Somewhere at the end of the 20th Century

1

Four Women & A Divorce

“Divorce is granted.”

Those three words that every woman hopes she never has to hear. But there I stood in the sweltering heat of Delhi’s Tees Hazari Court, looking at the judge who had just set me free. For me, those three words were as magical as, “I Love You.”

The court room was nothing like I had seen in the movies. There was no witness box and even though this was probably the most significant moment of my life, I, Sitara Bedi née Narang, remembered only the bulbous face of the judge who had repeatedly asked me one question throughout, “Why aren’t you demanding alimony?,” the nervous bird-like twitch of the court typist who constantly blinked her eyes as if to keep herself awake and the loud whir of the ancient cooler, that threw out hot musty air as no one had ever bothered to change the filter or water.

Looking over at the man to whom I had been married and shared a last name with for eight years and hoped to spend all my living years with, I felt an emptiness that could never be explained. As he stood there in designer clothes with perfectly groomed nails, I couldn’t help but feel a great sense of loss. Why, what and how had this happened? Why had he done this to me? But more importantly, why had I let it happen?

I was 30 years old and had often been compared to an Indian version of Catherine Zeta Jones. I looked good in both Western and Indian clothes, which had quite a few of the colony wives envy me and I had been known to have a whacky sense of humor too! This was definitely not a situation I had envisioned for myself when I was younger with stars in my eyes.

But here I was, Miss Sitara Narang – all over again. Tara, to my friends.

As I walked out of the courthouse and into the Delhi heat, my breath caught and I felt like I was in a trance. I was a fabulous baker by profession and ran a lucrative patisserie which was located in one of Delhi’s most affluent areas – Jor Bagh. There would be no more pretenses, no more feelings of dread and no more despair. I was a financially independent, divorced Indian woman, who had had the courage to finally take life by its pigtails and steer it towards much deserved freedom.

I was going to enjoy this.

And who better to enjoy it with, but the only three ‘friends’ I had? Building up my business and the breaking down of my disastrous marriage had spared no time to make many friends. I just had these three. I smiled when I thought of them: Arpita, Upasana and Sana.

Arpita Bhatia was the typical upper-class South Delhi daughter-in-law. Always dressed in the latest designer salwar kameez1 and married to a sweet man who loved her to bits and by extension, to his mother, who bit her head off every chance she got. Arpita had been married for almost nine years and although they had pretty much tried every day of those nine years, there was still no Bhatia heir in sight. And Mamma Bhatia never let her forget it.

She would make sarcastic comments to visiting relatives about it and pretend she was going to the temple in their neighborhood every day, to ask God for a grandchild. But everyone knew that she actually ended up at the local café and did the crossword puzzle for an hour over a cup of coffee instead. Everyone, except her son Rohit. Rohit was one of those good mamma’s boys that every typical Indian mother dreams of raising. And Mamma Bhatia had realised her dream. She treated Rohit like she always had – with kid gloves and loads of his favourite food. In turn, Rohit gave her unconditional love and the promise of someday getting her, that ever elusive Bhatia heir.

Upasana Qazi was a beautiful girl with huge almond-shaped green eyes and a lost look that made any man want to protect her forever. She was what people referred to as, ethereal. She wore loose flowing clothes like kaftans2 and Anarkali3 style dresses, had long silky hair, a body that would make even women turn around to look and skin that was the colour of warmed honey. She was completely aware of her beauty, yet completely disinterested in using it to her advantage. She was a painter by profession and lived with Arun Rai, one of Delhi’s most successful real estate agents, who catered to the rich and infamous. Theirs was a relationship made in heaven. She painted and hummed Hindi film songs in her melodious voice, while he treated her like a fragile limited edition Lladro doll. Arun was a man who had no illusions about himself. He was short, had a receding hairline and a face scarred with pockmarks – the remnants of adult chicken pox. His only saving grace was a muscular body that he kept fit by going to the gym six days a week. He also used his time in the gym to network with prospective clients. He had met Upasana at a client’s apartment. She had just sold them a water colour and had been invited to see it go up on their wall, while sipping chilled iced tea and munching on hot pakoras4. He had come to get the last of the signatures on the deed of the new bungalow they had just bought through him and was asked to join.

It was love at first pakora.

They had a year-long courtship and after he mustered all his courage for two months, he asked her to marry him. She promptly refused but agreed to move in with him to try it out. That was seven years ago and they were just as happy and secure as they were on the day they met.

Sana Chopra was today’s Indian woman. 32 years old, never been married and treated men like most men treated women. She was the Creative Director for one of Delhi’s leading advertising agencies and loved her job. She loved the power, the fast life and mindless yet safe sex she had with random men, who were mostly in awe of her or were hoping to use her as a rung on their way up the advertising ladder. She was focused and knew what she wanted. And love had no place in her life. But I knew that she was using this facade to cover up the hurt from a past relationship where the man had left her after six years of togetherness. Turns out, his idea of togetherness was being together with her, Priya, Aruna, Swati and Kiran – all at the same time. When confronted with this, all he had to say was, “Hey! I said we were in this together. I am aren’t I?”

Sana walked straight out of that dysfunctional relationship into another one – her job. She worked crazy hours, smoked too many cigarettes, drank endless cups of coffee and never deviated from her dress code of blue jeans, a white shirt and boots. It didn’t matter what the weather was like, Sana wore boots. But if there was one thing that was sacrosanct, it was the friendship with her friends. She was possessive about us and gave a new meaning to the word ‘Foursome.’

I walked towards my car and I sent them all the same text message which simply read:

One wedding lehenga5 – Rs. 1,25,000.

One divorce by mutual consent – Rs. 1,00,000.

Look on ex-husband’s face when I finally dumped him – priceless.

There are some things that money can buy.

For everything else, there’s retribution.

Shall we drink to that at 7:00 pm my place on Sunday?

2

Sex, Lies & Texting

On a balmy Sunday evening at precisely 7:00 pm, four women in their thirties found themselves sitting in air conditioned comfort, surrounded by white candles of all shapes and sizes around a table laden with various bottles of alcohol and Barry White on the music system.

“Godddd! We should do this more often!” said a dreamy eyed Upasana, walking around my rented penthouse. Despite being friends we hardly ever met. Most of our chats were on the phone and revolved around the latest gossip. Our gossip was harmless and basically an indulgence to lighten up our personal hells. In more than five years of our friendship we had rarely if ever, sat down and discussed our personal problems. It made me wonder how our friendship had lasted! But it had. Upasana and I met almost every day and were closer because we went to the same gym. Sana and Arpita were the girls we hung out with when we wanted to party or have some home-cooked Punjabi kadhi6 – in that order.

To me, Sana represented everything I wished I had the guts to be and Arpita represented everything that I didn’t.

It made me wonder, do we really know our friends?

When Arpita, Sana and Upasana got my text message, they immediately responded. What they didn’t know and neither did I, was that this evening would be the turning point in all our lives.

“Soooo, tell us! What the hell happened? I always thought you and Vikram were so happy! You made the perfect couple! I was shocked when you told me you were planning on getting a divorce! And I was even more shocked that you actually went through with it!” said Arpita, sipping her strawberry slush. Arpita was the girl who believed in the eternal good. She also believed she would have kids even though she had a lazy ovary and was past 30. But hey! Who was I to judge? I was the new divorcee on the block.

“Give her a break! She just got divorced!” said Upasana protectively, somehow managing to float onto the throw cushions that surrounded our alcohol haven.

Sana was sitting on the beanbag at the far corner of the room and was watching me with guarded eyes. She said nothing and showed no emotion on an otherwise animated face. She was smoking her second cigarette of the evening, blowing smoke rings out of the window.

“How in God’s name can you put something in your mouth that is so hot, that smoke comes out of it! And that too on a day when the temperature is threatening to blast the city’s barometer?” I exclaimed.

“The same way you could stay in a dead end marriage for eight years – you do what you gotta do.” She quipped. Touché.

As I sat there looking around the table, I realised that I had invited these women who I had thought of as my friends, to be with me on my first night of divorcee-hood and they wanted more than just alcohol. Besides, after four months of therapy and many thousands of rupees later, I was still as clueless as I was from the day I married Vikram Bedi.

I looked over at Upasana and motioned her to sit down. I looked towards the other couple in our foursome and decided to encourage what every self-respecting foursome must do at some point in their dysfunctional relationship: swap.

Only in this case, it would be stories.

“I didn’t divorce Vicky because we had irreconcilable differences. He’s a closet-gay crossdresser,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

I’m telling you, even Barry White stopped singing. There was a moment of complete silence before the next song came on and then there was an explosion.

Gasps and questions were flying at me at a pace that would have made Keanu Reeves dodging the bullets in ‘The Matrix’ look amateurish.

“WHAT???!!!! Vicky’s a crossdresser? What does that mean? Does he wear skirts or pants? But I wear pants too! Does that make me a crossdresser?” stuttered a visibly shocked and appalled Arpita. Sana spat out her drink on my chataee7 covered floor and laughed uncontrollably thumping her fist on the floor. Upasana looked at me with an ‘I told you not to open your mouth’ look on her face.

While I had expected an exaggerated response from Arpita, it was Sana’s reaction that threw me. Was she laughing at me? Was she laughing at Arpita? Or was she just choking on her drink and smoke-filled mouth? After what seemed like an eternity, she stopped and came up for air and found me staring at her with a look that I can only describe as curious anger.

“Sorry Tara. I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing at Arpita! Ok! Ok! And I’m laughing at you! What the bloody hell were you thinking? You stayed married to a closet-gay crossdresser for eight years of your life?! Why? Did you think you would be nominated for some sort of martyr award? And Arpita! I’m laughing at you because you look so shocked– not because of what Tara went through, but because you wanted reassurance that your pristine image was not tarnished because you wear jeans once in a blue moon and people might think of you as a crossdresser? Come on! Seriously? You guys are crazy!”

I was not prepared for this! The magnitude of what had happened during the day was not even remotely comparable to the intensity of anger I was feeling right now. I had just bared my soul and all I was hoping for was sympathy, empathy and definitely a few hugs and pats on the back! And this is what I got? One of my friends thought I was a martyr-award-seeking freak while the other was preoccupied with how society would see her?

Upasana was privy to a lot more information about my life than these two, but she had reacted in a calm and composed manner when I had said these very words to her a few months ago. Now that was the kind of reaction I expected! Not this cacophony of emotions!

Suddenly the otherwise melodious voice of Barry White was jarring to my ears, the smell of alcohol mixed with Sana’s cigarette smoke was nauseating and the heat emanating from the seemingly millions of lit candles was stifling. I was embarrassed beyond belief. It was all I could do to not scream at these people who I thought would make this very difficult evening a little more bearable. I got up off the floor and without a word, left my own home.

I don’t know what happened after I left. I didn’t care. I was blinded by tears. I was walking around the colony that I had called home for the past eight years of my life. All the security guards knew me, as did the maids who brought the children or dogs they looked after to the park in the evenings. Usually I would stop and chat with a child and tease him/her about their favourite toy or I would toss a ball to a neighbour’s dog – but not today. I could barely see through my tears and I was embarrassed enough already. I would be damned if I became the topic of gossip for the neighbours this week. So I walked with my switched off mobile phone stuck to my ear, pretending to be busy on the phone. I walked ten rounds of the colony to cool off.