n an interview at the end of The Other Woman, a collection of short stories primarily about extramarital affairs, editor Monica Das says she was interested in studying the literary representation of polygamy and bigamy and their adverse socioeconomic impact on women. Though Das “began with a preconceived notion that Bengali literature would have the best stories on this theme” the collection includes translations of stories in Assamese, Tamil, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, and several other languages.
Most of the stories do portray the other woman as a victim of one kind or another. In ‘Our Manorama,’ a group of factory workers meet daily at a tea stall. They fancy themselves as protectors of the owner’s young niece but only up to a certain point. In ‘The Offspring,’ Pitambar, a childless Brahmin in his fifties longs for a son. His wish may be fulfilled when the village priest suggests Pitambar take another wife, perhaps, the widow Damayanti? After some initial hesitation, Pitambar agrees and the priest sets up a payment plan to arrange the marriage. The tables are turned when the helpless widow turns out to be anything but.
The stories that feature married men reminiscing about past or current affairs are somewhat tedious to read. In ‘Bondage‘ a husband returns home reluctantly from an out-of-town job posting to spend the weekend with his pregnant wife and daughter. He used to go home every weekend but that changed when he met Miss D’Souza. Now, he’s tired of the deception and the commute. Neither woman knows about the other. Which one should he choose? ‘The Sea Ahead‘ begins with promise: a husband panics when his wife decides the family will holiday at the very resort he meets the other woman every month. It’s not a coincidence, of course, but by the time the wife reveals how she found out he was having an affair, readers may have lost interest. There are only so many paragraphs one can take of a man gazing wistfully at “our” cottage, beach, footprints or sunset.
Beautifully translated to English from Tamil, ‘The Recoil‘ stands out because it isn’t about the other woman as a victim — she may not even exist. Kailasam and his wife of forty-five years, Dharamambal, settle into their nightly routine, shifting to the courtyard to allow their son and his wife some privacy inside, as they enjoy the same under the stars. Afterward, Kailasam jokes how people would laugh if they watched “old cronies like us make love” He reflects on his marriage, how there hadn’t been any disagreements.
They had in a sense played and laughed away all the long years of their married life.
The playful mood continues as Kailasam teases his wife, listing all the women he could have had. With each name, Dharamambal’s doubts grow. Is that why he went to so many of her dance performances? Did he go to that woman when I was pregnant? When she asks Kailasam if he’s joking, if these are lies, he just laughs,
What if it isn’t? All that happened so long ago.
From that moment, Dharamambal recoils not only from her husband and their marriage, but from life entirely, despite Kailasam’s repeated pleas asking her to trust him.
Disappointingly, only two stories are written in the voice of the other woman. Perhaps there weren’t many from which Das could choose.
In ‘Water, Water, Everywhere,’ a “plain-looking” thirty-year-old virgin lusts after the married Nerukar, an old college mate, who is an active member of their colony’s welfare committee. Thanks to a power failure and some candlelight, she gets her wish and has the affair. It doesn’t seem to help and her bouts of self-pity continue. While her story drones on, the colony’s residents are up in arms about the Pathaks, a family that has recently moved in from the slums of Mumbai. When suspicions grow that Mrs. Pathak is regularly entertaining men in her flat, a petition is circulated to evict the family.
From the daily dramas of a middle-class colony in Mumbai to a posh Delhi kitty party. In ‘The Season In Between‘ we’re introduced to four bored, middle-aged socialites who gather for lunch on a rainy afternoon. “We’re all so empty and alone,” declares one, as she opens another bottle of beer. They discuss the Gulf War and whether one of them should adopt a child as a single woman. Things get interesting when one of the women announces that her husband is having an affair. That’s when the other woman and wife come face to face. Kind of. The wife actually means her husband has moved on from her lunch mate, to another lover. It’s almost funny, the the other woman needs consolation, while the wife seems not to care.
While the collection is diverse in terms of place, the voice is mostly male and the usual stereotypes abound — the wives are undesirable, the other women are either desperate or victims, and the men just can’t seem to help it when there’s another woman at the office, next door, or just walking by.
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