The Consequences of Infidelity

Aravind was a 38 year old father of two sons aged 15 and 12 and working in a financial services organization. His wife, Pramila, was a lecturer in a local Government college. He had no problems or issues to be resolved and life was moving on smoothly for him. His daily routine included waking up late in the morning and getting ready to go to the office very lazily. That ate up most of his mornings but once into the office; he was a real thunder and lightening in finishing off his jobs as he had an amazing knowledge and grip over his job. He was a good chess and Carom player and spent his evenings by relaxing with these two games. His wife was very co-operative and allowed him to pursue his interests .Every thing was in place for a peaceful life for him and then at that particular juncture a 34 year old Pratibha joined into his office upon transfer from a different place.
Pratibha had a rollercoaster life in the recent times. She had to move to several places in her job as her husband Ram Chandra was transferred to several places in his job as an employee in Newspaper office. Of late he started suspecting her for silly things and even caned her for a simple reason of coming home late from the office without informing him. In fact he started getting addicted to vices like alcohol. Another surprising thing about their relationship was that they were childhood lovers. They had two children- a son aged 15 and a daughter aged 10.She also had a strong feeling that her husband was moving closely with Neha, an up coming journalist, but he strongly refuted that by saying that it was part of his job.
Pratibha was in tears in her room in the office and was almost sleeping on her table. Aravind entered into her room, knocked the door and said “Hello Madam what is the reason and why are you sleeping like that in the peak of office hours? “ Perturbed by this intrusion, Pratibha was very curt in her reply and said” Please mind your business and leave me alone”. Her husband had a wordy duel with her over phone because she expressed her unwillingness to pickup the children from the school in the evening as she argued that she had to attend staff meeting and he is relatively free. Aravind noticed that she was not sleeping but actually crying for some personal reason and hence had to be rightly left alone. Pratibha thus had a bad first impression about Aravind and later on as days rolled by she noticed that it was his nature to be intrusive with regard to the affairs of his colleague to the extent of boring them.
The year end Carom and chess tournaments were to take place and the pairings list of the contenders were announced. Aravind and Pratibha were placed as one pair. They started practicing together and this allowed for the developing of a strange relationship between them.
Every evening, after the close of office hours Pratibha came to him and before starting the practice, she started to tell him about her problems and her uneasy and dwindling relationship with her husband. At first Aravind counseled her to be patient and not to spoil her health. Later on, one day, Aravind’s friend, Hameed walked up to him and said in a low whispering voice,” Arey yar What is happening between you and that lady every day in the evenings-Are you trying to start a second innings? Do not spoil the life of Bhabhi and your kids. I heard Pratibha was previously a family-wrecker and that is the reason why her husband gets angry with her frequently.” Aravind got stung by these seemingly jocular remarks and had wordy duel with his close pal for years. He announced that he would not desist from strengthening his relationship with Pratibha at any cost.
Finally the tournaments arrived and Aravind reached the finals in the chess singles egged on by the friendly encouragement of Pratibha and along with Pratibha entered the finals in the carom also. The office started murmuring about their relationships and several rumors started making rounds that both of them were staying back in the office even late in the night. Both of them did not take steps to curtail the rumors and slowly they reached their better-halves.
An already incensed Ram Chandra threatened Pratibha that he had enough of her. He said “I saw you coming on the bike of your colleague, Aravind and you were sitting horribly close to him.” “No” She Shouted and continued “You either need Spectacles urgently or trying to further and legitimize your friendship with Neha by taking this as a ruse.” Ram Chandra threw a chair at her and walked away by shouting at her that she would meet her only in the court and that too with divorce papers. She wished him best of luck. At Aravind’s house, a normally docile Pramila revolted. She asked Aravind to prove his innocence or else stop talking with her. She also took a unilateral decision to enroll their children in a boarding school to avoid any disturbance to them. Aravind argued that he did not have any ulterior motives and that he was just helping Pratibha to come out through a difficult phase. Pramila refused to accept her husband’s version and questioned why he should only take interest and not others.
Amidst all these happenings Aravind noticed that he was indeed getting attracted to Pratibha’s presence and whenever she did not come to the office, he felt bored and dejected. Rumors and allegations mounted on them but those did not deter them. Pratibha enrolled her kids in the same boarding school as Aravind’s children upon Aravind’s influence and continuous urging. So whenever an opportunity presented itself he accompanied her to the boarding school and thus met his children twice-once with his estranged wife and secondly along with Pratibha.
In between these happenings, one day, Aravind asked Pratibha “why are you frequently attracting trouble with your husband what are exactly the differences between you? To this Pratibha replied” See Aravind, I am a singer and I have the ambition of singing for the movies and that is the reason why I go to singing practice sessions in the evenings and some times they go on up to eight at night and my husband does not like my participation in such type of activities. This is the core issue between us”. To this Aravind replied “Why do not you tow your husband’s line.” On hearing this Pratibha became angry and walked away by saying “All you males are of similar nature-why should I destroy my talent?” Sensing the brewing of trouble, Aravind said”Okay cool down-I will try to encourage you. My cousin is a famous music director in films. Though I met him a long time back and not exactly in touch with him, if you are really talented and if I recommend, you may strike a jackpot”. Immediately Pratibha cooled down sensing that here is an opportunity for her to enact her childhood dream.
Soon a stage reached for Pratibha that her husband would not reconcile to her and started having an altercation with his bosses over silly matters and got suspended from duty. Neha ditched him as she noticed that he no longer wielded enough influence over the bosses to make up for her short comings. She developed friendship with a new young journalist and got her priorities settled with him. Pratibha did not loose her stubbornness.
Soon the financial organization announced that it would promote all worthy people and thus Aravind passed the promotion test and became eligible for promotion and posting to a different place. Along with him Pratibha also passed and became eligible for promotion. The people in the office began rumoring that with his influence; Aravind would see that Pratibha would get her posting to the same place as him.
Aravind also did try that way but for some other reason because he thought Pratibha would be happy to realize her childhood dreams and his wife would recognize his absence as he would pass his time in his cousin’s house.
Once they moved out to their new destinations, no improvement took place on their domestic front. Pramila got accustomed to live as a single mother. Initially Aravind frequently visited his children’s boarding school and as they complained about their poor living conditions, unnecessarily strict rules, their longing ness to be at home and to see both their mother and father under one roof, he stopped visiting them as he could do nothing to influence a stubborn Pramila to change her attitude and also because he could do nothing to change himself.
As years rolled by Pratibha attracted the attention of not only the cousin of Aravind but also other music directors and became a famous singer and career wise also she rose tremendously up in the organization. At first she was close with Aravind but later on switched loyalties and started being friendly and too close with the cousin of Aravind. Then Aravind realized his folly. But by that time it was too late.
In that way twenty years passed and he became a top executive in the company and was living in a place other than where Pratibha was living. His private life was in tatters as Pratibha left him and was almost rumored to be living permanently with the music director and Pramila and his children stopped communicating with him completely. Upon further promotion Aravind was posted to the place where Pratibha was living. Pramila and his children were also living in the same place. Then suddenly he was diagnosed to be a severe heart patient and thus his health started deteriorating .He needed someone to look after him but there were none. His wife refused to take care of him. His sons refused to visit him as he ignored their frequent calls to take them out of the boarding school and also never took proper care of them ever since he developed countenance with Pratibha. Finally Aravind visited Pratibha. She was very busy with a number of guests and on seeing him, she called him to her private chamber and enquired about him just for the sake of it.” I thank you for your help. Presently I am very busy and I cannot be of great help to you. By the by, why did you come?” she asked." Pratibha I have to visit the cardiologist. Recently he asked me to bring someone. Will you accompany me?” "No", she said and continued “I have to go to a recording and all I can do is to send my personal assistant along with you" and without wasting any time she called one of her personal assistants and asked him to accompany Aravind in her car.
While going to the hospital, he noticed that a meeting was going on and from the distance he could notice that it is in fact an election meeting of his old time friend Hamid who in these twenty years rose from the ranks of a union leader in the office to being a contestant in the legislative assembly election on the Party for Social change ticket. He rolled down the glass of the car and waved his hand at Hamid who was ready to give his speech on the Dias.
Hamid quickly recognized him and waved his hand in return and started his speech “Today the main problems are the taking care of increasing number of old people, improving standard of our education by promoting the cause of Government schools and colleges, educating people to desist from having illicit or and multiple relationships so that their children need not spend their childhood in boarding schools thereby spoiling their mental health. I still maintain that some of the problems of some of the old people- especially their children not taking care of them is an off shoot of them neglecting their children in childhood and their forcible admission into the boarding schools.” Aravind asked the driver to start the car as he noticed that Hamid was indirectly referring to him in his speech. Some days later he noticed in the newspaper that Hamid won the election with a resounding margin and that his two sons were the principal architects in the election campaign.