Adultery Chess Game by urbanslut

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Chapter 01: The Gambit

The personal impact of a recession can bring out the best or the worst in people. In my case, it was both. But on balance, whether it good or bad, I still haven't been able to figure it out. Only time will tell, I guess. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Let me start at the beginning. My name is Prerna and until a few months back, my husband Dhruv and I were living the vaunted Indian middle class dream. We were both working in mid-level positions in the same small but influential financial corporation. In fact we met as colleagues, became friends, then fell in love, and then got married. We had decided to postpone having children until I got promoted to a managerial position. So two decent incomes without any children translated into a pretty comfortable lifestyle. We had both grown up in families with financial troubles, so when we had a good income, we spared no expense at acquiring any luxuries. A sea-side 2 bedroom rented apartment in Juhu equipped with every luxury from a flat screen TV to a washing machine and even a drier. An expensive foreign-made sedan. Frequent foreign trips in Europe and East Asia. And of course, the services of a drive, a maid and a cook.

The problem is, we started living more like middle class Americans than middle class Indians. And by that, I mean, we racked up quite a debt. Our salaries were decent, but not lavish enough to pay for all these luxuries out of our pocket. So almost everything had been financed by loans, and most of our incomes went in paying the monthly installments, credit card bills, and the rent. The thought of saving for a rainy day did cross our minds occasionally, but Dhruv and I always said that we'd start saving once we get promoted to senior positions and our salaries grew really big. After all, the stock markets worldwide were booming, our bonuses every year were growing, our stock option value was multiplying, and our company was considered one of the rising stars in the financial sector. So we thought that as long as we were both young, we should enjoy our lives, and start saving later. The later, as it happened, was really bad.

In late 2008, the meltdown hit. Almost overnight, our company went belly up. Our shares in the company were not worth the paper they were printed on. And both Dhruv and I found ourselves unemployed. Even after that rude shock, we waded in our delusions for a few months. Surely, we would get a job elsewhere. Of course, we probably wouldn't have the convenience of working in the same office, having lunch together, and commuting together. But given that we had worked in such an awesome firm, we would find jobs soon. We sent our resumes to all the big banks and financial institutions, and continued charging our expenses to our credit cards.

Three months later, our credit cards were maxed out and neither of us had a job. We had been called for the occasional interview, but the niche nature of our previous jobs meant that there were few positions available in the top firms. And neither of us wanted to "taint" our resumes by working in a second tier firm. So we kept our fingers crossed and prayed to the lord.

The next month is when we really found our backs to the wall. We had only enough money left in our joint account to pay two months rent. We could not make any of our installments, from the car to the flat screen TV to the fancy three door fridge. It was impossible to pay the massive credit card bills. And of course, we had no money left to pay the driver, maid or the cook. That is when we were forced to take a realistic look at our situation. That is when we truly understood the meaning of the proverb "beggars can't be choosers".

There was however, a small sliver of hope. One of Dhruv's old bosses, who had also lost his job, had been hired in a mid-level privately-owned bank that had been largely unaffected by the meltdown. There was a position on his team, and he called up Dhruv to ask if he was interested. Normally, Dhruv would have laughed at the idea of working in what we called the "lalaji" firms. The salary was barely half of what he made at our old firm. And the company was in Powai, so the commute from Juhu would be horribly long. But like I said, beggars can't be choosers. So Dhruv took the job.

In one week, we were living "downgraded" lifestyles. With a heavy heart, we returned the car, the flat screen TV and all the other fancy gadgets that demanded monthly installments. We told our servants that their services were no longer needed. At this point, if we had no debt, we could have still lived reasonably well. But the credit card bills were massive, we had to live well within the lifestyle Dhruv's new salary could have afforded us. So the unkindest cut of them all - we had to leave our darling apartment in the posh seaside Juhu building, and rent a one bedroom apartment in an old building in Kanjurmarg.

Although Dhruv asked his boss to look for a job for me in the company, his boss said that simply was not possible. My experience was in a different sub-sector and there was no way I could be hired by them. So I was still unemployed, still sending out resumes, and waiting for the occasional interview call. But fortunately or unfortunately, thanks to our new low-brow lifestyle, that did not mean I was sitting at home with nothing to do. I had been forced into the life I had always dreaded - the busy housewife. We could just about afford a maid for washing the clothes and the dishes, but I had to clean the house and cook. Even though it was a small house and it was just the two of us, a decade-long break from any kind of housework meant that it all took up most of my day.