What did that giggly cow in Wal-Mart couture know about uses of iambic pentameter in expressing feelings of love and loss? In hindsight there was significant jealousy in pronouncing that verdict upon the over-endowed, but bland-looking new woman in Malhar's life. Here was a man who had shown impeccable taste in marrying who he had the first time around. She was smart, charming, stylish, sophisticated and had versatile interests. The fact that she was doing great professionally was only an interesting side note. Did I mention she was quite a looker? The man had everything going for him.
Post-ex, he may have done better than the Wal-Mart couture-cow he chose to be his lawfully wedded second wife. In his defense, Malhar would say as he often did to me "You are like Jolt cola. I want to be with a woman around whom I can relax and just be myself. I don't always need cerebral stimulation and I don't want to keep up with someone like you and worry about what might happen if you got bored."
With cow firmly tethered to the post, he threw little baits my way to see if I would bite. After a year he gave up and just settled into what I imagine must be perfectly bovine domesticity. I imagine a placid couple sitting on the couch, chewing cud and watching Hindi soaps on cable TV. While I can't see myself in that frame of reference, neither can I picture Malhar in it - he just wasn't the type. I felt a great sense of solidarity with his ex who, like me, lacked the bovinity Malhar sought in a wife.
The third time was not nearly as dramatic as R or Malhar. H was smart enough, but not nearly in the same league as R or even Malhar. He looked as train-wrecked as a man might look like if, after five years of marriage, the wife, on the pretext of going home for a vacation, just flies the coop. Other than that he was reasonably, if not somewhat dangerously normal; but then what I find normal would intimidate most people.
A couple of months into this "vacation" that was happening back in India, H tries to find out when she may be returning home, to which she responds "Never." Any other woman in my shoes would have panicked enough by this point to consider running as fast and as far away from H as she could. Not I. I soldiered along, knowing in my bones that I had landed myself a mega-project truly worthy of my greatness.
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