Ghachar Ghochar

by Vivek Shanbhag

Words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.

the last strands of a relationship can break from a single glance or a moment of silence.

The woman had not abused us. She had not come here to pick a fight. We were thrown off balance by her love for one of us, and so we tore into her with such vengeance that she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

On that day I became convinced that it is the words of women that deeply wound other women.

As long as the house ran on Appa’s income his finances were known to us all. If we wanted new clothes, we knew exactly how much he could spare and what cuts would have to be made elsewhere. The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn’t afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent either.

We saw them as demons come to swallow our home and became a family that took satisfaction in the destruction of ants. We might have changed houses since, but habits are harder to change.

In retrospect, many of the new objects had no place in our daily lives. Our relationship with the things we accumulated around us became casual; we began treating them carelessly.

It’s true what they say – it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.

Maybe she had got used to having whatever she wanted and this diminished her capacity for the inevitable compromises that accompany marriage.

Now, what can I say of myself that is only about me and not tied up with the others?

the sword of insult seldom cuts on the surface. No, it lacerates from within and leaves wounds that reopen with remembrance.

Perhaps it is this instant that forms the basis of traditional marriage – a complete stranger is suddenly mine. And then, I am hers too; I must offer her my all.

The rush of these feelings all together is too much to describe. Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented.

The well-being of any household rests on selective acts of blindness and deafness.