02-07-2020, 05:07 PM
Episode 20
When I started talking my voice was tremulous, no matter how much I had wanted to have control over my emotions.
I looked at his face and said, "If you tell me to leave the house and don't ever come back because you don’t want to see my face anymore, I won't be angry at you or make a scene here for that because I know my actions certainly warranted that decision from you."
I was looking at his face to see what his reaction to this would be.
He asked in response, "Do you want to leave this house?"
I was taken aback by this question from him. "No, never that, that would be my misfortune,” I said with my voice cracking in consternation.
"Then why are you saying this in the first place?" He asked me calmly.
I was confused. Looks like he won't make this easy for me. I had shamelessly indulged with his ‘friend’ in all the sorts of sex, something that a woman should reserve only for her husband. Wasn’t that enough of a reason for him to drive me away from his home.
As I started saying,” but I had done this terrible thing, I have betrayed you an….,” he interrupted me.
“Were you the only one guilty of that?”
“Even so, how can I do the same thing in return, isn’t that completely wrong?”
Even as I said those words my actions seemed very strange to me. Instead of pleading to him to forgive and accept me, I was giving him reasons to reject me altogether.
He had a small smile on his face. I was amazed at seeing it. After all that I have done how can he still look at my face with that smile. That was not a mocking smile but a smile of affection, something I didn’t expect? All I thought would be was a look of disgust when he saw me.
"Swetha, do you still want to live with me?" he asked me. I realised that this was a genuine question. He was not just playing with me.
Hearing those words from him lifted my heart .. there was still hope for me. My heart soared with happiness.
"If that happens, I am truly blessed. My happiness would know no bounds .. but would you forgive me even after all that I had done?"
He would surely have seen the relieve, joy genuineness of my emotions in my voice. Instead of answering me he asked me a question instead.
"Why did you get so intensely angry with me? You even gave me an ultimatum, either I allow you to do in return something like I had done or a divorce if I was unwilling to." "You were ready to leave me then but now you say that you would be blessed if our marriage continues."
Before answering this, I thought deeply, my words must be coming from my heart and coherent. He waited for my reply, he didn't rush me. Then I started talking slowly.
"I myself have been thinking the same thing about this. Up until now, I've searched for the answers using only my brains.”
“And now?” he asked.
"Now when you asked me this, I looked for the answers in my heart."
A smile flickered on his lips on hearing this. "So, are you clear now?" he asked.
I looked into his eyes and said," Don't think I am blaming you again, but you are the reason for it."
His eyes narrowed when he heard this. "Are you saying because I betrayed you?"
"No that was the effect, not the reason."
He was puzzled at what I was trying to get to.
"It's all because of you. Your display of love and affection for me. You filled my life with complete happiness. All of your actions made me feel special."
"I forgot my parents, I forgot my relatives, I forgot my friends. For me, you were my world."
He slowly began to understand what I was trying to convey. I did not avert my eyes from his penetrating gaze. He needed to feel the integrity in my words. It was very important if my marriage was to be saved.
"With all that, I too believed I was everything to you, but .. but when I saw the incident that day (even now I couldn’t say the words having sex with another woman). My whole world came crashing down in front of my eyes." Even now I felt the sharp stab of pain when those images passed very briefly through my mind.
I started to cry slowly now. That memory still had that impact on my heart. I was embarrassed at my display of emotion at this point and tried to suppress my tears. I slowly looked up at his face with redden eyes. He had a look of empathy for me.
“Because I had such great, unmeasurable love for you, my pain was just as equally great.”
“I lost all sense of balance then. Only feelings of anger and humiliation took turns to torture me. I was not open to reason…” I struggled to convey the state of dejection and turmoil I was in.
I quickly continued lest he think something else,” I’m not trying to justify my actions. I know there is no justification for that. Two wrong can never make a right. I will accept whatever punishment that comes my way.”
“I know I am not worthy to share your life. I don’t even have the right to beg you not to reject me.”
“Now it’s for you to decide. One thing is for sure. If you send me away from your life than that life would only be hell for me. I will just be a shell of a person but then I deserve it for what I had done. I will learn to accept that too.”
I looked deeply into his eyes as there was one more very important message to convey to him.
“All that I did with Shiva was in a blind, irrational fit of rage. He meant nothing to me. For me, he never matched you in any way. He can never be the man you are.”
With that I had said all that I had wanted to say. My fate was in his hands now. We had been speaking while both of us were standing.
“Come Swetha, come and sit here,” he said as he went and sat on the sofa.
I walked slowly to where he was sitting and very hesitantly sat beside him, a bit sideways and facing him. He kept looking at my face for a few seconds and all the while my heart was beating very fast. I felt that he was thinking very deeply before speaking. Suddenly fear attacked me, what if he was thinking about how to reject me without hurting my feelings too much. Even as I tried to control it, I started shivering now. He opened his mouth to speak.
He took my hands in his hands as he began to speak. My hands were still trembling. As if he was trying to reassure me, he gently squeezed my hands.
“Swetha, are you not aware that in our society the reaction towards men and women is different for the same sin of adultery?”
“Even if a man continues to sleep with different women, as long as he takes care of his wife and children properly our society expects the wife to tolerate everything. At most, they will advise the man to change his ways.”
“God forbid, that the man actually reforms later, the wife is then expected to be very grateful for that happening. No one would admonish the man, rather they would praise him for mending his ways.”
I now, without raising my bent head, just raised my eyes and looked at his face.
“Not only that, the man’s family and the wife’s family would welcome the change with great happiness and the man doesn’t face any consequence for the horrible error of his ways.”
“However, if it was the wife who had done that mistake even once in her life, there is never going to be any forgiveness for her.” He paused for a few seconds,” I realise there are some instances .. in very limited, rare cases, where the wife is forgiven but those are really exceptions. Even if forgiven, she would be reminded of her action whenever any small conflict comes in her life.”
“She would be scolded as a prostitute, a whore, woman of low morals etc. The pity is it won’t happen only in her in-law’s house but even in her own house.”
What my husband says was very true but what to do. That was the fate of women in our society. I, however was still not sure what my husband was trying to convey to me.
“Our society which gives so much value to the pain and humiliation of the man does not give any consideration to same type of suffering of the woman,” my husband continued.
“Swetha, you have lived with me for so many years, did you think I am also of that same type?”
I didn’t know what to answer to that so I just kept silent.
“I know very well how deeply you loved me. Wouldn’t I have realised that you would have been as deeply wounded as I have been later?”
Hearing my husband say how deeply he was wounded was like having a spear pierce through my heart. I just wanted to grab him and hold him to my chest consolingly, but as the guilty person on trial here I was unable to do it.
“Swetha, I have lived so many years with you, I know how deeply you cared and loved me. When I broke that trust you had in me, I know how very badly I had hurt you.”
My husband was laying out the reason why he had tolerated so much. He could feel my genuine pain and yet I had wanted to inflict that pain on him to make him realise how he had hurt me, when there was no need to do that. He already had realised that.
My husband continued. “What I did was the primary reason for all that followed, if not for that the thought of doing what you did have never ever entered your mind. Yet you are sitting here as the only person who is guilty. Where is there justice in that?”
My tears were falling freely now. They were falling on his hands that were clasping my hands. The emotions that I had been controlling all this while were not in my control anymore. Only one thing kept coming to my mind again and again. What a real man he was. Caring, able to accept his own errors and see the good in others. My god yes, my dear husband was going to forgive and accept me back in his life again.
“Now, Swetha, the question is not whether I forgive you and accept you, to do that I should have been someone who had not done anything wrong myself, but whether you are willing to forget everything and we start our life afresh.”
I couldn’t control my emotions any further after this. I buried my face on his lap. My tears were wetting the pant my husband was wearing. My body was shuddering as I cried. I felt his sympathetic hand on my head, consolingly petting my head. It made me truly realise how gifted in life I was. My husband respected my feelings … no, no .. respected women’s feelings so much. How big hearted he was to forgive me even after all that I did to humiliate him. That I had acted in such a demeaning manner was killing me now.
So many men would have arrogantly said that they can do what they want, just on the basis that they are men. They would have told us, you women ought to know your place and not question them in any way. Here however, my husband is saying he doesn’t even have the right to forgive me because he was the one who made the mistake in the first place.
He raised my head up and looked at my face with a kind smile. I was amazed to see there were tears on his cheeks too. He too had been holding his emotions in check for so long. We held each other cheek to cheek. Our tears mixing as one, the way we are not two persons anymore but one. Nonsense flowed from our mouth as we attempted to outdo each other in consoling each other, but there was so much meaning in those nonsense. I didn’t know how I was ever going to forgive myself for having hurt this wonderful man.
I kissed him on the lips and said,” I don’t know how to make it up to you. I have been a terrible wicked, horrible person but this I will tell you, I will die before I ever hurt you again.”
“Shh…. Don’t talk of the past darling, we only have our future to look forward to.”
I cried and laughed at the same time not really knowing what to do at this time but my Mahesh did. Yes, after a long time I could call him my Mahesh again in my heart.
He scooped me what up in his arms. I wrapped my hands around his head, laughing.
“Hey .. what are you doing?”
“Something I have not done for a long time,” my darling husband said as he carried me towards our bedroom.
I buried my face in his chest as if I was a new bride but my lips were smiling broadly.
When I started talking my voice was tremulous, no matter how much I had wanted to have control over my emotions.
I looked at his face and said, "If you tell me to leave the house and don't ever come back because you don’t want to see my face anymore, I won't be angry at you or make a scene here for that because I know my actions certainly warranted that decision from you."
I was looking at his face to see what his reaction to this would be.
He asked in response, "Do you want to leave this house?"
I was taken aback by this question from him. "No, never that, that would be my misfortune,” I said with my voice cracking in consternation.
"Then why are you saying this in the first place?" He asked me calmly.
I was confused. Looks like he won't make this easy for me. I had shamelessly indulged with his ‘friend’ in all the sorts of sex, something that a woman should reserve only for her husband. Wasn’t that enough of a reason for him to drive me away from his home.
As I started saying,” but I had done this terrible thing, I have betrayed you an….,” he interrupted me.
“Were you the only one guilty of that?”
“Even so, how can I do the same thing in return, isn’t that completely wrong?”
Even as I said those words my actions seemed very strange to me. Instead of pleading to him to forgive and accept me, I was giving him reasons to reject me altogether.
He had a small smile on his face. I was amazed at seeing it. After all that I have done how can he still look at my face with that smile. That was not a mocking smile but a smile of affection, something I didn’t expect? All I thought would be was a look of disgust when he saw me.
"Swetha, do you still want to live with me?" he asked me. I realised that this was a genuine question. He was not just playing with me.
Hearing those words from him lifted my heart .. there was still hope for me. My heart soared with happiness.
"If that happens, I am truly blessed. My happiness would know no bounds .. but would you forgive me even after all that I had done?"
He would surely have seen the relieve, joy genuineness of my emotions in my voice. Instead of answering me he asked me a question instead.
"Why did you get so intensely angry with me? You even gave me an ultimatum, either I allow you to do in return something like I had done or a divorce if I was unwilling to." "You were ready to leave me then but now you say that you would be blessed if our marriage continues."
Before answering this, I thought deeply, my words must be coming from my heart and coherent. He waited for my reply, he didn't rush me. Then I started talking slowly.
"I myself have been thinking the same thing about this. Up until now, I've searched for the answers using only my brains.”
“And now?” he asked.
"Now when you asked me this, I looked for the answers in my heart."
A smile flickered on his lips on hearing this. "So, are you clear now?" he asked.
I looked into his eyes and said," Don't think I am blaming you again, but you are the reason for it."
His eyes narrowed when he heard this. "Are you saying because I betrayed you?"
"No that was the effect, not the reason."
He was puzzled at what I was trying to get to.
"It's all because of you. Your display of love and affection for me. You filled my life with complete happiness. All of your actions made me feel special."
"I forgot my parents, I forgot my relatives, I forgot my friends. For me, you were my world."
He slowly began to understand what I was trying to convey. I did not avert my eyes from his penetrating gaze. He needed to feel the integrity in my words. It was very important if my marriage was to be saved.
"With all that, I too believed I was everything to you, but .. but when I saw the incident that day (even now I couldn’t say the words having sex with another woman). My whole world came crashing down in front of my eyes." Even now I felt the sharp stab of pain when those images passed very briefly through my mind.
I started to cry slowly now. That memory still had that impact on my heart. I was embarrassed at my display of emotion at this point and tried to suppress my tears. I slowly looked up at his face with redden eyes. He had a look of empathy for me.
“Because I had such great, unmeasurable love for you, my pain was just as equally great.”
“I lost all sense of balance then. Only feelings of anger and humiliation took turns to torture me. I was not open to reason…” I struggled to convey the state of dejection and turmoil I was in.
I quickly continued lest he think something else,” I’m not trying to justify my actions. I know there is no justification for that. Two wrong can never make a right. I will accept whatever punishment that comes my way.”
“I know I am not worthy to share your life. I don’t even have the right to beg you not to reject me.”
“Now it’s for you to decide. One thing is for sure. If you send me away from your life than that life would only be hell for me. I will just be a shell of a person but then I deserve it for what I had done. I will learn to accept that too.”
I looked deeply into his eyes as there was one more very important message to convey to him.
“All that I did with Shiva was in a blind, irrational fit of rage. He meant nothing to me. For me, he never matched you in any way. He can never be the man you are.”
With that I had said all that I had wanted to say. My fate was in his hands now. We had been speaking while both of us were standing.
“Come Swetha, come and sit here,” he said as he went and sat on the sofa.
I walked slowly to where he was sitting and very hesitantly sat beside him, a bit sideways and facing him. He kept looking at my face for a few seconds and all the while my heart was beating very fast. I felt that he was thinking very deeply before speaking. Suddenly fear attacked me, what if he was thinking about how to reject me without hurting my feelings too much. Even as I tried to control it, I started shivering now. He opened his mouth to speak.
He took my hands in his hands as he began to speak. My hands were still trembling. As if he was trying to reassure me, he gently squeezed my hands.
“Swetha, are you not aware that in our society the reaction towards men and women is different for the same sin of adultery?”
“Even if a man continues to sleep with different women, as long as he takes care of his wife and children properly our society expects the wife to tolerate everything. At most, they will advise the man to change his ways.”
“God forbid, that the man actually reforms later, the wife is then expected to be very grateful for that happening. No one would admonish the man, rather they would praise him for mending his ways.”
I now, without raising my bent head, just raised my eyes and looked at his face.
“Not only that, the man’s family and the wife’s family would welcome the change with great happiness and the man doesn’t face any consequence for the horrible error of his ways.”
“However, if it was the wife who had done that mistake even once in her life, there is never going to be any forgiveness for her.” He paused for a few seconds,” I realise there are some instances .. in very limited, rare cases, where the wife is forgiven but those are really exceptions. Even if forgiven, she would be reminded of her action whenever any small conflict comes in her life.”
“She would be scolded as a prostitute, a whore, woman of low morals etc. The pity is it won’t happen only in her in-law’s house but even in her own house.”
What my husband says was very true but what to do. That was the fate of women in our society. I, however was still not sure what my husband was trying to convey to me.
“Our society which gives so much value to the pain and humiliation of the man does not give any consideration to same type of suffering of the woman,” my husband continued.
“Swetha, you have lived with me for so many years, did you think I am also of that same type?”
I didn’t know what to answer to that so I just kept silent.
“I know very well how deeply you loved me. Wouldn’t I have realised that you would have been as deeply wounded as I have been later?”
Hearing my husband say how deeply he was wounded was like having a spear pierce through my heart. I just wanted to grab him and hold him to my chest consolingly, but as the guilty person on trial here I was unable to do it.
“Swetha, I have lived so many years with you, I know how deeply you cared and loved me. When I broke that trust you had in me, I know how very badly I had hurt you.”
My husband was laying out the reason why he had tolerated so much. He could feel my genuine pain and yet I had wanted to inflict that pain on him to make him realise how he had hurt me, when there was no need to do that. He already had realised that.
My husband continued. “What I did was the primary reason for all that followed, if not for that the thought of doing what you did have never ever entered your mind. Yet you are sitting here as the only person who is guilty. Where is there justice in that?”
My tears were falling freely now. They were falling on his hands that were clasping my hands. The emotions that I had been controlling all this while were not in my control anymore. Only one thing kept coming to my mind again and again. What a real man he was. Caring, able to accept his own errors and see the good in others. My god yes, my dear husband was going to forgive and accept me back in his life again.
“Now, Swetha, the question is not whether I forgive you and accept you, to do that I should have been someone who had not done anything wrong myself, but whether you are willing to forget everything and we start our life afresh.”
I couldn’t control my emotions any further after this. I buried my face on his lap. My tears were wetting the pant my husband was wearing. My body was shuddering as I cried. I felt his sympathetic hand on my head, consolingly petting my head. It made me truly realise how gifted in life I was. My husband respected my feelings … no, no .. respected women’s feelings so much. How big hearted he was to forgive me even after all that I did to humiliate him. That I had acted in such a demeaning manner was killing me now.
So many men would have arrogantly said that they can do what they want, just on the basis that they are men. They would have told us, you women ought to know your place and not question them in any way. Here however, my husband is saying he doesn’t even have the right to forgive me because he was the one who made the mistake in the first place.
He raised my head up and looked at my face with a kind smile. I was amazed to see there were tears on his cheeks too. He too had been holding his emotions in check for so long. We held each other cheek to cheek. Our tears mixing as one, the way we are not two persons anymore but one. Nonsense flowed from our mouth as we attempted to outdo each other in consoling each other, but there was so much meaning in those nonsense. I didn’t know how I was ever going to forgive myself for having hurt this wonderful man.
I kissed him on the lips and said,” I don’t know how to make it up to you. I have been a terrible wicked, horrible person but this I will tell you, I will die before I ever hurt you again.”
“Shh…. Don’t talk of the past darling, we only have our future to look forward to.”
I cried and laughed at the same time not really knowing what to do at this time but my Mahesh did. Yes, after a long time I could call him my Mahesh again in my heart.
He scooped me what up in his arms. I wrapped my hands around his head, laughing.
“Hey .. what are you doing?”
“Something I have not done for a long time,” my darling husband said as he carried me towards our bedroom.
I buried my face in his chest as if I was a new bride but my lips were smiling broadly.
![[+]](https://xossipy.com/themes/sharepoint/collapse_collapsed.png)