He
was a mild-mannered analyst - unconventionally good-looking with a smile that
would make you break into one yourself. He had this innate ability to make the
people around him hoot with laughter if he so chose but on the whole, his
masterful personality commanded respect and admiration, from peers as well as
superiors.
She
was masterful too, the words she wrote could make images jump off the pages
right into the heart of the readers. She had a loud laugh that covered up most
of her insecurities and her heart was bigger than her ego. She constantly
spell-checked everyone but the ones who loved her knew that she was not being
annoying, it was just the way she was.
And
they fell in love.
A
simple wedding under the watchful eyes of two sets of parents and a handful of
friends was the beginning of their happily-ever-after – neither of them had any
illusions about love being perfect but they had understood that as long as they
looked forward to snuggling at the end of the day and waking up next to each
other at every sunrise, there was nothing much else that they needed.
One
day, his mother came to stay with them. While daughter-in-law loved
mother-in-law to bits, she couldn’t bear to share her life’s love, her husband,
with anyone. And considering he cared about his mother more than everything
else, she had not a choice but to deal with the constant ache that
possessiveness brought with it.
The
rational part of her told her to shut up and deal with it, that she was his mother
and that she was just being a bitch. But that part which governed her
love for him raged and ranted every time he gobbled down something that his
mother had made for him with relish and she cried herself to sleep every time
he fell asleep on his mother’s lap. She had to be nice to her in front
of him to remain in his good books and she couldn’t complain to him
because one, she knew him enough to know that he would not understand this kind
of possessiveness and two, the mother really was a sweet, old lady who was
trying to accept that her son had fallen in love with a wildling.
The
wildling’s artistic tendencies and wild imagination which had been the best
part of her till now were the same things which magnified the possessiveness
manifold inside her head and heart. And slowly, her soul was chipping away into
nothingness and so was the love.
She
decided enough was enough.
She
chose to go the sneaky route and spiked the old lady’s chai every
morning. The chronic diabetic couldn’t really tell that all her Sweet ‘n Lows had
been replaced with powdered sugar and the packets resealed – she was just happy
that she and her bahu were spending some quality time together. The
lengths the wildling was willing to go to.
Eight
months later, the old lady succumbed to undetected kidney failure induced by
out-of-control blood sugar levels which nobody seemed to be capable of explaining
– what happened to the controlled diet, the planned exercises and the insulin
shots?
He
was distraught with grief and she was ecstatic with joy.
In
brief moments of sanity, the wildling wondered if she was going insane. But
then the euphoria of having gotten her own way set in and she climbed quietly
into her husband’s lap and nuzzled against his scruffy jaw which dripped
quietly with tears.
Until
he found the last of his mother’s Sweet ‘n Lows in a dusty cupboard somewhere
and painstakingly worked out what had happened.
He
hadn’t believed her capable of it until he saw the barely veiled guilt in her
eyes and the blind rage that set in was one that he, or for that matter she,
had never ever felt before.
“How
could you do this to her? All she wanted was to bond with you, find a daughter
in you! How could you even think it?!!
“She
was taking you away from me!”
But
her sentences were garbled as the pressure at her throat was causing the edges
of her vision to blur. The rage refused to relent. The pressure evened out only
after her body went limp. The face he had loved and sworn to protect was
lifeless all of a sudden and the horror that dawned within him was far more
destructive than the rage.
The
next morning, the newspapers carried a small article in one of the corners
somewhere in the middle page “IT husband strangles wife and hangs himself.
Suspected insanity.”
And
thus, the green-eyed monster claimed three more victims.
***
Most of the time we fail to realize how destructive jealousy and jealous rage can be and what dire consequences it can lead to in any relationship. Whatever else you do or don't do, never underestimate the power of jealousy.
P.S: Inspired by a true story.
P.P.S: Too much GoT obsession happening, forgive me.
*Hamartia - what a beautiful word. I have been hooked to the word since I finished The Fault in Our Stars. It means "fatal flaw", for the uninitiated.
