Forbidden Desires (9 page)

The very next day Ayesha received a present at her doorstep just as they were preparing to leave for the airport. She opened the box and was thrilled at seeing a DSLR camera, a Canon EOS 60 D.

She instantly knew it was from Harshvardhan. She sent him a text:
I don’t think I can accept this
…

Harshvardhan texted back:
Please, do accept. Consider it your professional fee for the consultation about the Metro
.

Well, thank you then
.

Take photos of yourself too
.

Ayesha was sure she would have a far more wonderful vacation clicking photos that sitting in a hotel room ordering room service, something that Varun loved to do.

Just then Varun walked in, announcing to everyone that a blizzard had hit their destination and they were cancelling their trip.

‘Whaaatt?!’ Adi came out of his room screaming. ‘We’re not going? But Dad! You promised! What will all my friends say?’

Varun yelled back. ‘There’s nothing we can do. Beta it’s not in our control!’ He stormed off as he told Ayesha, ‘Tumhara beta hai. Tum hi sambhalo.’

Ayesha quickly kept her new camera in her closet and began making calls. The travel agent assured her that they would get a full refund on their tickets and hotel bookings.

Adi sulked in his room. ‘Adi,’ Ayesha coaxed. ‘It’s so unfortunate that we couldn’t go right now. But at another time, we still can, right?’

‘When, Ma? We’re leaving for Lucknow! And you said we’ll be stuck there for some time before we can take vacations.’

Ayesha understood, of course…‘How about instead of skiing, we go bungee jumping?’

Adi was suspicious, ‘When?’

Ayesha was feeling lighter, happier, more generous. ‘Why don’t we do the Lord of the Rings trail in New Zealand in March? And we can go paragliding and bungee jumping there too!’

Adi sat up feeling more excited, ‘Seriously?’

Ayesha nodded, ‘Yes. I will make sure we book in advance. And I know you will have two weeks then. I think the weather will be much better. And this way you can spend New Year’s Eve here with your friends like you mentioned last week, right?’

Adi nodded and smiled, ‘Thanks Ma. You’re the best.’ Ayesha left Adi’s room and texted Harshvardhan:
Trip has been cancelled
.

My prayers came true!

She laughed at his reply. Clearly they were more than friends and she knew this relationship was about to complicate her life.

That first night with Harshvardhan had been wonderful. After they had made love, they lay entwined in each other’s arms for a long time. They spoke only when they felt like it. They kissed passionately and made love again.

Long after that evening was over its imprint scalded Ayesha, as the minutiae of her daily domestic life took over and she began the hurtful process of trying to forget him. She figured the Switzerland trip with her husband and son would make that happen. She was all set to leave. She was ready to forget the most loving man she had ever met. She had to. For the sake of her marriage.

But it was not to be. And it was Harshvhadan whom she texted first the minute she found out they were not leaving for Switzerland.
I must be mad!

‘Madam?’ Ayesha was sitting in her room alone with a cup of tea when Savitri quietly knocked and entered.

‘What shall we make for dinner?’ Savitri asked. ‘It’s already 7 p.m. Sahib will be home soon.’

Seven! Ayesha had completely lost track of time. Adi had gone to his friend’s house after some classes and without his presence she hadn’t done her chores.

‘Yes. Just make whatever sabji there is and a dal and rotis. We’ll finish all the things in the fridge for now.’

Savitri nodded. She walked to the door to leave and said, ‘Madam, it will be okay. This time we’ll settle things slowly in Lucknow. No calling anyone over till we’re ready.’ She thought her mistress was concerned about how much work was needed for the shift to Lucknow.

Ayesha didn’t say anything until Savitri left the room. As soon as she was alone again she heard Varun’s booming voice, ‘Ayesha! Ayesha!’

Her heart stopped. Fear knotted her gut. Had he found out about Harshvardhan? She came out of her room in trepidation. Her composure was a fragile shell.

He ran to her and embraced her in a tight hug. ‘Guess what!’

She was completely bewildered by his happiness and hugged him back.

‘We don’t have to leave! My minister gave me an extension.’

‘What?’

‘Yes! He said I have a one-year extension for now and then he’ll see. Isn’t that wonderful?’

Ayesha’s head reeled. It was wonderful. She won’t have to leave the city, she could see Harshvardhan again. She said the obvious, ‘I guess we’ll continue Adi’s school. I’ll need to tell them we’re not going. Gosh. I hope they haven’t made his seat vacant! And all this samaan. I’ll need to unpack it also. Oh God, Varun. I wish I had known this earlier!’

Varun didn’t care about the logistics. He was only thinking about himself, ‘Oh I’m so happy. I’m going to tell Sanjay and Rohit and Rahul. Maybe we can have a celebratory drink tonight. All of us? With the wives.’

Ayesha nodded. ‘Yes, yes but tell me how it happened.’

Varun was already dialing his friends on his mobile. ‘The minister felt my service was needed for another year. Where is Adi? Let’s tell him. Let’s take him with us for dinner. Oh Rohit, hey, guess what man…’

Ayesha went into the kitchen to tell Savitri that she didn’t need to make dinner as they were all going out. She headed back to her room and found her mobile blinking with a new message. Even before she read it she knew it was from Harshvardhan.

I can’t let you go so soon. I have so many issues that I still need help with. Meet me tomorrow. Same place. Whatever time you say
. Reading his SMS, Ayesha guessed he was behind Varun staying. He must have spoken to Varun’s minister and asked for a continuance. She was sure he had paid a heavy price for it.

She texted back:
4 p.m. Is that okay
? She hungered from the memory of his mouth on hers.

Of course
.

Ayesha felt an unfamiliar peace. A cry of relief broke from her lips. She had a year with the man she loved.

Kavita: 39. Tall, sleek, smart. Delicate fingers. Wavy brown hair. Twinkling eyes. Sharp nose. Wears pant suits. Gynaecologist. No hobbies. Holds a dark secret. Had a love marriage to Gaurav. Regrets it till date.

‘Just sign here, and here,’ the officer was instructing Kavita though she already knew given this was her husband’s third time in the last two years to be arrested by the police. Kavita couldn’t believe this was happening again.

‘And ma’am, drunk driving is an offence,’ the police officer sternly reminded. ‘Delhi drivers think they can always get away with it but not with me.’ Gaurav sat sullenly at a table behind them. She paid the bail money, signed the documents, and took a very morose-looking Gaurav back to her car.

‘No one ever gets caught in Delhi and I’ve got caught thrice.
Meri kismet hi kharab hai
,’ he grumbled.

‘What the hell were you doing driving drunk again anyway? Who were you racing this time, Gaurav?’

‘Watch your tone, Kavita. I’m allowed to have some fun. I work hard for a living. I can’t afford a driver.’

‘You can take a cab. You haven’t learned your lesson from the last two times? You could have killed someone!’ Kavita found it hard to concentrate on her own driving with all the anger boiling inside her.

‘It’s not my fault people just cross the street in the middle of the night thinking they own it. It’s the bloody population of this country. They live everywhere. They feel they own the streets. No one looks left or right anymore.’

‘So you think what you did was okay?’

‘No I don’t,’ Gaurav sighed. ‘But I’m stressed. I drank a little too much with the boys and was driving home. The streets were empty. It’s Delhi for God’s sake! Every street is empty at one in the morning. No cops are ever around.’

‘Except Inspector Arvind, obviously and he is very vigilant. One wrong swerve and you could have been in a serious accident.’

Gaurav sulked all the way home and didn’t say another word, not even to thank Kavita. He crashed into bed the minute they entered the house. Kavita changed and went to lie down with her back to him. He snored lightly as her eyes caught the clock: 3:00 a.m. She had to get up to get her son ready for school in four hours’ time. And then head to work. It was going to be a long day. Now Kavita couldn’t sleep. She wondered if things would have been different if she hadn’t felt so lonely that day.
How did I end up being this lonely
?

It was nine years ago when they had first met. She was well into her medical residency by then and was working at AIIMS. She had studied all her life to be a doctor. She wanted to make her mother proud. She wanted to earn enough to look after her mother and younger sister. Her father had abandoned them when she and her sister were little.

One morning her mother said, ‘Beta, you don’t need to do so much. We’re fine. I don’t want you to wake up one day all alone. It’s important to also have love in your life.’

She thought she had found that love in Gaurav. He had walked into her office, a Pharmaceutical Sales representative. Tall, broad shoulders, dark, wavy mop of hair. Like those men on the covers of a Mills & Boon. She was instantly attracted to him.

Though today when thought about it, she wondered if maybe it was only because of what her mother had said that morning, the idea of ending up alone.

‘Excuse me, Madam,’ Gaurav, the sales representative was saying. ‘May I have a minute of your time?’ He walked in and took a seat opposite her desk. It was just a coincidence that she was at her desk that morning doing paperwork. Otherwise she would have been on her feet visiting wards and performing operations. Kismet.
Is kismet another word for unhappy coincidences
?

She didn’t even have time that morning but he was so good-looking that she had to give him at least two minutes. He was tall, had compelling dark, large eyes and his features were firm. His confident set of shoulders made him even more irresistible.

‘I wanted to speak to you about a few drugs that we’ve just got FDA approval for. They’re not out in the market and we wanted you to have them before the other hospitals.’ His smooth olive skin stretched over his cheeks as he smiled. His voice resonated loud and clear but not overbearing.

This was not the first sales representative who had tried to sell his pharmaceutical products to doctors like Kavita, so she knew how they smooth-talked. And as much as she wanted to spend a little more time with him, Kavita knew it wasn’t in her place to order drugs so she told Gaurav she was not interested.

‘But this can relieve your patients from pain. Have you heard of an epidural?’ He spoke almost immediately after she finished her sentence, not giving her a moment to get back to her work, but holding her attention for way longer than she had hoped. She liked how he challenged her.

‘Every doctor has heard of it…,’ she wanted to take his name.

‘Gaurav. Gaurav Gupta.’ His smile was as charming as his personality.

‘Yes…Gaurav,’ She remembered he had mentioned it earlier. ‘I don’t need an epidural.’

‘What if I told you there was an alternative to the epidural that would not have such alarming after-effects? Would you still think about the drug?’

‘Is it IV?’

Gaurav smiled. Now he had got her interested. That’s exactly what he wanted. ‘No. It’s orally prescribed.’

‘Does it have the same effect as an epidural? How? Isn’t that unsafe?’

‘I can leave some samples and written documents that we have on it. Here’s my number,’ he said as he took out the samples and his card from his bag. ‘You’ll have all the information on that. And I can tell you more about it over dinner, if you’re free.’

She was offended by this man’s gumption, asking her out for dinner!

Kavita shook her head. He may be gorgeous but he was a stranger. And love couldn’t distract her now—not even the idea of it. Love took away from ambition. She would tell her mother that love would have to wait. She told Gaurav, ‘You’ll have to talk to the product manager. I’m not really in charge of this.’

But he was persistent, like any salesperson was. ‘Once you approve, we’ll head to the product manager and make a deal. Right now, I want you to see what this miracle drug can do and how you can ease the pain of your patient’s lives! Wouldn’t you like that?’

Kavita nodded and then shook her head. She was a renowned gynaecologist. She had delivered thousands of babies. She had performed hundreds of operations and her research was published in various medical journals. Why was she feeing like putty in this man’s presence? ‘Fine, Gaurav. I have rounds now. Thank you for your time.’

As they both stood up to shake hands, there was a strange electricity that passed between them. He smiled and left. Dinner would have to wait.

She sat looking at his card for a long time. This man had made her feel strange. She had been too busy all her life trying to study to be a doctor and then trying to prove she was a good one. Later she would tell her sister, Kaajal, ‘I don’t go for just good-looking men. I’ve seen enough of them. What was it about him?’

And Kaajal would reply, ‘Sometimes, when you know, you know. There’s no logic involved in knowing if he’s the one. There’s no logic for falling in love with a person. It just happens. And when you have love, you’ll have it all.’

Now Kavita was in bed, trying to find sleep as Gaurav slept soundly next to her. She watched the digital clock turn to four. She stared into the dark, empty night. The house was completely quiet. Did she really have it all?

She was a successful gynaecologist in her mid-30s. She lived with her younger, unmarried sister, Kaajal, and their mother. Gaurav lived with them because her mother’s was a large enough house for the entire family. Gaurav was staying in a rented place when they met. His parents lived in Jaipur along with Gaurav’s two sisters who were also married.

He got by on charm. Kavita and he had had great sex in the beginning. And then work took over. Her time was spent in the hospital and that was when he lost his first job. Things went downhill from then. Two years into their marriage, Kavita knew it wasn’t working. She wanted a divorce. She spoke to Kaajal about it. Kaajal was then finishing law school.

‘It will devastate mom,’ Kaajal had warned in reply. ‘She’s too traditional, Kavi. Don’t do this. Have a child. Maybe that’ll save your marriage.’

Why is it that even when women know that it’s the end of a relationship, they’ll do whatever they can to save it for someone else? Gaurav was happy to have a baby. He was a pretty good father. He couldn’t always change nappies but rocked Vansh to sleep every night. His career took a back seat. Not that it was going anywhere to begin with. He was fired from the pharmaceutical company when they had a class action suit against them. They thought it was his fault. He was unemployed for several months. That was the first time he got arrested for drinking and driving. Kavita and he went to marriage counseling and things were better for a while after that.

But Kavita now had to work hard to support Gaurav and the needs of a new baby. She hired a nanny to help. She worked extra hard. She didn’t spend a single pie on herself. And yet Gaurav began to hate her more and more.

Gaurav eventually found another job as a sales executive in a TV channel. He enjoyed it for some time till he got fired again. His ego didn’t allow him to take orders from a boss who was younger than him. Again he stayed at home with her mother and their son. Somehow through Kaajal’s contacts, he got a job in an event management company and that’s where he had been for the last two years.

Their son Vansh was now six and a half years old. He was quite independent, though he had the luxury of having enough family members and maids around to manage his life.

But Kavita felt she should have known better. If she hadn’t called Gaurav about those samples, if they hadn’t gone out for those few dates, if she hadn’t so desperately wanted to be in love for the first time in her life, if her mother who had raised her and her sister single-handedly had not wanted her to get married so quickly, none of this mess would have happened. There were too many factors. A lifetime of reasoning and pondering.

Gaurav was so good with their son. He was brilliant as a son-in-law. He looked after her mother the way she herself never could. She was always at the hospital. He was the one who drove her everywhere, took her for anything she wanted, and spent hours listening to her. Even Kaajal, who was a lawyer and several years younger than Kavita, didn’t have time to be with their mother as much as Gaurav did. How could she divorce such a man? On what grounds? Love is always the stupidest factor to get married. And falling out of it is the stupidest factor to get divorced. If only couples realized it before it was too late on either accounts.

And what would Vansh say? He would definitely choose to live with Gaurav. Kavita would die if that ever happened. Marriages weren’t meant to be ideal, happy, romantic scenarios. They were a slice of life with two people compromising for a greater good.

So she let Gaurav be. She pretended it was a great marriage. She found common ground. She forced herself to have sex. She let some things go for the greater good.

The clock showed six o’ clock. Kavita was already awake. She took her pink yoga mat and went to the balcony. She practiced yoga every morning before the house woke up. It was her time to exercise in peace and gather her thoughts. She did one hundred surya namaskars before she went to wake up her son.

‘Mama, you’re all sweaty,’ he said as she snuggled next to him.

‘Hmm. I love you, my pudding pie.’

‘Mama. Please don’t call me that now. I’m a big boy.’

‘Okay okay, baba. I won’t.’

‘Mama, can I ask you a question?’ Vansh said feeling shy and looking away from his mother who was lying next to him. She nodded her head. ‘Can I have a sibling?’

Kavita sat up, ‘What?’

Immediately Vansh changed the topic, ‘No no. It was just that all my friends have brothers and sisters. So they can play with them. Otherwise you always have to fix play dates and tell Maasi or Papa to play with me…It would be easier if I had a sibling na?’

Kavita sighed. After last night, she never wanted to sleep with Gaurav again. Thinking about having another baby was far from her mind. ‘We’ll see. And everyone likes spending time with you and your play dates are for you to have fun. Now go get dressed please. Let’s not be late for the school bus.’

Vansh jumped out of bed and gave his mother a hug. For him, she hadn’t said no. He would work on her later. He would also talk to his father!

Kavita saw her son off to school and sat at the kitchen table with her cup of coffee. She couldn’t have another child. She was just too tired. Even though she delivered babies for a living, she didn’t plan on having another one herself. It would stunt her career and there was no love between her and Gaurav anyway. She decided to stay at home that day and clear her head.