Mimosa with Samosa, Neena (Part 1)

“I had an affair”, he said.
“With?”
“Someone I work with”
“and..”
“She is pregnant”
“Hmm?”
“She is a nice young woman”
“And I aged with you, obviously not nice enough anymore”
“Listen to everything I want to tell you first”
“Do I even have a choice?”
“Please.. listen”
I sigh.
“We met a few months ago, when I was in Canada. She had come to Canada the first time, and we hung out after work. Soon we realized that we have a lot in common, and felt a strange connection that I never felt with you. At least in the recent years. She was everything I wanted in a girl, so dependent on me, she made me feel important, my presence in her life important. And one of those long cold weekends, we spent too much time together that we ended up sleeping together”
“Hmm..”
“The next morning, we realized that it had been a big mistake. She is a conservative Christian girl, who had saved herself for marriage, and I was a middle-aged happily married man. I told her that it was the end of the relation from my side, and she said I had my own choice, she had her own. She told me that she would continue to live with my memories and wait for me to come back. I thought she was joking, and left, forgot all about her. You and the kids gave me so much love when I came back that I forgot all about it and moved on”
“So what happened now?”
“She is pregnant, with my child”
“Hmm”
“Yes, she is. And she refused to abort the fetus. She has the same views as you. If it has a heartbeat, it deserves to live, whether there is anyone to love it or not”
“So, you are leaving us?”
“No”
“You expect me to file a divorce?”
“No”
“You want out of court settlement?”
“No”
“I won’t forget and forgive Shri! I am human. Only human. You have cheated me, I think you understand the seriousness of the matter. You didn’t do a mistake that can put behind you and walk away”
“I understand”
“Is there something that I don’t understand here?”
“She is here. In the city. She wants to have the baby here, with me on her side. Her parents didn’t approve of the pregnancy, or her love for me. So she is alone”
“So you want to be a supportive fuck buddy”
“It’s not like that”
“Help me understand”
“I am doing everything I can to salvage whatever I can. I need your help, as a friend, and your support”
“Be with your girlfriend icing her lips while she pushes out your love child?”
“All I am asking is to be a little reasonable”
“All you are asking me to do is be a celebrity wife and just suck it up!”
“Please.. don’t leave me alone when I need you the most. I love you more than anyone in the world, and no one can ever deny that. All that happened was in a moment of weakness, which is only human. I will do anything to prove that I won’ do it again”
“I don’t care anymore”
“Now she is on the town, she wants me to be with her”
“Go ahead. She is a nice woman, and deserves your attention now”
“Please don’t make fun of me”
“You made my life a living joke already”
“I want you to come with me”
“I would die before I do that”
“Please.. I need you”
“I have stopped feeling any need for you, or feelings to support you”
“I beg you”
“Impossible. What do you think I am? You walk into the door saying you have a girl friend who is pregnant, and want me to come and take care of her? What are you? A sultan from middle east having wives and concubines under the same roof”
“Please”
“Get out of here before I kill you”
“Neena, listen”
“No Shri. I am not listening this time. It is different to write down a list of exercises for you to do at gym, and pack your gym bag so that you don’t forget anything, but it’s different to play the same person when you get a girlfriend pregnant. It’s not the same, at all”
“Neena”
“Please get out of here. I don’t want to see you ever again”

I hear the door shut and the car start. I am alone, not lonely, for the first time in many many years. And I don’t feel like crying my heart out. I make myself some coffee, and sit down to watch an afternoon soap opera, which, compared to my life today would be dull and lifeless. The phone rings, and I know it’s Shri, probably begging for a pardon, or probably asking me to change my mind and come to the hospital. I let it go the voicemail.

I always believed that I was happily married. Never in my wildest dream did I imagine Shri cheating casually on me. I thought I had everything in control. How could he do that to me? Didn’t he remember my face when he was with that woman? Didn’t the ring that he wears on his finger remind him of his commitment? Is he so weak? Everyone wants to break the norm, but I never knew my Shri had the courage to do it. Minal Shah’s husband at least did it online, while she slept, on his webcam. Shri abused his business trip, and got her pregnant. How careless can a man get! Or did he expect me to pack him a condom just in case he needed, along with his shaving kit, and deodorant?

Shri, today I truly hate you for needing me. And for playing with all our lives impregnating a mormon. All these days I thought you were just incapable of shopping for a week’s groceries if I didn’t write down a list for you, but today you proved that you are not even capable of finding yourself a fuck buddy without anyone helping you. Your mother has screwed up your life so much that she has left you incapable of making any good independent decisions in your life. You should thank your stars that Neena Deshpande put her dreams aside to play mommy for you and your kids all these years and take care of you. Now, you will see the other side of me, and you will repent your decision of trying to fool me, even if it was only once.

The phone rings, and I let it go to voicemail. It will be needy Shri.

Only it’s a reverse 911 call to evacuate, because the fire I saw on the distant mountains this morning’s has decided spread it’s arms and swallow everything I have, everything that remained in my life, today. I call Nisha and Kris’s school, and I am told that Shri already picked them up, because they called him first, as always, during emergencies. I went upstairs and gathered all the jewelry, leaving behind my mangalsutra that didn’t have any value anymore, and didn’t deserve to be worn at least on Satyanarayan Pooja days. I leave all our pictures behind, and pick up Nisha and Kris’s, and pack up a few things, and my laptop, and leave. I see my house one last time, with the red-orange fire blazing on the backdrop. I fear, not for my life, but something unknown to me, and my throat dries up. I crave for a hand to hold me and lead me to my car, but no one comes. I drag my feet to the car, and start, not knowing where to go, whom to hug in this moment of crisis. I have one last look at the house, and I see fire engines approaching already, and leave. I am losing my house, and my home on the same day. Tragedy of my life, that I didn’t enjoy both of them, like I should have.

I will be a single parent soon. I don’t know how I will do it though. Financially it shouldn’t be a problem. But emotionally I would be a wreck. At this point in life, there is no chance of anyone falling in love with me, leave alone marrying a suitable boy again, and settling down. Shri played such a heinous trick on me that I can’t even imagine what my appropriate revenge looks like. I feel like taking him to the mountains for a night under the stars, and leaving him there, hands and legs tied, alone, until someone finds him lifeless and limp. He will know how it feels to be left alone, still reeling in the shock of betrayal.

Shri has never given me the love I needed. Not even once in all these years. Ours was an arranged marriage, and how happy I was that I met my match without making compromises. What did I know that I will spend the rest of my life making compromises? Shri never had time to know me, to understand me, or he pretended to be a busy man who never had the time. I am not a stay at home woman myself, with lots of time to focus on family, but I stretched out my ability. I mothered my kids, made them perfect children. I mothered Shri. I packed his lunch, set out his clothes, and packed his gym bag with fresh towels, packed his bag for his business trips. I dropped him off at airports, and I picked him up. Not because I had time. Because I wanted to bond with a person that I didn’t know much about. I wanted to be dependent on each other so that if we don’t fall in love, we at least have a familiarity with each other and form a compulsive dependency that will bind us forever.

I tried telling Shri that he hurts me with his indifference. But he always had something else to focus on. A new job, a new boss, a new project, a new business trip. Life is so hectic for him, always, that he decided to keep all his energies to soothe his own soul. I wanted to walk out of this relation from the day I walked in. I didn’t feel the need for me in Shri. But I persisted. I thought one day he will change, one day he will notice everything I do for him. One day he will love me, and he will care for me the way I do for him. I wasted all the peak years of my life on something that makes me feel like a used kitchen rag today. My beauty, my intelligence, and my caring personality feel used, and discarded, and I am not going to let this be the end of me. If Shri thought he could get away with this, he is wrong.

I want to kill myself, and end all this today. If I did, it would probably be the biggest favor I do myself, in all my life. I have no one to talk to, I have no one to hold me and let me run my tears till I dry my heart. I never made any friends. I put an invisible ring around me to protect me from anyone who tried to come close to me. It scares me to share my heart with a stranger. Man, or woman. Online, or in person. My soul wants to be an enigma. The façade of my soul wants to be a perfectionist. With a perfect career, family, virtues, moral, everything. Just the way it is supposed to be. Even if it hurts me. Even if it has crippled me. Even if it has locked my soul in the darkest of the dungeons. It’s overwhelming to be me. I don’t understand me, and I don’t let anyone else understand me. I am my greatest fear. I won’t do justice to my kids if I am let to guide them alone. My biggest fear being a headline on evening news.

Shri, I need you. To depend on me. To give me something to obsess on. Not to love. Not to share a life. You hurt me always, and today, when I decide to drive back to a house within a few meters of the flames, it is because of you. I want to hurt you, but I want to hurt me more. I want to wear my black evening gown with sequins. I want to wear my diamonds. I want to sing, I want to dance. I want the fire to come to me, hold me tight like no one else has held me. Like it owns me, and have me. I won’t cry. I won’t complain.

I arrange my Hydrocodones to make a heart. I break it. I arrange them to make Shri’s name. I eat the S first. Then H. Then R. Then I see fire in the window. I want to get up and open the windows. I cannot. I can see the door being banged. I see blue. I see red. I see yellow. I see orange. I see the colors of life. I see colors beyond black and white. Someone tries to look in to my eyes, and someone tries to feel the sequins on my chest. I see them, through my soul, but they don’t see my soul. As always, my soul wonders unseen, why is it ignored, so royally, even by moving colors. I am carried away. Into light. Into dark. Then into an unknown atmosphere. Am I dead? Someone undresses me. Someone covers me in green. Did I become one with the elements? No. I am in the hospital. The men in yellow are being hailed for the rescue. Rescue of a drugged woman. Overdosed. I overheard. I don’t want to live. But they don’t hear me. I want to see my kids. They don’t hear me. I close my eyes and give me up. When I wake up, I see Shri, and my kids. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

When I wake up again, I see Manisha and Vani. Vani is mumbling that if she had kept our afternoon lunch date, I wouldn’t be trapped at home, and this wouldn’t have happened. Everyone sounds so phony. Manisha has pity pouring out of her face. I don’t need it. I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me. I knew what I was getting into. I am tired of pretending to sleep every time I have visitor. My kids look scared of me. May be I am looking horrible. Or maybe it’s the idea of losing a mother that scares them more. I don’t want them to depend on me. I don’t want them to end up like Shri and ruin someone else’s life. I don’t want another Neena try to kill herself because of my selfish kids. I want them to experience life without me holding their hands, making sure it’s all safe to take the next step. I want them to fall, I want them to get hurt, and learn to tread carefully. I sleep, thinking of several possible revenges on Shri, and smile as I finalize “Destruction, to the core”. It will have to wait till I get out of the hospital though. Shri can pretend to take of me till then.

I will not divorce Shri, nor will I move out. Nor will I let him get out of this mess. I dream of donating all Shri’s money to charity. I dream of donating all his possessions, clothes and watches, and shoes included, to charity. I dream of paying off the mortgage with all his savings and transferring the house to my name, as an independent owner. I dream of Shri in his underwear, not knowing what to do. I dream of Shri, standing there, looking for someone to hold his hand and walk him through the mess his organizer made. I see the kids, playing somewhere in the yard, aloof of all this happening to their Dad. I want to see Shri rebuild his life, from scratch. I think of words for the letter I will send to Shri’s management on how he abused a so called business trip in Canada and how he has relations with someone who works for him, against corporate policy. I will burn his passport. Citizenship documents. His tax returns. His social security card. I will shred his credit cards, his checkbooks, his driver's license. I want to see him, rebuild his exisntance, in front of my eyes while I sit there, doing nothing to help, to console, to soothe.