*****
Actually, she never had direct talks with her parents after she got divorced from Mahesh. They never asked, and she never told – it was all understood. The day she returned from the US as a divorcee, nobody dared talk to her until the late evening when her mother came to her and cried. For many days, her parents were seen with guilt on their faces like they were carrying a great sin underneath their skin. They always had an apologetic expression when they faced her. Amrita didn’t know then what she should be doing. She couldn’t be sad for long as her parents would wear more pathetic looks on their faces, and she, too, couldn’t be happy, because she wasn’t, at all. She stayed home for a long time before going out shopping, and eventually to her relatives.
Relatives, compelled by nature, described her story on their own terms, and thus brought out many versions of it. They showed their regrets for what had happened, and then advised her at length. Some expressed their deep sorrows while some smirked behind her back. Amrita never liked to listen to their concerns for her which would only worsen her depression later. But she was somewhat relieved for not being asked to repeat what had happened; she figured out that her story was all understood.
*****
It began when she found female clothes in her husband’s closet. This made her understand that he was cheating on her. She rushed to such a conclusion because she had thought of something like this earlier due to her husband’s alien behavior towards her, although it had already been nine months since they had got married. She rarely saw her husband come home at night; by the time he returned, she would be asleep. She never had good communication with him; and most importantly, he didn’t show any physical interest in her since the beginning of their marriage.
When she made her in-laws look inside the closet, they were perplexed at first. Then her mother-in-law said plainly, “He must’ve bought them for you.” Her father-in-law shook his head in his wife’s support. Amrita was upset because they were missing a very important point there.
“If he bought them for me, why did he hide the items inside his closet instead of giving them to me?” Amrita yelled. “Besides, these clothes don’t look new; these have already been worn by someone else.”
Her in-laws kept quiet because it seemed that Amrita’s anger made them see her troubles. Therefore, they decided to wait for Mahesh to arrive no matter how late it was going to be. None of them were able to sleep after such a startling sight anyway. In between, many thoughts occurred to Amrita. She presumed he wouldn’t come back, or he would come with a woman and tell Amrita to leave the house right away, or he actually bought those clothes for her, and he would be furious to know that she had no faith in him.
Her head spun.
Mahesh didn’t show up. At four in the morning, as her eyelids felt a little heavier, she heard a car entering the garage. She walked to the lobby where she found her in-laws, still awake. When the main door opened, Amrita’s father-in-law switched on the light, and to everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t Mahesh but a woman standing there. She was equally shocked and confounded. Amrita kept staring at the woman until she heard her father-in-law squeak, “Mahesh?” Amrita went blank at what she saw; everything was in swirls, and then she felt her body falling to the ground. She thought she had fainted but she hadn’t. She was just sitting still on the floor. She was semi-conscious but she still can’t remember what her in-laws said to their son.
Mahesh came to her many times and tried to explain and apologize, but she never paid him attention because she was disgusted at the way he had betrayed her. In addition, she was feeling a fierce storm inside her, and she was trying to put it at bay.
One evening, she told her in-laws that she no more wished to live in that house, and she wanted to go home. After that, her in-laws arranged everything themselves, from divorce papers to sending her back to Nepal. They showed their regrets and offered their apologies by taking her to the airport. She didn’t want to see them again.
*****
The marriage was held according to her parents’ wishes, and was arranged by a distant aunt whom Amrita knew as Suku Nini. She had heard Suku telling her mother in bits and pieces about the prospective groom.
“He’s a software engineer and works in a very good American company. He had gone to the US for his Masters’ degree. He was offered a job, so he decided to settle there. His job must be highly paying, you know, because he took his parents along with him six months ago.”
Suku then took out a photograph from her bag and gave it to Amrita’s mother who gazed at it for a long time.
“It’s not like you must decide right now,’ Suku Nini said and added, “Let Amrita first meet him, then you can decide. Okay??”
Later that evening, Amrita’s mother came to her and said all the things Suku Nini had told her in the afternoon. Before leaving her room, her mother gave Amrita the photograph.
She later inspected the guy in the photograph very closely. He was a fine looking man and appeared much younger than his age. Behind the photograph was written his name – Mahesh Shrestha. He was on holiday in Nepal, and his parents were frantically searching for a daughter-in-law before they headed back to the US. When Amrita agreed to meet him, Suku Nini quickly arranged the rendezvous. That was the only time when Amrita and Mahesh met before their wedding. Soon they were engaged, and eventually married.
Everything happened within two months, and Amrita felt that she had to hurry up to keep up with her new life.
*****
Amrita’s mother repeatedly blamed Suku Nini for the disaster. When she was frustrated, she even blamed herself for not being responsible. Amrita saw her mother’s point of breaking relations with Suku Nini as retribution to her betrayal. Suku had messed up her life anyway. Because of Mahesh and his family, she was mocked by relatives and neighbors. She often overheard them telling each other that she had only brought pain to the family, and she was nothing but a burden to her parents. She was not expected to laugh aloud, or wear clothes she wanted to, or go anywhere on her own. She was punished for what was not her fault, and she hated her ex-husband.
However, Amrita thought of reviving her life, and put the pains aside. She thought work would keep her busy and help her forget her miseries. She soon got a job in a housing company as an accountant. She liked the job, after all what had happened to her, she couldn’t ask for more.
But her life was nothing like before. Although she was allowed to work, obviously she wasn’t as free as she used to be. Her life became overly monotonous. She had to head home directly from work, she wasn’t supposed to have contacts with people, especially men, and she had to be chaperoned anywhere she went except to her office. Her parents always made sure that she was protected. It bothered her, but then she also saw the necessity of it when men took her easily after they found out that she was a divorcee. Often she thought she was trapped in the cultural and societal boundaries of being other than male in this patriarchal society. Then after thinking for a long time, she decided to continue her studies.
*****
While she applied to the universities, she was both determined and desperate. She had never longed so badly for a change. She disliked the limitations on which her life was drawn; and more than her studies, she wanted her freedom back. She thought about Mahesh sometimes, and had no more resentment against him by now. She thought he must have felt the same when he was applying for his Masters’ program at American universities many years ago, he had the same rush to run away from where he belonged and go someplace where he could be his normal self: Away from all the shortcomings of being other than a man in Nepal’s patriarchal society.
For the first time, Amrita and Mahesh were sharing the same side of the truth, and it was then she thought she understood him, too.
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