The rising sun through the window was strong enough to wake Ravi up from his slumber. He had seen the sun, much more timid, setting through the same window the previous evening. He stood up, yawned, sipped in some water from the bedside jug and rocked his wife Swati’s arms to wake her up. The orange sunlight on her face, interfered with the shadows of the railings of the window, made her appear more beautiful than ever. Pushing a knee to the bed, he bent over to land a kiss on her lips. While he was mid-way, his wife woke up to the movement in the bed sheet and saw, surprisingly, Ravi approaching close to her. She took him close, kissed him on the forehead, rubbed his hair and left for the kitchen to join Ravi's mother, Gauri. Ravi felt loved. They had sex just the last night, and the night before, and almost every night their doctor asked them to, but he never felt love the way he felt it with that kiss. He blushed and went on to attend his nature calls and prepare for the day.
He stepped out of his room, wearing pressed clothes, with an overdose of perfume, as usual. He looked for his mom to get the first quality check of his appearance. He found her sitting in front of the TV, relaxed and slouching. “What wrong influence is making you watch music channels instead of bhakti channels, ma?” he asked, his eyes mischievously looking for his wife, whom he couldn’t find. “Anyways, how do I look?” he asked, like a child. Gauri’s eyes gleamed looking at him, maybe because of the light of the Television. She awed love, tickled him and gave a peck on his cheek giving approval of his looks.
Ravi was amazed at that gesture for he has not received more than one syllable of approval from his mother over the last several years. He also wondered about the familiarity of that kiss. “Is it because she last kissed, or hugged me only when I was a child?” he thought.
“How do I look, sweetheart?” asked Gauri, bringing Ravi back from his thoughts. “What does my mother need from me that is she is overly sweet today?”, he continued to think. “Well, I see you women exchanged clothes! You look great, ma!”, said Ravi, still pondering the reason behind his mother’s overt affection. Gauri threw a plain laugh and continued watching the music channel, in her non-peculiar slouch.
"Strange" he muttered and went on to get his second quality check from his wife, who is still working in the kitchen.
The morning image of his wife, glowing under the rays of the rising sun, is still in his memory. He remembered of the kiss on the lips that he wanted to give in the morning and missed. He waited for a private moment, which he found when his Gauri stepped out to dispose of the dustbin, and pounced upon his wife from behind, like a leopard, to tease out a kiss, much more loving than what he received on his forehead the morning.
A tight slap thundered on his cheeks. "What perverse behaviour is this?" his startled wife cried, gathering her saree together. "Pervert?", that's a strong word to use, he thought. And the slap was not a romantic one either. The chapati flour stuck to his cheeks looked like the stripes of a leopard.
"Don't you act very Pricey, sweety!", he said extending his arms towards Swati's neck in order to draw her close and kiss her. She dunked and ran to the living room, "What has got into you Ravi? Such shameful behaviour. Your wife will be devastated to know that...." and Gauri had just entered, with the half-emptied dustbin, hearing loud cries. "What happened, ma?" she inquired.
Ravi walked in casually to the living room. "Ma! Nothing. She's gone mad. You don't fret about her." said Ravi, dismissing her inquiry. "Ravi, she's your mother. Choose your words carefully.", ordered Gauri. “Mother?, does she mean Wife?”, Ravi bewildered. The tone of that order was also familiar but unlike his Mother’s. "Swati come to the room now, don't make a scene here," said Ravi, pulling Swati by her hand, while she is resisting him so hard that her saree dropped, her bangles broke and blood spilt all over. Ravi had to stop as the blood wetted his hands. Swati ran towards Gauri, crying, "You pervert! Beti! Please help. He has been misbehaving with me all the while. I don’t know what happened to him”, and took refuge behind her.
Ravi lost his cool. “Is this some kind of a prank? You women exchanged clothes, not souls. Now stop this drama and get going. Swati, I still have to talk to you. The doctor said that morning sex would be good for pregnancy”, he said beckoning her to go to their bedroom.
Gauri was truly devastated. “Ravi, what is this atrocious behaviour?”, she cried, “for the sake of your heir, won’t you mind incest as well?”. While Swati murmured, “is it his father that got into him? Should we call for a priest, Beti?”
Ravi had it all and rushed with thumping footsteps to end this drama. He pushed his mother away and reached Swati to return the slap that she gave. But the women overpowered him, especially his mother. She slammed the dustbin at the back of his head, the dust flying all around. Before Ravi gathered his senses from the blow and the disgust of the dust, the women tied him up with their sarees, with double knots, and threw him back in the bedroom, all the while Ravi was shouting, making incomprehensible noises.
Alone in his room, till evening, he continuously eavesdropped on the conversation between the two women. “The prank is not done yet?”, he thought. Swati wailed, “what sin did I commit that such a tragedy is borne by my family?”. Gauri remained silent, probably strategizing her life or contemplating a divorce. Every time Ravi shouted in despair, he received Swati’s wails at increasing pitch and only silence from Gauri.
Days have passed. The women brought in a lot of priests and tantrics but Ravi continue to protest. He was force-fed a lot of herbs, and medicines and was even given shock treatment. None of them cleared his confusion.
Tired and hopeless, he turned to look through the window. He had almost forgotten how he enjoyed Sunsets. Sunsets always gave him some solace. Every day after work, he would sit near the window, with his beloved wife in his lap, waiting to catch a glimpse of the sunset. The evening before all his trauma, he was in that very room, with his wife, enjoying the sunset. He wanted to get one more glimpse of it, hoping it would give him a little more strength. He saw the light through the window dimming but there is no sight of a sunset. “Even the sun is behaving weirdly,” he thought. And then he remembered, he saw a sunrise in his west-facing bedroom on the morning this issue began.
He recollected all the events to date. “The Sun’s direction has changed, his filial relations have changed, and people are considering him possessed, mad and whatnot. But what is true?”, he is lost in thoughts. “Should I accept this as truth? NO! This is too scandalous to accept it. Never!”, he told to himself.
His room darkened. He crawled towards the window to see if there is still hope, a sunset. But the night lights of the city rose, leaving him hopeless. He took a long breath, wetted his lips and jumped from the window. “All of this is a dream hopefully. I will wake up tomorrow, with my wife, Swati, beside me on the bed, and give her the kiss I wanted to”, he thought while his head crushed over the ground, breaking his skull and oozing out blood.
