Apple of everyone's eyes

"Shall I cut some apples?" asked my granny-in-law perched on the sofa overlooking the breakfast table.

I nod politely and gratefully only to realize that the question had a suffix: smartheart's name. I feel like a moron until granny, realizing she made a display of partiality, inserts after two minutes: "Smita, do you want some apples also?"

This is why I hate to be seen in the same frame with smartheart: I suddenly get reduced from an apple to an orange in the eyes of anyone who sees us together and by-default get comPARED.

I can understand why my in-laws would make smartheart’s viewpoint sound like a revelation although I may have said the same thing the other day. Ninth grade chemistry: Expression of pent-up love becomes flattery when concentrated in the ratio of 7:1 (Smartheart lifts his head up from his laptop and smartphone and it’s Sunday).

My mother-in-law coronates her son by nicknaming him as ‘Raja’ (Hindi for ‘His Majesty’). One day, she was asking the domestic help where the apples lying on the table disappeared. I shrieked, “Rani (Hindi for Raja’s wife) ate them.”

My parents do not hold smartheart as a king in the titular sense. They literally hold him as one. My frail mom gets hyperactive on the news that smartheart is arriving at their house as if her power cord just got plugged into the electric socket. My dad talks to me about smartheart as if he is referencing some higher being I have never seen or met. He sings psalms about smartheart’s foresight to bridled talk to heart-warming courtesy. “Dad, he sounds familiar. Are you talking about my husband by any chance?”

But what’s with our friends? They are not smartheart-starved unlike my in-laws or smartheart-obsessed unlike my parents. Yet they acknowledge smartheart’s comments even though the remarks mundanely follow like an algorithm. On the other hand, they act dumb-struck after I interject a new dimension to the conversation. I remember when smartheart and I were talking with a couple about why a young secretary is essential for our over-worked husbands, I tried to steer the conversation back to the roots: “Wouldn’t one feel conscious if one is shadowed by a secretary all the time?” But imagine, there was a pause after that and then three of them continued talking about from where to attract the profile they were looking for. I know I examine people’s jagged teeth while they are talking to me, gape at the brands they are wearing from top to bottom when they are not talking to me and make it a little too apparent that I’m judging them; but so what.

My gynecologist has formed judgments about me. The expression on her face fluctuates from frown to serenity as she oscillates her head from me to smartheart. I cannot fathom the expansions and contractions on her face from ever since I went to her couple of days after my marriage as a “Hey, just heads up that I’m married.” I specified, “Please educate me about the various gynecological infections, complications and conditions that could possibly occur to me.” I don’t know what’s wrong with being a pre-emptive and aware patient. Furthermore, when smartheart and I went to the doc to seek advice on how to not have a baby for two years that we were studying, smartheart had already compressed my 128 questions into four broad categories. When she prescribed contraception pills, how could I stop myself from enlightening her about the adverse effects of the pills according to Vedas and more importantly my views on it.

And last but also the least: our relatives. The amnesiacs forget they had invited me to their party also. Their first question on seeing me is: “Where is (smartheart’s name)?” As if smartheart is a child playing hide and seek with them and they want me to be the informer. On knowing that smartheart is travelling, they then want to know how he is doing, when he’ll be back and if they could meet with me and smartheart then. “But I am available to meet even before he comes back and I have a life too.”

Someday the season of oranges will also come.

Good news?!?!?!!!???

“Good news?” agog strangers unabashedly ask me first thing on knowing I am married.

Very soon, I realized that in India, “good news” is the euphemism for “Have you been f***ed and more importantly, are you going to produce tangible result of the act?”

Being an inquisitive Indian that I too am, I made a few faux pas in the US on this subject as well. Then my husband taught me: “You don’t ask people if they have or are expecting a baby. It’s considered rude here because people value privacy. They’ll offer the information themselves if they wish.” I bobbed my head like an obedient school girl.

When we returned to India after two years of our marriage, every other woman of varied acquaintance level with me, of varied age, of varied (mostly zilch) stake in the query asked me if I was a carrier of “good news.” I would reply with the no-but-hope-to-be “not yet” and they would assume the role of infertility experts: “How long have you been married?” they further investigate.  I tweak 43 months a bit to palliate the offense: “Three-and-a-half years,” I say. Still I almost hear them tut-tutting under their breath.  “Both of us were studying for two years,” I justify involuntarily. They are not satisfied.

I can understand why our mothers and grandmothers would inquire (subtly most times) into our “planning.” They would tell me to eat more of Indian sweets and to do more of prenatal yoga saying, “It’ll be useful for the future.” They would stare at me until I assure them by nodding that I understand their connotation of ‘future’.

I can also understand why toddler-hauling friends of friends we meet at friends’ parties ask if we have kids. They want to know if we could be their friends in case the answer is in the affirmative or we would just remain friends of friends.

But I don’t understand why a cousin who makes it apparent that she doesn’t like me and who knows I don’t like her either would be nosy about my “good news.” Or what a friend of our mother would have to do with my “good news” at a society party.

With a chip on my shoulder, I now tell them “If you are referring to my developing paunch, you must be joking. It’s the sign of post-wedding prosperity you see.”

As hard as I may convince myself that “when is the baby popping out?” is not having any effect on me; I found myself telling my husband before couple of days: “I think it’s time we have our baby.” “Why,” he snaps back, “because people want you to have a baby.” “No,” I drawl unconvincingly. He interrogates me further as to why I (with emphasis) want a baby. The biological clock argument doesn’t appease him. I struggle to introspect for an answer. Finally I come up with a creative reasoning: “For how long can I blog about you? A baby will give me perennial topics to write about.” I tell him about all the popular blogs of Mormon women who just clip a picture of their cherub in diaper and get thousand likes. I also tell my husband about how I sweat out about the structure of my dissertation on him and still manage to get handful of readers.

He sighs. I tell him, “Do you still think I want a baby because I want people to stop pestering me?”

Kanika's poetry

This is contributed also by a reader of this blog: 

Will you be there if world conspires against me 

Will you stand with me if you see me all alone

Will you take me home if I have no where else to go

Will you hold me if I feel weak

Will you slip your palm if my fingers feel bleak

There have been days when the sorrow felt long and the seconds passed by slowly, 

Will you brighten up those passing moments 

Will you be that solace in my solitude

WiIl you be that comfort...

Will you be that fear that awakens me from my nightmares

Will you be that dream that makes me smile in my sleep 

Will you be that breath that gives my heart a last beat

Will you be that last voice that I hear

Will you be that path my feet brace the ground on

Will you be the keys my finger tap on

Will you be the thoughts that fill my mind always

Will you be the tickle that makes me giggle

Will you be the boy that makes me dream of falling in love all over again

Will you be a superhero when I want you to be one

Will you be my prince charming when I yearn for one

Will you agree to give me a home when I want to settle down in one

Will you be the light that forms a shadow for me and stay with me forever. 

Cassie's story!

In summer of 2008, I (Cassie) was sitting in my livingroom with some friends and my new roommate Carli Gadd. I had known Carli for about a year, and we had finally gotten her to agree to move in with us. I was distractedly messing around on my computer until a few carefully chosen key words tickled my ears: brother, rock climbing, and hiking.

"You have a brother?" I asked. She proceeded to tell me everything she could think of to explain and describe Mike. I asked her a million questions. I liked what I heard, so I told her I hoped she wouldn't mind if I married him. We even jokingly referred to him as my "pretend boyfriend."

Mike ended up moving a few miles away, and the rest is history. 

We were officially engaged on November 29. We had been to dinner with his extended family at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We were walking around admiring the lights. When Mike's grandparents, parents, and siblings left to go home, Mike asked me if I wanted to stay longer. He had told me earlier that he was going to try to throw me off with several pretend proposals. Since he had yet to be successful at throwing me off course, I thought I was in for a trick for sure. He hugged me and asked what I was thinking about. I told him, "I'm thinking this is a decoy." That's when he got on one knee and asked.

Thank you for your stories!

Dear Readers

Thank you very much for sharing your lovely stories with this blog's community. If you haven't sent your story yet and wish to contribute either with credit to your name or anonymously, please email it to me at smitapkothari@gmail.com. All my readers and I are eagerly awaiting to hear from you!

For the moment, I am posting Cassie and Mike's love story. Cassie is now married to Mike and they have two toddlers!

Married to you as a whole

How would you feel if you realize you stripped your self naked in front of someone and that someone didn’t even acknowledge it? I feel exactly the same when I narrate to smartheart how-unfair-the-world-is-to-me chronicles in response to his classic “how was your day?”

I don’t know how wives can keep secrets from their husbands. I am too boring to have any dark secrets; but I can’t even keep my views, thoughts and feelings on everything and everybody from seeking his stamp of approval. I understand that when he proposed to me, I was still a mystery to him and may be that was partly the reason he proposed to me (read: in illusion). But now that I give away too much, he reviews me too soon.

“I married you because I thought you have a good heart,” smartheart says. Did he just use ‘thought’ as in past tense of ‘think’? So what does he think of me now – wicked? Before I conclude the analysis of what he thinks of me, he drawls, “I can’t believe you can think so petty.”

I am glad that Mr. Smartheart is getting to know my yins and yangs, roses and thorns, virtues and vices. I am glad he is getting to know my humanness. If I had selectively communicated to him or manipulated what I thought, he would have only known part of me. But we are not married to parts of each other, but to each other holistically.

Smartheart can continue to form his judgments about me. I refuse to remain a suspense novel at least to the person I am going to spend my entire life with. And he loves me for that.

Tête-à-Tête, where art thee?

These days, I have been telling smartheart, “We need to have a conversation.” No, I don’t mean there is an issue between us. I mean that we really need to talk. Literally. About something, about anything.

At present, our conversations range from me asking customarily at dinner how his day at work was (which is so uninteresting to me that I think what I'd talk next while he's answering) to him asking how my day was (answer to which lasts a few seconds because of dearth of content). And not to forget smartheart saying his LOVE YOUs in the bedroom before falling asleep (if that even counts as conversation). Next morning, he’s perfectly ok spooning with me without saying a word other than the three words he ended the previous day with. During this, I am looking at the ceiling thinking of all the things I need to tell/ask him before he flees to work and becomes inaccessible for half a day. This includes what I need his help with to survive the day at the end of which he'll come back to ask me "So what did you do today?" Knowing me as well as he does, he catches my long quietudes characteristic of wandering mind and unknowingly makes me feel guilty of being incapable of feeling the moment. In weekends when we don't have the crutch of "How was your day?" we camouflage the silence by engaging in back-to-back activities like playing chess and frisbee, going for movie, etc.

Often, I tell smartheart that we should be able to talk without using props like games or people. We should be able to talk about us for hours together. But smartheart thinks that there’s no problem with having no topics to talk about us: It means we know so much about each other on an everyday, detailed basis that we don’t have anything left to talk, which is normal to him but scary to me.

I was thinking about the time when we exhausted our repertoire of conversations. Digging the annals of our four-year long history, I realized we didn't do much talking during our courtship also. But that was courtship. Apparently, I was shy as a girl should be in our social code of ethics and smartheart was feeling the moment. Actually, it was too unromantic to ask then, "How was your day?"


If language was invented to communicate and communication was meant to "make known" as merriam-webster suggests, how have smartheart and I made ourselves known to each other? And there is no doubt we have made ourselves known to each other way beyond we would have wanted in hindsight. I guess we have made ourselves known through the living together experience: I know by experience that smartheart gets cranky when hungry, that smartheart doesn't like to wait or keep anybody waiting, that smartheart does what he has to do irrespective of what anybody including me thinks. And smartheart knows by experience that his sweetheart is super-sensitive, that his sweetheart is difficult to impress, that his sweetheart hates exercising and loves butter.

May be the language of love is silent.