OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

Santhi is really puzzled and totally  perplexed. She, the wife of a Senior Executive is a very confused soul. She is unable to understand where she went wrong in all her thirty years of marriage.

“I must be a fool” she thought bitterly. She felt like banging her head against the wall. The happenings of the day before flashed before her eyes.

Her husband, Madhav was being felicitated on his retirement. She was also invited for the function. There, while listening to a number of speakers, eulogising her husband’s various qualities, some enlightenment dawned upon her.

“He is a very efficient and hard working person. We seldom come across such a dedicated officer. Nobody can fill the void created by his retirement”.

“He is a meticulous planner and a model decision maker. Whenever we have any problem, we look to him. We are assured of correct solutions.”

“He is a very pleasant and soft spoken person. We are very lucky to work under him. He never gets irritated or loses his temper. Whatever we want to say, he lends a patient ear.”

“He is very democratic in his approach. He invites opinions from all quarters and encourages exchange of ideas. Also, his memory, is really amazing. All the facts and figures are on his fingertips.”

“He never procrastinates or keeps things pending. He is famous for quick disposal of matters.”

“He encourages his juniors a lot. Always gives a pat if one is good at something but never a harsh word about failures.”

Thus speaker after speaker enumerated his various virtues. The world seemed to spin around her.

Here she was having a gem of a person as her husband and she never knew that! It was indeed unpardonable.

From that very moment, she is puzzled and totally perplexed as to where the fault lay.

Never in all her years of married life, did she feel that she is sharing her life with such an outstanding multi-faceted personality. No, not even once. In her opinion, he is a... well, there is no single word in her vocabulary apt enough to describe correctly her opinion of him. She can recall a number of incidents from the past to endorse her opinion of him.

On their first marriage anniversary, she prepared an elaborate dinner and waited for him in the evening, with high expectations. She was curious as to what gift he would be bringing for her that day. A silk sari? or something more valuable and special, perhaps?

To her utter disappointment and disbelief he came home at 10.30 in the night too tired to even notice the lavish dinner she prepared. A fierce verbal showdown later, next morning, revealed that he had forgotten about the marriage day completely! And to add insult to injury, he blamed her for not reminding him.

Then onwards, she always took care to remind him about their marriage day, her own as well as the children’s birthdays and other important events not too much in advance-lest he forget again-and also not too late-to allow him enough time to purchase a decent ‘surprise’ gift. How could he be allowed to escape under the pretext of his own forgetfulness.

Yet, they said yesterday that his memory is, well, amazing!

Some time back, her only brother’s marriage took place. Being the only sister, she was thrilled. But he bungled everything up. Even though they were informed a month in advance, he could not make up his mind about the journey till the last minute. By that time, they could not get the train reservations and had to go by air. She could not make all the purchases she wanted and had to resort to some limited hectic last minute shopping, much to her dismay. And he was annoyed that she was in a bad mood throughout the function, that too after he was forced to part with a neat sum on flight tickets for the whole family!

And, they called him a meticulous planner!

Suddenly she remembered one more incident. Their son, Raju is a bright boy. He got selected in two of the city’s top engineering colleges and had to choose between them. Agreed, it was a very difficult choice to make. And as usual, her husband could not decide in time. Good that Raju went ahead and paid the fees in one of them without waiting for his decision. Otherwise because of his vacillation, the poor boy could have lost both the seats!

Being wiser, their second son, when the time came, joined the college of his choice without even bothering to consult him.

That is how they manage their affairs. Poor souls! They are so terrified of him that they won’t open their mouths in his presence. They both are of the firm opinion that there is no use in trying to discuss things with him. He is too rigid and obstinate to consider their points of view. Of course, she also silently endorses the same view. The strategy of not taking him into confidence works wonders: it works to their advantage.

But, they marvelled at his problem solving and quick decision making capacity!

How come so many people were praising him to the skies! Really amazing that those people find him soft spoken and pleasant! She always finds him the opposite. Not that he dares to shout at her or anything like that. Never. But he clams up in the middle of an argument and no force on earth could force a further word out of him. Thus denying her of her right to justify her point of view.

How can you argue with a person who stonewalls the moment you open your mouth!

And they found him democratic and encouraging exchange of ideas!

She sighed. Who can understand her plight! Whenever she desires to buy something for herself, he vetoes down. Not only that, on many occasions when she still wanted to go ahead with her plans inspite of his objections, she found to her surprise that he keeps very little amount in their joint account. What a disgustingly suspicious attitude!

Still, people praised him as if he is perfection personified! How strange!

The doorbell rang. It is Meena, the friendly neighbourhood lady. One quick look at Santhi's face and she immediately knew that something was amiss.

“What is it, dear? Why are you so sad? Worried about Madhav’s retirement?” She tried to joke.

Santhi shook her head and described the function of the day before.

Now it is the turn of Meena to get puzzled. “When people are praising your husband, why are you so unhappy? You should feel elated.”

“No, no, not unhappy. But I feel troubled. How is it that I missed all those virtues of my husband! As a wife, I should know my husband better than the others. Shouldn’t I? That is a very disturbing thought” She was almost in tears.

“Oh, poor soul! Don’t get so dejected and spoil your mood.”

She was still pondering. “How could I fail to recognise his praise-worthy qualities! If he is really such a gem of a man as they made him out to be, it means that I could not evaluate him properly. What went wrong?”

Just then, Madhav entered the house. He was surprised at the sight of the two ladies with woebegone and long faces. He looked at Meena questioningly.

“It seems, after hearing the praises showered on you yesterday, Santhi feels sorry for not realising your true worth before.” She briefed him about his wife’s predicament.

“Yes, dear” said Santhi, “I wonder at my ignorance which closed my eyes to your greatness. I never imagined that a day would come in my life when I had to be enlightened by outsiders about my husband’s virtues. Pray, tell me, how are they able to recognise the other side in you while I was unable to? How could you hide it from me?” She said in a worried tone.

He could not bear to see her sad face. Eager to put a stop to her obvious misery, he said gently “Look dear! No other side or nothing of that sort. Don’t take seriously what all those fellows said. Believe me! They say the same things at almost every farewell function. There is not a grain of truth in their parrot like recitations.”

Having found some solace in his words, she looked relieved and tried to smile. But she was still doubtful. “Are you sure? After listening to all that blah-blah yesterday, I was really confused. Do you really say that I need not worry at all?” she insisted.

He was about to nod his head vigorously in the affirmative. But one look at Meena suppressing her laughter with the end of her sari, was enough for him to realise the irony of the situation. His face turned beetroot red and he vanished into the bedroom in a jiffy.