थे पिंक slip

The pink slip came as a bolt out of the blue and she saw red. The ensuing hues of grey, from dull ash to threatening storm, filled her mind. No no, it was not she who had lost a job, it was her husband. The prospect of his idling at home, with no income on the one hand and intruding into her space on the other, is what the grey spectrum was all about. His temper, his selfishness and demands made up some of the shades of grey. The boredom and grumpiness of their togetherness made up the rest.

5 years into a made– by - others marriage had taken them nowhere. It had not taken off at all. A plane prematurely, permanently grounded. Who was to blame? As if overcome by an allergic itch, relatives and ‘well wishers’ busy themselves to find spouses for other’s children. With no inkling of their personalities, their needs or disposition, they base their judgment on an astrologer’s predictions and status-caste matching. It is almost ok till here. But where the process falls woefully short is after the marriage. Parents conveniently forget that they have approved of the match and ‘fixed’ it- what an euphemism!-and they blame the other family for anything less than perfection according to their standards. This only deepenes the existing chasm between the spouses. It is like planting a seedling and leaving it to its own fate without nourishing it.

He found her lacking in most of the attributes he would associate with marriage: she was not meticulous in housework. She was stuck in a rut, could not look beyond the obvious. She was not an intellectual companion, nor any lesser companion for that matter. Her looks were average, her shape was far from desirable. The bedroom - forget it! Who would feel aroused in the presence of such a partner? Then of course, she loved gossip. It never struck her to make him a cup of coffee when he came home from work.
‘he knows what he wants and he is not a child’ went her explanation. She didn’t shout back when he was angry, thank God for that but her sulk was worse. She would go away without a word when he pointed out a mistake and the resulting freeze would last, and simply last. It was not a lifeless freeze. It bred resentment and more of it. Tears complemented it. The bedroom? Forget it. Who ever invented the whole yucky concept of lovemaking? Thank God her twin sister lived a couple of streets away. It was her presence and their daily meetings which gave meaning to her life and sustained her and her marriage, by default. She had in fact, married him by default, as she had nothing to say against. And because her twin lived in the same city, she had had no qualms about marrying a guy from the same city.
Nor had he had qualms about marriage. Nor any forebodings. His parents thought it was time for him to tie the knot. And tie it he did. They had found a girl from a ‘good’ family, who had been ‘up to college’, who came with a rosy dowry.. That’s all.
He was a manager in a private company. Managing what who knows! She was not the particularly inquisitive kind to probe and seek. It didn’t interest her. He gave her a fixed amount of money to manage the month and their ended their monetary interaction. If it was sufficient for all their needs and for anything more she fancied he had never asked her till now.
Their honeymoon had been a mini disaster. Lets say their first togetherness had torn them apart.
From then on, Glacier Lambert sat between them at all times.
And now this.
What would change in her life, she wondered. She would have to cook more for sure, maybe make more coffee and tea for him. Maybe his friends would come home to ruin her peace.
Within a week she knew better. It was all of the above and also having a detective’s eye constantly trained on her. Keeping track of her activities, conversations, expenditure. Why, even her sleep. He still expected his shirts to be well ironed, though he was no more manager. He expected breakfast like always though he had no place to leave for in a hurry. From where money would come for the coming months, she had no idea.
Digging into his pre-marriage savings did not appeal to him but he saw no other way till he found another job.
He felt suffocated in the house. At thee end of the first week at home, he had a fair idea of what his wife’s routine was like, though she seemed to gloss over bits of it in his presence. He was not particularly fond of her twin sister. When she came home once or twice, he gave her a forced smile and went away. His wife seemed to keep herself occupied with worthless small activities throughout the day. She did not read any books, she did not stitch or embroider, as the match maker had claimed. She cooked ok, never served him or ate with him.
Glacier Lambert sat between them.
Finally supremely bored of observing his pear shaped wife day in and day out, he decides to go out for a while. It is 10 am. He has already gone through the vacancies page in the newspapers. He has found nothing worth applying for.
She is relieved to see him out. She does a spot of cleaning. The bed is unoccupied for a change. So she removes the sheet and dusts the bed. Something falls down. A small book it is. books do not attract her, so she thinks of putting it back then notices the cover. A skimpily clad buxom girl posing …’eeeeeks’ she shouts as if she has sighted a big cockroach. Gingerly she opens the book. There are more pictures of girls and some stupid stories of love and what not. Nauseated, she hastily puts the book away from where it dropped.
In the middle of the night, when she suddenly wakes up from her sleep, she notices him reading the book in the light of a torch. Just a passing sight. She falls asleep again.
The next morning, after a hurried breakfast, when he leaves the house to attend an interview, she goes to the bedroom first. Looks beneath the pillow. Sure enough, the creepy book is there; why, it seems to have clones of it too, like from under a magic pillow. Now they do not threaten her like so many cockroaches; instead she calmly opens one. Third rate pictures of girls, in dull colours and lurid stories. She actually leaves the bed undone and reads through one. When the churning in her stomach has subsided, she takes a deep breath, puts the books back and proceeds with her work.
Something has changed.
Not given to thinking, she does not analyse what has changed. Only feels ruffled from within, by what she does not know.
For once, she has faced something she cannot share with her twin. Why, she does not know.
The pink slip is now one month old. The grey spectrum too is one month old. What has changed is the frequency of her meetings with her twin. He goes out regularly after breakfast, comes back for lunch, then stays put in the house. So she cannot dash across to her sis’s for a spot of coffee and gossip. Not that their being at home from the afternoon, through evening does much to warm the icy environs.
Slowly, he begins to notice things. Really small things about his wife. Like how she spreads some grains of rice near the balcony for the two pigeons who come there courting. How she actually sounds sweet when she talks to the neighbour’s toddler sitting on her lap. How the vegetable vendor respects her and how she listens attentively to his woes and counsels him and how she actually sounds melodious when she occasionally hums a bit of an old film song while working. Then she is consistent in following a time table unlike him, given to whims and moods. She might not do fabulous embroidery but she makes small, shapely rangolis every morning. And…is it his illusion that she actually takes more time and care to cook now?
She is surprised. Instead of feeling disgusted at him for the books he reads, she is actually feeling something different. She knows him to be a learned man- a double degree holder, had said the aunty. Why should he have to read such cheap books? What should she do?
No, no, she does not want to rush into his arms, nor is she feeling insecure vis a vis the stupid girls in the book. She has never claimed any place in his heart till now to fear it gone. They share a deluxe double bed with U foam mattress only because her father bought it for them and there is no other bed in the house.
Is she then feeling sorry for him? She doesn’t know if the pink slip is well deserved, justified or unfair. So she has not asked him about it.
Yes, he is relieved that she does not nag him about the pink slip. His friend’s wife, for all her oozing wifely love, is after him to get back to work. He realizes that he has never felt any possessiveness, let alone express it, towards his wife. It is fine to talk about personal freedom and all that but possessiveness also brings about a sense of belonging. One hangs loose like an oversized shirt on a hanger without someone claiming possession of one’s heart and welfare….and body..
The next day, after he leaves, she is once more in cleaning mode. She feels a new surge of energy in herself, as yet unidentified. While cleaning his study table, which she usually avoided meddling with, she comes across his German books and dictionaries, all coated in a thick layers of dust, lying under heaps of papers with his handwriting on them. For a moment she gazes at one. She actually likes his well formed bold handwriting. She opens a book and though she understands not a word, she smiles. Something like a small ball of pride swells within her, that her husband knows a foreign language. He must be intelligent. He must be knowing things that she doesn’t know.. Her ego does not protest for it barely exists. .She wipes the books, blows away the dust and carefully rearranges them.
He notices the changes. Says a gentle ‘thanks’.
She no longer bothers about the under-the-sheet books. They have done their bit for her. He too no longer bothers about them. For he begins to find someone more interesting right before him.
It is almost three months now since pink slip happened. Instead of being proportionately depressed, he seems inversely happier. The hands-on learning gained within the four walls of his home is worthier than all the degrees, trainings and seminars of the outside world. Damn the savings! Who cares! Inputs jostle within him to be processed. Actually his wife’s pear shaped figure is not that bad, especially when compared to his own drumstick body, he grins. He regrets the air of intellectual superiority he has learnt to put on before her. She has never contested it. Simply accepted it as real. but the distance the put-on façade has created between them is equally real. all these years he thought that shouting and pointing out mistakes made him superior. The three months at home have taught him otherwise. She is not brilliant, but she is genuine. She has no corrections to make. He has to make lots of them.
Five years wasted. Does not matter. So many people spend a lifetime wasted by their illusions. The pink slip came at the right time.
A new grey appears in the spectrum. The sexy grey of a clean slate!