This and that

I love playlists. You could add only the songs you want to listen to, arrange them in the order you want, remove a song from the list if you get bored of it, create a new list any time you want, and permanently delete a list. If only life was like a playlist!

I am not the type to rant and rave but I do have my share of things that irk me no end. One of them is newspapers not folded properly. Finicky, you say. Maybe I am. I hate it when I try to read a newspaper and find that it is messily folded, and that too somewhere in the middle page. How much time does it take to return to the first page and then fold it? And another thing I don’t like in newspapers is the single sports page they inserted at the very last page. If you are like me and read a newspaper back to front, you open the back page and immediately this loose sheet falls out, every time!!! Not good, not good at all. Causes hairfall and scratched scalps, and induces hatred for sports.

Another thing that really tests my patience is those cellotape things bread people use for tying up a pack of bread. You know what I mean, twist the polythene cover into a spiral, run the cellotape around it a couple of times, and paste a small piece of paper on the ends so the tape doesn’t stick to everything around it. A grand idea, but not so grand when it comes to the opening part. Yes, I've heard of scissors, but what I want to do is tear off the tiny itsy bitsy piece of paper, and then unravel the tape. Not as easy as it sounds. And definitely not fun.

Traffic police. One job I hope I never apply for, no matter how tough times get and even if I fall into the lowest pit of desperation. Why is that so? Firstly I don’t think the neon jackets would look good on me. Secondly I cannot stand for long hours. Thirdly I don’t like being in the public eye. Fourthly I don’t think I could remember whose turn it is to go and may add mayhem to the existing one, which is the best way I could describe our Indian traffic. But don’t get me wrong. I respect the police and I admire traffic policemen. They are very important and one can only imagine the chaos that would ensue on the roads if all the traffic policemen quit. Half of the traffic signals don’t work and you know how Indian drivers are. Give me a half inch of space and I would move forward. Other drivers coming from the other three directions? No worries, if I am the first to occupy that half inch I would be the first to leave this chaotic scene. Only problem is, the other three drivers think the same way. The rest I leave to your imagination.

There is something else I want to write, but I cannot remember what it is. Oh well you can’t win them all.

Fun at 40+

The first thing you notice is the dryness. Your skin and hair dry up, unreachable spots start itching, and the degree of itchiness is directly proportional to the number of people in your vicinity. Your skin burns all the time, but you feel cold inside. No matter how many glasses of liquid you pour down your throat, your thirst is never quenched. People annoy you, and it always seems like you are surrounded by people who wouldn’t keep their mouths shut when all you want is some peace and quiet. The atmosphere buzzes with activity, the traffic sounds seem to be much louder than before, and the cry of the vendors much more irritating. All of a sudden it seems like the world is doing its best to make you cry out in frustration and make you want to shave your head and run around naked, but you remind yourself that you are still a normal sensible adult, and you hang on to every tiny shred of sanity you could find. You tell people how you feel, but nobody seems to be listening - they have their own worries and problems. You wanted to give it all up, but deep down inside you know you must fight this to the end and will emerge victorious. So, day after sweltering day, you turn on the ceiling fan, the air cooler, the air conditioner, drink gallons of water and immerse yourself in buckets of bath water, waiting for the day when you will be able to say “It’s raining!”

Life sure is fun at 40+ degrees.

The Other Woman - Saihmingi Speaks

The wife is always the last to know. And I was no exception. I was too confident, too secure in my marriage that I didn’t see that like any other marriage ours could also fail, and I didn’t know we had to work on it to keep it alive and keep it growing. I just assumed that after marriage people lived happily ever after; maybe I was influenced by all the love stories I read growing up where the hero and heroine overcame all the obstacles in their way and got married. We never knew what happened afterwards, and we didn’t care because the lovers were united and all was right with the world.

When I first heard that my husband was having an affair with one of his colleagues I didn’t believe it. This was Zamtea we were talking about, my best friend of more than twenty-five years, the person I knew better than anyone else. It was my sister who first told me about the affair, and we had a big argument because of it. She was very sure of it, she had heard about it from one of the students who lived in her neighbourhood, and I got mad at her for not believing in my marriage and listening to silly rumours. I even demanded to know the identity of the student who was spreading lies about my husband. “Zamtea had many female colleagues and cannot be blamed for having friends,” were my exact words.

Then I heard it from my neighbour, a busybody who poked her nose into everyone’s affair. I never believed anything she said, but when she spoke about my husband and his sudden interest in teaching and going to college the seed of doubt was planted in my mind. It was common knowledge that Zamtea wanted to quit teaching and become a professional photographer. But we had two small children, I didn’t work, money was tight, and giving up a good job was a risk we didn’t dare take.

One day my sister came visiting. It had been a month since our last discussion, and she came to my house to “shake some sense in to me.” I didn’t need any shaking. I had observed Zamtea for the past few weeks and noticed that he always came home late, took his phone wherever he went, was extra conscious about his appearance, and never talked about college anymore. We hadn’t made love in weeks; he would stay up late and I never knew when he’d come to bed. My two daughters kept me very busy, and most nights I was asleep by nine o’clock. My sister came prepared to fight, and was surprised by my easy surrender. She told me everything she knew; the girlfriend’s name was Mahriati, the affair had been going on for about five months now, and the whole college knew. She said they tried to hide it but there are some things you cannot hide.

I had my doubts, but turning those doubts into belief and then accepting them was harder than I imagined. The first emotion I felt was anger. How could he fall in love with another person? Was I not good enough for him? Did I not love him and was I not a good mother to his children? How could he do this do me? How dare he do this to me!

If my sister had not been with me that day I'm sure I would have packed my things and went off to my father’s house. I even tried to burn his clothes but my sister stopped me, physically held me down, and told me to act like an adult. I was not easy to calm down. Was I not Saihmingliani Sailo, descendant of a famous chief? My ancestors were known for their greatness and bravery, and was I just going to sit there and let a man cheat on me and make me look like a fool? How people would have laughed behind my back! How could I ever show my face in public again? Everywhere I go pity whispers would follow me. Now I would be forever known as the wife who drove her husband into some other woman’s arms.

The sight of my two daughters with their surprised and scared faces calmed me down. They had never seen me like this before. I was always hot tempered, but marriage had turned me into a gentler person and I didn’t remember shouting at them any time. I loved them more than anything else, and I wasn’t going to let them grow up without a father. People could make fun of me, but no one was going to hurt my babies, no one was going to laugh at them because their parents were divorced. I would fight to keep my husband, and I would fight to keep my marriage alive.

My sister offered to wait with me for Zamtea to come home, but I sent her home. This was between my husband and me, and although I appreciated her concern and would welcome her support I did not want her to be around. I was a grown woman, capable of sorting out her marital troubles.

Zamtea came home, and although I’d promised myself that I would not get angry, seeing him made me lose control again. I screamed and shouted at him until I ran out of words. He kept quiet and waited for me to finish, and when he spoke he was full of remorse. He didn’t deny anything, but said he would stop seeing her and would even try to move to a different college. I was prepared for war, and this time it was me who was surprised by his easy surrender.

I forgave him. After all, he was my husband, the father of my children, and I still loved him.

The Other Woman - Zamtea's Story

“If you get someone pregnant then you will have to marry her,” my mother used to say to me and my brother, and to my sisters she said “If you become pregnant then you will have to marry the baby’s father, I don’t want my grandchildren to be illegitimate children.” Sure enough when I was twenty-nine I got my girlfriend pregnant, and I became a husband and a father just after I turned thirty. Secretly I wished the baby would share my birthday, or at least my birth month, but she was born three weeks after my birthday, in another month. I loved my wife very much, and the birth of our daughter made our love even stronger.

I met my wife when I was eight years old. We were the two smallest kids in our class, and so naturally we sat together on the first row, just in front of the teacher’s desk.  My first memory of her is when she dropped her lunch box and the teacher asked me to share my lunch with her. She didn’t remember it though, and said I made it up because I wanted to make her cook for me as some sort of payback. The argument still stands unresolved. She is a very strong person, full of life and energy, always active and very sure of herself. My friends sometimes joked that she should have been born a man, and to tell you the truth, I don’t disagree.  But she was a good friend, a good girlfriend, and now a good mother, and she loved me more than anything; what more could a man want?

I had never had another girlfriend; in fact I never looked at other girls. Saihmingi was more than enough for me. And when we took our vows to love and cherish each other for better or worse, I meant it with all my heart. I never even thought that I would be unfaithful to her and love another woman.

Mahriati was everything Saihmingi was not. She was soft spoken, had flowing long hair and the most beautiful skin. She had this vulnerability that makes you immediately want to reach out and protect her from the world. Her hair was the first thing I noticed about her. It was straight and long, covering her breasts, always clean and shiny, and I wanted to touch it and feel it slide between my fingers. Saihmingi had cut her hair just after our second daughter was born because she didn’t have time to care for it properly. I would often fantasise about Mahriati wearing nothing, her hair covering her breasts, and I would imagine how it would feel to run my hands down her hair, touch her breasts, that smooth skin, well you know. Thinking about her made me feel guilty as if I was already cheating on Saihmingi. I was happily married and was not supposed to let sinful thoughts invade my mind, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking those things.

 

To cut a long story short, Mahriati and I soon got involved. I loved her, but not in the way I loved my wife. She was smart and knew how to make me feel good. No she didn’t shower me with praises or act like a small helpless child, but she had this quality, this thing about her that when you were with her everything seemed possible. She made me feel strong and manly, kind of like her knight in shining armour, but at the same time she didn’t expect anything from me. She loved me just the way I was.

But as much as I loved Mahriati and she loved me, we knew that our relationship was doomed. It had no future. We both knew it would end someday and we would have to say goodbye forever. Knowing that we had very little time together made me love her even more, made me want her more than ever. It was a very happy time for me but a very frustrating time at the same time. I couldn’t show my love for her to the world, I could not tell anyone about it and we always lived in fear that we would be discovered. I would look at the young lovers walking in the campus and I would be filled with envy. I wished I could throw everything away, forget about what the world would say and shout to the world that I was in love.

I wanted to leave my wife and be with Mahriati, but she wisely said no. She didn’t want us to feel guilty for the rest of our lives, she said I had made my vows to my wife to love her forever and I should keep that vow. But she didn’t put an end to our relationship and continued to love me just as before. I knew I should stop seeing her and be a good husband and father, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Mahriati, couldn’t bear not to hear her voice late in the night, and I guess what I feared most was the thought that she would find some other man and would belong to some stranger. I knew it was going to happen, some unknown man was going to love her and marry her, he would hold her hand and she would laugh at his jokes, and she would bear his children. How I hated that man, and how I wished it was me instead! I cursed fate for its cruelty, for bringing her so late into my life, for giving me a taste of heaven and then taking it away from me.

One day I went home, late as usual, and one look at Saihmingi’s angry face told me that she knew.