2 States: The Story of My Marriage Read online

Three years ago

  My father came home at midnight. I had waited for hours. I didn’t have time, I had to talk to him tonight. He refused dinner with a wave of his hand and sat on the living room sofa to take off his shoes.

  ‘Dad?’ I said, my voice low. I wore shorts and a white T-shirt. The T-shirt had a tiny hole at the shoulder.

  ‘What?’ he turned to me. ‘Is this what you wear at home?’

  ‘These are my nightclothes,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t have proper nightclothes?’

  I changed the topic. ‘Dad, I want to talk about something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I like a girl.’

  ‘Obviously, you have time to waste,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not like that. She is a nice girl. An IIT professor’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, so now we know what you did at IIT.’

  ‘I’ve graduated. I have a job. I’m preparing for MBA. What’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t have a problem. You wanted to talk,’ he said, not looking at me.

  ‘The girl’s father is taking her abroad. They’ll get her engaged to someone else.’

  ‘Oh, so her father doesn’t approve of it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  I looked at the floor. ‘We had some issues with him, me and my friends.’

  ‘What issues? Disciplinary issues?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Shocking. The son of an army officer has disciplinary issues. All the reputation I have built, you’ll destroy it.’

  ‘Those issues are history now.’

  ‘Then why does he have a problem? Does your mother know about this?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Why hasn’t she told me? Kavita!’ my father screamed.

  My mother came to the room, woken from a deep sleep. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Why was I not informed about this girl earlier?’ my father screamed.

  ‘He told me only a few weeks ago,’ my mother said.

  ‘And you hid it from me, bitch,’ my father said.

  ‘Don’t talk to mom like that,’ I said in reflex. I would have said more, but I needed him today.

  My mother broke into tears. This wasn’t going well at all.

  ‘Dad, please. I want your cooperation. If you meet her father, he may reconsider.’

  ‘Why should I meet anyone?’ he said.

  ‘Because I love her. And I don’t want her to go away.’

  ‘You are distracted, not in love.’

  ‘Leave it, Krish, he won’t listen. See how he talks to me. You don’t know how I lived when you were in hostel.’

  My father lunged menacingly towards my mother. He raised a hand to hit her. I pulled my mother behind me. ‘Don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ He slapped me hard on my right cheek. I sat down on the dining room chair.

  ‘Leave us and go. Why do you even come back?’ My mother folded her hands at him.

  ‘Don’t beg, mom,’ I said, fighting a lump in my throat. My father had made fun of me earlier for crying. To him, only weak men cried.

  ‘Look at his voice, like a girl’s,’ my father mocked. He gave me a disgusted glance and went to the bathroom to change.

  ‘Go to sleep, son,’ my mother said.

  ‘He is sending her away next week,’ I said.

  ‘What girl have you involved yourself with? You are so young,’ my mother said.

  ‘I am not marrying her tomorrow.’

  ‘Is she Punjabi?’ my mother asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she said, shocked as if I’d suggested she wasn’t human.

  ‘Will you meet her father, once?’

  My father came out of the bathroom. He had heard my last sentence. ‘Don’t you dare go anywhere, Kavita,’ my father said, his eyes wild.

  I stared back at him.

  ‘Go to your room,’ my father said.

  I came back to my bed. I heard noises in my parent’s room. I couldn’t sleep. I woke up and came towards their room. I’d heard enough arguments of my parents throughout my life to care, but I placed my ear at the door, anyway.

  ‘He is growing up,’ my mother said.

  ‘With all the wrong values. What does he know about girls? He is my son, he is from IIT, see what deal I get for him at the right time.’

  There it was, for all my father’s principles, I was his trophy to be sold in the market to the highest bidder.

  ‘You are responsible for bringing him up like this,’ my father screamed at my mother. I heard the sound of a glass being smashed against the wall.

  ‘What have I done? I didn’t even know about this girl. . . .’

  Slap . . . slap . . . my father interrupted my mother. I banged the door open as I heard a few more slaps. I saw my mother’s hand covering her face. A piece of glass had cut her forearm.

  My father turned to me. ‘Don’t you have any manners? Can’t you knock?’

  ‘You don’t teach me manners,’ I said.

  ‘Go away,’ he said.

  I shook my head. I saw the tears on my mother’s face. My face burned with rage. She had lived with this for twenty-five years. I did know why – to bring me up; I didn’t know how she did it.

  My father lifted his hand to hit me. Automatically, I grabbed his wrist tight.

  ‘Oh, now you are going to raise your hand against your own father,’ he said.

  I twisted his arm.

  ‘Leave him, he won’t change,’ my mother panted.

  I shook my head at her, my eyes staring right into his. I slapped his face once, twice, then I rolled my hand into a fist and punched his face.

  My father went into a state of shock, he couldn’t fight back. He didn’t expect this; all my childhood I’d merely suffered his dominance. Today, it wasn’t just about the broken glass. It wasn’t only that the girl I loved would be gone. It was a reaction to two decades of abuse. Or that’s how I defended it to myself. For how else do you justify hitting your own father? At that moment I couldn’t stop. I punched his head until he collapsed on the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I revelled in violence like this. I was a studious child who stayed with his books all his life. Today, I was lucky there wasn’t a gun at home.

  The insanity passed after five minutes. My father didn’t make eye contact with me. He sat on the floor, and massaged the arm I had twisted. He stared at my mother, with a ‘see, I told you’ expression.

  My mother sat on the bed, fighting back her emotions. We looked at each other. We were a family, but pretty much as screwed up as they come. I took a broom and swept the broken glass into a newspaper sheet. I looked at my father and vowed never to speak to him again. I picked up the newspaper with the glass pieces and left the room.

  36

  ‘That’s it, Guruji,’ I said, the tears now dry on my face. ‘I’ve never shared so much with anyone.’

  The sound of the sea could be heard, the waves asymmetrical to my tumultuous thoughts.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Guruji said.

  I lifted my eyelids slowly.

  ‘Come, we will go to the balcony behind,’ Guruji said.

  I followed him to a terrace in the rear of the house. The sea breeze felt cool even in the hot sun. I sat on one of the two stools kept outside. He went inside and came back with two glasses and a book.

  ‘It’s coconut water. And this is the Gita. You’ve heard about the Gita?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘sort of.’ I took a sip of the coconut water.

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘Like it is the ultimate book. It has all of life’s wisdom. You have to work and not worry about the reward. Right?’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Parts of it. It’s nice, but a little. . . .’

  ‘Boring?’

  ‘Actually, no, not boring. Hard to follow and apply everything.’

  ‘I’ll give you just one word to apply in your l