The Perfect Break Up

The Perfect Break Up
© mulshankar13.

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Commandment 1: Thou shall never argue with thou's husband.

Commandment 2: Thou shall always get up before thou husband gets up in the morning.

Commandment 3: Thou shall make sure that the breakfast is ready at 7 and the dinner at 8 no matter what work thou have at office.

Commandment 4: Without an inch of a doubt thou must proclaim that thou’s husband is the greatest man alive on the earth and can never be wrong.

Commandment 5: Thou shall quietly go and sulk in the bedroom if ever thou’s husband gets angry on you for in his holy feet lies thou’s salvation.

Commandment 6: Thou shall never even admire any man but thou husband. In the case of an ex- love interest whatsoever thou shall acknowledge that it was a sin and must repent for it by transferring thou's entire salary to thou’s husband’s account.

Commandment 7: Thou shall offer yourself completely and in totality whenever thou’s great husband wants to manifest his unquestionable love at any time of the day 24 by 7 and 365......

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“And thou must never forget that your wife is a state level judo champion and if you speak a word more thou shall be castrated”, snapped Sandhya to Kshitij.

“Is this the way a dutiful wife should talk to her husband? My commandments are dead serious and I mean it” replied Kshitij albeit worried for his groin.

“Enough of your nonsense, I am going out of this room right now”, Sandhya jumped out of her bed to walk out of the room as Kshitij held her in his arms and kissed his bride on the forehead.

“Are you having fever, love?” asked Kshitij as he sensed Sandhya having high temperature.

“A bit maybe but let me go out, I can’t bear you a minute more!”

“Shut up! I’ll arrange for some medicines”, and Kshitij went out.

Kshitij was supposed to spend the next two weeks with his wife in his arms in the beautiful backwaters of Kerala for his honeymoon. 

However instead he spent it sleeping only a few meters away from his wife on a couch while she recovered from chicken-pox on the same bed on which the controversial SEVEN NUPTIAL COMMANDMENTS were read out aloud by her husband on the first night after their wedding.

The couple did go to a belated honeymoon after settling down in their new city of work at Chennai, but not to the serene backwaters of Kerala, instead to a high adrenaline deep sea diving tour to Andaman.

Sandhya pursued her hectic career in marketing as a supply chain expert in one of the biggest automobile spare parts manufacturer of the Asia-Pacific region.

While Kshitij continued with his job as an assistant manager in one of the oil and petrochemicals PSU, a comparatively relaxed job to that of his better half.

Though both graduated at the same time from their B-Schools, Kshitij made a conscious choice of a government job for two reasons. 

Firstly, Kshitij did not have grades well enough as his love-interest all throughout his academic career. 

Secondly, the great Indian family pressure of “nothing like a government job”.

Of the two, the first reason had a greater proportion as the driving force. And quite aptly as in Sandhya’s words the reason for her husband’s poor grades were a greater interest in the subject Biology (more particularly in the chapter on female reproductive system) rather than any other subject throughout his education career.

While Sandhya was much more pragmatic of the couple, Kshitij viewed things in his scale of “what is right and what is wrong”.

Quite logically, Sandhya would move at a much faster pace in her career.

Though Sandhya wanted her salary account to be merged with Kshitij, her husband was not ready for it.

“It’s your hard earned money. And so you should keep it.”

“Yes, but then I can withdraw it when I wish to, can’t I?”, replied Sandhya.

“No still, you keep your own account. What if tomorrow you decide to leave me and then you want all your money back?”

“I feel like slapping you for that”, retorted Sandhya.

“You men fall in love multiple times and in bed innumerable times. Women don’t”, fumed Sandhya.

“That’s feminine- chauvinism”, reasoned Kshitij.

Sandhya did open an independent salary account. However the salary account episode unfolded a new dimension of her husband’s character.

She pondered that Kshitij had a self respect for himself so huge that it may just be very close to the borderline of irrational egotism at times.

She very wisely got a major portion of her salary deducted as an optional P.F. (Provident Fund). This brought her net take home salary much lower than that of Kshitij.

This was a very smart move by Sandhya and paid rich dividends in their marital bliss.

Firstly, in the conservative Indian families where men are supposed to be traditionally the head of the family and the sole (read the highest, in modern India) bread earner, Sandhya could very easily tell to the relatives (who were by the way more keen as to who is earning more of the couple) that though both of them worked, it was her husband who earned more and bore the house expenses.

Kshitij did protest to this optional P.F. arrangement occasionally spurred by his erratic bouts of idealism but Sandhya just managed to win him over by threatening to go on an indefinite hunger-strike and no-conversation movement.

Both hunger-strike and no-conversation movement were tactics which had been very successfully wielded by Indian married women ever since the formation of Indian society. And was only recently spurred to unprecedented popularity in the age of “mother-in-law/daughter-in-law” evening soaps for successfully arm-twisting their husbands into an agreement.

Secondly, Kshitij being a spendthrift, Sandhya knew she had to do the maximum savings. 

She defended her optional P.F. theory quiet well enough citing the Vedas “A wife’s income is her personal income while the husband’s income is the family income!”, a quote whose origin and logic may be strongly doubted.

Four years since the SEVEN NUPTIAL COMMANDMENTS were read out, Sandhya had popped out two fraternal twins with the help of an over enthusiastic co-operation from her husband.

However, in the Christmas of 2020 a few events would happen and in such a quick succession that it would change the life of these two hitherto “can’t-live-without-you” lovers thereafter, and a change maybe for worse.

Christmas 2020

Love manifests itself in many forms! 

However when it manifests itself through ego and self-respect it snatches your soul away from the one whom you would miss the whole of your life and complaint to none but yourself.

Exactly this was going to unfold here to the two who would not give an inch to each other and all for their self-respect. 

Hardly would they ever realize in doing so that it was not long ago when they had vowed their self to each other and vowed it over a thousand times over their sighs, their moans, ..............to be continued