Blind date

‘I have had enough of it really!’ No, it was not domestic violence which was torturing Anu. It was …domestic attention. A doting husband was her problem. Doting like chewing gum. Forever behind, before, against, upon her. He seemed eternally captivated by her and she felt eternally captured by him. Suffocated. Smothered. When Anu met her long lost high school friend Tara in a shopping mall by chance, she poured out her woes to her. If her friend was amused she did not show it. She listened. Asked questions. No, no, he didn’t poke his nose in her affairs, thank God, but his long nose kept hovering forever at one meter from Anu, as if he were a sniffer dog and she a potential bomb. Anu could almost see a tail wag at her-all the time. No, he never disputed her decisions, or her menu, rarely demanded this or that. But you see, too much blind acceptance of a person can be irritating. Anu even missed the arguments they used to have early on in their marriage. At least life was spicy. Now, it was bland, predictable. Nothing to accomplish. Nowhere to reach. Anu clearly needed help to bypass the amorous wall built by her husband to breathe freely. Tara told Anu about a social networking site on the internet where Anu could come across a number of potential friends. To a doubtful Anu, Tara explained the way it worked. She took Anu to an internet café in the mall, set up her account and patiently explained how she should go about it.
And like magic, a whole new world opens out to Anu. Though she does not have much to say about herself, thanks to that uninspiring husband of hers, she still manages to get the attention of some folk online. It is truly a whiff of fresh air, a dose of freedom for which she thanks Tara heartily. As friends freely share their marital troubles with her, she feels better. At least someone’s life is more intriguing and interesting than hers! Her husband wonders what has come over her. She finishes her work fast and sits at the computer for a long time. He misses her. But seeing her happily occupied, he doesn’t probe beyond. He is blessed with single-minded devotion to his wife. He folds clothes, arranges cupboards, reads an already read newspaper while waiting for Anu to wind up and warm the bed.

In some weeks Rahul happens. A bright witty young man gives Anu attention. When he learns she is just two years short of 60, he says ‘wow!’. He respects her earthy wisdom and listens to her ordinary experiences with care. He tells her about his life, his need for total freedom and how he dodges his parents when they talk marriage. Marriage is struggle, he thinks. It is a perpetual clash of egos. He prefers to keep his ego well fed and not bring in a competitor. Anu thinks a man with a big ego should be more interesting to live with than an ego-challenged one. There is scope to prove one’s superiority there. But she thinks it is wise not to tell Rahul about her dull marriage so soon. He fills her in about modern concepts, need based stands and quick fix solutions. Anu likes what she hears. Especially the concept of dating. When she asks him more, he proposes a date. An evening at the beach, the two of them. They will meet, talk, walk and go back home. He will drop her back.
Anu is in a quandary. When she tells Tara about it, Tara encourages her to go ahead. A beach is hardly a place where things can go wrong. Yes, make a rendez- vous for 5pm on Saturday, she advises. Anu warily tells her husband that she is to meet a friend at the beach on Saturday evening at 5. He is happy for her. Does not stop her, does not question her. ‘should I drop you by car?’ he asks gently at 3pm on Saturday. To her emphatic ‘no’ he nods and goes away. Not for long. When she is getting ready, sure enough Romeo is roaming not far. He thinks yellow chiffon will suit the occasion best. Should he get her some jasmine? He gives her change, he gives her a water bottle, he gives her a kerchief. He gives her a goodbye kiss.
Anu is with Rahul. ‘sexy’ he mutters appreciatively at the yellow chiffon. Anu feels a little odd. Never heard a compliment, for her sari or for herself, from a man other than her evergreen husband. She does not know how to look at the man before her, 30 years younger to her. ‘nice shirt’ she says by way of introduction. They look around. Crowds everywhere. The anonymity is heartening. It is liberating. They cross the stretch of sand and come to the sea. How symbolic! The turquoise vastness rolling out in front of Anu opens out her heart like nothing before in her life. A hand does not hold her (as if she will melt away in the water); anxious eyes do not search hers to know that she is not feeling too hot, too cold, hungry or thirsty. For some time, Anu simply takes in the freedom of being by herself, like a peg or two of unadulterated Scotch. In a moment her mobile rings. Her husband wants to know if she reached safely. If her friend has arrived. Anu feels her anger rise. ‘yes’ she says briefly. She wonders what he used to do in the pre mobile phone days. She is happily ignorant of the utter anxiety he used to feel when she was away, with no means of instantly knowing her welfare. She wishes she could go back to those days. Rahul is telling her about his family, work, likes, dislikes. In the backdrop of the swoosh of the waves and the various sounds around them, it takes Anu some effort to listen attentively to Rahul’s chatter. Also maybe because she never has had to listen to her husband for so long in one go. A man of few words-and oodles of attention. Rahul and Anu are more at ease now. She tells him about her parents, her home town and how she was brought up. He suggests he get them both tender coconut by way of starters. What to eat can be decided later. Anu is ok with it. She says she will sit on the stone slab while he goes and fetches the coconuts. Anu idly looks around. Finds it downright horrible that couples should come to the beach and hold hands, look into each others’ eyes and bury heads into each others’ shoulders. Do it in your homes, she mentally tells them. This is a place to feel free, not to celebrate bondage. The mobile rings. Anu is furious now. It is him again. ‘two women have come. I am making tea for them’ he whispers urgently. ‘so, what should I do?’ is Anu’s typical reflex, but he has cut the call. From beneath her blanket of anger at his repeated intrusion into her freedom, Anu is jolted. What! Two what have come? He is making what for them? And in a jiffy, Anu is up. The turquoise has turned turpid. Without another look towards the sea, without any thought of her coconut-laden date, she takes long strides on the sand, her chiffon threatening to fly away. Bolts across the beach like sprinter Bolt. She rushes to the road. Catches an auto. Goads the driver to hurry.
Rahul returns with two coconuts, looks for the yellow chiffon, sees a mere speck disappear.
Anu climbs the two flights of stairs as if running for her life. When her husband opens the door, she looks hard at him. Almost like she expects half of him to have vanished. He is there in full, bald head, thick glasses, paunch and all, but strangely, he seems half engaged elsewhere. Two empty cups are on the table. So it was real after all. Anu is no- not furious- but something else. After a long silence of five minutes, he says dumbly ‘are you back?’ That’s all. Anu is worried that something has happened to her Romeo. Like the hero, or his father suddenly turning paralytic in a movie. She should not have left him and gone. Two empty cups of tea….
Then slowly he says ‘two women had come. One roughly your age, the other much younger. They were doing a survey about conjugal happiness for a magazine. I told them you were out but they said they wanted to talk to me. We got talking. Then I offered to make tea and they accepted. They were so impressed with my thinking and my philosophy of marriage that they have asked me to work with them. They have asked me to share my experiences at a seminar. They have taken my mobile number too.’
Anu is torn. Anu is shattered. Like not two but a dozen china cups. Nooooooo, of course not, she won’t share her husband’s attention with anyone else, let alone his thinking and philosophy, his absolutely nothing. She is his, he is hers, period. Anu sits on the sofa, takes her husband by his hand and seats him next to her. She pats him, she cuddles him and whispers sweet nothings into his ears. ‘the bitches (witches too)’… she looks in the direction of the door and curses. Her husband is like an oxygen starved mountaineer, who has been confronted by two summits-and now embraced by the third and most formidable one.
Does the story end here? Depends on whom you sympathise with. Anu, the electrified wife, her husband hypnotised by the sweet talk of two sexy(he didn’t say so to Anu) women-and now his wife’s never-dreamt-of attention or poor Rahul left with two coconuts in the middle of nowhere.
‘Social engineering for a good cause’ ‘wink’ goes Tara’s diary entry.