Mimosa with Samosa, Manisha (Part-7)

“Jignesh, I am sorry for what I said yesterday”
“It’s OK Manisha. I just wish you would open up to me and tell me what’s hurting you”
“You never listen”
“You never tell. You are always busy with the house, or with kids, or with your clients”
“I keep myself occupied so that I don’t feel your absence in my life”
“Where have I gone that you feel it?”
“You are never there for me?”
“That isn’t true. I am always there for you”
“We went to India to get procedure done on Madhuri, Jignesh”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you”
“You would have told your parents and labeled her a tramp, and me a bad mother”
“How could you think that Manisha? She is my daughter and you are my wife. I know how hard you struggle to balance everything in the family. I would never say anything like that, or even talk to my parents about that”
“Jignesh, we were so scared, and I thought after all this, I still lost her yesterday”
“And I didn’t know what all I lost. We all live under the same roof and we don’t anything that does on each other’s lives. How weird can it get?”
“You are to be blamed, solely. You have to step out of your parent’s shell and come to us if you want to be with us”
“If that means I have to send them to India and not see them again like my brothers, that’s not happening Manisha. They have gone through enough pains to bring us up and educate us. If we are all leading decent lives today, it’s because of them. My brothers may have forgotten all this, but I haven’t”
“But that doesn’t mean we have to live all our life like this”
“What has happened to us Manisha? We have a lovely house, healthy children and luxury cars. You buy what you want to, when you want to, and so do the kids. What’s missing?”
“Love. From you. Attention. From you”
“I have no affairs with anyone if that’s what is in your mind. You are the only one in my life. And I work hard all day to make this happen to you. Isn’t that enough attention?”
“That is not attention, or love. Don’t you feel the need to connect to me on day to day basis”
“Connect what? I thought I knew everything I should know about you and you about me?”
“That’s not it Jignesh. You just don’t feel the need to be with me emotionally”
“What’s the problem? Tell me, and I will help you resolve it”
“I don’t need your help. I just want you to listen, and be supportive”
“OK…”
“And there comes the legendary silence”
“No, I am silent because I have nothing to say”
“Why don’t you say that you have nothing to say instead of just ignoring me!”
“Now you are nagging”
“And when you talk, you have to be critical?”
“Manisha, you complain that we don’t talk, and when I talk, you don’t like it”
“It’s not like that. You just don’t talk the way you should talk to your wife. You talk as if I am your business partner”
“You want to go to a counselor?”
“Huh?”
“I love you, and don’t want to let go of you. But I don’t want to spend an unhappy life either”
“Why counselor? What will people think? What would your parents think?”
“What would they think? That we are trying to live happy, and doing whatever we can to make it happen?”
“Then we would be admitting that we have problems”
“Better than looking for someone else to pleasure us”
“That’s not what I am saying”
“Whatever it is Manisha, I am not bothered about others. I need you , I need my girls, and I need my parents. All under the same roof, happy”
“Ok. We will go to an American counselor. Indian counselors will tell someone and the word will spread. After all, our community is so small”
“You want to go on a short trip this weekend?”

For a moment my heart wanted to cancel Mr. Iyer and go out Jignesh, but I steeled my heart and told him that I was busy. That I skipped enough appointments when I was in India. He understood.

We sip the coffee in silence thinking different things probably. I am not ready mentally to let someone tell me how to love my husband or manage my household. I still wish we would resolve whatever problems we have mutually than let someone sit in a leather chair and judge us, our relation, our culture and our lifestyle. I don’t want to end up as a case study for someone’s new self-help book that covers people from all cultures.

I wonder how Vani and Neena will take the news. Vani will make a sympathetic face and tell me about someone at her work place or someone in her distant relations going through something similar and tell me that it will all be OK. Later on Saturday nights when they drink and talk, she will tell Shekhar all about it and analyze it together. Neena will listen to me, and then tell me that it’s all my doing. She will give a small preaching on how women should be assertive, especially when they have daughters who look up to them. It’s all about women’s rights and respect for Neena. Love takes a back seat. I wonder how it is with Sri and her. May be Sri just listens and she orders on. Jignesh doesn’t value me for who I am, and these guys are stuck with women who don’t value them. Such is life!