Of No Avail - Web of Wedlock

Furies of Falsity

"Since she had nothing against you, wonder why she brought things to such a pass?" she said.

"I think it all started with her obsession to lead the so-called good life and a burning desire to have the goodies of life never mind they were beyond our material means," he said ruefully. "So, when she came to know that my bribe money could be the source of her material fulfillment, it became a 'so near and yet so far' situation that insensibly made her insane. Then, as they say, one thing led to the other in the vicious marital cycle of our life. But to give devil its due, she was kind and considerate to my parents who came to stay with us right after our marriage."

"Pursue if thou wants with zeal / Instincts then would spin thy mind," cautioned us Krishna in the Gita but seemingly to no avail," she said ruefully.

"Sadly so but equally true are William Congreve's words," he said in all vexation, "that heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned. Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. Given my horrid life at that torrid juncture, while seconding the second line, I would paraphrase the first as; court has no rage like marriage to divorce turned. Oh, how she tried to picture me in the hall of justice as a suspicious character! Besides, she suffered no qualms in lying on oath that I abetted my parents, dead and gone by then, to routinely ill-treat and humiliate her at every turn. Worst of all, in a et tu, Brute moment, she sought to justify her case for divorce as well as maintenance by stating that I forced her to give up her job suspecting her fidelity. What's worse, as her lawyer was wont to drag the case, of course aided, in no small measure, by his lordship, who prided himself as a master of reconciliations, it became apparent that neither she was in a hurry for divorce nor the judge to grant it to me. While the lordship's intention seemed altruistic, hers was to keep me in the limbo so as to bar a fresh nuptial for me as she knew how miserable I could be without a woman in my life. Besides, as the Damocles' Sword of maintenance hung over my head, I never felt as hapless in my life of adversities."

"Isn't it sad and strange in the same vein?" she said affected no end.

"Maybe that's life," he said in all vexation, "and if anything, the unending hearings at the court hall seemed to testify to that. However, sensing her mischief, and seeing that she wasn't put up with her parents, I smelt a rat at last. Well, she was wont to tell me that though a rich and handsome man used to pester her to marry him, owing to her inhibition of wedding out of caste; she had forgone that God-given opportunity. I used to think that she could have made up that story to highlight my material mediocrity as a way to humiliate me but given the turn of events, I started wondering whether it was all true and that he got hold of her in the meantime; and for all that, she might have sought him on her own to fulfill her unfulfilled dreams. What an irony it would have been had she cast me away to make it with him by shedding her caste inhibitions; so I was constrained to engage a private detective to find that out to counter her strategy in the court."

He stopped at that as if the findings were distasteful for their recollection leave alone narration.

"Skip that if it's hurting," she said pressing his hand.

"It really hurts but so be it," he continued uninhibited. "When it came to light that she was living with that man after ruining my life, I was devastated to say the least though her unseemly conduct would make her case for maintenance collapse like a house of cards in the court hall. Yet it didn't appeal to my sense of decency to go to town with her dubious character to score over her; so I sought her in the court premises and told her that her only saving grace lies in setting me free without any strings attached to our separation. Luckily for me, she saw the writing on the wall and saved me the shame of shaming my wife to save my skin."