An Affair and Its Aftermath - A Real Life Story

I am with you Chitra Ji

Dear all,

I waited to see what some of us feel about the issue in question. However, I was waiting to see someone talk about Malathi's mistakes rather than pointing fingers at the other two. I am in no denial of the fact that Balan and Lata are at fault, well they both are culprits giving unnecessary reasons for their immoral acts. However, Malathi is to be blamed for creating an avenue for such occurence. I know not all of us think the same. Well, I totally agree with some of the raised eyebrows here that she definitely did not see this coming, but hey, don't we all know that we humans are vulnerable?

Let's talk about :
Lata - she is not a totally wrong human being. She never came to live with her sister with an intent to destroy her marriage, atleast so it seems. She fell prey to Balan's attention and did not control herself and let herself to his pleasures. She is to be blamed surely for not drawing lines where they were required. Though she enjoyed the short period of infatuation, she does not seem to have enjoyed it through and through, she seems to have suffered physically(abortions) and mentally(jealousy and later separation) in Balan's company.

Malathi - she is a lovely woman who was gullible and learnt a lesson the hardest way. Not only did she trust her husband and sister blindly, she even decided to end her life for their misdeeds. But she cannot be termed 'practical' and 'courageous' mainly because all the so-called courage that she picked up was merely to gain her husband back, the man who ruined so many years of her life!

Balan - The luckiest and least worried of the three:- he got to enjoy every bit of his life(except a little) with the wife and her sister too! He had Malathi until she got pregnant, had Lata when he did not find pleasure through Malathi and finally when Lata stopped satisfying his needs, he got Malathi back along with a semi-grown up child(without having to take care of it in the difficult early years) -all of it with no effort whatsoever!!

Malathi is NOT courageous enough to lead a life on her own...she was mature enough to separate from him and stand on her own legs, but was not brave enough to take it for long...

I understand people do make mistakes and they need to be given a second chance, but when they get back to you only when they cannot find greener pastures is when you need to know they are here not for long...(in this case Balan comes back to Malathi only when he finds that he cannot have a child with Lata and that she is now too annoying to handle, and also that Malathi is craving for his presence in her life)

Let me know what you all think about it friends-

Regards,
Shalini

 

Adhi gharwali

There is a Hindi saying - saali aadhi gharwali - which literally translates that a sister-in-law is half/almost a wife! This tale is common but true. Malathi took her time to win back her husband. But was it worth it? Reverting to one of Varalotti's earlier narratives (I have this habit of cross-connecting!) I think she should have given him the golden handshake.
I know a very orthodox man who was in a similar situation like Balan's. The wife hid her pain, but became woefully thin. Then her sister became pregnant and problems got compounded. Rumour has it that after the child was born it was given away for adoption; some say that it was thrown into a well. Now the man is 70+ and still cares for his sister-in-law who comes from Shimoga atleast once a month. It's strange to see the wife standing at the doorway wringing her hands while her sister and husband carry on a conversation, seated close to one another. My heart really goes out to the wife. They have three children - and all of them detest their father. On a recent pilgrimage he took both his wives and while having the holy dip he was asked to enter the river with his wife. He took both- one on each thigh - saying that even the gods have two wives each!
This true life incident makes one question the sanctity of marriage. However compelling the circumstances I feel that an affair is like flouting the moral rules. Of course I cannot sit as a moral judge - but somehow an affair seems so wrong and it hurts where the scars never heal.
Sharada

 

God Help Malathi!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Sridhar,

I think the whole aftermath is about Malathi plotting ways & means to avenge Balan & her Sister.
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If Malathi thought that was the best way to take revenge, I would say she has proved once again that women are fools. Even without all that drama that malathi enacted, the relationship shared by Balan & Latha would’ve doomed for sure.

By getting back Balan, what has Malathi proved or gained???????? Now she has to be more cautious about other women with whom Balan might develop interest. She got herself a head-ache which will last for a lifetime & ruin her completely .

Most importantly, any normal relationship that could have been all fulfilling at early stages of marriage may seem less at thirty and possibly completely dissatisfying at forty.

When such is the fate of any relationship, how can Malathi share a bond with a man who betrayed her? How long can she play the role of WATCH-WOMAN??? How long can she preserve her beauty and keep-up her good looks to seduce Balan ? What is the guarantee that her sister will just settle down like a good girl??? What happens if she turns around the second time?????

Another thing I find stupid is, how can anyone think a child can bring the parents together OR bring adults together for life??? Most of the time, it takes a while for a man to start bonding with a child. For a woman, the day she conceives she develops this bonding and its very special. If child is the only common factor between a couple, it would fade away sooner. The child will grow faster than we expect and he/she’ll have their own life and gone.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Malathi can never relate to Balan exclusively like she did b4.

She could’ve moved out of town with her daughter and FIL and lived a life of her own and if she really needed a man in her life, she could’ve gone ahead instead of spoiling her life again.

What Malathi did can never be called”revenge”, instead she pushed aside an opportunity, god-given opportunity to change the course of her life. When everything was going her way, she slipped again and fell into the rot. God Help Her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For Balan & Latha, they both seem the weakest individuals on Earth. They’ll / they can never lead a simple, straightforward, normal life – wherever they are.

 

The edifice of a successful marriage.....

Dear sridhar

The edifice of a successful marriage has to be re-built everyday, goes a saying and how true it is, when dark and over-powering temptations knock on the doors of the heart everyday….!!
If Balan’s libido is so uncontrollable, if not Lata, he would find another female who may be more than willing to satisfy him with few green notes. Brother-in-law and sister-in-law relationship is always very sensitive with provocative statements like “ Saali aadhi gharwaali” are used rampantly in our social system. If people take that very loosely and start viewing that relationship with carnal perspective, its very easy for a story like this to happen. No one can blame Malathi in this given situation because it shows she had only love and trust for both her husband and her sister…even if she were to have an iota of doubt in her mind, she possibly would never have allowed her sister to be in such close proximity with her husband.

There is a saying in Telugu- “during pregnancy, the mother carries the child in her womb and the father carries the child in his heart” sadly when such a thing doesn’t not happen, the man will crave for sexual union and indulge, without any discrimination- any female form will do.

I feel Malathi even if she were not to walk out on him and continued to stay in the same house without maintaining any relationship with Balan, he would have come around in no time because the relationship with Lata would have definitely fizzled out, given the impulsive and baseless foundation of their relation.

Kudos to Malathi who turned tables very effectively and taught a good lesson to two important people in her life, though in the bargain she lost out on her sister, who was more of a sexual contender than a sibling, and who got a well-deserving punishment in the end. But the best man award goes to the father-in-law who could see the whole thing in the correct light and supported the right party and paved the way for a happy union.

In this world there are enough Malathis who ‘work towards their goal of winning back the man they love’ proving the proven fact again and again that ‘a woman has a larger heart compared to a man’ and so will forgive most of his carnal mistakes. For a woman. Marriage is like a violin, even when the music goes bad once in a way, the strings are still attached.. she will strive to tune it again….and succeeds most of the time….

A good one Sridhar…as most of your posts are…

Ambika

 

You guys rock!!!

Its a real good response from all of the members in the forum.I did read all of it. YOU GUYS ROCK !!!. Anyway I would not have gone out of the way to get Mr. husband back. For me........no looking back.