Mr. Manohar Kale and his wife Sarla were one of the most bickering couples in their housing society. Mr. Kale was employed in the State Electricity Board, while Mrs. Kale was a teacher in a private school.
Both were a childless couple, married for the past ten years. They somehow carried out their marital relationship for the sake of their relatives from both sides of the family. Just two of them lived in their apartment in the society, maintaining extremely cordial relations with all the members there.
“Are you listening?… I’ve packed your lunch box, and put breakfast in a casserole on the dining table.”
Sarla told Manohar while leaving for her school at 7 am. Every day she used to wake up at 5 am to cook in the kitchen and then get ready to go to school. Half of the job she had to do the night before, like cutting the veggies and preparing the dough to make parathas in the morning.
Manohar just woke up to have his tea, which too was made by Sarla before she left. Pouring tea from the kettle into a cup, he went to the balcony picking up the daily newspaper as well. As he sat there on a chair to sip his tea, he looked around. And got up again to look at his attractive neighbor Mrs. Suman Joshi, who was jogging on the pathways of the sprawling housing complex, with her husband.
Mrs. Joshi, a mother of two small kids, was very particular in maintaining her fit body, by doing yoga and jogging. Manohar secretly admired her. Even though his wife Sarla herself was a very good-looking lady, fair, slim body with black curly hair.
After freshening up, he got ready to leave for his office before 9 am. He ate his breakfast, took his lunchbox, and hurriedly picked up the keys to lock the flat.
By 12.30 pm, Sarla returned to the flat. Exactly at 1 pm, just as Manohar opened his lunchbox, he went mad seeing the bitter-gourd vegetable put in it. Immediately he made a WhatsApp video call to Sarla, to unleash his wrath, making nasty expressions.
“What’s this Sarla… you know very well that I hate bitter-gourd, still you cooked this for me?”
“There were no vegetables left in the fridge, and you never bother to buy them in a nearby market before leaving or after returning from your office.”
Retorted Sarla, feeling enough was enough, by the constant brawl every other day. And that day she thought of recording this chat to teach her husband a lesson. As both of them kept on bickering, Sarla silently shared the chat on the Facebook news feed. In no time, the video went viral. The people in the housing society were the first to react, as many of them were also the couple’s Facebook friends.
Mrs. Suman Joshi in her comment box expressed her disgust and advised Manohar to always behave well with his wife and told him to immediately apologize to Sarla, with a gift set.
Upon receiving continuous FB notifications, Manohar was shocked to read Mrs. Joshi’s comment too, apart from a dozen or so of other neighbors’ outrageous comments. He was hugely embarrassed by this, as his reputation of being a nice gentleman was at stake.
In the evening, Manohar returned home with a set of diamond earrings worth Rs. 50,000 he had bought from a jewelry shop for Sarla. As she had once shown a desire to own them. He did so not just to reconcile with his wife, but not to disappoint Mrs. Joshi as well.
As he entered the building premises, riding his two-wheeler, Manohar could notice the staring and piercing eyes fixed on him, by the neighbors of all age groups. When he stopped the vehicle, he could also hear gossip in a hushed tone and everyone’s face pointed toward him. Quickly he went up to his flat and closed the already open door behind.
He shook his head in shame, having experienced the humiliation outside. He fell to his knees in front of Sarla and caught hold of her hand, slipping his gift to her. He then begged for mercy, with a lump in his throat.
“I’m extremely sorry honey… I promise never to hurt you again. Please for God’s sake forgive me.”
“I’m also very sorry for letting you bear all of this, but I had no other option left to make you realize what I went through when you behaved so badly with me, for so long.”
As soon as Sarla said this to him, both of them hugged each other with moist eyes.
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Glad they had a happy ending and understood their mistakes.
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