XXIII

"What are you doing to yourself??" Sunita stared open- mouthed towards Rakesh as he blurted out, "you used to be such a strong woman!!......what happened to you.....we are so happy together......and you are loosing over just one shortcoming in our lives?!" Rakesh paused for a moment. Sunita was still gasping at him.







Rakesh turned around, "I'm sorry i lost my cool.....I know you are going through a rough....very rough patch.....but it just.....it just feels like..." he paused, Sunita was still staring at him point blank, " it feels like I'm not doing enough.....we are together, happy, even after so much we went through....." he turned around and pulled Sunita into a hug, "I love you.....I hate seeing you this way". For 10 minutes both of them didn't say a word, they could just hear each other's heavy breathing

Sunita broke the silence, "I love you too Rakesh............thanks for being there f....""Shhhh...."Rakesh interrupted her,"no thanks and please" as he pulled her more tightly towards him. Sunita pushed him away, "hey, mumma must be waiting for us inside!! We forgot about her!" Rakesh sighed, "Yeah...I wish" Sunita nudged him in his stomach, by her elbow, "Hey!!" as they laughed and went inside.

"Oh ..there you are....I was getting worried" Mrs Devi said with a sigh of relief." Its okay mumma, we are good now...lets eat....I like this choupsey.....we should come her often!" All three of them laughed and finished their meal.

V

"Mrs Sharma, please, no please, I respect your emotions, but please no I'm done giving you time" Kumar said, "I stuck to my promise, but this is it, please, now I have a buyer, 11 months is long enough time, almost a year I can say.""But Mr. Kumar, you are well aware of our financial situation, please, my husband will be heartbroken" Sunita pleaded, but eventually had to return empty handed.

"Rakesh, its ok, please, we took a wrong decision, its over now, lets move ahead" Sunita tried to console Rakesh, after they lost their dream home, as they weren't able to arrange the money. But Rakesh wasn't overreacting, not having found a job since almost a year, his wife forced to work for running household chores, things were already in such a bad shape, and now the house owner decided to sell their dream house.

After many requests, Rakesh almost got into a fight with him, but Sunita intervened, and they got some part of their advance back. But Rakesh was already too depressed to now digest this defeat too. He felt as if he had failed his wife, his family. What feeling could be worse than that!

Since his company shut down, Rakesh was in desperate search of another job, but any job he was getting was of a smaller profile than his experience or of lesser pay scale than his then current job. He was well aware of their current financial needs, so he refused such offers, but by then his company got shut down, and he was left without one. A few months passed, and he and Sunita decided something was better than nothing, so Rakesh approached the companies, in which he had earlier refused the opportunities. But ofcourse, it was too late by then.

Sunita decided to take up some job, to help meet daily expenses. She knew Rakesh would never agree to it. So she secretly took up teaching in a nearby school. She was surprised that there were no schools in their neighborhood. But she realized there were no kids, so why would someone bother to open a school. She got to thinking where would her kids start their primary education, as she would prefer some school at walking distance from her home.

Sunita was earning sufficient to carry out their monthly expenses, but was feeling a little guilty having to work behind Rakesh's back. The lie didn't last long, one day Rakesh returned home early and Sunita had to confess about her job. They had a very big fight that day, first of the kind in their married life. Sunita knew she had hurt her husband's male ego, but was helpless. Rakesh also realised later that Sunita was only doing her bit to help him, so he let her continue. If she didn't do anything he knew it would pinch her all the time.

Both Sunita and Rakesh worked hard, but they couldn't gather money to pay for their dream house. The owner promised them he would wait for sometime more, but then he found an interested buyer, so he decided to sell it off.