She Came to Stay: A short story

Editor’s note: The Way Home, an anthology of short stories by Shanta Gokhale, is an examination of the ordinary. She writes on the everyday lives of everyday men and women, the comedies and tragedies that exist, with a gentle grace and empathy. Gokhale has had a prolific career as an author (in both English and Marathi), theatre critic, journalist, screenwriter, and translator. Here, she explores themes of grief, minutiae, love, and more. 

The excerpt below, from the story ‘She Came to Stay’, is about a woman who, upon being betrayed by her husband, seeks to find within her a purpose and a sense of identity. This extract from The Way Home by Shanta Gokhale has been published with permission from Speaking Tiger Books. 

*****

Her name is Savitri, and she is not a pativrata. In fact, her aesthetics reject the form in which pativratas are portrayed—bent head, cow eyes, hands folded. Chhat! Why? An erect woman with squared shoulders can love, can’t she? But who wants love when devotion is on offer?

Etc etc.

Those are the kind of thoughts Savitri amuses herself with as she throws elegant pots and mugs and vases in her studio. Right now, as she marches down Nepean Sea Road, her thoughts are anything but amusing. She has left behind, in the shadowy interiors of Sizzling Platter, her husband feeding a woman in red, a delicate spoonful of tiramisu. That was the last straw for her already frazzled nerves. She crumpled her napkin, flung it down beside her half-eaten lava cake, pushed her chair back, stood up and said loud and clear, ‘You’re welcome to feed each other for the rest of your lives. I’m quitting.’

The other diners allowed themselves a barely raised eyebrow before returning to their artichoke hearts. Savitri’s husband too, pretending nothing had happened, continued to coax the woman in red to try a nibble of tiramisu from his spoon. But the woman was in shock. She stared fixedly at the table cloth, muttering, ‘This is very awkward. You said she’d be cool with us.’

‘As she should have been,’ Savitri’s husband said shaking his head. ‘Don’t know what got into her. Probably menopausing.’

‘At her age? Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘She started her periods at ten. Maybe twenty-five years is enough?’

‘You’re impossible. I had said no PDA.’

‘Feeding you tiramisu is PDA? Why are you so scared? Your husband’s in his study in Delhi writing a book.’

‘I think we are through. Please call for the bill.’

She insisted on paying. He did not demur. They left. She slipped into her car; he decided to visit his brother.

But Savitri’s husband and the woman in red are not our protagonists. Savitri is. She is, even now, striding down Nepean Sea Road looking straight ahead and feeling a little abashed at her behaviour. It is a long walk home and she needs it to clear her head. If the walk doesn’t help, she means to drop in on Ram. He plays the flute and has a profoundly calming influence on her.

It is late. Shop shutters are coming down. Vegetable and fruit stalls are being covered with blue tarpaulin sheets secured firmly with coir rope. Savitri lives on the twentieth floor and Ram on the fifteenth of a high-rise at the end of the road. I am not one to miss out on concrete detail, like names of buildings; but I cannot for the life of me remember what this one is called. Perhaps because the name is ridiculously grandiloquent and sadly in keeping with the mish-mash architecture of the building itself.

We will leave Savitri walking the last few hundred metres to her destination, while I do a quick sketch of her. She is petite, wears her hair in a bouncy bob, is a potter who holds an annual sold-out show at a boutique gallery in an old mill compound in Parel, now upgraded to chic gentility. She is childless by choice, bohemian in lifestyle and tends to let her mind wander in the middle of conversations. We have already met Savitri’s husband whose name, by the way, is Narendra.

Ram, Savitri’s anchor, is a Tata man, proud to be so. He has an eighteen-year-old daughter, a stable body and an equable temperament. Ram’s wife lives somewhere in the 15th Arondissement, Paris, having run off with a Frenchman five years into their marriage, leaving Ram literally holding the baby whom they had fondly named Anisha, constant light.

Savitri enters her high-rise and takes the elevator to the twentieth floor. Her mental state is still far from stable. She packs a bag, descends to the fifteenth floor and stands outside Ram’s door. She hears Ram playing a meditative Megh alap on his flute, in consonance with the clouds that have gathered to cover the face of the moon. Thundershowers have been predicted. The weekend will be flooded. She wonders if she should ring the doorbell. She does not want to stop the music. She rings.

*****

The Way Home by Shanta Gokhale has been excerpted with permission from Speaking Tiger Books.