She Likes It When The Lights Are On

Sabitha was disturbed. The explanation for Madan's strange behaviour came to her in a flash. If true, her life was in ruins. For the first three nights after marriage her husband had not touched her. Though hers was not a face that launches ships, she was sexually very attractive. She was tall, had ample poise, and her stats were top grade. The man she had married had the reputation of being a ladies man, but for three nights he had not even kissed her, or cuddled her. The only answer that suggested itself to her was something quite horrible to contemplate—he must be impotent. All the highly visible romping about with girls that he was notorious for were to boost his morale, and a smoke screen to protect him from marriage proposals. The more she thought of it the more she was convinced that her reasoning was correct.

In morbid detail she examined the scenario of the follow-up. After some months her mother would force her to visit gynaecologists. She would have to prove to the doctor that she is not a virgin. That would be easy enough, but to protect her reputation she would have to rupture her hymen with his consent. The manual she had read about what a young bride should know did not seem to have anything to say to a bride who has landed an impotent husband. The doctor is sure to pronounce her normal, and her husband would see doctors, and they would in all probability declare him normal too. After that more play-acting would follow in the form of pilgrimages to shrines that childless couples visit. At some point relatives and friends would know the truth. The tongue wagging that would follow when that news gets round was too horrible even to think of.

Her worry and anxiety must have shown for her mother looked at her with piercing eyes. She expected her daughter's married life to be a horror for entirely different reasons, though the speed with which trouble has started must be a surprise. If Madan had noted her anxiety he did not comment on it. Father has arranged with his office people to set up the flat and thus, when the couple entered their new home, everything was in place including meals for two days in the fridge. She prepared tea and served her father, mother, and Minu her sister who came to see her settled. After they left she sat in front of the TV idly flicking the channels absentmindedly. Her mind was in a whirl.

*

May Day was Sabitha's wedding day. Parents had arranged the match, but she knew him for two decades. He was a neighbour and the first crush of her youth. She was different from other brides for she was looking forwards unabashedly to the first sexual encounter. Her married friends have told her in a vague way about their experiences on that the most memorable day of an Indian woman's life—the First Night. They were unanimous that fear was predominant among the many emotions that jostled within them while awaiting the event. Sabitha had no fear. She was looking forward to it with anticipation. She had no inhibitions about sex. She talked freely and even obscenely about sex to her friends. Neither did she make a fetish of hiding her body as most Indian women do. When she went for swimming classes she opted for the suit not too far removed from what the Baywatch girls wear. Two friends who came with her chose suits that had sleeves, and covered the thighs right down to the knees with frills to hide the hips. They said she was daring, and she called them prudes. She had a good figure and saw no reason why she should conceal it. Her blouses had a low neckline and a deep valley and much besides were visible. 'You are an exhibitionist,' her friend Paru said. Paru usually passed her hand over her flat chest when she said this and giggled.

Her friend Mittu, as her First Night loomed closer and closer, had not fear but anxiety of an unusual kind. She had doubts about her young man, a puny, thick glasses wearing gold medal winning 'geek' being able to perform without her guidance. (When afterwards Mittu came to college her responses to our eager questions were noncommittal grunts.) Sabitha expected no such problems. The man she had chosen had other girl friends. It was no secret. Her friends asked her why she minded it not. Her answer was that a man as charming and as outgoing as her husband-to-be was bound to have friends.

'So you believe that one ought not to monopolize good things but share it with others?' asked Paru. Sabitha laughed.

"He was my teenage crush and hero," she said. "My feeling for him remains the same." To Paru her attitude was just not believable. She must have inherited such tolerance.

Her father's many affairs were a cause of considerable domestic unhappiness. She did not take her mother's side as daughter so often do. She told her mother that as long as he is a loving husband and father it should be all right. Her paternal grandfather had a mistress. As a seven year old then she watched as he lay in the courtyard bedecked with flowers. Her grandmother was at the head end and another woman whom she had never seen before was at the foot end. Grandmother was weeping, but this other woman was wailing. She asked her mother who she was but mother did not answer, but a cousin told me that it was his mistress.

"He may continue with his many friendships after marriage. What then?" asked Paru.

"I'll do nothing," she said. "I'll take that I am unable to provide him companionship in every way."

"Just as you have a top servant woman to help you with your housekeeping duties you need another woman to help out with your wifely duties? said Paru.

"Not wifely duties, Paru, womanly duties," Sabitha said.

Madan's house was the corner house on the western side of the street. It was the biggest house in that locality. His father was a rich building contractor. Not that Sabitha was poor, but they were not as rich as they were. Her mother used to say that if they chose to do so they could live as ostentatiously as they. 'Show offs' she muttered and pouted her lips. On her way to school Sabitha had to pass that house. From the corner of her eyes she always looked if Madan was in the grounds. He often was, either tinkering with his motorbike or playing with is younger brother and sister or practising wall tennis. She knew his sister. She was two years her junior in school. She disliked her for she was a proud creature but Sabitha was friendly with her because her brother was her hero. There was grandeur about him, the way he carried himself, the way he walked and the way he jogged. When he went past her house in his motorbike, a large shiny blood red model, the thumping sound it made seemed to be in rhythm with her heartbeats.

When the offer for marriage came it was a surprise. He was eight years her senior and her family were not the type of rich people they made alliances with. Sabitha was surprised that he remained unmarried till he was thirty, but her mother was not. 'Who will give their daughter to that womaniser,' she said. One day her mother called her to father's room. Such a call usually meant that they wanted to tell her about an offer. Father was on his easy chair and mother as standing near the window sour faced and angry. Father, as was his way, came to the point at once.

"Sabi, that corner house boy Madan's father saw me in the club last evening and made a formal request for your hand in marriage to his son. I said I must talk to you and your mother before giving an answer. Your mother and I are not in favour. Before saying no we thought we should ask you." Sabitha did not agree. For her it was a dream realised.

"Why do you want to say no?" she asked.

"He has many girl friends," said mother. Sabitha said nothing but stood looking her in the eye.

"Is that not reason enough?" asked mother sharply.

"Yes, if we are sure that the girls we see him with are intimate with him."

"What do you think he does with them? Play marbles?" said mother. Mother was short tempered especially where it concerned the corner house people. "Don't be a fool, Sabi. He is a charming and handsome man no doubt, but he will make your life a misery."

"Lalu, we need not have to decide in a hurry," said father. "We will discuss it calmly. Think about what your mother and I have said about the boy, Sabi, we can have a talk later."

"Your blunder," Sabitha could hear her mother say to father as she went down, "we should not have asked her."

They discussed that day the next day and the day after but never calmly for mother always flared up at the slightest suggestion that the boy was worth considering. Sabitha was adamant. Her parents gave in finally. Madan came home with his parents for the formal bride viewing. She was surprised to find him rather a shy type. She attributed it to the presence of all the elders, but later, after the engagement he took her out, once to a movie, and a couple of times to the beach, but he never was the gay type she had imagined him to be. Sabitha thought he was putting on a show to impress her of his purity.

Sabitha had never witnessed such crowds in a non-celebrity wedding as hers was. The couple stood in the reception line for over three hours straight. Both the families came in a convoy of cars to the Five Star hotel room father as per custom had booked for the nuptials. Thankfully they did not come up to the room. Sabitha discarded her wedding dress and went for a bath. As she soaked her tired body in the hot tub she wondered how many marriages got off to a bad start by having the inaugural sex act on a day the boy and the girl were so mentally and physically exhausted. Mothers do not prepare their daughters for the event either. 'Do as he asks you to,' was her mother's parting advice, but for twenty three years of her life there was no day in which she had not chided her for not being modest. 'Keep your thighs together. It is improper for girls to spread them,' was what she said. Now suddenly the refrain was different—'do as he says' and that will surely be to spread out when fully stripped, as far the hips allowed before the goggling eyes of a strange man. Disaster awaits any young woman who depends only on her mother to instruct her on sex. Her friends, romantic novels and the much-criticised-vulgar scenes in movies are her best friends.

When she got out of the tub she was tired but excited. She put on a specially designed nightgown and glided out blushing. A surprise awaited her. Husband had discarded his coat and tie and shoes. He was lying sprawling on the four-poster in deep sleep. A feeling of annoyance lasted for a brief second and then the humour of situation became apparent. She smiled and curled at the edge of the vast bed and was soon asleep.

When she woke up it was past eight. It took her some time to orient herself. She turned to see if her husband was on the bed. He was not. He was on the balcony on a chair munching toast and sipping coffee. He saw her and smiled.

"Good morning. You can do a quick brush and come and have toast and coffee," he said. She greeted him in turn and went in. She came out and sat on a chair in front of him and had excellent toast and coffee. It amused her that from the evidence so far presented all that this Lothario knew of a man's role in the nuptial night was to prepare coffee and toast for his beloved the morning after! She had to get ready for they had to visit some senior relatives and receive their blessings. After that it was lunch in his home, followed by post-lunch rest and then to her home where they were to spend the night. It was midnight before the social duties were over. They slept well, Madan especially. Any other young married man who had kept his wife a virgin two days after marriage would have spent sleepless nights worrying himself out of his skin, but not her Madan. He was a man without worries—he was asleep as soon as his head 'hit the pillow', almost literally.

The next day's programme was the previous days in reverse—lunch in her home and dinner and sleep over in his. In between they had to visit relatives many of whom were so frail that they could not attend the wedding. Sabitha witnessed a new facet of Madan's character. He was very popular with his senior relatives and very soon became popular with hers. One of her grandmothers stated quite openly that Sabitha was a very lucky girl to get a man like Madan. He did not seem to consider the visits a duty. He spoke freely and when the conversation flagged he introduced new topics. He knew what subjects interested them and to those hard of hearing—and many were—he spoke loudly till the veins in the neck stood out like cords, and he seemed not to mind it at all. The dinner in Sabitha's house was a grand affair of near relatives. After dinner one gentleman, an uncle of Madan requested her permission to include Madan in a game of bridge. Madan he said was a good at the game. Madan joined and from the intensity with which they were playing it was clear that there was no point in her waiting for him in the bedroom. And so it proved. The next day they moved to their flat.

*

Sabitha felt that what has befallen her was just punishment for all the fun she had made of her friends' for their prudery. While they were enjoying family life a man who cannot perform was her lot. It was bitter.

"Shall we go for a movie Sabi, if you are interested that is?" said Madan.

"Yes," she said.

"You sound unenthusiastic."

"I am interested. What is the movie?"

"It is something you want to see but have not so far?"

"How do you know?"

"Minu told me." He gave the name of the movie. Sabitha had once wanted to see it but somehow she was not so keen now. "You hardly have half an hour to dress up," he said looking at his watch. She got up and moved towards the dressing room.

"Can I make a suggestion Sabi?"

"Please, what's that?"

"Will you wear the blue sari with the thin gold stripe?"

"Certainly. But how do you know I have one like that? It is ages since I wore it." A silly question for Madan had been a neighbour for two decades and must surely have seen her entire wardrobe if he had an eye for what women wear. It pleased her that he had been sufficiently interested in me to remember that sari, a favourite of hers at one time.

"Yes you have not worn it for a very long time. I like you in it. You look dashing in it. Especially in the sleeveless blouse. You wore it for a while and suddenly you stopped wearing it. I thought you must have torn it or given it away."

"It is my favourite. But my friends said that I was wearing it too often and hence I put it away."

She put on the dress as requested and when she appeared Madan put his lips as if to whistle but did not.

In the theatre her mood, thanks to the sari request, was better. They had the last row against the wall in a sparsely filled theatre. They were hardly in the seats when the lights went off and the feature film was on without any preliminary shorts.

"May I hold your hand?" asked Madan.

"What a funny question," she said with asperity. "You can and you should". He gently held my hand.

"Well I was not too sure of your reaction, Sabi. I had to proceed cautiously"

"What did I do to make you doubt?"

"It's all complex. Your servant maid had told our servant maid and she had told my sister and my sister told me that for three days you and your parents heatedly discussed my offer. It seems you thought me unsuitable because many have seen me with other young women but on your father's and mother's insistence you had agreed." Madan stopped. She I asked him to go on.

"I thought I should not hurry you but let you get to know me better before I tried to get intimate with you. Of course the decent thing for me to have done was to ask you if you have agreed against your better judgement."

"I suppose you didn't because you did not get the chance?" she said.

"Wrong. I could have created chances but Sabi, I was afraid that if I ask you might say it is true and leave me with no choice but to tell my parents that the offer cannot be proceeded with. Yes Sabi, I have been your admirer ever since you were romping about in twin pig tails and to give you up after coming so far was unthinkable."

He sounded sincere. Sabitha turned and looked at him. He was not smiling but looking straight into her eyes with intensity. She released her hand from his and hooked it round his neck and pulled him towards her and kissed him on the lips. He held her shoulders and they kissed not briefly but not for too long considering where they were. Madan folded back the armrest between our seats and came closer to her and placed his hand round her waist and pulled her towards him till their bodies were in close contact. She rested my head on his shoulders as he kneaded my bare abdomen below her sari.

She wanted more and did not to have wait for long. His hand moved upward and she leant back invitingly. Soon he was cupping her breast and she placed her hand over his reassuring him that she was in it too. But not for long. An usher flashing a torch led a noisy family group to their row. They squeezed past them to their seats. Though all seats beyond their seats were vacant the father peered at the seat numbers and took the seats allotted to them. His task done the usher left. They had to reposition themselves and when Madan's hands came up to cup her breast once again he said 'Ooh' for he found it bare. She had not been wasting her time when the family were selecting places to sit on. He gently caressed her breast. He bent down and nibbled her ear, my neck and then they kissed on the lips.

"Do you want to watch the movie, Sabi?"

"No."

"Not me neither. Mind if we go home?"

"No."

"I'd love to. You?"

"Same here."

In the car park, with no audience to behold, they kissed long and lovingly.

"The girl of my dreams was a wild one. You are way beyond even that Sabi." "How?"

"You are the type that want the lights on."

"Correct."

"You are a no-headache girl"

"Correct."

"And you may demand."

"Correct again. But when that happens my dream man may complain of back ache!"

Madan burst out laughing.

"He may not," he said as he released the clutch.