Creative Writing, Fiction, Stories by Vikram Karve

A literary and creative writing weblog by Vikram Karve of Pune India

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

क्वालिटी टिम

QUALITY TIME
(A fictional short “love” story)

by

VIKRAM KARVE




At exactly 8 PM her cell-phone rings in her hand. She’s expecting the call – that’s why she’s holding the cell-phone in her hand. She looks at the caller-id, accepts the call, moves the mobile phone near her ear and says, “I love you, darling!”

“I love you, Sugar!” says her husband’s voice from half way around the globe. On his bed beside him, sprawled with arms and legs outstretched like a fallen statue, the woman is still asleep, her breathing untroubled.

It’s a long distance marriage, and the ‘married bachelors’ have been following the same drill for quite some time now – two calls every day at exactly the same time (Eight in the morning she calls him up just before leaving for work and eight in the evening she receives his call from half way across the globe just before he leaves for work). And both of them start their conversation automatically with the words: “I love you, darling! Or, I love you, Sugar!” He’s her ‘darling’ and she’s his ‘Sugar’!)

“How was your day?” the husband asks.

“Hectic. Lot’s of work. Deadlines!” the wife answers. She steals a glance at the handsome young man sitting beside her in the darkened lounge bar.

“It’s terrible here too,” the husband says. “It’s killing, the work. Too much traveling. Sales meets, seminars, conferences. One hotel to another. Living out of a suitcase. I’m feeling exhausted.”

It’s true. The husband is indeed feeling exhausted; a relaxing, satiating kind of exhaustion. He gets up and opens the window and allows the early morning air to cool his body, then turns around and looks at the marvelous body of the woman on his bed. She looks lovelier than ever before, and as he remembers the ferocity of her lovemaking, he feels waves of desire rise within him. Not for a long time has the mere sight of a woman aroused the lion in him to such an extent. He smiles to himself. He feels proud and elated; it was a grand performance. Spontaneous lovemaking at its best; not like the planned and contrived “quality” lovemaking with his wife, full of performance anxiety, each performing for the other’s gratification, and both faking pleasure thinking the other would not know.

“Yes, darling. Poor you. I can understand,” the wife says, and sips her potent cocktail. It’s her third. She wonders what it is – the mysterious but deadly intoxicating cocktails her companion is plying her with, and she is feeling gloriously high.

“I’m just waiting for this hectic spell of work to be over so we can meet,” the husband says. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the sleeping woman. Mesmerized, marveling. It is difficult to believe that in a few hours from now they would be addressing each other formally again.

“Oh, yes. It’s been three months and I’m dying to meet you. When are we meeting?” the wife asks.

“I’m planning a fantastic vacation. I’ll let you know soon. We’ll go to some exotic place. Just the two of us. Quality Time!” the husband says to his wife, looking yearningly at the gorgeously sexy woman on his bed.

“That’s great! We must spend some Quality Time together.” the wife says, snuggling against her strikingly handsome colleague. He presses his knee against hers. She presses hers against his. He moves his hand around her over her soft skin and pulls her gently. She feels an inchoate desire. He gently strokes her hair, and she turns towards him, her mouth partly open as he leans over her. Fuelled by the alcohol in her veins, she can sense the want churning inside her like fire. And as she looks into his eyes, and feels the intensity of his caresses, she can sense her resistance melting.

“I love you, Sugar!” the husband says.

“I love you, darling!” the wife says.

Their lovey-dovey conversation completed, both of them disconnect their cell-phones. And carry on with renewed zeal their passionate amorous activity presently in hand. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!

I’ve heard somewhere: ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder – for someone else’.

Married, yet bachelors! Forced distance and unnatural loneliness – for too long. It does take its toll, doesn’t it?

And what about the so-called much touted buzzword ‘Quality Time’?

There’s no doubt about it!

It’s Quality Time that sustains and nourishes long distance marriages.

Yes. Quality Time!

Quality Time – with someone else!


Dear Reader, do you agree? Or, don’t you?


VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright 2006 Vikram Karve

vikramkarve@sify.com

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Fiction

LIP SYMPATHY AND CROCODILE TEARS

[a short story]

By

VIKRAM KARVE





The doorbell rings. The woman called Manjula opens the door.

“We’ve come to fit the air-conditioner,” the man outside says.

“What? We haven’t ordered any AC,” the woman says and begins to close the door.

“Wait!” her husband’s voice says from behind the man. He’s come home early from work. He guides the man inside while his wife Manjula looks on in bewilderment.

“AC? You gone crazy? You just go and order an AC without even telling me?” Manjula asks her husband.

“Mother told me to get it. Smita and her family are coming,” the husband explains.

“Oh! So all this is for your darling sister and foreign husband, is it? When we ask for a cooler you crib, and for them it’s an AC!”

“He’s not a foreigner. He’s of Indian origin settled there.”

“So why does he need an AC?”

“Mother said they wouldn’t be able to stand the heat here, especially the kids.”

“Listen, Houston is much hotter and humid than here.”

“Maybe. But they are used to air conditioning.”

Please don’t argue with me – as it is the heat is driving me crazy!”

The bell rings again.

“It must be the commode,” her husband says and goes to open the door.

“Commode?”

“Yes. Western Style.”

“This is too much! I’ve seen her shitting in the open, in the fields near our village, when she was a kid. And now she’s an NRI and wants to defecate western style? Bloody snobs, I don’t know why they come here and try to show off. And you, the perfect dutiful Mamma’s boy – no guts of your own!”

“What’s the matter? Is everything ready?” she hears her mother-in-law’s stern voice from behind, so Manjula lowers her face and slips away into the kitchen.

“Her name is Manjula [sweet voiced] but she speaks so uncouthly,” her mother says sarcastically.

“Her name is Smita [cheerful] but have you ever seen her smiling or laughing – just carps and cribs all the time,” Manjula mutters to herself.

The NRI guests arrive from Houston, and the next few days are hell for Manjula, physically and mentally. She dies a thousand deaths in her heart seeing the favoritism of her mother-in-law towards her sister-in-law and her family and is unable to bear the patronizing attitude of her guests and the subservient groveling of her husband before his mother. And all the time Smita make sarcastic barbs at Manjula and her incompetence, offering lip sympathy and shedding crocodile tears at old woman’s ‘agony’. And Manjula’s dear husband remains silent, a mute spectator! Why can’t he stand up for her?

One evening, they’ve invited a large number of guests to dinner, and while Smita is reveling in the paeans of praise being showered by her mother and her cronies, Manjula slogs it out in the kitchen.

“See Smita’s house in Houston,” the old woman boasts, showing everyone a photo album [which all NRI’s invariably bring with them to impress us ‘natives’!]. “It’s got a swimming pool, and her children, they are so accomplished, and her husband…” she goes on and on till Manjula can’t take it any more and she interrupts rudely, “ Mummyji, if you like it so much here, why don’t you go and stay there with your darling daughter?”

“What?” her mother-in-law asks disbelievingly.

“I mean, Smita is your own darling daughter after all, and I am sure she will look after you much better than me, isn’t it? After all, they are so well-off, and caring and loving. I’m sure it’s better for you to go there and live in luxury like a Maharani rather than suffering it out here with us!” Manjula says instinctively, but seeing the fiery look in her mother-in-law’s eyes, she starts to tremble.

Time freezes. Manjula feels tremors of trepidation wondering what is going to happen next. She has gone too far this time.

There is silence. A grotesque silence! And suddenly Manjula hears her husband’s voice, “I think Manjula is right.”

“What are you saying?” Smita asks astonished.

“I am saying that Manjula is right. It would be much better is mother stayed with you at Houston for some time. You’ve also got to take some responsibility and look after her, isn’t it?” her husband says firmly to his mother, and then he turns towards Manjula and looks at her in a way she has never seen before.



VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright 2007 Vikram Karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

vikramkarve@sify.com

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