Page 22 of No Other Love

Anika tugged at the fabric once. ‘When will you ever learn to eat without spilling things, weirdo?’

I caught her hand, my intention very,veryclear in my expression. ‘Never.’

My wife’s lips parted. And a little sound escaped her. A sort of ‘oh’. As if she had never heard the word before.

But she was staring at my lips too. And that gave me courage. Courage to tug at her hand and bring her one inch closer so I could….

‘Vikrant, where’s the tea powder?’ My mother yelled from the kitchen.

Anika’s eyes slid in the direction of the voice. She untangled herself and stepped back. The shutters back on her expressive face.

I could have cursed the air blue with disappointment.

Aai had the worst timing ever!

‘I’ll help her,’ Anika murmured.

I shook my head. ‘No. You don’t know where the tea is. I’ll show her.’ The kitchen was new to Anika and besides, she probably was being polite. She didn’t want to spend alone time with my mother.

Incredibly, hurt shadowed her eyes before she wiped her face clean. She turned back to the ladder and hefted it. ‘I’ll finish here with Sagar. You can have your chai and then go for a bath before you leave with the men to collect the statue.’

‘You could come too,’ I offered.

The tradition in the Pandit household was that the men picked up the statue from the statue creator whose family lived four streets away and had been supplying us with the idol for generations, right from King Shivaji’s times. And the three times Anika had come home for Chathurthi with me, she’d insisted on wanting to join the menfolk in picking up the idol.

I always refused her because of what my family would say, especially my mother.

‘It’s okay. It’s not my place, remember?’ She took the ladder away with a small, biting smile.

I could only watch her hips sway in the damned sari.

And curse everything in sight, including myself and past mistakes.

Eleven

Vikrant

‘You look happy, Vik,’ Ramesh Kaka remarked as he joined me near his hammock.

The idol installation (murthi sthaapan)prep had gone off splendidly. Even Aai could find nothing to complain about or criticize for once. And dinner was a feast, prepared by Aai and Smita Aunty, to their best abilities. Tomorrow the rest of the family and all my cousins would descend on Aronda, with a few of them staying here with me at my new place.

Today, Anika had been a revelation.

She was actually the perfect daughter-in-law for once. She stood silently by my side while we sang the devotional songs to welcome Lord Ganesha into our home on the first day. She’d actually patiently waited for all the prayers to be done after the idol was placed at the mandal/altar.

And she’d not once made a snarky remark or rolled her eyes at the pomp and tradition.

Plus, seeing her in a sari was playing hell on my libido.

It was remarkable butpretendingto be my wife made Anika a better wife than when she’d actuallybeenone.

It was also sobering because it brought home the unrealistic expectations I’d had of her when we were married for real.

***

‘I…am,’ I admitted, taking a drag off the single cigarette I permitted myself. I flicked the ash away into the lawn and looked back at the living room, visible through the veranda.

Anika and Smita Aunty were watching something on her phone and they looked… content.