Not just good friends

He is a confidante, good friend, philosopher and guide; and he is not your spouse

He gets to hear the most intimate of your secrets — how you wish your mom-in-law must go and stay with your bro-in-law, how your husband refuses to grow up and depends on you even for the smallest chore, how that sticky and flirtatious colleague makes your skin burn and how you sometimes wish you never had a kid.

More often than not you steal an hour after work just to talk to him and it has become a habit to call him two minutes after your boss has screamed on you.

Sorry he is not your husband or boyfriend. You call him a ‘very good friend’ and you will never miss his call on your mobile even when your husband’s waiting on the other line.

“I would lie if I say that we are just good friends. I would also lie if I tell you that I am head over heels in love with him. He somewhere there and the very feeling that he is there gets me going. No we have never been to bed,” a 29-year would perhaps say about her ‘boyfriend’.

Don't make a mistake, she is ‘happily’ married with a kid for the last eight years and insists that her husband is very much aware of “this guy” that she is “absolutely not dating”.

“May be it’s love. May be it’s not. May be he is a punching bag for me. But I can bunk a dinner date with my husband to spend an hour with him after a stressful day at work,” she mutters under her breadth.

Accept it or not, it’s a threesome relationship. And it’s very much in the mind and heart. Somewhere down the line, this third person is ‘the sensitive one’ that you always wanted to have in your life.

“I generally not think about her so much. Because she is always there. Always there to pick up my calls even if she’s in the middle of a meeting. I have taken her for granted and she doesn’t have a problem with that. I saw the difference it made to my life when she had gone out of station for a month as she was shooting a documentary. I was like…uff when are you coming back yaar!” says a 29-year old 'male'in a hushed tone.

Of course, the guy has a two-year old child and a ‘lovely’ wife who tends to “get on his nerves” at times.

This is how the third factor three works for you. Silenty but surely.

Factor three helps to turn your wince into a wink. And factor three helps you blush in the middle of Bandstand when he says, all of a sudden, that you are looking good in a sari.

Just curious?

A low double bed with a crumpled bed-sheet with the mattress peeking out from one corner. Four pillows strewn all over. A pack of condoms, undergarments, two tees are lying in the nook across.

Enter, Mrs Ramamoorthy, the snoopy neighbour who’s on the wrong side of forty.

Now Mrs Ramamoorthy makes it a point to trespass into the apartment house at least one day in a week. The official reason to barge into the flat is the ‘sudden’ need of a cup of milk for tea.

The real reason? Some gossip to spice up her boring afternoon congregation of housewives at the children’s park.

Now this is what Ramamoorthy told her ‘friends’ at the park.

Day 1:

“You know na? These days kids make a show of everything. You tell me, what’s the use of living together when you can very well get married? I was telling my husband the other day that we didn’t make a show that we are having it when we get married (she doesn’t have it now, of course)…. Uff! Everything that these kids can think about is nothing but sex. And sex (she makes her eyes roll). My god! I am sure that they are into tying up and all. Know what, (she gently pats her saheli) They are doing it all the time! God you know what! I can even hear her moaning at the dead of the night…(a one-minute snack break)…. The other day, I even saw him caressing her in the living room. I tried to attract their attention by tapping my feet and clearing my throat, but who listens to me? My god! That you are living together doesn’t mean that you will have to make a show of it all the time”.

The conversation goes on punctuated with some heavy sighs and the regulation interjection of ‘Hai Ishwara!’ with an unmistakable tinge of frustration.

Day 365:

The same couple have got married. And Mrs Ramamoorthy was a special invitee to the marriage. She gave the bride a ‘costly’ saree of Rs 1200 and parked herself with her kids at the couple’s apartment for the three days. Post the wedding, Mrs Ramamoorthy hasn’t forgotten her sly morning trips for milk.

The scene is the same at seven in the morning. Crumpled bedsheet and pillows strewn everywhere the bedroom. But this was what Mrs Ramamoorthy had to tell her friends the following afternoon.

“I tell my kids that I will never let you marry when you are in your thirties…Look at the way they keep the house. The pillows are scattered everywhere, don’t they guys have the time to even make the bed properly? I can understand that they both have to reach office early in the morning but this is also no way to run a house. The girl has not learnt anything from her mother, I say. They are perfect example how a marriage shouldn’t be. I plan to sit with the girl and train her how to make a bed.”

You can’t miss the obvious sarcasm in her tone and of course, her voice speaks of loads of confidence.

After all, Mrs Ramamoorthy is a better housewife.