The Hitch Ditch

By Shubhangi Singh

A marriage suspended by distance and rediscovered through laughter.

The sinking sun lingered behind another indifferent skyscraper in Mumbai’s skyline, teasing her to carve out his face in the glowing tangerine orb as she lay bundled up in the bay window of her fourteenth-floor apartment. Mrs. tried to push back the fear creeping up her food pipe and threatening to cloud her entire mind. Memories—from the little time she had spent with her husband—had started fading.

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Mrs. had not expected to miss Mister so much. The obligatory video calls every weekend somehow cemented his absence.

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After Mrs. returned from Goa, the Ghost of Husband Past appeared everywhere. The red in her favourite red velvet cake reminded her of his skewed red bow tie at their wedding reception. Whenever the neighbour’s child laughed, a hazy image of Mister’s lopsided squirrel smile would swim in and out of her mind. Mrs. had not planned to stay apart from her newly wedded husband for so long. The global pandemic had not only taken the world by surprise; it had reduced her year-long marriage to a wedding extravaganza followed by a series of confounding question marks.

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Oink. Oink.

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A notification from her cellphone startled Mrs. She swiped the screen, and the words stared back at her.

"Hi, they've resumed flights. A client insists on meeting me. I'll reach Mumbai next Thursday."

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Once upon a time, a young woman landed at Dabolim Airport in Goa. Accompanying her were seven Skybags loaded onto a trolley pushed by her Mister. Mrs. was not a Goa virgin. She had visited often, both for work and for leisure. The air felt different this time, from the moment she stepped off the plane.

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Mrs. wore two arms full of choodas with her designer dress. No friends were waiting outside the arrivals gate with crates of beer and sadistic grins. Mrs. whispered into the void, “Welcome to the Hitch Ditch.”

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Mister had conveyed his Hon’ble Mummyji’s message with a remarkable scarcity of expression. His eyes were as blank as a spookfish’s, and his lips nearly disappeared into his mouth as the words emerged in a low but steady pitch.

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“My family is very open-minded, yaar. You can wear a decent dress. No need for Indian formals. We are not cavemen after all. Just be a good sport and keep the choodas and sindoor. Mummyji doesn’t ask for much.”

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“Patriarchy skips a generation, like twins,” Mrs. had smirked, but relented. She was a good sport. Men liked women who were good sports.

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The airport had more than a dozen pairs of hennaed hands adorned with choodas. Mrs. was glad to find solace in the fact that one always had company in this crazy world of serial fusterclucks. Her ring finger proudly displayed its diamond ring, a battle she had won after sticking to her guns. Both Vogue and Grihshobha had taught her that an Indian marriage was as much about diamonds as it was about home-cooked food. Most enlightened Generation Alpha inhabitants of metropolitan India might roll their eyes at such a notion.

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"Definitely those small-town lesser mortals, not us. Duh."

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It happened the same way most urban Indian weddings happen.

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Miss and Mister were in their late twenties. Both were postgraduates with comfortable jobs, in Dubai and Mumbai respectively. Enough relationships had drifted through their relatively short lives for them to become disillusioned with the idea of true love.

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They met on Tinder and later aligned their profiles on Jeevansathi. The parents matched their horoscopes to perfection, with a few pious donations smoothing over any celestial discrepancies. Thereafter, a date was fixed for the love-cum-arranged marriage.

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A lavish wedding followed, the bill footed by the bride’s father.

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Three days into their honeymoon in Goa, Mister and the new Mrs. confronted what felt like the end of their marriage.

While Mister wanted to go paragliding, Mrs. had made up her mind to visit the flea market.

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The previous two days had been spent recovering from travel, endless wedding ceremonies, and an infinite parade of relatives. They caught up on lost sleep, watched television in bed, and ordered room service. The jacuzzi in their honeymoon cottage proved to be a useful stress-buster, albeit at separate times.

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On the second night, they switched off the lights and attempted the customary honeymoon intimacies. After ten minutes of navigating hooks, buttons, awkward angles, and general confusion, they gave up and returned to watching reruns of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. The next morning, neither mentioned the previous night’s erotic misadventure.

After much deliberation, paragliding and a flea-market excursion emerged as competing proposals. Mrs. had a fear of heights she did not wish to reveal to her three-day-old husband. Mister, meanwhile, desperately needed physical activity to work off the previous night’s embarrassment.

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There was once a time when having the last word mattered. In the modern world, it often signals weakness—the risk of exposing oneself to rejection. Better to leave the other person hanging than risk being left hanging oneself.

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So they simply left.

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Mister returned to his comfortable finance job in Dubai, while Mrs. resumed her glamorous advertising career in Mumbai.

Mrs. adjusted the placard she had been holding for nearly an hour. She was not entirely sure whether Mister would recognize her despite their weekly video calls.

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Terminal 2 of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport evoked a strong sense of déjà vu.

Then, amidst a sea of socially distanced waving hands, a familiar hand appeared.

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Clouds gathered behind her.

The first rain of the Mumbai monsoon welcomed them as soon as Mister fastened his seatbelt and Mrs. steered the car onto the main road.

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She finally stopped at the Juhu Beach parking lot.

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The idea of a shared home still felt distant.

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The rain had ceased, but the beach air remained rich with salty petrichor. Mrs. adjusted her rented umbrella and sat on the damp sand, watching honeymooners strike Bollywood-inspired poses while photographers clicked away. The post-COVID world was still finding its feet.

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Mister soon returned carrying two paper cups of chilled lemonade.

As he handed one to her, Mrs. winked.

“Can you spot it too?”

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Mister followed her gaze.

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A chubby man stood proudly on the beach, holding his skinny, squirming wife in his arms. His expression was unmistakably Superman-esque, and his enthusiasm considerably exceeded his dignity.

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“Bhaiyya!” he shouted at the photographer. “Take a mind-blowing shot! I have to put this on Facebook!”

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Mister and Mrs. looked at each other.

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Then they burst into laughter.

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Had you heard the peal of laughter that followed, you would not have been able to tell one from the other.