Love doesn't ever retain the pure form of it's birth. It metamorphoses into passion, trust, vanilla concern and even indifference. This story traces the journey of love between a couple married for ten years, within the space of an hour- that deathly hour following the husband's confession to falling in love with another woman. Read entirely from the wife's viewpoint, it seeks to ponder the security of the age-old institution of marriage and the absence of the adrenaline first-love-high which quietly drains away from a long marriage.
The wife, who wishes to salvage their marriage by cooking her husband's favourite (chicken curry,rice) thinks about the implications of his decision- even lauding him for it- with a tiny twist at the end.
Extract from the story:
I grew up hearing the ultimate love story of Veer and Kudi and my eight-year old mind started fashioning dreams of my own Veer.
How was I to know that my prince would leave me with hot insidious tears, more painful than those physical stitches that Kudi had to bear...
I'd like to be a little happy today as I prepare the chicken curry, rice for dinner tonight. Anant is going to be home early and I can smell something different. Maybe tonight will be the start of something new.
Something to redeem our wasted marriage together.
There is hope and I'd like to make it grow with the one dish that Anant loves.
I chop onions, tomatoes. Bring out the kadhai and melt butter with oil. The zeera crackles reassuringly while I grind the onions. Watch them slowly turn from white to pink to brown...
How can he just leave behind a life and walk away? Walk away from a life measured by ten years.
A life of little but heart-felt laughter and things we did together.
How do I replicate those memories of the wedding, the first time his twitchy mother came visiting us, the first time I cooked his now-favourite chicken curry, the first time we made love in places other than the bed? Is my heart big enough to run those experiences again? Or do they just fade away like those shooting stars we saw on our stolen vacation to Goa?
What about his towel drying outside? Should I bring that in or let it remain?
The gas connection in his name and I don't even know the consumer number because he always re- ordered it.
His anti- acidity pills in the mug on the table.
Will you ever come back, Anant, to take what's yours? Exactly what is yours? Wasn't I yours too?
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Why do married people fall in love with someone else? It's because there is a glaring, hard-to-ignore void in their spouse which is filled perfectly by that someone else.
I had developed more voids in me than Anant or I could ever fill.
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Suddenly, I'm seized by an indescribable panic. I'm no longer in my twenties, when I had the energy to stay awake the whole night drinking and watching movies with friends and then traipse into office bleary eyed but alert.
I'm 33.
And suddenly single.
Endnote: This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.
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