Life, Lilies and Surf

Chapter 10

"It is not lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages"

                                                                                               Fredrich Nietzche

"Infidelity does not come from lack of love, it comes from lack of respect"

                                                                                                              Anonymous

"Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies"

                                                                                                   Dorothy  Allison

"Infidelity is the opium of unfaithfulness"       Toba Beta

Time and tide waits for no man.  Woman's  equality should not take this amiss and say why man, it should say 'humans' or ' man and woman' or better still ' woman'.  One gets older whether one  wants it or not.  As one gets older, traits and behaviour, desires and expectations, and even character get changed.  You may attribute the changes to environment, life's blows, buffets and pleasures or to native in born tendencies surfacing.  If  all these fail to explain, then the theory of 'vasanas', that is, the unfulfilled desires and traits of previous births come in handy.  But the fact remains that there is no way to explain with a cause and effect formula for some of the changes or set pattern of behaviour of human beings that have no logical relation with their existing state of wealth, security and standing in society and family.  In the case of animal kingdom, the set pattern of behaviour of a species or breed does not have great variations.   Only rarely  some remarkable aberrations may be noticed.  Mutation does not take place within the life span of a creature in the flora and fauna.  But in the case of a human being it is not so.  That is why you see a saintly person suddenly turning as a consummate knave.  Heads of religious institutions after years of self-discipline,  somehow,  on a very not fine day, start transgressing  even the basic laws of human behviour and conduct, no doubt surreptitiously, most of the time.  Robbers and criminals turn a new leaf and become completely changed persons.  There is no dearth of examples for these things.  In the case of Bhaskar, if any change took place, it is not a novelty.  

The life in the office became more demanding for Latha, as she was given more and more important work since she was able to handle difficult assignments.  Her time in the house became shorter as a result of this.  She was in the era when women were mostly minding the house and running the household, bringing up children and looking after them, the husband and his kith and kin. Their whole time was spent in these activities.   Very few women were employed and among them only a very small number were in high posts like Latha.  Men were expected to earn money and be unquestioned providers for the family requirements and  acquisitions and fulfill  the family expectations financially, emotionally and physically.  This ingrained attitude of men of that era made them know very little about what was happening in the house and how the  wife was handling things day to day.  In a way it suited the women for it made them the sole and final authority in all affairs of management of the house, children, relatives, in-laws and out-laws and no doubt the husband.  Many a woman of those times, who appeared demure and shy, timid and obedient actually were bold, modern and  achievers of their goals and desires in a quite way.  Very subtly and not perceptibly they  influenced their husbands and seniors in the home and shaped the behaviour and character of their children.  Modern management experts can say that the women thereby  made a person desire what they wanted him or her to do and got it done successfully by making the person think that it was his or her idea to brag about as an achievement.  But the driving force would be the wife or mother, who had the last laugh at the soliloquy of success story as the seed and watering of it was only she.