Trophy wife

There were once two girls studying at a higher educational institute. Both were of the same social status, same age and had similar tastes. They even looked so much alike that many mistook them for sisters. Let us name them R and K.

Their likeness made them the best of friends. They graduated and sought jobs. Both girls took jobs in the communication field. They met new people and enjoyed their work tremendously. However they always kept in touch with each other. Be it an SMS or a passing phone call, they knew that this friendship was meant for a lifetime.

Gradually there came the time when their thoughts turned to marriage. Parents of both parties began to hunt for suitors. The features they looked for in the prospective husbands for their daughters were similar. A ‘good’ man of the same religion with wealth and educational qualifications to suit their caste and class.

Then the unthinkable happened. While on the job R met Y. She cannot quite explain it but she knew that he was special. Within a few months he expressed his love for her and she was in seventh heaven. The fact that he did not quite possess some of the aspects that her parents were seeking such as wealth and of the same religion did not matter to her. Instead she had someone who understands her dreams, had a wider scope of life through hardships and matched her in wit and personality.

Meanwhile K’s parents located a partner for her. P looked well groomed, made bucks on his profession and seemed pleasing. K gave her consent to him especially because her parents approved the match. It was a marriage of convenience rather than that of love.

Both girls were married within a few months. R and her husband moved to a small cottage near P’s mansion. Within a year R was expecting a child but this time her friend did not follow up. K was still young and P thought they have more years ahead till the time came for them to start thinking about a child.

P was into private practice and his days were spent at the office and on the road. He returned home after an exhausted day’s work but still had to attend to his clients. K could not remember a moment when the phone was not ringing off the hook, especially when her husband was at home. Sometimes they hardly got time to exchange more than a few words for he was constantly summoned by an agitated client.

Two years elapsed. R had bonny twin boys and was into the first months of her second pregnancy. They were hoping that it was a girl this time.

K’s days were more routine. She would spend part of the morning hours in her room, then read a magazine or two in the living room, give the cook the menu for the day and then take a book and read it in the veranda upstairs. If a party was around the corner the driver would take her to a shopping complex to buy gifts, a cocktail dress, a saree or a ball gown. Their next stop was the salon. The place was recommended to her by her husband since most of his friends’ wives infested it.

He only expected one thing of her: to look glamorous. She was a mere showpiece, looking pretty as a picture, the perfect hostess to the bashes they held at his place and much admired among his friends for her well spoken English and manners. But nobody cared to listen to the real K: what she desired in life and how lonely she felt.

She was like a beautiful bird trapped in a golden cage. She had all the luxuries in the world but no one to listen or talk to her. She yearned for the simple life she lived. Her fondest memories were of simple pleasures like running beside the paddy with her childhood friends, having a hearty chat with R under the shady trees while they waited for the bus or walking on the beach at sunset.

The glitz and glamour of her husband’s high class life had changed her. She was like a sparrow trapped in structure of a robot, mechanically sipping the champagne she did not enjoy or fitting into clothes she couldn’t wait to discard.

The only time she felt like herself was when she visited R. That was her ‘survival instinct’ – the moment when she could be herself. For in R’s happiness she saw a part of herself - her stolen simplicity and things she holds dear to her heart.

Shehara - [email protected]