Chapter 5: Chand ka Jhooth
The monsoons had finally broken, leaving behind a sodden, heavy heat that clung to the skin like a second layer. The power was out, a common occurrence after the storms, and the only light in Reshma’s bedroom came from a single candle flickering on her dresser. It cast long, dancing shadows across the walls, painting the quiet room in tones of orange and deep grey.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, carefully folding a new saree—a deep emerald green with a silver zari border. It was a gift from her sister in the city, far more modern and daring than anything sold in Mandedi’s market. The blouse piece was notably short.The door, which she had left ajar for a breeze, creaked softly.
Soma Shetty stood there, a silhouette against the dim hall. He held a bottle of mosquito repellent incense.“The coils are finished,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. “This smoke will keep them away from your window.”
“Just leave it there, Sasurji,” Reshma said without looking up, her fingers smoothing the silken fabric. “I’ll light it later.”
But he didn’t leave. He stepped inside, placing the small clay tablet on her windowsill. His eyes, adjusted to the gloom, scanned the room—the framed picture of her wedding, the modest shelf of books, the new saree in her hands. The candlelight glinted off the silver thread.“New cloth?” he asked. The question was an echo, a hollow attempt to normalise a situation that had been vibrating with tension since the afternoon in the courtyard. Since the spilled tea.Since her words had lanced through him.
“From my sister,” Reshma replied, finally lifting her gaze.The flame mirrored in her dark eyes. “Do you like it?”
He swallowed.The air was thick, not just with humidity, but with everything unsaid. The memory of her bent form, the exposed curve of her back, the shadowed valley between her breasts he’d stared into just hours before.It flooded back, hot and shameful. His usual rage felt slippery, out of reach.
“It looks… expensive,” he managed, the critic in him struggling to form.“Not for daily wear.”
Reshma gave a soft, knowing laugh. She stood up, letting the folded saree fall back onto the bed. She was wearing a simple night suit, a thin cotton kurta and pants, but even that seemed to outline her in the suggestive light. She took a step toward the dresser, toward him, to pick up a hairbrush.
“Everything I wear becomes a topic of discussion, no?” she said, her back to him. “Even when Chandrahas is not here to see it.”
The mention of his son’s absence was a needle.It pricked the fragile bubble of the moment.Soma’s jaw tightened. He was the patriarch.This was his house.His son’s wife. Yet, he felt like an intruder in this dark, intimate space, his authority bleeding away into the shadowy corners.
His eyes, against his will, traced the line of her spine through the thin cloth, down to the dip of her waist. The afternoon’s image superimposed itself: the saree pooling low, the skin there, the intricate knot of her pallu…
“You should keep your door closed,” he blurted out, the words sounding weak even to him.
Reshma turned around, leaning against the dresser.The hairbrush dangled from her fingers.“Why? It’s so hot. And it’s just family inside the house, right?” She let the question hang.The unspoken right?lingered between them, charged.Just family.
Soma’s mouth went dry.The candle’s heat felt like it was searing his cheek. He saw her gaze drop, just for a fraction of a second, to the front of his simple dhoti, and a fresh wave of scorching shame turned his stomach.She saw. She saw everything.His confusion, his unwanted fascination, the horrible, silent betrayal of his own preaching.
“This is not…” he began, his voice a gravelly whisper. “This is not about the heat.”
“Then what is it about?” Reshma asked, tilting her head. Her tone wasn’t defiant, but curiously gentle, as if she was guiding him to confess a truth they both already knew.He couldn’t bear it.The gentleness was worse than scorn. It offered a understanding he did not deserve and could not accept. The old, familiar anger surged back, a refuge in its bitterness. “It is about lajja!” he hissed, the word ‘modesty’ exploding from him.“About knowing what is right for a daughter of this house! You parade yourself—”
“Parade?” she interrupted, the gentleness vanishing.She straightened up. “I am in my room.You are the one who came in. Your eyes find me no matter what I wear, Sasurji.In the courtyard.In my own bedroom. Even when I am picking up your broken glass.” She took a step forward.The space between them evaporated. “Your eyes are the ones that are always… travelling.”
Soma recoiled as if struck. The truth of it was a physical slap. He had nowhere to put his guilt, so it curdled instantly into a vicious, defensive fury. “You shameless woman!” he spat, his hand rising before he could think. The sound of the slap was shockingly loud in the small room, a crack that drowned out the hum of night insects.Reshma’s head snapped to the side. A slow, red mark bloomed on her cheek.She didn’t cry out. She didn’t raise a hand to her face. She just turned back to look at him, her eyes now like black glass, reflecting the trembling flame.The violence hung in the air, final and terrible.
Soma stared at his own stinging palm, horrified. He had never, in all his years, struck a woman.His chest heaved. The fragrance of the unlit mosquito repellent on the windowsill filled his nostrils, sweet and cloying.Reshma spoke, her voice low and perfectly clear. “Now who has lost their lajja?”
He had no answer. Only a ringing silence, inside and out. The ultimate weapon in their silent war had been used, and he had been the one to wield it, destroying his own moral high ground completely.
He stumbled back, then turned and fled from the room, from the accusing candlelight, from the devastating calm in her eyes. He hurried down the dark hallway, his heart hammering against his ribs, the taste of metal in his mouth.Back in her room, Reshma stood perfectly still for a long minute. She touched her throbbing cheek, the skin warm beneath her fingertips. A single tear, born of shock and pain, escaped and tracked a path through the dust of the day on her face. But her lips, in the flickering light, curved into something hard and determined.
She walked to the door and pushed it shut with a soft, definitive click.Not to lock the world out, but to seal in her resolve. Then she went to the bed and picked up the emerald green saree again. She held it up against herself, watching the fabric catch the light in the mirror.
Outside, Soma Shetty sat heavily on a divan in the pitch-black living room, the sound of the slap replaying in his ears, over and over, louder than any thunder. The house was dark, but the real darkness had finally taken root inside him. He had seen it in her eyes just before he left: a line had been crossed.The rules had changed.
And for the first time, he was afraid.