The Secret wish List Read Online Free PDF Page A

school. He went to a gurukul and learnt archery and fun things like that. Not boring lessons like we have. Also he did not take a school bus. He rode a horse.’
    I stare in surprise at the little speech Abhay has given. He is now tucking into his breakfast solemnly. I wonder when he learnt words like ‘exclusively’. I realise Abhay is no longer the little baby he used to be. He has started reading voraciously on his own without, other than enrolling him at the local library, much effort on my part. He is one of those naturally bright children that need very little effort to learn new things.
    My heart fills with maternal pride as I watch him finishing his breakfast after which I hurry with him to his bus stop. Then I rush back and Sandeep is now reading the morning newspaper.
    I know this is the moment when he will ask for his tea. He always likes to be woken up with coffee in bed and then a couple of hours later, he wants a cup of tea, while he reads the newspaper.
    ‘Diksha, can you please make a cup of tea?’ he asks predictably. I can almost time it to perfection, that exact moment when he will ask.
    Of late, his requests for tea too have begun to irk me. Vibha is right. They do treat me like a maid. I never get to read the newspaper in the morning. All these years, it is he who reads it first. In the early years, the pattern had been established. As he had to leave for work, it seemed only logical. I was anyway at home the whole day. I could read it later.
    But after Vibha’s visit, I have begun to notice these things a lot more. In the larger scheme of things, perhaps a tiny thing like who reads the newspaper first will have no significance, but when the weariness of a fifteen-year-old marriage is beginning to run you down, it is these little things that prick the most. The tiny little things are not big enough to break marriages and yet they are cracks that have been neglected. They stand out now like cacti on a barren desert-scape that is my marriage. Funny how Vibha’s little comment has acted as a catalyst to aggravate things to the point of them becoming unbearable.
    ‘Making it,’ I say as I hurry to the kitchen.
    Vibha is right. I am conditioned to wait on Sandeep and Abhay and serve them day and night. I hate my life as I dully hand over the cup of tea to Sandeep who takes it without even an acknowledgment and goes back to reading his newspaper.
    It is always little things like this that build up. Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years. You don’t even notice it creeping up. It happens, trickle by trickle. You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a ‘taken-for-granted’ attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often too late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone has been established. A zone that is hard to get out of.
    I know now that there is only one word which sums up my marriage perfectly: Boring.
    I watch Sandeep blissfully oblivious to the thoughts racing inside my head. I cannot bring myself to talk to him about this. He is not a new-age metrosexual male that one reads about in magazines or sees in movies, the type in front of whom the wife can pull up a chair, tuck back her designer hair-do, prop her perfectly manicured legs up and say, ‘Darling, we need to talk.’
    Oh no. Ours is a conventional Indian marriage. And good Indian wives don’t do things like that.
    Which century are you struck in, Diksha? Go on and tell him you need to talk.
    But when I look at him again, my courage fails me. He would probably stare at me uncomprehendingly like I have gone mad.
    Finally, I just do what I always do.
    Get his breakfast ready and wait for him to leave for work.
    Once he leaves, the whole day stretches bleakly in front of me. I stand and stare at the messy breakfast remains on the dining table. He has not even bothered to put away his plate. It is nothing new. On normal