HALF MOON
CHAPTER - 6
For the first time in their married life of six years she behaved like a typical wife. She wanted to know if all his colleagues spent so little time at their homes with their family. And Rajinder felt uneasy to answer her queries, his brave front so far, his belief that he was beyond questioning on account of his being the man of the house was being challenged and this irritated him to great extent. He felt that Mehar was crossing her boundaries. He was comfortable with her soft manner and disinterested ways. For almost four years Mehar had been a silent and a dutiful wife. If he asked her to come with him she complied without any question, if he said he was going out on his own, she never asked where he intended to. Sometimes he felt uneasy because he was used to listening to other colleagues' batter about their wives being too nosy or too demanding about their times and how they had to account for every second to their wives.
But now gradually things were becoming difficult for Rajinder too. Mehar wanted to know why he spent the whole evening at hospital while even his subordinates had time for their families and sometimes visited them in the evenings. Bikaner being a small place people generally would visit unannounced.
From the casual talks of their wives Mehar came to know about their social life, their going out for picnics, strolls after dinner or mere outings for an ice-cream. She on the contrary grew up in a completely different kind of household, where her mother had a demanding job and father too was a busy man. Both of them did not have much time for neither for her nor for each other.
Their outings were sparse, one movie in a month and a dinner in a restaurant. That too sometimes would not happen with that frequency but she had lived a contented life with her studies, books and magazines on various subjects available to her on her demand.
Now with a growing up child to take care of and social life to keep alive because of him she began to see many facets of life which were oblivious to her before. She realized that whenever she visited any household with her son, for birthday parties or just to make the
Child more friendly with his peers she would find the fathers to be present and invariably involved in the household unlike Rajinder, who even when he was at home would either be sitting in his examination room with his patients or watching television or catching up on his latest medical journals. Mehar never had anything to say to him. They had no common platform for discussion except the issues relating to Ranjit and about these too Rajinder did not seem much interested.
She decided which school he would go to, although there was not much choice on that front, as the city had only one good boy’s school and all the boys of friends and acquaintances went there. She would decide who would be invited for his birthday; the menu and the return gift. Such responsibilities eventually began to hurt her, she did all the planning, work and Rajinder, despite saying he had no interest in these mundane things, would be more than willing to take the credit when friends praised arrangements or food. He loved when people talked well of his son but was silent when they praised Mehar for raising her child with such care or he frowned when Mehar was complimented in front of him. Many of his friends knew this and generally avoided this. Mehar would feel left out.
She was lonely. In spite of living with her husband and child she felt as if she was completely on her own. Her physical needs were being fulfilled. She had the best of clothes to wear, her doting father loved to take care of that, choicest of food, though she always loved a simple home cooked meal. Her sexual life was more than satisfactory. Rajinder was a robust man and he was well endowed to fulfill any woman's desires. But he was not demonstrative. Emotions hardly played a significant role in his life.
Rajinder was born and brought up in a family of seven brothers and two sisters and his father had a small piece of land to call his own. He borrowed other's land for cultivation but as his sons grew older they took charge. That lessened his burden. They started buying land wherever they heard some was being sold. Borrowing money from anywhere they could and then later by working hard they would repay and this cycle quickened pace as all of them grew to become young strong men in a short span of five-six years. Now they were a great team of hard and laborious workers with a common interest of increasing family's worth. And this paid dividends in many folds. Within no time they acquired enough land of their own to be called influential in their community.
But finer details of life evaded the family as they engrossed themselves in hard labor to uplift it. None of the brothers went to school beyond high school. Two of them dropped out even before that. They could hardly sign their names on land-registration papers. They, however, managed to acquire decent stretches of land as the years rolled away. The eldest of them, Sewa Singh, was a constable in the police and had seen the outside world. He was the driving force behind this family's success. He was the motivator, provider, informer, all in one. He would finalize the deals and make others abide by them. He was the one who decided that since Rajinder was good in studies he should be sent to pursue medicines and one day he would become a big doctor, that was in their world a specialist medicine man. Sewa Singh's persistence and Rajinder's labor bore fruit and Rajinder came to be the specialist in anesthesiology.
Though Rajinder lived in the city and studied at the Medical college he would spend all his spare time including weekends and holidays with his family back home at his village. His social contacts were very few. He did not read any book other than his text books and once in medical college he read only medical books. After college he started working as a full-fledged doctor in a hospital began to read the morning newspaper. Although he could talk incessantly about people he knew, their habits, their daily lives, their relationships etc. but ironically he could not understand the feelings and emotions of his own wife of almost six years.
Mehar was getting more involved with her life with him with every passing day and wanted him to share more with her but Rajinder had become so engrossed with his professional life as well as other activities that he enjoyed without Mehar's presence and it was becoming increasingly difficult for both of them to be able to connect with each other. There were days when Mehar wanted to go out with him in the evenings, for a movie, for dinner or to a friend's house. She would tell him in the morning about her wish and wait for him all dressed up, but in vain. Rajinder would invariably fail to turn up. On such occasions Mehar often tried to express her anger but Rajinder gave a cold shoulder and she would begin to boil inside with no outlet to give vent to her frustrations.
Rajinder generally tried to make amends during bedtime but gradually sexual act too began to lose its charm for Mehar. The same Mehar who had become an active partner after her son's birth and
looked forward to his advances once again began to shun him. He did not think much of it but as these squirms continued he causally talked to one of his colleagues, and friend, Dr. Jain about her behavior. During their discussion Rajinder told him about Mehar's wish to do her post graduation and how he was against that and then her pregnancy that put a full stop to her dreams of further studies.
Dr. Jain advised him that she should have been allowed to do that. He felt that by not allowing her to blossom Rajinder had not only curtailed her personal freedom but at the same time had lost an opportunity to be closer to her heart. He tried to make him understand that Mehar had the right to do what she wanted, more so because Rajinder and her parents had already agreed to that before their wedding took place. He advised him that Mehar should study further and pursue her dreams of a career of her choice.
Rajinder thought about this for many days and finally he decided to talk to Mehar. It was Sunday and he had come home early after his morning round of hospital. Mehar was a little surprised but she did not say anything. Rajinder played with Ranjit for a while and after they had their lunch he went for his siesta to their bedroom. Mehar generally never slept during the day so she stayed back in the living room and was engrossed in a book she had recently bought. She had not realized how much time passed away when she got up to go to the washroom and saw Rajinder sitting in a sofa in front of her
She was startled.
He had a smile on his face. Sitting here for quite sometime he was looking at Mehar, completely immersed in her book. She looked so beautiful that he forgot he had come to talk to her about her higher studies. He sat there simply looking at her mesmerized. Her soft features had softened more in the dim light of the day sieved through thick orange curtains behind her back, her complexion was a mixture of pink with wheat and her oily nose shone.
He saw her walking towards their bedroom and decided to catch up with her there. As she came out of the bathroom he saw him lying on the bed and was about to pass by him, he asked her to sit beside him. She was in the middle of a very interesting passage in book she was reading and was irked inside but better sense prevailed to her. She sat on one of the chairs kept near the coffee table and looked at him with questioning eyes.
He did not know how to begin. He mulled over his words in his mind. Lately he had become careful about the words he chose while talking to her as she had begun to express her displeasure about how she felt when his language was not proper. Once he saw Ranjit fall from his bicycle and Mehar was close by. He shouted at her that she was a stupid woman who did not take care of her child. Though Mehar remained silent on this but she refused to respond to him for a week for anything after that. He felt as if he was living at an uninhabited island.
He cleared his throat twice and said, “You wanted to do your post graduation. Why don't you do it now?”
These words fell like a bombshell. Mehar's face turned red with humiliation and she got up. Standing there shivering like a dried lief Mehar stared at Rajinder for about half a minute and hurriedly left the room. Rajinder felt a few heartbeats miss. For the very first time in last six years, since he was with Mehar he felt scared and completely defeated.
He realized that this silent woman he had been sleeping with and who bore a child to him had so much of substance inside her. He always thought her to be a naive person, oblivious of her surroundings, oblivious of politicking happening around her all the time. What he did not know was that she saw everything, she understood everything that she basically was a peace loving person and so avoided all the bitterness and back biting of his sisters-in- laws by simply turning a deaf ear to them. She never complained to him as she thought those small talks to be unimportant in comparison to the bigger picture of life she envisaged.
He was lately trying to figure out more about her and have discovered that behind her peaceful exterior she was an intense person and was quite modest too. She never complained about small little discomforts she felt during her stay at village to anyone. She would uncomplainingly drink the water too without getting it boiled despite the fact she found it to be distasteful and every time she fell ill as well. But she refrained from complaining. He was slowly rising to her modesty. But today he was taken aback, he did not know that modesty too had latent sparks and should not be taken for a ride for long.
He did not know what to make out of her behavior. He kept lying there and thinking and wondering. What next?
And this next happened that night. After dinner when Ranjit had been put to bed in his room and Tarabai too had gone to bed upstairs, Mehar came to bedroom and unlike other days when she went directly to the bathroom for her nightly rituals of brushing teeth, washing her face and changing into lighter and loose clothes she sat in a chair. She waited for Rajinder to come back from his nightly stroll across the street. He generally went and sit in his examination room for there were patients or their attendants who come for discussion about the next morning's surgery or if they are relatives, they just visit to have some chat. Today there was no one so he went out on the street and went all the way to the nearby market.
He often came here around this time after dinner but it never occurred to him before that at this hour market was buzzing with activity. Families were out for a stroll, an ice-cream or just to buy bread, eggs and butter for the following morning. He could not remember if he had come here with Mehar ever. How she managed the house was her prerogative. What he did as his duty towards the house he lived in was keeping the money at the beginning of the month in a drawer of Mehar's wardrobe. She never asked for it even when he forgot to keep the amount. He noticed that she never ever asked for more even when the amount was exhausted before the month was over.
That meant that she had been short of it that month, but she never said anything about it. For the last six years this had been the arrangement. Every year when he received an increment in his salary he increased this allowance too, so he felt that he was fair on this account too.
Now today in his present mental state he looked around and was surprised to realize how little he knew about Mehar. He had thought she would jump at his proposal of allowing her to study further and will accept this offer with enthusiasm but her behavior. was bewildering for him. She had not spoken to him since the afternoon. Even little Ranjit felt the tension in air and slept promptly after being asked only once.
Rajinder felt sad deep inside about his own life. He had a beautiful wife, articulate, well versed, well dressed, a well brought up son like an angel but something was missing in his life. He could not pinpoint it. But he certainly knew that this was something to do with his relationship with Mehar. He knew in his heart that he had
Not been fair to her. But he had tried to make amends many times. Whenever he failed to return home on time for an outing with her, the next day he brought home something special or a new dress for her, but he found to his dismay each time that it never brought any change in Mehar's attitude.
She would remain aloof for many days afterwards. Then gradually she would return to her normal self and he would forgot about that instance but then again something on the similar lines would happen. Either he would shout at her over some mundane affair or forget about some social engagement and the same gloom would descend upon their home. Poor Ranjit would wander among this wilderness with his undying love for mischief, and this was the only solace for Rajinder.
Now wandering by himself in the market at this hour he wondered how could he set his life straight, how could he bring some happy order to it? He was just passing by an ice cream vendor and saw a couple smilingly talking to each other while enjoying ice- cream. He felt a pang in his heart. He immediately thought of Mehar and remembered, she loved the chocolate ice cream cone any time. He bought two of those and rushed home before they melted. Though he himself did not like chocolate in any form but today he decided to eat one with Mehar.
He reached home to find Mehar sitting on sofa and her facial expressions were enough to make his heart drop. He otherwise was not that sensitive to her moods but today was different. He had offered her what she had wanted and here she was sitting with her face red with pent up anger. He took out cones from the paper bag he was carrying and extended one towards her, she took it and kept that on the table besides her, all this while looking straight at something not even she knew at. He was at a loss, he did not know what to say or do. He put his ice cream too besides hers and looked at her.
She took a deep breath and finally faced him.
“What kind of joke are you playing on me and my life?” Her voice was icy cold and straight, devoid of any emotion, not even anger, which her face was betraying all this while. It was evident that she was boiling inside all this while but trying hard to keep a cool exterior.
He was taken aback by her cold harsh words. He never had an inkling she could speak in this harsh manner and that too with him. He had always been careful while dealing with her that the power between the two always remain in his territory, but now at this juncture he felt it slipping away. He tried to hold it back.
“What do you mean by this? I merely asked you to continue with your studies, which you had always wanted to.”His voice was a little shaky, for this he hated himself and cleared his throat. But it was late now, the words were out and had reached Mehar. She too sensed the weakness embedded in these and her morale went higher.
“I wanted that six years back. Not now. And you created such a drama over that issue. And you intentionally made me pregnant so that I could not study further. I accepted all that because I believe in relationships, but do you? Do you ever care what I want?”her words were spiteful now.
He mumbled something and was about to leave the room, when she sprang up and stood in his way. She was shivering with anger and hate and was determined to settle this issue then and there. She had been feeling sick of letting the issues burn on slow fire, letting them simmer. Today she wanted this to be done forever.
She asked, “I could not understand what you said just now, say it again. I want to know what you have to say to this.”
He had to hold himself. She was just a step away, he could sense her anger in her aura, she was almost boiling inside but unlike him the volume of her voice was still at normal pitch and none of the words she had said so far had gone out of their bedroom's four walls.
He tried to calm her down holding her by her shoulders, he kept his hands on them and tried to embrace her but she shuddered and shook his hands off. She stepped back and leaning against the door of the room looked at him, straight in his eyes.
He felt her cold silent gaze slit through his chest and he felt shivers inside him. He was astonished by this sudden realization. He had been living with this woman for the last six years, day in and day out, had sex with her, she had borne him a son, she slept a few inches away from him the whole night all this while but he never came to know she had so much strength in her. He always thought her to be a demure, simple and a little indifferent woman.
Now standing so close motionless he tried to gauge her strength and the depth of her hatred for him. All he had done to her came to him in a flash and he felt ashamed of himself. He sincerely hoped that she forgave him and let him correct some of the damage already done.
He tried to keep his voice soft, “Mehar, now you have the chance to do it. Ranjit is old enough and you have ample time to. Now I allow you to do it, so do it now.”
Mehar was stunned to hear this. She looked at him bewildered. She tried to control her anger and while still trembling at the leftover feeling of his touch she moved slowly towards the chair she had been sitting since long and sat down. She controlled her tremors and then still keeping her voice low she spoke.
“It is not a matter of your allowing me or not. You knew then that even if you forbade me I will do it, so you made me pregnant without consulting me. I accepted that as God's wish and fulfilled my duties to the best of my capabilities. Now you say you want me to study. Why? Am I a puppet or your dutiful servant? What do you know of me? Do you know what I want to do? And even if I want to do it now which college will grant me admission? After all these years? With this gap of six years? And even if I get admission, how will I do it? Do you know what it means to be away from where you want to be?”
She was breathless, on the verge of tears. She stopped midway and took several deep breaths. He wanted to say something or console her but he refrained himself. He found his own moorings to be shaky. He understood that it was late now. He had not been able to understand this quiet but sharp woman. He opened the door and slowly walked out of the room. Mehar with her eyes opaque with swelled up tears in them, kept staring at melting ice cream cones on the coffee table's glass top. She felt helpless. Her own life resembled this heap of dark creamy fluffy waste.
That night was the night of self realization for both of them. Rajinder realized that Mehar was not an easy bait. She could not be taken for granted. He will have to mend his ways. He will have to find some place for her existence in his packed life, where hospital, his immediate family and relations of near and far lived. He was use to visiting his village at every two weeks before he was married to Mehar and he continued this practice. Mehar accompanied him
Rarely as she was not very keen and he too did not feel very enthusiastic about taking her along. She felt out of place there and did not mix up with the women of the family. She would carry books with her and remained immersed in those while she was there. This irritated other female members of the large family and they complained to Rajinder.
When he forced her to not to carry any books, she obliged but she was so miserable there that it became obvious to everyone. And Rajinder had to face more sarcasm at the hands of his relatives and women of the family including his own mother. They all had the feeling that Mehar was high headed and thought of them to be low leveled to interact much with them. Behind her back she was called memsahib. She came to know of this, years later after she was divorced from Rajinder.
Mehar kept thinking through the night about what could have brought this sudden change in him. The same person who had threatened to break her legs was allowing her to study further. She was not against the idea at all, she still wanted to do something worthwhile with her life, she wanted to pursue her dreams but she could not digest his words. He, giving her permission to study further! He, being her boss was difficult for her to comprehend.
She wanted her life partner to be a partner of her life, with whom she could share her dreams, her happiness, her sorrows, her fears. But the same person had become the provider of sorrows to her and she was deeply disappointed with herself, her life, everything about her. She kept tossing in her bed for many hours and finally she fell into a disturbed slumber. She did not know when Rajinder who had been sitting in examination room all this while trying to concentrate on some journal and thinking how to get things in his control again, finally came and slept.
First thing in the morning that caught her eye was the ice cream residue on the coffee table. She went straight to kitchen to get the duster to wipe it off. As the day progressed she felt calmer and began to think with a clearer mind. She still was at a loss about what has brought this sudden change in him. Till yesterday he was certain that women should not be allowed to study further and now this sudden roundabout perplexed her.
She wanted to know who and what had brought this change and then think about her next step. As the clouds of negative thoughts
About his insulting words began to wear off her mind, she felt her thoughts to be clearer and wanted to know the reason behind this. After so many years spent with him she had come to understand that his views were seldom his own, he borrowed from others all the time. This explained the inconsistency in his behavior. It made her easy to understand him.
She had experienced this many times before One day he wanted things one way and another day exactly the opposite way. And this always put her on a very slippery ground. She wanted a firm ground beneath her feet. This was what she had been trying to form all these years by abiding by his whims and fancies, trying to make him understand her, trying to make him see the light of the day. Peaceful order sometimes blessed their home but then Rajinder would want something else just contradicting his earlier demands and she felt betrayed. She would cocoon herself within herself for many days.
Warmth between them could never come to a point where she would feel comfortable enough to open her heart to him. Her loneliness grew with each passing day and this made her more independent and mature than her years in her sensuous body. She was rising gradually to her desires and wanted badly to fulfill her emotional needs as these remained UN-quenched all awhile.
She came to know the reason in Rajinder's views very soon. After that night's outpourings by Mehar, they had not been talking to each other for more than a week when Dr. Jain called on phone one evening and invited Mehar for dinner the next Sunday at his place. Other members of their department too were invited. Although Mehar was still in a depressed state of mind, she agreed on phone itself and gave her word.
The day arrived and surprisingly Mehar did not have to remind Rajinder about dinner. He was home before time, got ready and waited for Mehar to get ready. As she came out, he looked at her and remained posted to his seat. She was wearing a white saree with pink flowers on it and looked fresh like a daisy. He was mesmerized to see her today. The girl he had married had grown to be a woman. Motherhood had flowered her into a beautiful woman.
Memories of that day came to him when after their wedding they had gone to her mother's house. Mehar had been wearing her jeans and a T-shirt. She was mere nineteen and looked so young that he was almost scared to see her. He forbade her to wear western
Clothes after that. She did not like that but she obeyed when her own father reasoned out with her with the same plea that she looked too young in such dresses. A stupid reason from her point of view but she did abide.
Before the dinner was served, Dr. Jain took both of them inside his bedroom and Mehar immediately felt something strange. She sensed something unpleasant was coming her way, she was beginning to rise to her inner voice these days. May be because she did not interact much socially and was constantly in dialogue with herself, she had been sensing things in other's minds, even when they did not speak. This time too she was proved to be right.
As they settled down on their bed and Mrs. Jain too had arrived, Dr. Jain began,“Mehar, you are such a wonderful wife and mother and such an intelligent person. We all praise you whenever we talk about you. Rajinder too talks about you in such high terms and he always says that yo want to study further. Since you got married early and had Ranjit, so you could not. But you want to do it now.”
Mehar did not know what to say. She opened her mouth, yet remained silent. Her mouth stayed open for quite some time. She felt her throat dry, she never expected such blatant lies from Rajinder. He was sitting smiling at her and nodding in assent. She felt defeated. She knew she could not contradict Dr. Jain. She knew Rajinder was playing a very dirty game with her and she was left with no cards in her hand. It was his social circle where he had intentionally or unintentionally has not allowed her to mingle and whatever he said here was the final word.
What she did not know then that they too were a group of sensible, intelligent and well meaning people. If she spoke her mind and told the reality, they would have definitely listened to her and understood. Later when she had to face many adversities, these very same people whom she did not trust in her naive ignorance, became her pillar of strength. They saved her from much harm that could have proved fatal for her in many ways.
But today she just listened, it tasted so bitter in her mouth that she lost complete interest in the party that was going on. Dr. Jain assured her that whatever help was required on account of her higher studies regarding getting admission and other formalities he and his wife both will be more than willing to lend a hand at every step. Rajinder was very happy with this conversation. He failed to
sense Mehar's disillusionment. She had been thinking of talking about this issue again with him keeping her mind open to dialogue and try to forget the past. But today's intervention by Dr Jain saddened her. She realized now that it was Dr. Jain's suggestion to Rajinder to let her study further and not his own.
This irked her to no extent. She had been thinking about talking to Rajinder with open mind and then come to a decision. She felt that Rajinder genuinely was feeling apologetic and wanted to make amends. But now she realized that she would have to continue with his whims which were not based on his own perceptions alone. Any relative or friend's causal remark would be a sufficient trigger to make him change it and Mehar had to do exactly opposite of what she had been doing as told by him earlier. This constantly made her wade through slippery waters. She was not certain how long this could go on. She wanted a strong shoulder on which she could put her head to rest. She knew she thought beyond her years but this was the way she was built. She could not shed her feeling of helplessness at Rajinder's constantly wavering ways and views.
She needed to lead her life where she had stability of thought and deeds, where she could look herself in her own eyes and not feel ashamed of herself. She knew she did not want to spend her days in eating, sleeping and fulfilling bodily desires. She wanted more from life. She needed to know the world outside and inside her too. Both were opening to her gradually. She wanted to savor those with her soul and body. from her slow and silent reverie. She decided to talk it out with Rajinder soon, even if it meant talking to a wall as her earlier such experiences has resulted. This time she had been provided with a rope lent by Dr. Jain and she was sensible enough to not let it go. She wanted to avail it; she wanted to climb out of the well she had been thrown into for no fault of hers.
As was expected she did not have to say much, she mentioned her willingness to the proposal and Rajinder did all that was required of him. She did not bother to know the reasons as she wanted to focus on her target and forgot about everything around her. She forgot all insults, all bitterness and all dark hours she had spent waiting for these times to come and threw herself with full force into her calling.
She did not care to know that despite her gap she was able to achieve admission in her desired subject courtesy Dr. Jain. She did
Not care that when she entered college premises there were whispers about her, people wanted to know what was she doing there, they wanted to know about her hidden skeletons. She did not care when gossips came her way through so called well wishers who were keen to know what was happening inside the four walls of her apparently peaceful home. She did not care when she found out that Rajinder now spent more time away from home than earlier.
Her only concern now was her own path to fulfillment and her little son, who sometimes felt lost in this wilderness, where the mother was busy finding lost tracks in her maze of books and the father was not seen most of the times. The child had now become more independent, did not need much help for most of his needs including home work given at school.
Mehar wondered, while attending classes, that all this while when she had been locked away from the joys and sorrows of this world, the same knowledge was being spread to all and sundry, formulae were solved behind closed doors, libraries buzzed with humming of aspiring pupils, corridors were a riot of colors, teachers prepared lectures and students listened to them with mischief in their eyes, examinations came with high tempers and upset stomachs and went away and results were declared with hearts pounding in every student's chest. She was blissfully delighted to be the part of this joyful journey and loved every moment of being a traveler once again.
Four years passed. Much water had flown down the bridge. She was a post graduate with two degrees under her wings, Ranjit was a grown up boy very much in his own element, yet naive in many ways. Mehar had blossomed into a confident woman with worldly wisdom and knowledge of worthiness about herself. Meanwhile she had added another feathers to her cap – she had become a casual announcer at the local radio station.
Strangely all this while Rajinder was either supportive of her or just chose to ignore her various activities. She had started writing short stories and these were published in magazines which many of their friends and acquaintances read. Rajinder ignored to read those. If he did, he would have understood what had been going on inside her and would probably have done something about that. What others could sense he failed to recognize in his own home.
Their relationship remained in the same cold chambers. He was insensitive to her rising sensual needs and she was adamant, not asking on her own, not opening her heart to him. Every night she waited for some miracle to happen, some soft corner in him to awaken and caress her wavering heartbeats but every night she spent in wasteful wait and her heart bled more each morning to witness herself unclaimed.
Rajinder’s fluctuating attitude perplexed her. For someone who never cared to get an insight into her literary achievements it was rather strange that he should be displaying his delight and overt excitement over the same now. He had everything at his disposal. He thrived in his wife's success now. He even advised her on her choice of clothes now too, which she often ignored as their tastes on these matters did not match. But he was generally content with his life so much that he forgot to give a deep thought to their ever cold relationship which was beginning to wither away at every little ripple that came their way.
