Man proposes Priyal disposes!

 “Ab uth bhi jao, my aalsi pati!”

I realized that someone was nudging me awake.

My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself lying spread-eagle on my bed with a smiling Priyal towering over me.

“Ah… Did I interrupt your dream, my dear husband?”

Ever heard of the saying ‘man proposes, God disposes’? In my case, it’s ‘man proposes and Priyal disposes.’

Now, after two days of the Holi madness and Good Friday, it was surely justified if a man had plans to sleep till late afternoon (had a bit more than my usual share of beer with my friends a night before).

But no, his wife had to drag him out of the bed for a ‘weekend grocery shopping’ (I know, life’s never fair for us men). And for God’s sake, it was just 10 AM!

‘’OMG…I have to eat this???”

“Err…Priyal, what’s this whitish thing on my plate? I thought we had some steaming hot samosas for breakfast!”

Priyal smirked. “And I thought that given the number of times you complain about indigestion, oats are a much better option than samosas fried in adulterated oils.”

Hey, this is unacceptable. First, she wakes me up from my reverie and tells me that I have to eat this white gum-like substance for breakfast! (So what if my cholesterol levels are a bit high!)

“What’s the need for shopping? It’s a Sunday, Priyal.”

“And what was the need to have so much bhang on Holi if you can’t handle it? I have become a laughing stock among friends who saw my husband throwing up at the Holi party.”

Ah counter questions; wifey always has them ready in her arsenal.

“You know, Priyal, after another spoonful of oats, I might throw up once again,” I grumbled on.

In her reply, she stared at me haughtily.

We didn’t talk during rest of our time at the table.

The invisible barrier

Hmmph…After a long (and rather silent) car ride, we finally reached the mall.

Once inside, I could see that I was not the only husband who had been woken up ‘early’ by his wife on a lazy holiday morning.

There was an apparent explosion of middle-aged men, potbellied and wearing Bermuda shorts, tagging alongside their better halves with bored expressions on their faces.

Much like me, most of the husbands were walking ahead of their wives (as if they were separated by an invisible barrier) and the ladies kept calling out to them (I actually saw one of the women shout as her husband was almost a mile away!) to stop.

Lazy husbands’ day out

“Aur bhai, kaise ho?”

I turned around to see the source of the voice and, at first, I could only see a huge pile of shopping bags walking towards me. Then the smiling face of my friend Ranjan ‘magically’ appeared from behind the bags, which he was carrying.

“Bhabhi ji namaste. Early morning shopping?” said Ranjan, looking towards Priyal, after greeting us.

I suppressed my urge to ask Ranjan whether he ever worked in a circus, given the way he was juggling with the bags without putting them down.

“Why don’t you take a trolley? It will be easier,” Priyal asks Ranjan and also sliding a trolley towards him.

The juggling stopped and all the shopping stuff was immediately dumped into the cart.

“Kya karey bhabhi ji, it’s the shopping for full week na,” Ranjan grinned.

“Of course, if only some men could understand the importance of weekend shopping,” Priyal flung her hair back as well as another barb at me.

“Arey bhaisaab, namaste,” Renu, the better half of Ranjan joined us.

“You know, you are very lucky that at least your husband understands the significance of weekend shopping,” Priyal says animatedly.

“What! Has he told you that?” Renu glares at my friend.

I did all I could in order to stop myself from laughing as Renu explained Priyal that how, much like me, her husband too had to be woken up and brought here after a lot of ‘persuasion.’

“Ye Jaipur hai, Lundan nahi.”

And so, in the next one hour, along with buying almost everything in the grocery store (Sigh! My poor credit card), we bumped into many known middle-aged faces, the wives bursting with energy after shopping in bargain price and their husbands, discussing matters of business and politics (although they mostly spoke nonsense on the latter topic).

It was on our way out of the store that it happened.

“Ye Jaipur hai, Lundan nahi,” I heard a man shout (he pronounced London as Lundan).

We decided to investigate what was happening and saw a loose huddle of men and women ahead of us, many of them arguing.

The scene in front of us was this:

Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, with tuition bags strapped over their shoulders, were standing, cornered by the same middle-aged crowd we were mingling with a while ago.

Their crime?

Apparently, when they were seen kissing, this lovey-dovey couple was caught red-handed by the angry mob of husbands and wives.

It seemed that the two teenagers had come on a date of sorts to the mall (I suspect after bunking their coaching classes) to spend some alone time. They had no idea that they would be interrupted by a group of furious ‘uncles and aunties.’

Wifey, the Samaritan!

“Kiss kar rahe the dono!” a man with a toothbrush moustache and an angry scowl exclaims, giving special emphasis to the word ‘kiss’.

“To kya ho gaya? What’s there for you to be so offended with their PDA, huh? Haven’t you ever kissed anyone in your life?”

I didn’t even need to turn my head around to see who has spoken those words.

Three back to back questions from my feminist wife were not something that the guy with the toothbrush moustache was ready for.

“Err…Bhabhi ji I was saying,” before he could mumble back an answer, Priyal shut him up with a glare.

The crowd, which till moments ago was furious, appeared to be unsure.

A few other men and women tried to argue with Priyal about the fact that this PDA by the teenagers was not ‘appropriate.’

Trust me; I hadn’t planned this

But watching Priyal there, surrounded by angry couples, I had a sudden epiphany. And then, the following happened:

“She is right. How is it fair to vent our anger on these two kids when really it is us who need to self-introspect?”

Priyal stared at me; she didn’t expect this. The rest of the people looked at me, surprised at what I was saying.

“Don’t you think that kissing is actually proclaiming one’s love and surely isn’t a crime! Most of us have come here after squabbling with our wives and constantly complaining about how our holiday has been wasted.”

Priyal looked at me with a half-smile etched on her face. I continued:

“But you see, this young couple is perfectly happy to be here, lost in their own moment of love. I think that instead of giving them a piece of our mind, we should self-introspect.”

“But, they were kissing,” one of the men blurted out, with a scandalized expression.

“They were kissing because they are in love. Let’s face the fact. How many times do middle-aged couples like us confess our love for each other publicly? Trapped in between domestic problems and our own oversized egos, aren’t we losing out in love?”

I now actually felt guilty about my morning showdown with Priyal. Arguing over oats and samosas, we had lost our chance to enjoy life as those carefree teenagers. With a jolt of shock, I realized that it was true for most middle-aged couples!

I could see that my words had left their impression on the crowd. Most of the people looked embarrassed at what they were doing moments ago. “Bhaisab is right. I can’t remember when we kissed last time,” I hear Renu say to Ranjan. I can see Ranjan, looking at me and nodding in approval.

But as I treaded towards Priyal (now grinning), I ignored Ranjan, the people who had gathered around us to see what was happening, and I ignored the teenage lovers looking at Priyal and me gratefully.

A kiss to remember

I stood in front of Priyal, and she looked at me, and a motley of emotions lit up her face. I slowly caressed her cheek and lowered my head, kissing her gently on the lips. She didn’t expect this and looked surprised. But then she kissed me back. I found two little beads of tear-drops at the corners of her eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

“Thank you,” whispers Priyal.

In answer, I clasped her hands firmly into mine.

Now, it must have been quite a bizarre sight. Two middle-aged people kissing at the ground floor of a mall in Jaipur, shopping bags scattered all around them and a group of bystanders taking in the sight with shocked expressions.

But at that moment, we couldn’t care less. We were just us, in our own happy place.

“Like we used to do before.”

After that it didn’t take long for the group of angry couples (not angry anymore) to disperse. Some even shook our hands as they left.

I actually heard one of the husbands asking his wife out for a bike ride to Nahargarh (“Like we used to do before,” were his exact words).

At last, it was just me, Priyal and the two teenagers standing near the escalator.

“Thank you very much, Uncle, Aunty. Both of you rock,” they say before leaving.

And as for us? No, we didn’t go to any fancy restaurants or anywhere else.

We decided (actually the idea was Priyal’s) to spend the rest of the day, snuggled up at the loveseat in our drawing room.

The TV was on, but neither of us was watching it.