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Suchismita Sahu

Drama

5.0  

Suchismita Sahu

Drama

Empty Pride

Empty Pride

5 mins
583


Today was the fourth day since they had stopped talking to each other over a silly argument. Every moment when Suhas was at home, Priya waited patiently for his loving call - “Priya…. My darling!” but it never happened.

She decided that she would be quiet till he come and apologize to her. In the past, it was always Suhas who had come forward to compromise and bridge the gap between them caused by any petty misunderstandings, and more over Priya could not remember even a single instance where such an event lasted for more than a few hours. Priya sighed heavily.

Priya recalled “Next Friday is a holiday for me. We can go to my friend’s house for his kid’s first birthday party,” Suhas had said while handing the invitation card to her, as she was preparing the special breakfast for the holiday, the unpleasant event passed and re-passed in her mind like an uninvited guest, and found that tears came to her eyes.

Why so much of pride…so much of silence….!

Few days back, while having morning tea in their balcony and reading newspaper Priya pronounciated a word wrongly… By hearing that Suhas went into peals of laughter and said, “If you cannot use a word properly, please don’t refer to them, okay?”

Priya felt humiliated over his comment. She was a girl who can easily accept to such arguments. She went on arguing for about half-an-hour insisting that she was correct in pronunciating the word. At the end, to settle the unnecessary argument, lighting a cigarette Suhas said, “Don’t waste your energy by boasting too much with the little knowledge of literature you have.”

Putting on a long face, Priya rose to her feet and went inside. After a while, Suhas asked her to accompany him for a stroll intending to make her feel happy again, but she refused to join him.

She will never accept her humiliation and keeping this in mind, the next morning she decided to teach him a lesson. She woke up as usual and went to the kitchen. After five minutes she came back to the room with a steaming cup of coffee. Suhas found the cold coffee on the table. He wondered why hadn't Priya awaken him? He made some noise in the room to attract Priya’s attention, but she didn’t come out of the kitchen pretending to be busy. Angrily, he sipped his coffee and proceeded with his morning chores without waiting any longer for his wife. Without uttering a word Priya was watching him from the kitchen, through the half-opened thick curtain.

Each moment she waited to hear from him - “Priya, why are you not sitting with me for breakfast?” but he asked nothing. Five minutes later, he hurried for work taking his brief case, without turning to see his Priya and give the usual “bye” and “present” on her lovely cheeks, for the first time, in their short married life. When he went, she closed the door and took a deep breath, and later she found her suppressed feelings had made a channel on her cheeks.

In the evening, to his great disappointment, as he entered the house he was welcomed by the long face of his wife. After seeing him, without telling him anything, she walked towards the kitchen. That suddenly reminded her about the memories of the bitter events of the previous evening and her consequent negligence towards him. He threw away his brief case and quietly drank the coffee kept on the table with a sullen face.

In the deadly silent moments that followed, Suhas felt that it was literally impossible to sit silently at home for a long time. He tried to put his undivided attention towards the half-read columns of the newspaper…, but he could not concentrate on anything in that suffocating atmosphere. Suddenly an idea struck him. He changed his dress and hoped she would ask him where he was going at that unusual hour and even kept the answer ready in his mind. As he heard no question from her, Suhas went out ignoring her wondering look. He went to Dileep’s house, one of his old colleague, whom he had not visited since a long time. After spending a fun filled evening with Dileep and his wife, when he returned home by nine past, he found the covered cold food on the table. How could Priya be so cruel, he thought. Priya was sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. Without gazing from the book, she observed his movements. Without exchanging a word to each other, he went off into the bed room, hoping to hear something from his dear wife, in the form of questions or any complaint. After a while Priya heard him going to the bathroom, and the sound of splashing water.

Both of them were in their own world of loneliness blaming each other in mind. While lying on the bed, a sudden wave of terror hit her. "How long we’re going to continue like this? Is he slowly moving away from me?" Even while she was silent, there was always a flush of feeling inside her that said, “Why don’t you go and speak to him first, this time?”

Tears of repentance rolled down Priya’s cheeks and she breathed heavily so loudly that he could hear, but he did not respond. He succeeded in suppressing the anger and despair that welled up in his mind and slept off.

The next day dawned and both of them wished sincerely a change in each other’s attitude. Because of their false pride the day had to pass mechanically again.


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