Love Unlocked
It had been 6 months since that awful moment on the balcony, when my ex spurned me at the arrival of her family, after rekindling and reliving our past relationship from across our balconies for a month and half for the entire duration the lockdown. Even though it took me six months, I had gradually come to terms with the situation. Not only did it break my heart and my soul, it also damaged my self esteem since it was the first time that I had been dumped. It took me a month apiece to get over the each of the five stages of grief. This involved me switching from spending entire days on the balcony, hoping for Trishna to turn up to finally consciously avoiding the balcony, having only seen the man there. In between, I had daydreamed about ways to damage her house one month and was unwilling to even get out of bed in another.
It must have been an abnormal experience for Neha to see my moods change. Not that we were particularly interested in each other’s lives by then. Our conversations rarely went beyond exchange of factual information or deciding about the banalities of day to day existence. We did get our maid back so any chat about food or household management had ended too. As I got over the affair(?), I inevitably turned my attention to my own home (like Trishna had) and was crushed to discover how far away I had pushed my wife.
So, out of a mix of regret and guilt, I set about getting my marital life back on track. My first attempt, which involved waiting for Neha to come to bed and asking her how her day went, was met with a confused look and a long silence, followed by a mumbled “alright” and an excuse about her being too tired to listen how I might have messed up now. Having expected this, I took the hint and did not pester. For now.
Overtime, I had been inspired by books and tweetstorms about habit and decided to put my learnings to good use. I resolved to keep at it until she gave up and this is precisely what happened. Exactly after 21 days of the same question (thank you Atomic Habits), infatuated by my charm, moved by my love but mostly exhausted by my persistence, she gave in and humored me with a detailed answer. Over the past six months, I had completely forgotten how boring her job was and somehow managed to suppress a yawn in the middle of her response. Nevertheless, we made progress.
In the next few days, we began talking and exchanging a lot more. We even took to sharing a plate for meals and making coffee for each other. Things were getting better as I focused on work and family and went for days without thinking about Trishna. Life, though, like any software, tends to mysteriously develop complications, even if left untouched. So one day Neha told me about her her new colleague, Vishal. Vishal had joined her company just before the lockdown and had moved to Bangalore about 6 months back.
By her account, he was funny, helpful and smart; everything that I was not. What I was, though, was immensely insecure and jealous. From daydreaming about Trishna, I had now graduated to spend my days in darkness and anxiety, daymaring about Vishal. Not that I could be considered handsome but I do have very fair skin which is equal to, if not better than, having a pretty face in India. So, I decided that if I turned out to be prettier than him, then beauty, along with raging insecurity and jealousy should put me at par with his qualities and that should assuage some of my issues.
Naturally, the next night, I stayed awake long enough for Neha to fall asleep and sneaked her phone. I went to whatsapp to spy on her and looked up her chat history with Vishal. The texts I found were mostly about work, interspersed with Neha’s occasional comments about how cute the baby was. I once again found myself yawning reading about her mundane job. Feeling a strong pang of guilt at having spied on her, I was about to return her phone when the display picture caught my eye. I enlarged the picture to see a very handsome, almost white skinned man and a similarly tinged baby stared back at me. I immediately recognised the face which belonged to Trishna’s husband.
Even in that moment, I could not help but marvel at the poetry of the situation. As a child, I used to read a lot of comics and my favourites were the editions where two villians joined hands to trump the superhero. Those were my favourite plotlines and I used to eagerly wait for such comics. Little did I know that that plot would follow me in adulthood. I then kept on appreciating the poetry of it until the morning without a wink. Mercifully, it was a Saturday so I could walk around the house like a zombie in stead of having to pretend to work.
When it rains, it pours. Around noon,With the “poetry of the situation” still doing the rounds in my head, Neha informed me that we had been invited to dinner at the supervillians’ hideout. I was too drowsy to cook up an excuse and reluctantly agreed. Evening arrived, clothes were worn, a present was picked for the supervillians’ offspring and the doorbell was rang.
In all this while, I kept creating and discarding ways of greeting Vishal and Trishna, without coming across as jealous and/or guilty. I was still in the middle of yet another imaginary exchange when Vishal opened the door. I could only murmur a barely audible good evening, which invited a chastising glare from Neha. She clearly expected me to fawn over the baby villain as she was. Deciding that feigning niceties while wrestling two supervillains was too much of an effort, I ignored her and moved inside to face the bigger adversary. I entered the living room, my eyes searching for her when I saw an enlarged photograph, adorned by a garland. Vishal walked up behind me and said in a soft voice, “that’s my wife. She passed away on her way to Bangalore, a week before the lockdown”.
