Chapter 10
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
The last few days of Rupert's stay in India were without any incident. He and Shimonthini cut out a space of their own free of the alienation forced upon them. The awkwardness hung between them, the desire that brought them close and the need that kept them separate. Each had an inkling of what the other wanted and each had their own reasons to deny the same. Shimonthini was still cheating on her dead fiancé every time her heart fluttered at Rupert's touch. Rupert thought he was seducing her against her conscious will as he had done another woman so many years ago, a sin he was made to regret and guilt he never got to get rid off.
Shinjini smiled a lot before her sister. She smiled so much that her split lip would sometimes start to bleed anew and she would re-apply her cherry red lipstick to hide it. She learnt that her predecessor had not committed suicide because of mental instability. Her reasons were based in reality. But Shinjini had one reality that she could not deny, a bunch of keys that held her fate. She enjoyed being the eldest daughter in law of the Mukherjee household despite all the pain that she had to bear to that effect. The one thing she couldn't bear was the way her sister looked at the foreigner and seemed to get lost in his eyes or how the foreigner smiled while holding her sister's hand.
Shinjini knew she should be happy. She had what she wanted but she did not have what her sister had. For all intents and purposes Shimonthini was leaving her life for good into a future she did not intend to be a part of. Shinjini never attended the reception to her sister's wedding and when she arrived it transformed into her own reception with a different set of music, guests and atmosphere. Shinjini never got to hear of Phoenix Group of Industries or ever got to see the man among the crowd that acknowledged him. To Shinjini Rup was the illegitimate son of her mother-in-law who abandoned him because of poverty. When the foreigner spoke of returning home with Shimonthini it was not difficult for her to imagine a dilapidated old house on some side street of Bangkok, run with drug mafias and a .38 calibre revolver. It was not difficult to imagine him in that light. He was so alien.
Rupert remained an alien to the rest of his family, some of whom he was related to by blood. He did try to approach them when he first arrived but with every passing day, their indifference to him soaked into his own skin. He was indifferent to his half-brother Rahul who despised him for bringing shame to him and his family by simply existing. Ravi did not appear to hate him till the evening when he was asked to break off his wedding for Rupert's disobedience. If only Rupert could cease to be alien to them for one day of their lives he would have taught Ravi how to stand up for his own wants and desires, how to stand up to a mother who had given them nothing but rules and tell her "I will not break a commitment I made just because you whim it to be so."
Yes, Rupert was an alien to his family because his own convictions meant a lot more to him than that of the others. Maybe he will never understand Indian family as a unit of society, how it functions, how it undergoes symbiosis with the society around it, a society obsessed with poking their noses in other people's business. Rupert could never be part of this world.
Shimonthini never acknowledged the man she was previously engaged to for half a day. Her entire family had acknowledged him as their son in law for half a day before it was turned to a reality but under different circumstance. Shimonthini knew what Rahul wanted. It was the same thing that Rishi had wanted and she dared to refuse in vain. It was the one thing that Henry had helped her in securing and had made her stand up for her first time in her life. A man can feel a business opportunity with his eyes closed. A woman can feel a man's gaze even in her sleep. Why God endowed a woman with the sixth sense all the while denying her any power to resist was a puzzle even God's would be ashamed to answer. Shimonthini did not know how to tell her husband that she did not feel safe with his half-brother staring at her. She did not. The days were ticking by. She prayed for the departure sooner than tomorrow.
And the last day came. Shimonthini hoped the day she could cease to be her and start being Monique again. It takes years to build an identity and Monique was what she identified herself with. Monique was the reflection of her subconscious mind. The Matriarch had asked Rupert for one last private conference. Knowing the Matriarch she could be trying to do around anything from giving him another reason to stay to tell him not to come back, neither of which would affect Rupert's state of mind. Shimonthini sat in her room for the last time. The next morning she would leave and all her ties to the Mukherjees would end, all save one, Shinjini. A sound alerted her towards the door and the person standing there was the last person she wanted to see.
"Rahul, what are you doing here?" she asked trying to feign ignorance. Why woman think feigning ignorance will prove their anticipations wrong is a question century have failed to answer. Rahul smiled the lewd smile which men can only smile in the presence of the object of their lust. Shimonthini felt a shudder run through as Rahul took one step inside the room.
"Don't you dare," Shimonthini said to the man who heard in her objection a welcoming invitation.
"Why do you think your husband is so attentive towards you?" Rahul asked her. The answer to the question was immaterial. Rupert was a responsible man and he knew how to keep a commitment. Shimonthini tried not to hear his words, as if hearing those words, acknowledging their existence in time would cause her to sin, to be unfaithful towards her husband. In her panic, Shimonthini finally acknowledged a sin that was not Rupert personified but a sin towards him, of her heart ever doubting him.
"If he doesn't stay faithful to you my mother will declare him an illegitimate child and he will forfeit everything he owns, even the clothes on his body. You are just a bond he signed, insurance and he will be forever taken care of you while loathing your very touch." Rahul continued.
Shimonthini had turned from the phase of denial to the point of curiosity. Yes, there was a man of questionable intention standing in his room. Yes, he was advancing towards the bed she was to share with her husband. Yes, he was not stopping and yes it was time she should start to scream. But he was also telling her something about her husband, some information she had never been made privy to. Her eyes flared up at his words, defending herself, giving proof to what Rahul had just said. Being proved correct by Shimonthini's stiff body language Rahul continued with his selfish conjectures.
"When your wedding was fixed Rup was supposed to marry your sister in Ravi's place and I was supposed to marry you. You know that. Rup said yes to Shinjini, a well educated, beautiful young girl of nineteen, a virtuous girl of good character, untouched by the impurities of the world that he could train to be at his beck and call, a modern version of a bonded labour. But what did he get? He got a woman of questionable character, used, rejected, a defecated morsel not fit for consumption, a wild creature ready to defy, with a voice of her own. Do you think he is happy? He is making do." Rahul said. By this time he was standing in front of her bed. His body heat reached her and she pulled her face back. She did not have words to answer him. The same tears that choked out her response also clouded her eyes. Yes, she was a used, defecated morsel, unfit for consumption. Yet Rupert was stuck with her. There was no denying that.
"Isn't there anyway?" she whispered more to herself than anyone else. Rahul bent over her to catch her words and his lips brushed against her cheeks. Shimonthini started howling in agony. Her screams reached outside and Damyanti Devi walked in on her son forcing himself on Shimonthini, trying to cover her screaming mouth with his palm.
"Stop it," Damyanti Devi said. "Your wife is about to return from shopping any moment. Our household will do quite well without another scandal." She chided the boy whom she considered her son. Rahul always listened to his mother while Ravi listened to his. In their own minds, they were stepbrothers, united by blood and separated by allegiance. Rahul returned downstairs.
Before returning to her own room Damyanti Devi decided to give ample warning to the woman at fault to not release one word of the incidence for the sake of the relationship with her own sister. Shimonthini covered her mouth with the pillow while trying to stifle her own cries. Why was the woman always at fault and why are women the only one to point at this cruel truth? Femininity is her own demon and womanhood her own enemy.
All this while the Matriarch was telling her son the reasons why she had chosen Shimonthini as his wife along with the reasons for which a mother abandoned her son. Rupert thanked his mother for giving him a life with a family, a man to call a father and a woman who made him the man he was even though fate separated them at an early age. Still, he couldn't help denying Shimonthini's reality. No matter what he would do he refused to question his wife's character.
"That girl is lucky. She found a husband who can look at the good things about her. When Ramakanta found me there was nothing good left or so he would say. He was a lawyer. He told me that Krishna had entrusted him with my probation period. If I did well I would get a segregated cell in the next prison term. Our time on earth is a punishment that we must endure to be united with our supreme lover, Krishna. I am waiting to be united with him. Then I will have all the love in the world and no social norm would come between me and him. No other woman would claim him more than me. Krishna can be everyone's entire. No one has to share."
Rupert saw tears fill her eyes as the woman who had given birth to him tried to pacify her own disillusionment with life with religious jargons. He saw her ashamed of her own emotions and scandalized by her own tears. He saw her close her eyes in horror to her own quivering voice and he heard her recite Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare (O! He who is all-attractive attract me, attract me till I am rid of all attachment, O! He who is all beautiful beautify me till I am rid of all material qualification). He looked around his mother's private chamber as his mother wallowed in despair. Books from all over the world and on every topic lay there. He flipped open a cover to find his mother's name written on the worn out page.
When Rupert first found out that he was born to an Indian he imagined his mother to be an illiterate superstitious woman, forsaking him for fear of social oppression. When he met her for the first time his conceptions were altered. Imli Mukherjee was not a simpleton. But here she was believing in things beyond logic, comforting herself through fairy tales that bring nightmares instead of colouring dreams. Imli had led a life of hopelessness. She had lost hope when George Mornington failed to show. She lost hope when she realized that she couldn't even give her legitimate son a legitimate life. She lost hope when she couldn't earn a piece of bread by honest work. She lost hope Ramakanta told her that she was unfit for human society. She lost hope when her husband introduced Damyanti as his wife every time that she stood right beside them. She lost hope when her husband cursed the day he finally consummated their marriage long after she had borne him a son. She lost hope when the son she had known all her life refused to call her mother and referred to her as Ginni Ma. She was now the symbol of hopelessness. Rupert pitied her some and his stoned out heart cooled to her some more.
"When I saw Shimonthini she was a lot like I was when Ramakanta found me. I had led a disrespectable life and that left me unable to look into the eyes of every fellow human being. I was ruined at one point of time and so was she. No man would accept her save for some radical circumstance and I thought I would create those circumstances for her." She explained struggling to regain her composure.
"Why do you have to imagine every woman to be the same as you?" Rupert asked her accusingly.
"Not every woman would agree to marry a man without meeting whose first wife died under suspicious circumstances. Shimonthini agreed to marry Rahul, not you. She was ready to be a dowry for her sister if it afforded her a man's name." She said.
This was news for Rupert. Despite the entire buzz at the wedding Shimonthini ever expressed an ounce of surprise. She had been after all ready for a much worse fate. Was he really the last option for her? Rupert knew that he figured in her life only because Rishi was no more. Would he ever be able to overcome the shadow of her past? Rupert remembered the quiver of her voice as she explained to her friend the circumstances under which she was married. Was this marriage still a sacrifice for her?
Doubt is a very dangerous thing in a relationship. As the doubt creeps in we tend to let go of all the warmth and cling to the darkness. Rupert literally shivered from the chill. In the room that they had shared for so long Shimonthini suffered a similar plight. Rahul's words were sending whiplash of pain through her. Shimonthini was haunted by her past and the sense of inadequacy and insignificance was suddenly transmitted into her future. The failure of everything that Monique represented made Shimonthini detach herself more and more from the woman she saw herself as and she willed herself to be the woman that others saw her as.
That was when there was a knock on her door. Shimonthini sat up on the bed and rubbed her tears. "Come in," she said checking the sob that threatened her throat. It was Rupert. Rupert had never knocked at her door before. Shimonthini looked at his face and sought the warmth that she had grown so fond of. The chill of doubt lingered still and Shimonthini convinced herself that all this while she had been deluding herself with a false hope that did not exist. Why is it so easy to believe in the worst news and so hard to believe in the best? Shimonthini believed Rahul's words of spite but failed to trust Rupert's constant presence and assurance. Is it the pessimism imbibed into us through the repeated attack of sorrow and loss or is it simply the lack of faith in all that is good and positive? In the absence of faith, despair seems such a natural reaction to the uncertainty of tomorrow.
What thought made Rupert knock at his own door he could not recall but the familiarity that he felt with his wife was suddenly missing? The alienation from his surrounding had suddenly crept up between the most sanctified relationships! What if he never knew the real Shimonthini? What if the woman who shared his laughter and joy was just a projection to further her sense of self-sacrifice? Rupert felt hesitant to reach out and touch his wife. "Get dressed. We are staying the last day in India at your parent's place." Rupert declared.
Shimonthini nodded. She got up. She got dressed. A puppet moved to the pull of the strings and Rupert wanted to curse himself for not having seen her hesitation earlier, for not freeing her from this imprisonment earlier. Rupert took a deep breath and decided to make the last day of his marriage worth the pain for Shimonthini.
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
The last few days of Rupert's stay in India were without any incident. He and Shimonthini cut out a space of their own free of the alienation forced upon them. The awkwardness hung between them, the desire that brought them close and the need that kept them separate. Each had an inkling of what the other wanted and each had their own reasons to deny the same. Shimonthini was still cheating on her dead fiancé every time her heart fluttered at Rupert's touch. Rupert thought he was seducing her against her conscious will as he had done another woman so many years ago, a sin he was made to regret and guilt he never got to get rid off.
Shinjini smiled a lot before her sister. She smiled so much that her split lip would sometimes start to bleed anew and she would re-apply her cherry red lipstick to hide it. She learnt that her predecessor had not committed suicide because of mental instability. Her reasons were based in reality. But Shinjini had one reality that she could not deny, a bunch of keys that held her fate. She enjoyed being the eldest daughter in law of the Mukherjee household despite all the pain that she had to bear to that effect. The one thing she couldn't bear was the way her sister looked at the foreigner and seemed to get lost in his eyes or how the foreigner smiled while holding her sister's hand.
Shinjini knew she should be happy. She had what she wanted but she did not have what her sister had. For all intents and purposes Shimonthini was leaving her life for good into a future she did not intend to be a part of. Shinjini never attended the reception to her sister's wedding and when she arrived it transformed into her own reception with a different set of music, guests and atmosphere. Shinjini never got to hear of Phoenix Group of Industries or ever got to see the man among the crowd that acknowledged him. To Shinjini Rup was the illegitimate son of her mother-in-law who abandoned him because of poverty. When the foreigner spoke of returning home with Shimonthini it was not difficult for her to imagine a dilapidated old house on some side street of Bangkok, run with drug mafias and a .38 calibre revolver. It was not difficult to imagine him in that light. He was so alien.
Rupert remained an alien to the rest of his family, some of whom he was related to by blood. He did try to approach them when he first arrived but with every passing day, their indifference to him soaked into his own skin. He was indifferent to his half-brother Rahul who despised him for bringing shame to him and his family by simply existing. Ravi did not appear to hate him till the evening when he was asked to break off his wedding for Rupert's disobedience. If only Rupert could cease to be alien to them for one day of their lives he would have taught Ravi how to stand up for his own wants and desires, how to stand up to a mother who had given them nothing but rules and tell her "I will not break a commitment I made just because you whim it to be so."
Yes, Rupert was an alien to his family because his own convictions meant a lot more to him than that of the others. Maybe he will never understand Indian family as a unit of society, how it functions, how it undergoes symbiosis with the society around it, a society obsessed with poking their noses in other people's business. Rupert could never be part of this world.
Shimonthini never acknowledged the man she was previously engaged to for half a day. Her entire family had acknowledged him as their son in law for half a day before it was turned to a reality but under different circumstance. Shimonthini knew what Rahul wanted. It was the same thing that Rishi had wanted and she dared to refuse in vain. It was the one thing that Henry had helped her in securing and had made her stand up for her first time in her life. A man can feel a business opportunity with his eyes closed. A woman can feel a man's gaze even in her sleep. Why God endowed a woman with the sixth sense all the while denying her any power to resist was a puzzle even God's would be ashamed to answer. Shimonthini did not know how to tell her husband that she did not feel safe with his half-brother staring at her. She did not. The days were ticking by. She prayed for the departure sooner than tomorrow.
And the last day came. Shimonthini hoped the day she could cease to be her and start being Monique again. It takes years to build an identity and Monique was what she identified herself with. Monique was the reflection of her subconscious mind. The Matriarch had asked Rupert for one last private conference. Knowing the Matriarch she could be trying to do around anything from giving him another reason to stay to tell him not to come back, neither of which would affect Rupert's state of mind. Shimonthini sat in her room for the last time. The next morning she would leave and all her ties to the Mukherjees would end, all save one, Shinjini. A sound alerted her towards the door and the person standing there was the last person she wanted to see.
"Rahul, what are you doing here?" she asked trying to feign ignorance. Why woman think feigning ignorance will prove their anticipations wrong is a question century have failed to answer. Rahul smiled the lewd smile which men can only smile in the presence of the object of their lust. Shimonthini felt a shudder run through as Rahul took one step inside the room.
"Don't you dare," Shimonthini said to the man who heard in her objection a welcoming invitation.
"Why do you think your husband is so attentive towards you?" Rahul asked her. The answer to the question was immaterial. Rupert was a responsible man and he knew how to keep a commitment. Shimonthini tried not to hear his words, as if hearing those words, acknowledging their existence in time would cause her to sin, to be unfaithful towards her husband. In her panic, Shimonthini finally acknowledged a sin that was not Rupert personified but a sin towards him, of her heart ever doubting him.
"If he doesn't stay faithful to you my mother will declare him an illegitimate child and he will forfeit everything he owns, even the clothes on his body. You are just a bond he signed, insurance and he will be forever taken care of you while loathing your very touch." Rahul continued.
Shimonthini had turned from the phase of denial to the point of curiosity. Yes, there was a man of questionable intention standing in his room. Yes, he was advancing towards the bed she was to share with her husband. Yes, he was not stopping and yes it was time she should start to scream. But he was also telling her something about her husband, some information she had never been made privy to. Her eyes flared up at his words, defending herself, giving proof to what Rahul had just said. Being proved correct by Shimonthini's stiff body language Rahul continued with his selfish conjectures.
"When your wedding was fixed Rup was supposed to marry your sister in Ravi's place and I was supposed to marry you. You know that. Rup said yes to Shinjini, a well educated, beautiful young girl of nineteen, a virtuous girl of good character, untouched by the impurities of the world that he could train to be at his beck and call, a modern version of a bonded labour. But what did he get? He got a woman of questionable character, used, rejected, a defecated morsel not fit for consumption, a wild creature ready to defy, with a voice of her own. Do you think he is happy? He is making do." Rahul said. By this time he was standing in front of her bed. His body heat reached her and she pulled her face back. She did not have words to answer him. The same tears that choked out her response also clouded her eyes. Yes, she was a used, defecated morsel, unfit for consumption. Yet Rupert was stuck with her. There was no denying that.
"Isn't there anyway?" she whispered more to herself than anyone else. Rahul bent over her to catch her words and his lips brushed against her cheeks. Shimonthini started howling in agony. Her screams reached outside and Damyanti Devi walked in on her son forcing himself on Shimonthini, trying to cover her screaming mouth with his palm.
"Stop it," Damyanti Devi said. "Your wife is about to return from shopping any moment. Our household will do quite well without another scandal." She chided the boy whom she considered her son. Rahul always listened to his mother while Ravi listened to his. In their own minds, they were stepbrothers, united by blood and separated by allegiance. Rahul returned downstairs.
Before returning to her own room Damyanti Devi decided to give ample warning to the woman at fault to not release one word of the incidence for the sake of the relationship with her own sister. Shimonthini covered her mouth with the pillow while trying to stifle her own cries. Why was the woman always at fault and why are women the only one to point at this cruel truth? Femininity is her own demon and womanhood her own enemy.
All this while the Matriarch was telling her son the reasons why she had chosen Shimonthini as his wife along with the reasons for which a mother abandoned her son. Rupert thanked his mother for giving him a life with a family, a man to call a father and a woman who made him the man he was even though fate separated them at an early age. Still, he couldn't help denying Shimonthini's reality. No matter what he would do he refused to question his wife's character.
"That girl is lucky. She found a husband who can look at the good things about her. When Ramakanta found me there was nothing good left or so he would say. He was a lawyer. He told me that Krishna had entrusted him with my probation period. If I did well I would get a segregated cell in the next prison term. Our time on earth is a punishment that we must endure to be united with our supreme lover, Krishna. I am waiting to be united with him. Then I will have all the love in the world and no social norm would come between me and him. No other woman would claim him more than me. Krishna can be everyone's entire. No one has to share."
Rupert saw tears fill her eyes as the woman who had given birth to him tried to pacify her own disillusionment with life with religious jargons. He saw her ashamed of her own emotions and scandalized by her own tears. He saw her close her eyes in horror to her own quivering voice and he heard her recite Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare (O! He who is all-attractive attract me, attract me till I am rid of all attachment, O! He who is all beautiful beautify me till I am rid of all material qualification). He looked around his mother's private chamber as his mother wallowed in despair. Books from all over the world and on every topic lay there. He flipped open a cover to find his mother's name written on the worn out page.
When Rupert first found out that he was born to an Indian he imagined his mother to be an illiterate superstitious woman, forsaking him for fear of social oppression. When he met her for the first time his conceptions were altered. Imli Mukherjee was not a simpleton. But here she was believing in things beyond logic, comforting herself through fairy tales that bring nightmares instead of colouring dreams. Imli had led a life of hopelessness. She had lost hope when George Mornington failed to show. She lost hope when she realized that she couldn't even give her legitimate son a legitimate life. She lost hope when she couldn't earn a piece of bread by honest work. She lost hope Ramakanta told her that she was unfit for human society. She lost hope when her husband introduced Damyanti as his wife every time that she stood right beside them. She lost hope when her husband cursed the day he finally consummated their marriage long after she had borne him a son. She lost hope when the son she had known all her life refused to call her mother and referred to her as Ginni Ma. She was now the symbol of hopelessness. Rupert pitied her some and his stoned out heart cooled to her some more.
"When I saw Shimonthini she was a lot like I was when Ramakanta found me. I had led a disrespectable life and that left me unable to look into the eyes of every fellow human being. I was ruined at one point of time and so was she. No man would accept her save for some radical circumstance and I thought I would create those circumstances for her." She explained struggling to regain her composure.
"Why do you have to imagine every woman to be the same as you?" Rupert asked her accusingly.
"Not every woman would agree to marry a man without meeting whose first wife died under suspicious circumstances. Shimonthini agreed to marry Rahul, not you. She was ready to be a dowry for her sister if it afforded her a man's name." She said.
This was news for Rupert. Despite the entire buzz at the wedding Shimonthini ever expressed an ounce of surprise. She had been after all ready for a much worse fate. Was he really the last option for her? Rupert knew that he figured in her life only because Rishi was no more. Would he ever be able to overcome the shadow of her past? Rupert remembered the quiver of her voice as she explained to her friend the circumstances under which she was married. Was this marriage still a sacrifice for her?
Doubt is a very dangerous thing in a relationship. As the doubt creeps in we tend to let go of all the warmth and cling to the darkness. Rupert literally shivered from the chill. In the room that they had shared for so long Shimonthini suffered a similar plight. Rahul's words were sending whiplash of pain through her. Shimonthini was haunted by her past and the sense of inadequacy and insignificance was suddenly transmitted into her future. The failure of everything that Monique represented made Shimonthini detach herself more and more from the woman she saw herself as and she willed herself to be the woman that others saw her as.
That was when there was a knock on her door. Shimonthini sat up on the bed and rubbed her tears. "Come in," she said checking the sob that threatened her throat. It was Rupert. Rupert had never knocked at her door before. Shimonthini looked at his face and sought the warmth that she had grown so fond of. The chill of doubt lingered still and Shimonthini convinced herself that all this while she had been deluding herself with a false hope that did not exist. Why is it so easy to believe in the worst news and so hard to believe in the best? Shimonthini believed Rahul's words of spite but failed to trust Rupert's constant presence and assurance. Is it the pessimism imbibed into us through the repeated attack of sorrow and loss or is it simply the lack of faith in all that is good and positive? In the absence of faith, despair seems such a natural reaction to the uncertainty of tomorrow.
What thought made Rupert knock at his own door he could not recall but the familiarity that he felt with his wife was suddenly missing? The alienation from his surrounding had suddenly crept up between the most sanctified relationships! What if he never knew the real Shimonthini? What if the woman who shared his laughter and joy was just a projection to further her sense of self-sacrifice? Rupert felt hesitant to reach out and touch his wife. "Get dressed. We are staying the last day in India at your parent's place." Rupert declared.
Shimonthini nodded. She got up. She got dressed. A puppet moved to the pull of the strings and Rupert wanted to curse himself for not having seen her hesitation earlier, for not freeing her from this imprisonment earlier. Rupert took a deep breath and decided to make the last day of his marriage worth the pain for Shimonthini.
The last few days of Rupert's stay in India were without any incident. He and Shimonthini cut out a space of their own free of the alienation forced upon them. The awkwardness hung between them, the desire that brought them close and the need that kept them separate. Each had an inkling of what the other wanted and each had their own reasons to deny the same. Shimonthini was still cheating on her dead fianc every time her heart fluttered at Rupert's touch. Rupert thought he was seducing her against her conscious will as he had done another woman so many years ago, a sin he was made to regret and guilt he never got to get rid off.Shinjini smiled a lot before her sister. She smiled so much that her split lip would sometimes start to bleed anew and she would re-apply her cherry red lipstick to hide it. She learnt that her predecessor had not committed suicide because of mental instability. Her reasons were based in reality. But Shinjini had one reality that she could not deny, a bunch of keys that held her fate. She enjoyed being the eldest daughter in law of the Mukherjee household despite all the pain that she had to bear to that effect. The one thing she couldn't bear was the way her sister looked at the foreigner and seemed to get lost in his eyes or how the foreigner smiled while holding her sister's hand.Shinjini knew she should be happy. She had what she wanted but she did not have what her sister had. For all intents and purposes Shimonthini was leaving her life for good into a future she did not intend to be a part of. Shinjini never attended the reception to her sister's wedding and when she arrived it transformed into her own reception with a different set of music, guests and atmosphere. Shinjini never got to hear of Phoenix Group of Industries or ever got to see the man among the crowd that acknowledged him. To Shinjini Rup was the illegitimate son of her mother-in-law who abandoned him because of poverty. When the foreigner spoke of returning home with Shimonthini it was not difficult for her to imagine a dilapidated old house on some side street of Bangkok, run with drug mafias and a .38 calibre revolver. It was not difficult to imagine him in that light. He was so alien.Rupert remained an alien to the rest of his family, some of whom he was related to by blood. He did try to approach them when he first arrived but with every passing day, their indifference to him soaked into his own skin. He was indifferent to his half-brother Rahul who despised him for bringing shame to him and his family by simply existing. Ravi did not appear to hate him till the evening when he was asked to break off his wedding for Rupert's disobedience. If only Rupert could cease to be alien to them for one day of their lives he would have taught Ravi how to stand up for his own wants and desires, how to stand up to a mother who had given them nothing but rules and tell her "I will not break a commitment I made just because you whim it to be so."Yes, Rupert was an alien to his family because his own convictions meant a lot more to him than that of the others. Maybe he will never understand Indian family as a unit of society, how it functions, how it undergoes symbiosis with the society around it, a society obsessed with poking their noses in other people's business. Rupert could never be part of this world.Shimonthini never acknowledged the man she was previously engaged to for half a day. Her entire family had acknowledged him as their son in law for half a day before it was turned to a reality but under different circumstance. Shimonthini knew what Rahul wanted. It was the same thing that Rishi had wanted and she dared to refuse in vain. It was the one thing that Henry had helped her in securing and had made her stand up for her first time in her life. A man can feel a business opportunity with his eyes closed. A woman can feel a man's gaze even in her sleep. Why God endowed a woman with the sixth sense all the while denying her any power to resist was a puzzle even God's would be ashamed to answer. Shimonthini did not know how to tell her husband that she did not feel safe with his half-brother staring at her. She did not. The days were ticking by. She prayed for the departure sooner than tomorrow.And the last day came. Shimonthini hoped the day she could cease to be her and start being Monique again. It takes years to build an identity and Monique was what she identified herself with. Monique was the reflection of her subconscious mind. The Matriarch had asked Rupert for one last private conference. Knowing the Matriarch she could be trying to do around anything from giving him another reason to stay to tell him not to come back, neither of which would affect Rupert's state of mind. Shimonthini sat in her room for the last time. The next morning she would leave and all her ties to the Mukherjees would end, all save one, Shinjini. A sound alerted her towards the door and the person standing there was the last person she wanted to see."Rahul, what are you doing here?" she asked trying to feign ignorance. Why woman think feigning ignorance will prove their anticipations wrong is a question century have failed to answer. Rahul smiled the lewd smile which men can only smile in the presence of the object of their lust. Shimonthini felt a shudder run through as Rahul took one step inside the room."Don't you dare," Shimonthini said to the man who heard in her objection a welcoming invitation."Why do you think your husband is so attentive towards you?" Rahul asked her. The answer to the question was immaterial. Rupert was a responsible man and he knew how to keep a commitment. Shimonthini tried not to hear his words, as if hearing those words, acknowledging their existence in time would cause her to sin, to be unfaithful towards her husband. In her panic, Shimonthini finally acknowledged a sin that was not Rupert personified but a sin towards him, of her heart ever doubting him."If he doesn't stay faithful to you my mother will declare him an illegitimate child and he will forfeit everything he owns, even the clothes on his body. You are just a bond he signed, insurance and he will be forever taken care of you while loathing your very touch." Rahul continued.Shimonthini had turned from the phase of denial to the point of curiosity. Yes, there was a man of questionable intention standing in his room. Yes, he was advancing towards the bed she was to share with her husband. Yes, he was not stopping and yes it was time she should start to scream. But he was also telling her something about her husband, some information she had never been made privy to. Her eyes flared up at his words, defending herself, giving proof to what Rahul had just said. Being proved correct by Shimonthini's stiff body language Rahul continued with his selfish conjectures."When your wedding was fixed Rup was supposed to marry your sister in Ravi's place and I was supposed to marry you. You know that. Rup said yes to Shinjini, a well educated, beautiful young girl of nineteen, a virtuous girl of good character, untouched by the impurities of the world that he could train to be at his beck and call, a modern version of a bonded labour. But what did he get? He got a woman of questionable character, used, rejected, a defecated morsel not fit for consumption, a wild creature ready to defy, with a voice of her own. Do you think he is happy? He is making do." Rahul said. By this time he was standing in front of her bed. His body heat reached her and she pulled her face back. She did not have words to answer him. The same tears that choked out her response also clouded her eyes. Yes, she was a used, defecated morsel, unfit for consumption. Yet Rupert was stuck with her. There was no denying that."Isn't there anyway?" she whispered more to herself than anyone else. Rahul bent over her to catch her words and his lips brushed against her cheeks. Shimonthini started howling in agony. Her screams reached outside and Damyanti Devi walked in on her son forcing himself on Shimonthini, trying to cover her screaming mouth with his palm."Stop it," Damyanti Devi said. "Your wife is about to return from shopping any moment. Our household will do quite well without another scandal." She chided the boy whom she considered her son. Rahul always listened to his mother while Ravi listened to his. In their own minds, they were stepbrothers, united by blood and separated by allegiance. Rahul returned downstairs.Before returning to her own room Damyanti Devi decided to give ample warning to the woman at fault to not release one word of the incidence for the sake of the relationship with her own sister. Shimonthini covered her mouth with the pillow while trying to stifle her own cries. Why was the woman always at fault and why are women the only one to point at this cruel truth? Femininity is her own demon and womanhood her own enemy.All this while the Matriarch was telling her son the reasons why she had chosen Shimonthini as his wife along with the reasons for which a mother abandoned her son. Rupert thanked his mother for giving him a life with a family, a man to call a father and a woman who made him the man he was even though fate separated them at an early age. Still, he couldn't help denying Shimonthini's reality. No matter what he would do he refused to question his wife's character."That girl is lucky. She found a husband who can look at the good things about her. When Ramakanta found me there was nothing good left or so he would say. He was a lawyer. He told me that Krishna had entrusted him with my probation period. If I did well I would get a segregated cell in the next prison term. Our time on earth is a punishment that we must endure to be united with our supreme lover, Krishna. I am waiting to be united with him. Then I will have all the love in the world and no social norm would come between me and him. No other woman would claim him more than me. Krishna can be everyone's entire. No one has to share."Rupert saw tears fill her eyes as the woman who had given birth to him tried to pacify her own disillusionment with life with religious jargons. He saw her ashamed of her own emotions and scandalized by her own tears. He saw her close her eyes in horror to her own quivering voice and he heard her recite Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare O! He who is all-attractive attract me, attract me till I am rid of all attachment, O! He who is all beautiful beautify me till I am rid of all material qualification. He looked around his mother's private chamber as his mother wallowed in despair. Books from all over the world and on every topic lay there. He flipped open a cover to find his mother's name written on the worn out page.When Rupert first found out that he was born to an Indian he imagined his mother to be an illiterate superstitious woman, forsaking him for fear of social oppression. When he met her for the first time his conceptions were altered. Imli Mukherjee was not a simpleton. But here she was believing in things beyond logic, comforting herself through fairy tales that bring nightmares instead of colouring dreams. Imli had led a life of hopelessness. She had lost hope when George Mornington failed to show. She lost hope when she realized that she couldn't even give her legitimate son a legitimate life. She lost hope when she couldn't earn a piece of bread by honest work. She lost hope Ramakanta told her that she was unfit for human society. She lost hope when her husband introduced Damyanti as his wife every time that she stood right beside them. She lost hope when her husband cursed the day he finally consummated their marriage long after she had borne him a son. She lost hope when the son she had known all her life refused to call her mother and referred to her as Ginni Ma. She was now the symbol of hopelessness. Rupert pitied her some and his stoned out heart cooled to her some more."When I saw Shimonthini she was a lot like I was when Ramakanta found me. I had led a disrespectable life and that left me unable to look into the eyes of every fellow human being. I was ruined at one point of time and so was she. No man would accept her save for some radical circumstance and I thought I would create those circumstances for her." She explained struggling to regain her composure."Why do you have to imagine every woman to be the same as you?" Rupert asked her accusingly."Not every woman would agree to marry a man without meeting whose first wife died under suspicious circumstances. Shimonthini agreed to marry Rahul, not you. She was ready to be a dowry for her sister if it afforded her a man's name." She said.This was news for Rupert. Despite the entire buzz at the wedding Shimonthini ever expressed an ounce of surprise. She had been after all ready for a much worse fate. Was he really the last option for her? Rupert knew that he figured in her life only because Rishi was no more. Would he ever be able to overcome the shadow of her past? Rupert remembered the quiver of her voice as she explained to her friend the circumstances under which she was married. Was this marriage still a sacrifice for her?Doubt is a very dangerous thing in a relationship. As the doubt creeps in we tend to let go of all the warmth and cling to the darkness. Rupert literally shivered from the chill. In the room that they had shared for so long Shimonthini suffered a similar plight. Rahul's words were sending whiplash of pain through her. Shimonthini was haunted by her past and the sense of inadequacy and insignificance was suddenly transmitted into her future. The failure of everything that Monique represented made Shimonthini detach herself more and more from the woman she saw herself as and she willed herself to be the woman that others saw her as.That was when there was a knock on her door. Shimonthini sat up on the bed and rubbed her tears. "Come in," she said checking the sob that threatened her throat. It was Rupert. Rupert had never knocked at her door before. Shimonthini looked at his face and sought the warmth that she had grown so fond of. The chill of doubt lingered still and Shimonthini convinced herself that all this while she had been deluding herself with a false hope that did not exist. Why is it so easy to believe in the worst news and so hard to believe in the best? Shimonthini believed Rahul's words of spite but failed to trust Rupert's constant presence and assurance. Is it the pessimism imbibed into us through the repeated attack of sorrow and loss or is it simply the lack of faith in all that is good and positive? In the absence of faith, despair seems such a natural reaction to the uncertainty of tomorrow.What thought made Rupert knock at his own door he could not recall but the familiarity that he felt with his wife was suddenly missing? The alienation from his surrounding had suddenly crept up between the most sanctified relationships! What if he never knew the real Shimonthini? What if the woman who shared his laughter and joy was just a projection to further her sense of self-sacrifice? Rupert felt hesitant to reach out and touch his wife. "Get dressed. We are staying the last day in India at your parent's place." Rupert declared.Shimonthini nodded. She got up. She got dressed. A puppet moved to the pull of the strings and Rupert wanted to curse himself for not having seen her hesitation earlier, for not freeing her from this imprisonment earlier. Rupert took a deep breath and decided to make the last day of his marriage worth the pain for Shimonthini.
