Dear Husband, I Hate You

09 September 2022

5:00 am

Ambar. He shuts the alarm, gets up and turns to look at his wife, who is still sleeping, Asha Shukla. He smiles and leaves for the washroom. Ambar cares quite a lot about Asha; maybe that’s why he handles kitchen utensils in slow motion to maintain pin-drop silence. He doesn’t want to wake her up with the irritating noise of the kitchen. All tea ingredients and half spoon of coffee powder to make a caffeine-loaded drink. The first thing Asha gifted him was his favourite cup, full of his favourite drink. Standing on the balcony, scanning the horizon for the aurora. The best part of living in the mountains is the first rays of sun in mild frost work like bliss, but wait, something is missing; the newspaper is yet to arrive. Mornings without a newspaper are incomplete for him. Newspaper until the teacup is empty.

Time for a morning walk, still careful to make no noise. Locks the main door and leaves for a walk, down the lane, near the lake. He has old friends, good laughter, few exercises and almost 5000 steps of walking before he returns.

Good morning Mrs Shukla, Ambar wishes her the moment he enters home.

I have told you a thousand times to clean off the kitchen top after using it, which he receives in return.

Okay, Ashu, I will remember it tomorrow. He replied, knowing that he won’t remember.

At least find a new reply, she said from the kitchen.

A cute smile was his reply without any word.

This cute little fight is also a daily routine of Ambar and Asha.

 

Breakfast is ready, Asha shouted, expecting a reply somewhere from the house.

Aaayyyaaaa was the reply from the roof where he was drying the clothes.

 

Poha, Ambar rubbed his palms in excitement and served himself a plate full of it.

Asha poured tea into cups with a smile.

This is what keeps a marriage alive. Nothing can come between a relationship if one tries to keep the other happy. The vows make one a part of the other, and if one knows how to keep the other half happy, no pressure will be strong enough to break this relationship. It is as simple as that; just keep on oath.

 

What was I saying… Asha started a conversation.

Hmm, Ambar replied.

Diwali is coming, and we need to start cleaning the house.

Yeah! Sure.

I know you will need a lot of time to clean your ‘Paradise’ and you won’t let me touch anything there. So first you clean your space, then we will do the rest of the house together.

He already saw this coming. He suggested, why don’t we clean house first and then I will do my Paradise.

No, she ordered straightly.

We have more than a month left. He tried postponing this cleaning task.

I said no, you will need a lot of time. You will start cleaning tomorrow, and that’s final. She ordered.

He took a long exhale before he said okay.

 

 

10 September 2022

10:00 am

He went to his Paradise. Pulled gates to open. Welcome to Paradise, a big shelf on his left with a sliding glass door full of novels and books of different genres. Most of them are books by Indian writers. This is one of his ways of expressing patriotism. On his right, three huge rectangular-shaped ledges adorned with liquor bottles. Every bottle is of a different shape. Bottles in the top ledge were empty, the middle ones were half filled, and the last ledge bottles were sealed to age. Don't confuse it as a private bar; this is a collection. An only a glass window in front of the gate, a small table after the window, and a single convertible sofa. This is Ambar's own Paradise. His attachment to these two has a meaning. Since college, books and liquor have been his media to escape reality. He believes through reading, you take time to live someone else's life to forget your sorrow, and liquor helps you bring out your actual animal. But escaping reality through the book made him a possessive book lover. He never lends his books to anyone, not even to Asha. He says anyone who wants to read any book from my collection can only read it in Paradise and not anywhere outside. His attachment to his books didn't allow him to underline or highlight any word or phrase he liked. He kept his books as clean as possible. The only time he let the ink touch his books would be when he finishes a book to write his name on the first page. Every book in his collection has his name, and the book without his name is yet to be read. On the other side, liquor bottles describe their past. Empty, half-filled, and sealed bottles sum up to make the number in hundreds. Ambar is not a regular drinker; he drinks when he is too happy or sad and keeps the bottles to relive his past happiness and grief.

Praising his years of love and time incarnated as books and bottles. Ambar starts unloading bottles from ledges to clean everything. He knew his plan, clean bottles first, then the table and sofa, then the bookshelf, and lastly, wipe the floor. The three ledges took an hour at maximum.

Ambar extolling about his collection to himself moved to wipe the table and clean the sofa. Here comes his favourite part of this cleaning session. He slid the glass door to have a clear view of his book; he had a smile on his face, and at his eye level, he reserved a shelf block for his favourite writer's book; it had around 25 books, and all had his name. Took out the books and put them on the table. He looked at those books like they were his kids. The reader's urge to go through all the books again pushes him to sit on the sofa. A stack of 25 books. He withdrew one book and groped all over it, opened it, and an irritating anger equipped his face when he saw a bold '1' written on the first page. His eyebrows shrink-en in, but he calmed himself down with every turning page. His face started turning red again when he noticed a line highlighted. He picked another book, and it had '4' on the first page. He flipped it quickly, raising his anger as he saw another highlighted line. Another book, another number, and another line either highlighted or underlined. This peaked his annoyance.

 

He wanted to scream and ask Asha if she had done it, but he knew Asha would never do this. He took a few deep breaths to calm down. Went downstairs to grab a water bottle, poured it into a glass, and gulped it down in one go. Walked to Asha's room and peeped in to see Asha busy with someone on a phone call. He turned, picked up the water bottle, and went straight to his Paradise. Sat on the sofa when the numbers on the first pages flashed. The mysteries he had been reading for so many years had made him a detective somewhere. Today the same detective is looking for clues in his best-loved books. He quickly began to arrange books in numerical order and got himself a pen and paper. Little did he know that the stories he used to read would become a part of the same story. He penned down all the highlighted and underlined words and lines to make a long note. He didn't care about the context while writing, but once he was done writing, he picked up those pages and thought, what and who did this?

Asha walked in. Hmm, it's an excellent way to clean. She said in a teasing voice.

Ambar inverted and tried not to disclose what was happening. He just smiled.

I knew you would start reading it all over again. She revealed her prediction.

Okay, I will finish this before the day ends. He said.

Tell me if you need any help, Asha asked.

I will call you if I need. Ambar replied with a smile on his lips and a question mark on his forehead.

Asha smiled and left. Ambar turned back to gaze at this two-page-long note. He was still determining if he was ready to absorb its content.

 

Hello Baby, I am Richa. Hope you remember me. It is just another day without you that I’ll have to spend, boring. Even heaven is boring without love.

Love… that you gave me, the kind of love that you did, and I will accept this selfish tag, but I wish nobody gets the love I received. You changed me like no other, or maybe you gave birth to my new identity. You remember how we used to meet at night and talk till the sun rose. We were an adventurous couple, or precisely, you made me adventurous. I remember I never enjoyed love stories until I became a part of one. Love is like a magical stick that can perform miracles. I was a bud in the dark; you came as sunlight, gave me a new life and left me to die.

You made me believe in love and left when I surrendered to you. I don’t know if love has the power of creation, but you had; you created love in Richa, you created a new fearless Richa, you created an adventurous Richa, you created a rebel Richa, you created a horny Richa, you created a soft heart-ed Richa. When I was enjoying my new traits at peak, you left to never return. Then again, you created hate in Richa, you created a coward Richa, you created cautious Richa, you created an insurgent Richa, you created a frigid Richa, you created a stone heart-ed Richa. Your arrival created warmth, and your disappearance created revenge. Such a God of creation you were.

I curse you to die the most painful death.

I curse you taste the worst betrayal.

I curse your heart to break into thousand pieces.

My love killed me; your love will kill you.

 

I am her best friend. I don’t want to know why you left her; probably you had your helplessness. But have you ever wondered what your helplessness did to my friend? She committed suicide. She wrote a suicide letter and posted it to me. By the time letter reached me, she was cremated. A request letter was attached, with only three magical words, “I want revenge”. A murderer should not be spared; the court cannot understand this killing. That’s why I have come to execute her curse. As she cursed you, you will die the most painful death. You will taste the worst betrayal. I will make sure your heart is cut into thousand pieces. Your love will break you. Guess who? I would have killed you at our first meeting, but you had killed Richa slowly; how can I give you such an easy death? The slow poison called love killed Richa. Another slow poison called Thallium mixed with love will kill you. I know you love me the most, but friendship over love. She was my family; you tore her apart.

Why are you reading this today? Because it’s your last day today.

Who is giving you poison? Whoever you love the most.

Your heart attack will put a full stop to your life and her revenge.

Now you know why we don’t have any children.

Your love

 Asha

Tears of realizing his mistake and being a victim of love rolled down to disperse in his beard. Ambar had his past standing before him, cursing, abusing, waning him. He cannot do anything now. He knew nobody was wrong more than he did. Richa’s anger is justified after being betrayed by her love, and it is also justified for Asha to avenge her friend’s death.

He grabbed the letter and ran downstairs to see Asha waiting at the dinner table, toying with a small medicine bottle.

Ambar picked up the lighter and burned those letters. He went down on his knees and begged for apologies.

Do you know the best thing about this poison? It is trace-less. Asha said.

Emptied the bottle content in a glass of water, stirred it well and slid it to the middle of the table.

Here is your last dose and apology; go ahead. Asha ordered.

Waning self-esteem of Ambar under the weight of guilt. He grabbed the glass with no will left to live with this regret.

I love you. Ambar said and gulped down the glass.

Dear husband, I hate you. Asha whispered to tormenting Ambar.

 

 

Reviews

[DIVYA]

A very interesting tale of revenge.

Richa was vindicated by Asha and the deceiver got his just desserts. Karma never spares anyone, we may think it has passed us but it keeps floating around us quietly and hits us when we least expect it. What goes around, comes around. I felt sad that three lives were destroyed in the end but what has to be done just has to be done.

This story was very nice and what made it all the more special to me was the description of the bibliophile. I'm an avid reader and book lover myself and Ambar's library struck such a chord with me. So all in all, I loved this story. Well done!

[Harsh Kumar Chaudhary]

Thank You Divya... After a hectic day at office, your review literally made my day. I'm feeling like its morning again. Thank you so much.