The Secret wish List

  By the time I cycle back home, I know what I must do. I cannot go on this date with Ankit. I have to call him up and tell him the truth. I wait for a chance to have the house all to myself so that I can make the call. I certainly do not want Mother overhearing this conversation. The chance comes around six forty in the evening when Mother goes to the next street to visit a friend.

  Rohan isn’t at home and I know he will be back only after seven thirty when his cricket practice gets over. My father is travelling and is out of town. I thank my lucky stars for this chance and call up Ankit.

  ‘Hello, Precious,’ he says with a smile.

  ‘Ooooh! Precious? Have I graduated to “precious” so soon?’ I smile at his audacity.

  ‘Okay then, Gorgeous. Does that suit you better?’ he asks boldly.

  ‘Hey listen, Ankit, I have something to tell you,’ I say before he can go on.

  ‘Something more to what you wrote in my book? God I have read it so many times now. I loved it, Diksha,’ he says.

  ‘Ankit, this is about that. I can’t hold it in anymore. I have to tell you, I did not write that note,’ I finally manage to spew out the words that have been festering inside me ever since I left Tanu’s.

  There is silence at the other end for a while.

  Then he says, ‘Ha ha, you are kidding, right?’

  ‘No, Ankit, Tanu wrote it. I would never dare write such a thing,’ I say.

  ‘Oh,’ he says.

  And then we are both silent.

  ‘I feel really bad about it. And look, I did want to have coffee with you tomorrow. In fact, I was looking forward to it. But I don’t think it would be right on my part to do that now. I called to tell you that I can’t meet you tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I would have asked you out for coffee, with or without the note. I was planning to. But the note just made it easier.’

  ‘You are just saying that, right? You just want to make me feel better.’

  ‘Of course not, Diksha. I really would have, but I felt guilty asking you. I have visited your house so many times to study with Rohan and I didn’t want him thinking that I was friendly with him only because I liked you. You are, after all, my friend’s sister. I would have to, umm, how do I say it, kind of get an okay from him, you know. Hence I hesitated, that’s all.’

  I do not know what to do with this new piece of information that Ankit has hurled at me. I am hugely flattered and excited at the same time. My sixteen-year-old heart is thudding away with all its might. I find a large grin spreading across my face and I barely recognise my own voice as I whisper, ‘Oh, Ankit. I had no idea.’

  ‘How would you? I never told you. But now I have,’ he whispers back and my heart does a somersault inside my ribcage and makes an expert landing for a perfect ten that Ankit has scored with that statement. Though he has not said the exact words, but what he has said is almost as good as confessing his love for me.

  I continue smiling and Ankit says, ‘So the meeting at Infinity is on, right?’

  I am still hesitant as I remember my earlier resolve of not wanting to hurt Tanu. Ankit seems to be able to read my mind.

  ‘Hey listen, I can explain to Tanu, if you like.’

  ‘Oh no! Don’t be silly. She will hate me for it and she would be mortified if you did. Right now she is just pretending that it was all a joke.’

  ‘Then say a yes and meet me tomorrow.’

  After that I have no choice but to agree. I definitely don’t want to hurt Tanu anymore than she already is. But Ankit will not take a no for an answer.

  After a very long pause, I say, ‘Okay, will see you tomorrow at Infinity. Don’t keep me waiting, okay?’

  ‘Promise I won’t,’ he says.

  That night as I crawl into bed, I think about the dynamics of friendships, crushes, love and infatuation. I wonder whether I have been unfair to Tanu. I decide that I haven’t. I have even confessed to Ankit that it was Tanu who wrote the note, but all along Ankit had been nurturing a crush on me. I still can’t believe it. I feel plain lucky. I have read enough books that describe whatever I am feeling towards Ankit as just hormones playing up. They say that it is puppy-love, an adolescent crush, that will soon pass.

  But it definitely doesn’t feel so. My heart sings, there is a smile on my lips and my face glows at the mere thought of Ankit. Whoever wrote all that stuff about hormones playing up is definitely wrong.

  I know that, for me, this is the real thing.

  And even though I hate to admit it, I do know for a fact I am indeed in love with Ankit, regardless of what the experts say.

  Four

  ‘ABHAY, HURRY UP. YOU WILL MISS YOUR BUS. Eat this quickly now,’ I say as I place piping-hot, aromatic, soft idlis and sambhar in front of the sleepy reluctant child. Idli-sambhar is one of my signature dishes and I pride myself on the fluffiness of the idlis I make. I can almost picture my mother and Meera Mausi nodding proudly as I pile the idlis on my son’s plate.

  ‘Maaa, I don’t want breakfast,’ he mumbles as he pushes away his plate and slumps on the table, closing his eyes.

  I know now why parents send their children to boarding schools. I have woken up at five thirty am to cook this traditional, nutritious and delicious meal. The easiest thing for me would have been to dump a bowl of cereal in front of the child. But I would rather that my family have fresh, hot home-cooked meals.

  I muster all the patience that mothers have on tap in secret reserve for such situations and say, ‘Darling, you have to eat. You know the rule, right?’

  ‘Breakfast like a king, lunch like a nobleman and dine like a pauper,’ he parrots the words he had heard me uttering a few thousand times by now, his eyes still closed.

  ‘Yes,’ I smile at how he imitates my tone and stern expression.

  ‘But kings don’t eat idli-sambhar,’ he says.

  ‘Accha! How do you know? King Ashoka always ate idli for breakfast. In fact, his mother ensured he did,’ I say quickly. Years of parenting a smart aleck child has taught me to think on my feet.

  ‘No, he did not. He had a choice of a thirteen dishes that were cooked exclusively for him. Also he did not have to go to school. He went to a gurukul and learnt archery and fun things like that. Not boring lessons like we have. Also he did not take a school bus. He rode a horse.’

  I stare in surprise at the little speech Abhay has given. He is now tucking into his breakfast solemnly. I wonder when he learnt words like ‘exclusively’. I realise Abhay is no longer the little baby he used to be. He has started reading voraciously on his own without, other than enrolling him at the local library, much effort on my part. He is one of those naturally bright children that need very little effort to learn new things.

  My heart fills with maternal pride as I watch him finishing his breakfast after which I hurry with him to his bus stop. Then I rush back and Sandeep is now reading the morning newspaper.

  I know this is the moment when he will ask for his tea. He always likes to be woken up with coffee in bed and then a couple of hours later, he wants a cup of tea, while he reads the newspaper.

  ‘Diksha, can you please make a cup of tea?’ he asks predictably. I can almost time it to perfection, that exact moment when he will ask.

  Of late, his requests for tea too have begun to irk me. Vibha is right. They do treat me like a maid. I never get to read the newspaper in the morning. All these years, it is he who reads it first. In the early years, the pattern had been established. As he had to leave for work, it seemed only logical. I was anyway at home the whole day. I could read it later.

  But after Vibha’s visit, I have begun to notice these things a lot more. In the larger scheme of things, perhaps a tiny thing like who reads the newspaper first will have no significance, but when the weariness of a fifteen-year-old marriage is beginning to run you down, it is these little things that prick the most. The tiny little things are not big enough to break marriages and yet they are cracks that have been neglected. T
hey stand out now like cacti on a barren desert-scape that is my marriage. Funny how Vibha’s little comment has acted as a catalyst to aggravate things to the point of them becoming unbearable.

  ‘Making it,’ I say as I hurry to the kitchen.

  Vibha is right. I am conditioned to wait on Sandeep and Abhay and serve them day and night. I hate my life as I dully hand over the cup of tea to Sandeep who takes it without even an acknowledgment and goes back to reading his newspaper.

  It is always little things like this that build up. Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years. You don’t even notice it creeping up. It happens, trickle by trickle. You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a ‘taken-for-granted’ attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often too late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone has been established. A zone that is hard to get out of.

  I know now that there is only one word which sums up my marriage perfectly: Boring.

  I watch Sandeep blissfully oblivious to the thoughts racing inside my head. I cannot bring myself to talk to him about this. He is not a new-age metrosexual male that one reads about in magazines or sees in movies, the type in front of whom the wife can pull up a chair, tuck back her designer hair-do, prop her perfectly manicured legs up and say, ‘Darling, we need to talk.’

  Oh no. Ours is a conventional Indian marriage. And good Indian wives don’t do things like that.

  Which century are you struck in, Diksha? Go on and tell him you need to talk.

  But when I look at him again, my courage fails me. He would probably stare at me uncomprehendingly like I have gone mad.

  Finally, I just do what I always do.

  Get his breakfast ready and wait for him to leave for work.

  Once he leaves, the whole day stretches bleakly in front of me. I stand and stare at the messy breakfast remains on the dining table. He has not even bothered to put away his plate. It is nothing new. On normal days, I would have cleared it without a second thought. But today, I just stand, wanting to rebel, wanting to pick up the plate and smash it dramatically into the wall and send the remnants flying in all directions. I breathe hard as I stare at it. I clench my fists. I know I am working myself up into a rage. I feel like exploding now.

  Unable to bear it any longer, I pick up the plate, march into the kitchen and fling it angrily into the sink where it lands with a clang. Then I wait for the house-help to turn up.

  I am filled with a restlessness that is hard to describe. I sit with my cup of tea and contemplate on what my life used to be and what it has become. I think about Vibha and me. Circumstances were not similar for both of us, but both had ultimately bowed down to parental pressure in the great Indian marriage system and had arranged marriages, me much earlier than her. I had got married when I was nineteen, even before my graduation results were out. My parents had been over the moon to find a guy as suitable as Sandeep.

  My mind hops skips and jumps down memory lane as I remember how shy and awkward Sandeep and I had been around each other when we were ushered into a room to ‘talk’ while the rest of the family waited outside.

  ‘Hi, I am Sandeep,’ he had said.

  I had burst out laughing and said I already knew that.

  Whereupon he has said without any preamble, ‘I like you. You are sweet and nice. I am a simple guy and it doesn’t take much to keep me happy.’

  I was taken aback by his forthright attitude.

  Thinking back now, I recall with a small pang of pain that he had never talked about making me happy. It was about keeping him happy. I had beamed with pride in my nineteen-year-old naïvety and had mumbled that I would do my best. I had hoped that agreeing to this marriage would win me some redemption in my parents’ eyes and they would forgive me for what I had done when I was sixteen.

  It is funny how, even after these many years, I am still trying to do my best. He is, of course, happy. But I am definitely not.

  Fact is, he never promised to make you happy, Diksha. It was never about you. It was always about him. You were content then. You agreed, knowing what you were getting into. You have made your bed, now lie in it.

  I have tried to lie in it and be content. But it pricks now and is no longer comfortable. It is a tired, old worn-out bed. I know I have to do something to alleviate this feeling of disquiet.

  When Sandeep comes home that evening, I wait for an opportune moment. The dinner plates have been long cleared, Abhay been read to and tucked to bed. Sandeep is watching a war movie and I know it is a movie he has seen several times. I cannot comprehend what he finds so fascinating in all the violence, gore and blood. How many times can one watch that? I wait for a commercial break to tell him that I want to talk to him.

  ‘Hmmm, what about?’ he asks distractedly.

  ‘Sandeep, we never talk,’ I say.

  ‘What is there to talk about?’ he asks again, not taking his eyes off the television. I grab the remote from his hand and switch off the TV. My hands are shaking with nervousness, but I try to mask it.

  He looks at me as though I have slapped him. I have never done anything like this before.

  Soon the surprised shock on his face is replaced by annoyance.

  ‘Can’t you see I was watching that?’ he says, the pitch of his voice a notch higher than usual.

  My heart beats really fast. I have never really stood up to him before. The meek little doormat that I am, I want to take back all that I have said. I want to curl up and apologise and grovel. But now I have taken the plunge and if I do not at least try to sort out this issue, it will blow up and explode.

  ‘Sandeep, I just need fifteen minutes of your undivided attention,’ I say, mustering up courage and exhibiting a bravery that I do not feel at all. I try to not let my nervousness show and, by the look on Sandeep’s face, it seems like I am succeeding.

  ‘Okay. So now you have it. What is it?’ he says.

  I feel like an amateur boxer in a ring who has won a first round entirely by fluke against an opponent who is a world-class champion.

  ‘Sandeep, I feel this growing sense of discontent in our marriage,’ I say.

  He looks at me as though I have just confessed my desire to become a strip dancer.

  He blinks a few times.

  I stand and stare back at him.

  Finally, he says, ‘Sit down.’

  I sit opposite him, like a child who comes late and has been given permission by the teacher to enter the classroom. I sit and wait for him to talk.

  ‘What do you mean by discontent? Am I not doing all my duties as a husband?’

  Sure, as long as ‘duties of a husband’ mean earning for us and providing for us, you are. What else do you really do other than that? A big fat nothing.

  ‘Yes, Sandeep. But surely there is more to a marriage than that,’ I meekly say, suppressing all I am feeling inside.

  ‘Diksha, I am a simple guy. I do not understand what more you want? ’

  I squirm.

  ‘Sandeep, I want some conversation. I feel a bit taken for granted in this whole deal here. I feel I want to do something with my life. Other than being a wife and a mother, I truly am nothing.’

  ‘Have I ever stopped you from doing what you want to do, Diksha? Didn’t you go for your interior design course after marriage? Did I ever stop you? Wasn’t it you who decided not to have a career?’

  ‘Yes, but I wanted to give the best care I could to Abhay. How would I have done that had I gone ahead and had a career? We would have had to send him to a crèche.’

  ‘So it is a choice you made, Diksha. Nobody forced you. Not me. Not my mother.’

  ‘I know, Sandeep. All I am saying is that I now want to do something of my own. Abhay goes to school during the day. You travel so much on work and keep long hours. After that you just come home and watch TV. We hardly ever even talk, Sandeep.’

  ‘How many couples do you know, married for a
s long as we have been, who have conversations? We aren’t dating or newlyweds for God’s sake. What conversation are you talking about? We are talking now, aren’t we?’

  ‘It wasn’t as though we had great conversation even when we were newlyweds. But don’t you agree, it was so different then, Sandeep?’

  He does not know what to say. I have stepped across an invisible line here. I have expressed, for the first time, how I have felt. I feel triumphant, almost emancipated for having stood up for myself.

  Finally he says, ‘I think all the new-age mumbo-jumbo which these women’s magazines feed you have influenced your thinking. I don’t think I am such a bad guy. I earn enough, I am a good father and husband. I have never questioned the choices you make, and I think I have given you reasonable freedom and allowed you to do what you want. You made a choice to stay at home. Now you regret it. And you are blaming me and making me the scapegoat for what you think is your boring life. How am I responsible? You act like a martyr here while living in luxury even as I work my balls off. Don’t you ever forget that.’

  His little speech has crushed me like a ten-ton truck. All my newfound bravery vanishes swiftly.

  I wince at what he has stated so plainly. He has thrown at me a fact—that it is he who has been earning while I live in the lap of luxury. It hurts as there is an element of truth to it. Heck, not just an element, it is the entire truth.

  And it is bitter and hard to swallow.

  So I bite back the tears that are threatening to spill over and with an intense self-loathing, mutter a ‘Sorry, you are right. I don’t know what came over me.’

  Then I retreat into the kitchen and I sob and sob and sob, even as Sandeep turns the television back on and goes back to watching whatever it was that I interrupted.