Neal threw the newspaper on the table. In
the quiet of the house, the sound startled Shruti.
‘What is wrong with you? I don’t have time for your
nonsense. I have to finish this report.’
‘But, Neal……’
‘Let me finish this report and we will talk,’ Neal
said without letting Shruti finish her sentence.
With a sigh, Shruti left the room. She busied herself with breakfast but her
heart was not in it. The cobwebs of sorrow covered her soul. No matter how hard
she tried, she could not dust them away. Over the years, the distance had grown
between them and no matter how hard she tried, she could not bridge the gap.
‘Breakfast Shruti, is
it ready?’ Neal’s voice broke her reverie.
‘Yes, it is.’
Over breakfast, Shruti tried to talk to
her husband again.
‘Neal,
I was thinking that we should have a child.’
‘What?’
The shock was clearly audible in his voice.
‘Well, it has been four
years since our marriage, life is settled, there are no financial burdens,
don’t you think this is a good time for us to have a child?’
‘Of course not Shruti.
I cannot take the responsibility of a child just yet. I am not mentally
prepared. We will talk about it some other time. I have to finish this report.’
Neal walked out of the dining room
without giving a second look to Shruti’s crestfallen face. Tears welled up in
her eyes. Head bowed, she cleared the table. When did our home become a house,
Shruti was thinking to herself. Theirs had been an ideal marriage. As colleagues in the
same office, they had been very good friends. Other than words, they could
understand each other’s silence as well. No one was surprised when the
friendship turned into love and they decided to get married immediately.
‘I don’t want to work
anymore,’ Shruti had announced.
‘Why?’
‘I have worked enough.
Now, I want to look after you and our home.’
Her smile was infectious. Neal took her
in his arms and smiled.
‘As you wish, my love.’
Embraced in his masculine arms, Shruti
felt safe and happy. She sighed. Life was good. Someone up there was certainly
looking out for her. She sent a silent prayer of gratitude. Every corner of the
house was full of their love. She could feel the love in the air she breathed.
Slowly, unobtrusively, love had left
their nest and had left indifference in its wake. Now there were layers of
distance which could not be bridged no matter how hard she tried. With every
morning, sorrow had crept in through the open windows, settled everywhere, took
its hold on her, choking her.
‘Can you please come
home a little early today?’ Shruti phoned Neal.
‘Why?’ Neal could not
mask his irritation.
‘I want to talk to you
about something. It is important.’
‘I will be home by
seven, the usual time.’
The phone was ringing. It was Neal.
‘I will be late. Some
urgent work at the office. I cannot come before eleven.’
The cryptic tone cut her to pieces.
‘I will wait. It is
very important that we talk.’
‘Don’t wait. I will be
quite late.’
‘Oh! But I will.’
‘Entirely up to you.
Sleep if you want, wait if you wish. I don’t care.’
Suddenly there was a chill in the air.
Shruti shivered.
‘Can we talk now?’
Shruti asked after Neal had finished dinner.
He yawned.
‘I
am very tired. Almost dead on my feet. Too much wok in the office. We will talk
on Sunday.’
He turned his back and went off to sleep
immediately. Shruti tossed. Sleep eluded her. She watched the sunlight come in
through the windows, bringing with it another day full of sorrow.
‘Neal, I must tell you
something. It is very important,’ Shruti said on the Sunday morning which had
dawned bright and beautiful. ‘It is about us having a child.’
‘I told you I am not
ready for it just yet.’ The exasperation could clearly be heard in his voice.
‘In any case, the company is sending me to Germany for three months. It is a huge
opportunity for me. I have to focus on my career at this moment. The company
can, then, send me to U.S.A. That will really boost my career. It would also
give me the promotion I have been waiting for since so long.’
Shock, mixed with grief, benumbed her. Her
throat was parched. Air seemed to have been sucked out of her lungs. She held
on to the chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
‘When did you plan to
tell me about this?’ Shruti could barely get the sentence out.
‘Oh, the ticket came only
yesterday. I thought I would tell you today.’ And, Neal got up to go to the
bedroom.
‘Neal, I have something
important to tell you.’
‘What can be more
important than this? Later Shruti. I have to work on a few details.’
Shruti sat down on the chair with a thud.
Her face had turned pale. Every drop of blood seemed to have been drained from
her face. She looked like a ghost. A vein throbbed in her left temple. The cup
of tea was lying untouched on the table. The layer of cold on the tea was like
the layer of sorrow which had settled on her heart and could also be seen
covering everything in the house. It had become part of her life—her companion,
her soul-mate.
Neal came back. He was on cloud nine. He
had carved a niche for himself. His bosses were very happy with him. Talks of
sending him to U.S.A. were already making rounds.
Life started as he had left it. Two
months had passed since he had come back. Work at the office was becoming more
demanding. He had time for very little else. At home, everything appeared as he
had left it two months ago. Yet, something troubled him, something he could not
put his finger on. Shruti seemed to have gone into a shell. She would answer
when spoken to, was courteous as she had always been, still something irked
him. Once-in-a-while there would be just
a little more salt in the vegetable or his papers would not be at their proper
place or his daily planner would not be at his bed side.
Irritants, yes! But not enough which
would allow him to pick up an argument with Shruti. He searched for opportunities to put her down
but there weren't any. There was nothing tangible yet his eyebrows would shoot
up at times. Shruti went about everything as she had earlier but there was a
listlessness which would not go away.
It had been five months since his return.
Slowly Neal began to forget Shruti’s slight mistakes. Office work consumed all
his waking hours. He had very little to say to Shruti. She had stopped calling
him. She made no demands on his time. The distance between them had become an
unbridgeable chasm. Each was in her/his shell, unwilling to share the life they
had once shared.
Saturday
morning. After many days he had got a Saturday off. He just wanted to laze
around. Shruti had gone to a friend’s house. He had not stopped her. He wanted
to be with himself. Not wanting to share the space of the house with her, he
had not objected. Rather, he was happy to be alone.
Bell
rang. He did not want to get up. It rang again. Getting irritated at Shruti not
being there to open the door, he got up and opened the door. The insurance
agent was standing outside.
‘Hello Sir!’ Hari Gupta
said in his usual squeaky, chirpy voice.
‘Hello Hari,’ Neal
greeted the man, hiding his irritation.
‘Glad to meet you,
Sir.’
‘Same here,’ came the
perfunctory reply from Neal.
‘So, what brings you
here?’
‘You have forgotten,
Sir? I had talked to you over the phone. I had told you that premium for
Mediclaim is due. You had told me to
come today.’
‘Oh yes. I remember.
Can we not do it on Monday?’ Neal did not want to make the effort to get the
documents and his cheque book.
‘Policy will lapse,
Sir. Request will have to be made. You will have to write an application to
start the policy again. Too much hassle. There will also be a fine.’
‘Alright. I will get
the papers.’
Neal’s exasperation had reached its
limit. He went into the bedroom to look for the file. It was not at its usual
place. He looked everywhere but the file was still untraceable. He opened the
cupboard. All his clothes were neatly arranged. He began throwing them out. One
by one, he threw out clothes from every shelf and every drawer.
He opened Shruti’s cupboard. For anyone
else, it would have been a visual treat to see the neatly folded and arranged
clothes. Not for Neal. There was not an appreciative bone in his body. With
scant regard for Shruti and the labor she would have to put in to fold and
arrange clothes in both the cupboards, Neal began throwing clothes out of her
cupboard. With every piece of cloth he threw out, his irritation grew.
Nothing.
The file was nowhere to be seen. He came to the last shelf. Resenting Shruti
and her absence from the house every second, he began throwing the clothes out.
Her multi-colored dupattas came flying out. There was a riot of colors
around him on the floor. Consumed by irritation as he was, Neal was blind to
all this. A bundle of envelopes came flying out with an orange and green dupatta.
The white envelopes contrasted with the myriad of colors surrounding him. Still
no file.
He was about to turn away when something
caught his eye. It seemed like Shruti’s handwriting. He picked up an envelope.
Something was written on it.
“My Dearest Darling.”
‘Sir, the file is here.
Madam must have left it with your other papers,’ called Hari from outside.
Neal
went out to deal with the man. Concluding the business with him in record time,
Neal came back to the bedroom. Shruti’s handwriting mocked him. A knife pierced
through Neal’s heart. With shaking fingers he opened the envelope. There was a
letter inside it.
“My dearest darling! Ever
since you have come into my life, my joy has known no bounds. I
could never dream that I could be so happy. Thank you for becoming a
part of my life. I love you.”
Neal’s world was shaken. He could not
believe what he had read. Gingerly he opened the second envelope.
“My dearest darling! Today
I was very sad. Then I met you. You made me very happy. I
could not stop looking at you. I had tears of joy in my eyes when I saw
you. I love you.”
Neal reeled. Shruti was in love. There was
another man in her life! Anger and jealousy consumed him. He was full of hatred
for Shruti. Randomly he picked up another envelope and opened it.
“My dearest darling! Today
you are not part of my life any more. You are no more with me to give me
joy. Once again I am as lonely as I was before you had come into my life.
Once again there is nothing to look forward to. Once again the day
will bring with it sorrow. I loved you then. I love you now. I will always love you.”
Neal could not stop himself from opening
another envelope. The letter was not addressed to anyone. There was only one
line written on it.
“Today I went and had an abortion.”
Everything came crashing down. Neal
had been so preoccupied that he did not hear Shruti come in. she looked at the
mess in the room and the letter in Neal’s hands with lifeless eyes. She went to
the store room. She had a suitcase in her hand. Without saying a word, she
packed her clothes and walked out of the house without looking back.
