sophisticated consort of a handsome, aquiline-nosed, salt-n-pepper haired gentleman, but in reality, it’s only me. Me, with my shock of unruly curls, bewildered green eyes staring from a pool of skin that’s a little freckled, a little too pale and white, instead of the peaches-n-cream complexion that I envy on the models of Femina, Cosmopolitan, Elle as they stare at me fixedly, silently rebuking me for feeling jealous of their reed thin bodies and unbelievably large busts.

I stand before the mirror, staring at my own reflection. Just a month ago, I was somebody else.

Sonia Malhotra. Senior Executive- Research. Starry Entertainment. The No. 1 private network in India, with the famous saas-bahu serials, moderating a research group of ten housewives each week, to pre-test the next fortnight’s script. Analyzing results. Not tweaking them because that’s what reality is. They want to see Kaavya dead and Aakriti win (Kaavya is the do-goody housewife and Aakriti is the steamy mistress)- bored of all what Kaavya has done so far- embraced an illegitimate child, brought up two story-book children, forgiven her husband for cheating on her and bringing gifts to all members of the family whenever she visits abroad, while Aakriti lives an independent life- her lounge bar is the sole reason of her existence, she flirts with a few select customers and is the epitome of a glamorous lifestyle; delivering another all-night presentation to the producers, and then seeing the same sob story repeated in the next chunk of script with little change- because it keeps the advertisers happy and the audiences clamouring for more. The Law of Eyeballs, as my boss described it once, pithily- and the headline which stuck out like a sore thumb in the rest of the slide- both to the clients as well as me- I even dreamed about it!

Once I had tried to imagine myself as ‘the housewife’- just after my engagement, when I was moderating one of those groups. Sitting in one of the most plush houses in Juhu (where the research group was being conducted), sipping kaanji (flavoured carrot water: a North Indian specialty) and chatting with the lady of the house- a formidable Punjabi who seemed to have three pairs of hands (a couple fixing sandwiches in the kitchen, a couple putting clothes in the dryer, one sipping kanji with me and another patting her flawlessly gelled hair into place) and five eyes (one each for watching over her three naughty kids and their two friends), I felt dwarfed. If this was what the profile of a homemaker was, then I was woefully inadequately prepared.

Post the group, when I had taken the tapes to the office and was transcribing them, I got lost in one of the respondents again- a beautiful, well-maintained South Mumbai socialite- what was her life like? Suddenly, as she started speaking, she mentioned her sister-in-law, and a variety of thoughts sprang to my mind. She ceased to be just another face, just another respondent. Her relation opened up a whole new world, and it struck me that we all live in our own worlds, comprising of our own relatives, sometimes friends, with self-defined boundaries. All humans carry with them their world, and if we could outline the shape of that boundary, imagine the odd-shaped bubbles each one of us would carry- commuters on trains, buses, pedestrians walking on streets, people working in offices, dancers on stage, actors on screen, doctors in wards- each with their own world. And how awfully crowded the world would become! We could perhaps see the contents of the bubble- and it would be exciting to note overlaps of people in same families. I bet the socialite’s bubble would be full of interesting people as she would have been the perfect homemaker, mother, wife and party-thrower, all rolled into one. And I was surprised that a part of me actually felt happy to be part of this group- the women who made houses, homes. Happy and scared. For what if I could not live upto the unsaid expectations that Sameer had? Fulfill the unspoken deeds that his parents wished me to? (Though they were completely non-interfering, and lived several cities away). What if I could not be another Kaavya? The thought, insidious as a dark shadow, swam through my mind, and I blamed the network for depositing pieces of non-existent women, primetime by TRP, and establishing new rules of societal behaviour. I pile my hair on top of my head. It gives me a beauty-queen look, with a few tendrils escaping down to my shoulders. I suck in my stomach, and look at my reflection sideways. Hmm…not quite as thin as Michelle Pfeiffer- my husband’s favourite actress. My husband. Husband. Am I really married? Sameer. Sameer Varma. The man of my dreams, who carried me off on a white horse even before I could say no, I can walk. Who led me to the edge of the forest that was dark, deep and mysterious, overgrown with creepers and then showed me into his castle- wonderfully majestic, supremely breathtaking and truly marvelous, where I would spend hours idolizing at the altar of perfection that was Sameer, right down to his disarmingly tender smile and always open arms. Who made me believe in the power of dreams, red roses and sparkling wine. And taught me to love. I glance at the bed, carelessly strewn with a deep rich maroon duvet and matching satin sheets, a wedding gift from my parents, witness to the most wanton lovemaking sessions, always ending in us dozing off peacefully in each others’ arms, oblivious to the world, unaware of neighbours. I think of his body- warm and reassuring, hard and soft, pliant and supple, molding itself around me, holding me in its warm embrace which is so gentle yet so tough, and the wall of his chest which carries all my worries. His hands, which are like an artist’s, with tapering fingers and half moons in his pink nails, which hold my own small ones so beautifully, completely covering them with his love, his passion. His hair, which smells of baby shampoo, highlighted with grey, adding grace to his already willowy frame, fine like a silken thread under my fingers. His lips, meltingly soft, just like swollen raisins that our cook used as a garnish on the achingly sweet kheer. Sometimes we would just lie close to each other, our bodies speaking in a language none of us could decipher, and I would feel a sense of completeness seep into me as he would draw me against his chest, and I would lie with my head on his arm, while he would protectively wrap his other arm around me too. We would utter a joint sigh- this feeling of contentment and joy that would often bring tears to my eyes. Will he find me as attractive as I am to him today, as twenty-five years from now? Perhaps he will, perhaps he won’t. Some questions are better left answered by time. I sit down on the bed. The sheets rustle faintly, like the breeze running through the mango orchard in my parents’ house, in quaint Lucknow where my sister and I would take turns on betting who would pluck the most mangoes, ending in either hair pulling or knee scraping fights. The satin feels slippery soft- like my grandmother’s skin after she had had a bath, and just before her daily puja ritual when she would dress in one of her sprightly starched cotton sarees, which smelled faintly of jasmine and sandal. I run my hands over the flowery pattern on the sheet. Why are flowers the most commonly gifted item in a newly wed’s life? Flowered bone china, flower patterned dinner sets, flowery sheets, and bits of flower prints in a trousseau. Maybe it’s because they symbolize fertility and procreation, the sole reason why a couple decide to get married. I look at my flat stomach. I know its too soon to start thinking of a family, I’m just 24 and we’ve been married for a month. But I think of Sarita, my best friend from school, who, at 23, was already a mother of a darling daughter, having been married off at 21, much against her wishes. She wanted to study to become a CA, while her parents wanted her married. It’s a different story that she decided to tie the knot with their tenant, an averagely good looking and suitably well off man, working on a short project for his large shipping company. It was yet another story that he was almost 30, while she was just 21, and while she wanted to wait till she became a CA, her parents thought she could carry her CA dreams alongwith her wedded bliss to her marriage. Of course, fate had other plans as she turned a mom before she could write her second paper. And Sarita’s CA dreams metamorphosed into endless nights of nappy changing and feeding sessions. Now, when I receive the occasional sms from her, its about Shalini- her daughter’s accomplishments- like ‘2day shalu sed ma 4 th 1st time.wish u wr hr’ or ‘shalu’s strtd crawling.u shud c th state of r house’ or ‘anil’s parents r hr 4 a week-shalu’s got co.’ It was simply amazing how a tiny one-year old could fill up the lives of two sensible grown ups, who would abandon all logical thinking the minute something regarding the baby would come up. After a few failed attempts at phone conversations, where Sarita would be too distracted- “Ya, Anil is doing fine, and you know what…. Shalu!! Shalu! Not that, baby- hold on for a minute, please Sonia” and then “So what was I saying, Anil’s slated for another profit showing this quarter, and I’m so happy…Shalu, baby, don’t do that! Sonia, I have to go, Shalu might just get electrocuted”, I had simply relegated myself to the fact that it was no longer Sarita Varma who was my friend, my confidant and my sole guide- she was now Shalini Shah’s mother. So much so that when she called me up (late night, thankfully, when Shalini was sleeping) to tell me that she couldn’t make it to my wedding as Shalini had fever, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. This, after we had sworn that we would attend each other’s marriages no matter where we were, in school, in a fit of two 16-year olds’ declaration of undying friendship. I guess marriage and motherhood do change you. Would I become like her, or like the countless others who selflessly gave their everything so that their homes would prosper? Strangely enough, I found myself thinking of my work, and the one week of leave I still had left, and suddenly, I felt like I never wanted to go back to work. The irritatingly white walls, the stuffy AC cabins, my small desk with the PC and telephone, the soft board with its ruby red concentric circle pattern on which I had placed irrelevant trivia besides some encouraging Dilbert-isms and those perennially stuck drawers which were full of VHS back ups and the dreary steel cabinet full of transcriptions, TRPs and useless analysis which made our office resemble a government daftar, dotted with the network’s stickers. Did it really matter to Mrs. Patil, our neighbour, that Samsung had been the highest ad spender during the World Cup, or that the black set top box that sat solidly, unblinkingly, on her TV like an intruder actually monitored her journey through the channel maze? I think her only thought stream while flipping channels would be to ensure that Babbloo, her three-year-old son learnt something new in Oswald that day, and that the TV child lock worked properly. Maybe she was preoccupied with the next day’s chores, or checking her bank balance, or even mentally calculating the dhobi’s bill. I don’t think our analysis as to why she suddenly jumped from a saas serial to TNA wrestling during a commercial break would hold much ground. “The contentment of marital bliss”, that’s what it was, explained Sameer with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips, when I had said once that I might not want to work post marriage, a few weeks before we were actually married. “That’s fine with me, you know. You now have no compulsion to work. You have a house to occupy your mind- akin to a young girl playing with a dollhouse. Do what pleases you and makes you happy.” And he had playfully ruffled my hair while I had petered off saying that there was no way that I would never not work. What would I do, besides thinking up new recipes and cleaning the house, maybe an occasional fight with the bai? At that time, I had dismissed the frightening thought before it loomed large in its entirety. Now, sitting in the sun dappled bright room, smelling of the heady aroma of solitude, a quiet contentment stole over me. I felt all my senses begin to tingle, and it started with my sense of hearing. The soft notes of the wind chimes (metallic flowers, again, a wedding gift) contrasted with the muffled sounds of a television playing downstairs. Somewhere, I could hear a cistern filling up. Above the whirring of the fan and the steady reassuring drone of the AC in the room, I could hear a small bird twittering outside. I got up and went to the window, framed by the green branches of the tamarind tree that hung across our bedroom and living room balconies. Crinkling my eyes to see better, I spotted a black bodied, red beaked bird with frightfully large yellow rimmed eyes, and just at that moment, it turned and looked in my direction. What was it, that I felt then? Fear? Sympathy? Understanding? Probably a mixture of all, as it took wing and gracefully flew off into the white cloud specked sky. Maybe the bird saw me as I was, standing with my face pressed an unnatural white against the brown window, peering to see outside. Did it then, think of me as the prisoner, and the window my cage? Did it fly off with such show to emphasize its freedom? Were housewives prisoners? How then, would I describe my mother, who chose to stay at home, without giving a thought to her budding journalism career? Were the words she wrote occasionally her passage to ethereal freedom? Did she, while rolling out fat puris and stirring in alu curry, think of the alternate life she could have led, had she decided to pursue her calling- that of a gifted writer and a true perceptionist? Did she, in moments of woe, look upon us as burdens, a mark of her failure of independence? Were women who work outside homes truly independent? Once, she had entered a writing contest on a lark, and had won. I still remember the joy that coloured her face, and the glow that she carried with her for an entire week. Did she then wish that her life were different? Did she look to the news correspondents and famous journalists and want to be one of them too? Did she feel she quashed her ambitions for filial responsibility? Did most housewives think like this? Perhaps it was because a housewife’s role is so unappreciated in our society. Women have, through the ages, made homes and cooked and cleaned, yet it is this new era that has ushered in thoughts of financial independence, little caring that loss of happiness comes free. For I was yet to come across a career woman with a perfect balance of home and work life, who was guilt free from thinking that she spent too little time with her husband, or had forsaken seeing her only child grow up. Women are genetically not inclined to balance. I looked around through the seventh floor window. Below me was the large society garden, verdant and leafy, and full of dew-soaked crunchy grass. On weekends sometimes, when we weren’t too hung-over, Sameer and I would rise early, and take a walk in that garden, barefoot, and inhale the morning-fresh air, free and unencumbered, holding unspoken promises of excitement and a bright day ahead, while the dew would soak our feet, making them tingle funnily, as if those blades were tickling us, encouraging us to walk more, spend time with them.

Now, as the sunlight filtered through the tall swaying palm trees, it seemed as if they were dancing, and charming that old midget of a sun. Golden light fell in a lattice on the hedges, making them seem alive as they moved in the slight breeze. Somewhere, I heard a mother call out to her child, and I was brought back to thinking about my job, and my subsequent decision. Suddenly, I feel my stomach rumble, and my thoughts turn to dinner.

Even though I’m not a great cook, I have been taught the basics of good, light cooking by Ma since the time I was 12, and by 21, I could prepare a complete meal by myself. At work, it sometimes seemed weird to me that grown women- in their 30s couldn’t dish up a pasta to save their lives, who lived on McDs and Dominoes and had adjusting husbands who wouldn’t mind Chinese ordered-in every three to four days. I am proud of my small town upbringing, which lay emphasis on the value of nutrition and correct eating, and attributed it to good girls learning cooking as a basic qualification for the right groom.

I rummage in the refrigerator and pull out a bag of bhindi, Sameer’s favourite vegetable. As I soak in some black masoor daal to go with it, I also draw out two large cucumbers- one for the salad, another for the raita. I start chopping onions, ginger, garlic. When I was younger, I would have trouble identifying the correct spice- even now, I called Ma more than once to ask the name of zeera in English- brilliant, soft and fragrant asafoetida which could change the texture of any curry, and mustard- sarson seeds which could add fire to the blandest of vegetables with its own crackle and spark. 

The ladyfingers leave their white seeds everywhere- that, and a sticky white substance which binds itself irritatingly to my hands, like pollen grains from a flower. I pull out the non stick kadhai, and heat some oil, throwing in a few mustard seeds, and onions. The crackling of the aromatic mixture goes straight to my head, reminding me of the smells that wafted from my mother’s kitchen when we were younger, especially our birthdays, which would be special treat days and we could expect all our favourites- spicy chana masala, succulent dahi bade which melted in one’s mouth alongwith the rich and tangy saunth, presented with a smattering of red chilli flakes and fresh ground pepper, puffed and golden bhature- served immaculately on a bed of tissue paper to soak up the excess oil, and for dessert, mouthwatering sevvaiyan or luscious kheer, of which my sister and I would partake at least a couple of bowlfuls each- and my father, who would exclaim after every mouthful, that he wished it was birthday time more often.

I slowly plonk the ladyfingers into the fried paste and add in the spices that will complement its taste- turmeric, which is an antiseptic, and a binder; green coriander powder which adds aroma and taste, and powdered garam masala- a mixture of strong herbs- cloves, black peppercorns and bay leaves, that will add body to this otherwise lithe preparation. And I top it off with a sprinkling of red chilli powder and salt, feeling satisfied that I am cooking yet another wholesome meal for Sameer, who is particularly fond of cheesy pizzas and oily burgers.

I hum a little tune to myself as I grate the cucumber and blend the dahi. Sameer is the best thing to happen to me- I met him as a business associate- the largest advertiser on the channel, and our business meetings soon grew into personal dinners and private lunches- he, being older to me by four years and a Senior leader in his Marketing team of the large FMCG he works for. Our worlds clicked at the speed of lightning, and soon, I was on my way to fast falling down the tunnel of love, quite like the black tunnel journey that Alice undertakes in Lewis Carroll’s book- my favourite of the lot.

Soon, as dusk steals over our colony, flocks of birds fly southwards home. I wait for my Sameer to come home- he has already informed me he’s on his way- and I watch the little fairy lights that enliven the far off dotted landscape, thinking about them- the people inhabiting those homes, wondering, if they too, have as privileged and as luxurious a life as this.

Dinner is already on the table- alongwith a vase of fresh roses that I ordered this morning. Life is perfect, and nothing could be better. I seat myself on the velvet sofa, mesmerized by the shadows cast by the lamps on the far end of the room. They look like giant puppets- moving with a will of their own. When I was younger, I would often feel guilty about throwing away inanimate objects- an old pencil sharpener, a chewed up eraser or a faded pencil cap. I felt they too, had a life, and would feel hurt if I cast them so uselessly in the dustbin.

The doorbell breaks my reverie, and I open it- to Sameer, my husband, and my perfect life filled with the contentment of marital bliss.

(August 22, 2009)