by Gargi Mehra
Nisha is dating a prospective marriage candidate set up by her parents. Social media shows a side to her beau that helps her reach a decision about the man she seems to have fallen in love with. Gargi’s story describes a young woman’s tenuous connection with societal norms of what relationships should be like.
Siddharth tumbled off the bed at precisely six, as he did every morning. Nisha watched through half-open eyes as he slipped on a vest and shuffled to the kitchen. There, he would brew two cups of coffee, leaving one behind on the countertop, and carrying his to the sofa to watch the news.
She turned to face the emptiness he’d left behind. The side pillow lay crumpled at the edge, the sheet creased, and the light quilt he threw on himself sat rolled up in one corner. She reached out a hand and drew his pillow close. His musky scent filled her senses and lulled her back into a sweet, deep sleep.
An hour later, she joined him on the sofa, warming the cup of latte he reserved especially for her.
He coiled one arm around her shoulder, the other fidgeting with his smartphone. Nisha leaned in, her lips brushing his neck. ‘Anything on the news?’
‘Nah. It’s all old.’
He muted the television and leaned back with her, his eyes still fixed on the screen. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered something.
‘Sid, my parents called last night. They were asking me for an answer.’
His gaze remained on the flashing images in front of him. ‘It’s too early, isn’t it?’
She shrugged and raised the cup to her lips. ‘They’re old-fashioned. For them, three months is long enough.’
He uncoiled his arm from around her. ‘We’ve only slept together last week. Do you think we know each other well enough to jump into marriage?’
‘No, that’s true, but…’
‘You said yourself that you didn’t want to commit until we had dated six months, or better still, a year.’
Nisha fell silent. She curved her hands around the sides of the cup, the warmth from the beverage flowing to her palms. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
Sid put his phone down and looked at her.
His dark eyes captivated her, but she soon found her voice. ‘Have your parents asked you for an answer yet? Or are they still looking through more profiles on the matrimonial site?’
‘They’ve asked me but I haven’t committed anything. I told them I’d take my time.’
Hadn’t he taken enough time?
Nisha took her palms off the cup. ‘Fine. I’ll tell my folks the same thing.’
Later, Sid dropped her at her apartment on the way to his office.
‘Pick you up at the same time today?’ he asked as she stepped down from the car. She nodded and air-kissed him goodbye as he reversed out.
While she dressed for work, her mind swirled with thoughts of Sid and his lukewarm response to the all-important question.
Over the last few weeks, she had grown to feel something almost like love for him. If he felt the same way, there was no reason for him to refuse the marriage proposal. She just hoped he wasn’t hiding anything from her.
She resolved to discuss it with him later that evening.
***
‘Have you seen? They’re going to shut down Orkut!’
Nisha had barely reached her desk when Malini swivelled her monitor to show the news.
‘Really? I barely even remember Orkut.’
Malini gazed longingly at the screen. ‘I loved that site. Do you know I met my…’
Malini jabbered on without a break in the background, while Nisha logged in and blitzed through her emails.
Hours later, when she had a break, she fired up the Orkut website, keying in the password she’d been using everywhere for the last decade. It popped up – plain and unobtrusive in its sky-blue.
The ‘scraps’ she read threw her into the past. With a start, she noticed friends with whom she wasn’t connected on Facebook and resolved to send them friend requests there.
Perhaps it was the curiosity that Malini had stirred, or that strange feeling lurking at the back of her mind since that morning. Something pushed her to search for ‘Siddharth Bannerjee’. The instant the page loaded, she almost laughed aloud – he had a ponytail in his profile photo. The white shirt he wore highlighted his porcelain skin, and even though the photo was small and hazy, he looked handsome as ever.
She scrolled through his albums. One picture showed him and a girl seated side-by-side at the base of a statue. The picture was grainy – she couldn’t make out much of the girl.
She went back to his profile page. And there, in the virtual corners of that obsolete social network, she found what she’d been unconsciously looking for – ‘Relationship status: Open relationship.’
Her heart sank to her stomach. He hadn’t told her about earlier relationships.
And what was an ‘open relationship’ anyway?
Her nimble fingers typed in those foreign words into the glowing white rectangle of ignorance on Google. The search results relayed to her what she didn’t know. And when she knew, she wished she hadn’t known. The past didn’t trouble her as much; she knew most people these days had been through at least one serious relationship before they got married – why, she and Nikhil had been quite serious a few years ago too. But this ‘open relationship’ seemed to take things to a whole new level.
***
That evening she stood on the sidewalk outside her office as he drew up in his sedan. She slid into the seat beside him, her lips pursed, but he didn’t notice. They spoke little as they inched through traffic and finally pulled up outside a dhaba. A sense of irritation crept over her. He probably wanted to finish off dinner before taking her home for their ‘sessions’, while all she wanted was to grab his collar and shake the truth out of him.
He ordered for both of them. She hated that, especially then. How did he dare presume she would like rajma-chawal and not tandoori roti with mutter paneer?
He was yapping on about his latest sales negotiation. She tuned out. His words washed over her.
‘Is something bothering you?’
She couldn’t stay silent. ‘I found your Orkut profile. Tell me, Sid, what exactly is an open relationship?’
A waiter banged down two glasses of lassi on their table. When he left, Sid leaned across the table. ‘I think you already know, so why ask?’
‘Shouldn’t you have told me about it?’
‘Why? So that you can grill me about it?’
She glared at him.
‘Anyway, that was in the past.’ He took a swig of his lassi.
‘Oh, so are you monogamous now?’
He didn’t answer. It hit her then – she had stumbled into love territory with a man who preferred multiple partners at a time. Any day now he would outgrow her and cast her off faster than a used condom.
‘I was going to discuss it with you when –’
‘When what? When we got married? During the ceremony? On our wedding night?’
‘Stop yelling!’
He glanced around and lowered his voice. ‘How could I reveal this straight away? I knew you may have dismissed me immediately.’
‘Why did you think I would be okay with it now?’
‘Because you know me well. You know this might work.’
Nisha threw her hands in the air. ‘Hah! I don’t believe this.’
She grabbed the lassi and took a long swig, then banged the tall glass on the table just as the waiter had done. ‘Do your parents know about this?’
He cracked a piece of poppadum.
‘Obviously not. They wouldn’t understand. You are a modern girl and I expected you would.’
‘So you’re using your parents as pimps.’
‘Hey, you have no right to talk like that!’
The people sitting next to them stared. A heavy silence descended over their table. Their rajma-chawal arrived, both rice and gravy doused in ghee just as any good Punjabi cook would prepare it. Sid dug into the food with gusto, his hands mixing the deep red beans and gravy into the rice.
Nisha picked up a spoon and toyed with her food. How satisfying it would be to storm out of the dhaba, leaving behind Sid, his polygamy and his rajma. But on the shady highway, with the city cloaked in darkness, the invisible force of fear held her back.
‘Eat your food – it’s bad manners to leave it on the plate.’
At times, he sounded just like her father.
They ate in silence. When the bill arrived, he plonked down a few hundred-rupee notes and tucked it into the plate of condiments.
She could read his mind – he wanted to take her home now, taste her lips and possess her until the vestiges of his desire had subsided. That was all Sid wanted, she knew. How many women was he doing this with?
They walked to the car in silence. As he slid the key into his lock, she backed away.
‘Bye, Sid. Have a good life.’
Nisha skipped down the road to find a taxi, ready to tell her parents her answer.
Gargi Mehra is a software professional by day, a writer by night and a mother of two. She writes fiction and humor in an effort to unite the two sides of the brain in cerebral harmony. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines online and in print. She maintains her website at www.gargimehra.com or can be reached on Twitter @gargimehra
