Ruby

 

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Lekha and her husband have had a long marriage. But as they adjust to their lives locked up in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lekha is left wondering if her long marriage was indeed successful.

My husband and I have been married for 39 years. Next Tuesday would mark our 40th anniversary. The other day, the young couple living across our street had commented, ‘Ooh wow, Das ji, what’s the secret of your long, successful marriage?’ My husband had joked, ‘Divorce is such a tiring process, you see.’

Uhm… Was that really a joke? I had wondered.

We were from an era where divorces never happened. If things were great, you were lucky and you would stick together. If things weren’t great, you were unlucky, but you would still stick together. 

Sure, ours was a long marriage, but was it successful?

‘Oh, are you both professors?’ My colleagues from the University had exclaimed, ‘You would have a lot to talk about when you get home.’ Did we? What could an English professor talk to a Math Professor? How did my aabb rhyme scheme and his (a+b)2 equate? How did we equate?

After 39 years and 11 months and 3 and a half weeks, why am I ruminating on my marriage today? Well, to be fair, I have been thinking about this for the past few days, since the time the government had announced the lockdown. My husband retired 5 years ago, and I was still continuing to go to the university. But now I’m going to retire in two months, which means we both have to spend all our days together, like we are now during this lockdown. Spending the weekend was fine, but all days of the week? I wasn’t sure.

But things got worse this morning. You see, this morning, I had gone to get groceries. Since these days they allowed only 20 people inside the store at once, I had to wait in a queue outside. We were around 50 of us, standing in the long queue, which seemed much longer, because everyone had to maintain a two-metre distance. What was supposed to be a 20-minute errand turned out to be a 2-and-a-half hour wait. I wanted to text my husband and let him know, lest he gets worried, but I left my phone at home. And I decided against leaving the queue, because I had already spent 2 and a half hours on it. So I stayed put, and hoped my husband wasn’t too worried. As soon as I finished billing, I rushed home. As I opened the door, my husband looked up from his two-week old newspaper and said, ‘Oh you weren’t home? I hadn’t noticed.’

That led me spiralling into these thoughts. Does he miss me? Do I miss him?

‘What happened to you?’ My husband asked me when he saw me sitting idle on the bed. ‘You seem awfully quiet this afternoon.’ 

‘I’m all right,’ I replied. 

‘You are sweating, and the fan’s on full speed. Did you take your BP medicine?’ 

‘I’m fine,’ I said again, irritated.

He walked away.

In the evening, my sister called up for a casual chat. She was supposed to attend a bridal shower of her friend’s daughter in Delhi and was upset that her travel plans had to be cancelled due to the situation. She asked me, ‘Did the lockdown affect any of your travel plans?’

‘Travel plans?’ I laughed sardonically. ‘We haven’t even gone on our honeymoon, where do you think we would go now?’ I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice.

It’s true. We hadn’t gone on our honeymoon. We were in love when we got married. But within the two weeks of our wedding, my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. We got busy with his treatment. We had to arrange money for it. So we decided to postpone our honeymoon. Then our son was born, then our daughter, and we sort of fell into a marital routine. We never had the time, or the need for a honeymoon.

I’m sure there were some good moments in our marriage too. So I thought hard and long, but nothing came to my mind. Nothing. Now my head started throbbing and I felt drained. ‘Let me make some tea,’ I decided and got off the bed. My legs felt weak and wobbly. I tried to hold on to the bed post, but I found myself falling. The world blurred, and zoomed out, and then… nothing.

When I opened my eyes, everything was hazy. I smelled the sterilised air, like that of a hospital. I heard the sound of machines beeping. I felt the bed underneath me firm. This isn’t our bed. Slowly my vision cleared and I saw that I was in a hospital! 

I saw my husband sitting on the window sill, with his head buried between his knees. He was rocking in short, swift motions. What happened to him? Is he all right? And then… darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, my husband was sitting on a chair by my side. He saw me and stood up. He squeezed my hand gently and said, ‘I’ll go, get the doctor.’ In less than half a minute, he came back with a doctor and two nurses.

‘You are all right, Mrs. Das,’ the doctor said. ‘You had fainted, due to low blood pressure. Don’t worry, it’s not the COVID,’ he smiled warmly.

COVID? I hadn’t even thought about it. He injected something into my drip, told me I could be discharged tomorrow and he left.

I turned to my husband. I noticed his eyes were red and swollen. Had he been crying? 

‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

He broke down into tears. Big tears, like a child. ‘I’m all right,’ I said quickly to lessen his worry. But he continued sobbing. The last I saw him cry was when my father-in-law had passed away.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he said in between his sobs.

Why is he sorry?

‘I don’t want you to ever leave me,’ he cried. ‘I can’t live without you. I can’t even imagine a life without you. I had promised you a great life when I married you, but I didn’t keep that promise, did I? I never made you feel special.’

‘You made me feel special so many times,’ I interjected. ‘You gave me the two most adorable children. Remember when you tried to build us a tree house? You made us feel special then. And that cotton candy fiasco! How we laughed till our stomachs hurt! And oh, that one time when you bought me all my favourite Mills and Boon for our home library, even though I was ashamed to display them. I used to say – An English professor shouldn’t be reading-’  

‘Mediocre romance novels,’ he finished my sentence. 

I smiled. Yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t think of a single good moment in our marriage, and today I surprised myself by recalling hundreds of them.

My husband smiled and wiped his tears. ‘Lekha, I want us to try again. I know it’s silly to say that now after 40 years of marriage. But I want to deliver on the promise I made to you. Let’s start from where we left off. Let’s go on that honeymoon.’ What? ‘I mean, I know there is a lockdown right now and we can’t, but when things get better, I want to take you on that honeymoon. Would you like that?’

‘Yes,’ I said in a wobbly voice, my vision clouded with tears. ‘I had been waiting for it for 40 years.’

Why the title ‘ruby’?

Well, the story was about renewing a wedding promise, so I wanted to name it something similar to red – the colour of love, the colour of Indian weddings, the colour of the bridal saree, the colour of the bindi the married women wear…

The celebration of 40 year anniversary is called Ruby Jubilee, and so ruby seemed perfect!