Married Woman Read Free Page B

seconds alone. After all those letters.’
    ‘I’m telling you there wasn’t time‚’ said Astha her voice rising.
    ‘Oh Asu, poor you.’
    ‘Not at all. I found I didn’t like him so much when I actually saw him. He looked very silly. All he could say was “So what’s new”. One tends to build people up through letters.’
    ‘I suppose‚’ said Gayatri, sounding dissatisfied.
    *
    The holidays passed. Astha suffered daily. Neither drawing nor reading could engage her. Her heart felt like lead, her mind like stone. She couldn’t get Bunty on the phone, he was always out. Shyness, reticence, some shreds of self-esteem forbade her from persisting beyond politeness. No matter what had happened, he should also want to see her, if only to clear any misunderstanding. And so pride carried her through each miserable day.
    *
    A year later, when the pain was less, and college had made her feel more a woman of the world, she wrote, a light casual letter, ‘What happened?’
    He wrote back, ‘I thought you knew. Your mother visited us the very night I arrived and told my father that I was distracting you from your studies. At the same time she askedhim what my intentions were. My father thought it better if we had nothing to do with each other. Why create complications? I wish you well in life. Yours sincerely, Bunty‚’
    Can one die of shame twice? Astha did. How dare her mother interfere in her friendships? But then Bunty too had given in so easily, not bothered to find out how she felt, no word, no sign.
    Where was the man whose arms were waiting to hold her? Till his arrival, she would walk alone, alone in college, through corridors of happy, independent, bustling girls, through classrooms devoted to the study of English Literature, alone in the colony through the dreary lanes between the houses.
    She tried to put Bunty from her mind, though once or twice when girls huddled together, heads bent in the canteen, she brought out his name experimentally, to show she too had lived and knew what love was.
    ‘Yes, these boys—’
    ‘Yes, there was someone, only last year—’
    ‘Yes, he was handsome—’
    ‘Oh, he doesn’t study here. The Defence Academy at Kharakvasala.’
    ‘Yes, we still meet during the holidays, nothing special from my side. I thought it better not to have a long-distance relationship, you know how it is … ’
    The girls listened sceptically, how could they believe in the reality of one who was never seen hanging out at the back gate? Still, they teased her sometimes saying, ‘Astha, tell us more about Bunty‚’ and Astha cursed her need to feel part of a group by making light of something that still tightened her chest with grief.

    Five years after its inception the housing society of the Ministry of Relief and Welfare was awarded a piece of land across the Jamuna.
    The habitual gloom on the father’s face became even more pronounced as he conveyed this news to his family. ‘Other ministries, where the bureaucrats have pull, managed to get allotments in South Delhi. But what do we get? A site across the Jamuna, where there is no water, no electricity, no markets, no bus services, no amenities, no proper roads even.’
    ‘Never mind‚’ consoled his wife, concealing how bitter the blow was for herself as well, so much had depended on the promised piece of land. ‘Once construction starts, things will change. Everything has to have a beginning. How much are the plots going for?’
    ‘How much can they go for?’ replied the father. ‘In the middle of the jungle with thugs, dacoits, and wild animals. 7-8,000 rupees.’
    ‘Size?’
    ‘225, 280, or 350 square yards.’
    Their future home was going to be small and relatively cheap.
    *
    The lots were chosen by draw. On the appointed day, the mother said to her daughter, ‘I hope he draws a 350 plot, in the corner. There is very little difference in price.’
    ‘From?’ asked, the daughter languidly. She had been paying insufficient