We're only human.

I am suffering from writer's block. So publishing an old draft. I do not believe in such long posts, but since it is there, you might as well read it. :) 

She was full of life, boisterous, well above average to look at and lived in Bombay. She loved dancing, laughed like she is on dope and danced at the slightest chance she could get. She finished college and started working. She had tonnes of friends and a loving family. 

And then there was a boy. Her brother's friend. A small town boy, blessed with a very very sharp mind, extremely ambitious and had graduated from the country's elitest educational institute. She met the boy often since he had rented out the apartment that her family owned. And he was her brother's best friend. And he fell for all the things in para 1. He begged of her to marry him, she was 2 yrs older than him. She did not feel romantically attracted to him, but she dint feel that way for anyone at that point in time. So she chose the known devil instead of the one an arranged marriage would get her.

And they tied the knot. They, just ike most newly weded couples, seemed like the happiest people in the world. They shifted base to Dubai - the land of Gold - black and yellow. They minted money but missed family. And so decided it was time for him to pursue higher eductation. Not to forget the girl was doing better than the boy at work and had managed saving a lot more. 

They came back to India and he joined the country's elitest Management Institute in an uptown place in South India. She was pregnant with their first son. She lived in an apartment close to his sister's place. And he lived on campus. She was funding his higher education. 

He made new friends who took precedence over everyone and everything in his life.  There was also a girl in the new friend circle. Life's like that - a wife finds her husband's dearest chic friend as not the best thing in the world. But this girl knew she was not so petty and that she will not hate this new girl. Friends are just friends after all and she knew she had the supreme position in his life. 

But the friendship became more than just that - ot so it seemed from the many emails that Mrs. Wife bumped into. She fell sick - asthma attacks leading to steroid shots, a baby to take care of and a rocking marriage. This took 5 years of her life - straight. Sleeplessness, sickness and the baby. 

Husband and wife moved back to Bombay and so did the new girl. She even landed up a job for herself in the same organization as the boy's to add to the wife's misery.

And when she finally decided that she'd better be getting herself a new job - to keep her mind away from what's been happening and in the worst case scenario - if they were to split, she would have the means to raise her child single handedly. 

But she had sent her husband for an MBA, she was just a post-graduate and had touched number 30 as her age. Jobs weren't easy to come in Bombay. So she compromised. She started letting go of things. She shut her eyes to the obvious. She was done with arguing with her husband about what the long phone calls, emails and gifts meant. She was done with listening to the same answer - "It's nothing! She is just a friend for God's sake!" 

And the friend is now reluctantly getting married. With wife at the hosptial out of yet another ailment, the husband still decides to travel 500 miles to her wedding. Priorities. 

The wife knew her husband loved her and not the friend. But it was difficult to see it. His actions were not indicating it. May be she was thinking wishfully. She was risking it all again - she was pregnant with her second baby. And she knew with 2 children and no job, there was no looking back for her in life. She had to make peace with herself. And with her husband's friend. She knew she was jealous and reading too much between the lines. But she couldn't help it. She was but human. 

* This is a true story. The friend' marriage, they say, has not consummated. The wife is busy putting a smiling facade and taking care of 2 lovely boys. The husband, now a father, beams with pride each time he sees his sons and seems to thank his wife each time he looks at her - for being such a stoic through 8 years.