Chakkar

Chakkar
1. dizziness
2. an undesirable situation; problematic
3. an affair

His head was spinning. The world spun with it, blurring the images reaching his eyes. Flashes of the scene before him pierced through the hazy atmosphere—gold jewelry, flowers draped on hair and pillars, a blood-red lehenga, and, brightest of all, the marriage fire.

She sat there, in that lehenga that matched the colour of the sindoor soon to be placed on her. She was lit radiant gold under the candles, skin glowing against the fire. She was smiling, talking, taking her vows with not even a hint of hesitation.

She looked as beautiful as the day they’d met.

It had been many, many years ago. Even with a crooked tooth and broken spectacles and a ripped kurti, he’d thought she was breathtaking.

She hadn’t thought the same. But time and close proximity had made them begrudging friends—and then more.

The wedding blurred, and in its place memories arose. A million visions of her, snapshotted across the years. Glancing at her across a schoolroom. Looking over at her across the stone bull in the mandir. Cheering from the sidelines of the annual inter-village women’s kabaddi game.

He’d looked at her. He’d looked at her for years.

She looked back, sometimes. When she got higher marks than him on a maths test, smug. When she was leaving the temple, gentle. When she won her kabaddi match and ran out, glowing with exertion and red-flushed, pumping her hands above her head, and the world’s most beautiful smile on her face.

“You see?” She used to say. “You saw how strong I am? That’s why you don’t need to hurry. If anyone tries to beat you up, just call me.”

That was how she saw him. She saw him the way he was.

Their lives had been so intertwined that as he looked back on their relationship, he couldn’t avoid the glimpses of his existence.

The low rankings on the school board. The constant disappointed gazes of his parents. The jobs that had let him go over and over. The way all his friends had run on and ahead. The way he’d been stuck.

She’d never looked at him like he was stuck in a slowly-sinking sandpit. To her, he’d been a steady ocean wave, eternally advancing and receding, just tethered to an unmoving shore.

It had been their happy ending. That quiet night, that orange sunset against the waves. The most beautiful sight in the world, she’d whispered, looking out at the ocean. Yes, he’d agreed, looking at her.

He wished his memory could stop at that night. At that slow kiss, the quiet rhythm matching the soft sounds of the sea. He remembered every second crystal-clear. The cool wind, the sun falling and the sky opening with moonlight. Her, in his arms. Her warmth. Her sweet scent.

If he forgot about every moment after that, he could pretend it was his happily ever after.

But life had continued even after that.

And so here he was, watching her new happily ever after, with his own dashed onto the seaside rocks.

He had no one to blame but himself. He’d told her to do it.

The years had gone by, and he’d watched his own future fade. Unable to hold a job, only able to turn to the bottle night after night. She’d never stopped looking at him with those gentle eyes, but her years had been going by, too. Her parents couldn’t watch her waste her life with him.

He was the one who’d told her to do this.

Marry the man your parents arranged for you, he’d said, looking away from her betrayed eyes. He can provide you with a life I can’t.

She’d tried to protest, but—

Love is different from a marriage. I can’t allow our affair to ruin the rest of your life.

When he refused to see her after that, what could she do but move on?

He tried to be happy, watching her. He’d said he would be happy if she was. But inside him there was nothing but a gaping maw of darkness. He felt like nothing more than a shadow, while she was bright against the firelight, radiant in her exuberance, eyes full of hope for her future. Her husband looked at her with already-adoring eyes. He’d treat her well.

Her husband would never see her at her most beautiful. Sweaty, messy hair, red all over, running off the kabaddi field. That was a sight reserved only for him. That man would never get to witness it.

It was a bitter, jealous thought.

He nursed it like he nursed the glass of alcohol in his hands, precious, possessive. All charitable thoughts, all the kind sayings, had flown away from him. Now all he could feel was anger.

How could she do this? Even if he’d told her to, how could she just marry someone else, as though the years they’d spent together had never mattered? How could she look so happy?

He drank glass after glass, and his head spun more and more. He couldn’t keep himself upright. He had to be helped into a chair.

She’d never liked his drinking. She wasn’t here to stop him, anymore.

He drank more.

The bitterness grew. He watched her phere, her sindoor, her garland exchange. His insides churned with poison and nausea.

It was time for her vidaai. Her smile faded. Her eyes began to sparkle under all the lights, and tears spilled over her lashline.

Somewhere beneath his anger, he found despair.

Like two halves of a moon, the mirror of her soul, before he knew it, ocean waves began trickling out of his eyes.

First drop by drop, then line after line until what felt like the entire ocean was in his body, emptying out onto his cheeks, dripping down his chin, splashing into the half-empty beer. He was bawling, guttural sounds in his throat, hoarse and rough.

He was saved by the fact that he was surrounded by her family, all crying—anyone who saw him would have thought of him as an emotional cousin brother. Not a left-behind lover. Someone once held close to the soul, someone now watching across a wedding hall.
In the midst of the crowd, her red eyes met his.

Instantly, he saw everything again. Their childhood. Their first time brushing hands. The day their fingers had finally intertwined. The day he’d kissed her. The sea.

He saw his future, too. He saw himself leaving this wedding hall. Returning to his lonely room. Returning to his drinks and the jobs that wouldn’t keep him and the empty expanse of life that would stretch on before him. He saw himself visiting the see, once in a while. He would only ever be able to think of her, when he saw the waves. Even after he moved on, the ocean and the memory of her would be eternally bonded.

She had to look away. He didn’t.

He watched her leave.

Tears and anger and despair faded, and in their place remained a dull ache. A cut that would close over, eventually. A scar that would hurt in cold winters. But the scar meant the wound had healed. It would heal.

And so he could find it in himself to be charitable again.

Be happy, he thought, watching her retreating back. His eyes fell to her hands, her small fingers now held tightly in those of the man she’d married. The man that hadn’t been him. The man that could never have been him.

Live your happily ever after, he thought. And I’ll do my best to live mine.

It wasn’t a lie. He would do his best. Maybe he’d find a job that would keep him. Maybe someday some girl would be willing to marry him. Maybe someday he’d raise a child.
But still, once in a while, he’d go to sit by the sea.

And he would think of her. There was enough bitter selfishness left in him to hope that he, too, would occasionally cross her mind. Maybe she’d see him in a scrawny son. When her husband took her to a pastry shop, maybe she’d taste the five-rupee pedhes he used to buy her.

Remember me, he thought. I’ll remember you.