Adultery Indian Wife and the Nukkad Guys by shiprat

[Ramesh_Rocky]

I had planned to go to a wooded countryside area past our colony. I had been there with Vinay before when we were taking a stroll and I knew that there were enough beaten paths to form a trail that I could run on. The town itself was small enough and the traffic was less enough that I could run on the streets if I wanted. But as I said, the general atmosphere in the town was not such that a woman could go running on the street without attracting unwanted attention.


I had reached about halfway to the wooded area when the lace on my right shoe came undone. As I bent down to tie it, I noticed something I had not noticed before. The nukkad guys were about 200 meters behind me. As was often the case, they were just randomly following me.

I have never understood the rationale behind this thing many Indian men do. Just creepily follow a woman they desire. Follow her home, follow her to work, follow her to college, follow her everywhere. Exactly what is it supposed to convey or achieve? These guys were no different. It wasn't the first time they had followed me. During our encounters earlier, it had happened many times. Sometimes I would look out the window and see a couple of them just lounging around across my house. They'd catch my eye, give a creepy smile and then exchange high fives. Then a while later, they would be gone.

It seemed similar to the behavior of predators, just circling your prey and getting to know them. Or were they just trying to intimidate me? Or maybe it was a source of entertainment for them, making a high class memsaab nervous or uncomfortable. And I knew that I wasn't the only one on the receiving end of such attention.

A couple of weeks earlier, I was watering the plants in my garden when I saw Sarita walking down the street with a bag of groceries in her hand. Sure enough, two of the nukkad guys were following her. I stood and watched as Sarita, very conscious of being followed, walked inside the gate of her house. The men kept walking past her house. They noticed me and one of them whistled. Sarita turned in response to the whistle and saw me glaring at them.

"Let it be, didi." she said in a soft voice. "Just ignore them."

"Such creeps." I walked to the wall towards Sarita. "Don't they have any jobs?"

"Some of them do. But most of them are just soldiers."

"They are in the army???" I couldn't believe my ears. Army men behaving this way?

"No no didi." Sarita smiled as she looked at the men walk past the end of the street and turn the corner.

"Then?"

"They are soldiers of Billa Yadav."

"Who?"

"The politician. MLA of this area. He's been in jail for a couple of years, but still runs most parts of the town." she said. "And then if you go to the neighboring colony, the nukkad guys are soldiers of Shakoor Haji, who is Billa's biggest rival and from the other party."

"What do soldiers do exactly? Fight each other?"

"Yeah, sometimes. Collect money, intimidate supporters and businessmen, and of course, run the elections." she explained. "Isn't that how things run in Bombay too?"

"Well, yeah, the local parties have their own "soldiers" I guess. And they have a lot of influence and do a lot during the elections. But we never really have day to day encounters with them. At least not in Worli. And they certainly don't act like molesters."

"This isn't Bombay, didi. This is how things operate here. We women who grow up here learn to deal with it."

"So you get followed as well?"

"Yes, followed, catcalled, sometimes........" and her voice tapered off.

"Sometimes?"

"Nothing. You know how men can be." she shrugged and went deep red.

I had no idea what she was implying. I wanted to probe her further but she was already walking inside her house.

As time had gone by, I had started understanding the dynamics and the culture of the cow belt a little better. It was obviously a much more conservative place than Bombay. In some ways, it was also more exciting. And it's not just the nukkad guys and not even staring men. I always got so much attention that I felt like a foreigner. I used to drive the car myself. My neighbors found it very surprising - a woman driving her own car! Most of them had drivers or were driven around by male family members. Even when I went to the vegetable market or to the small mall in the town, I initially got surprise looks from traffic security officer, security guards, and people on the street.

I also wore western clothes very frequently. Most women in the ton wore saris or salwar kurtas, with the occasional loose jeans thrown in. I wore capris, skirts, dresses, nice tops very often. I should stress again that I was never wearing what I considered "skimpy" clothes. But in that sleepy little town, I still turned heads by just showing my shins. Catcalls and heckles weren't limited to just the nukkad guys. Very often I'd be sitting in the car at a traffic signal and a bike would pull up. The men would stare at me blatantly, sometimes make propositions, call me names. I'd ignore them, they'd drive off.

The one thing that bugged me the most about the town was that I had literally no friends. No company to do anything with. In Worli, I had a huge social circle. But I just didn't gel well with anyone here. I had met most people in the neighborhood and many wives of Vinay's colleagues. They were all very traditional homebodies - focused on kids, cooking and soap operas. No one was really great for hanging out with. Additionally, I could see the judgmental look on their face because I often wore western clothes, and never covered my head in the presence of older men.

So I'd spend my days alone, reading books, surfing the net, occasionally going for drives shopping or to the mall, and doing some coding for my company whenever they sent me work. But in just six months, life had settled into a rut. Vinay spent as much time with me as possible. But he was usually exhausted and on his days off, just wanted to relax.