Secrets and Sins. Jaishree Misra

functions. It was hard to imagine such a time now, given the frostiness that had crept into their marriage in the past few years. Looking back, the surprising bit hadn’t been that he’d married Salma in the first place. She had been a beauty, after all, daughter of the legendary Noor, India’s top actress in the sixties. Aman had spotted Salma at one of his first film parties – a lavish affair celebrating twenty-five years of Rajshri Studios – and had found himself unable to take his eyes off the fair-skinned, svelte beauty that Salma had been then. She was, in fact, the spitting image of her mother, as Noor had been in her prime, and Aman was overwhelmed by a feeling of déjà vu, imagining he was watching an old Noor film (and he had seen them all in his misspent schooldays) as he watched Salma, clad in a sparkling white gharara, sitting demurely by her father, the powerful and influential Abdullah Miandad, then Bollywood’s top director.

      Aman had managed to inveigle an introduction to Salma at the party and they had spent some time chatting about inconsequential things. But Aman had picked up a sense of an ambitious girl trapped in a traditional setup and had felt a rush of sympathy that only added to the sensation of being quite smitten. Old Miandad had been pleased as punch when, a month later, Aman made a tentative enquiry regarding the possibility of seeking his daughter’s hand in marriage. The positive response had surprised Aman at first, but he realised later that Salma’s canny father had probably already had some inkling of Aman’s star potential with Krodh having by then catapulted him to hero status. Aman’s parents had been nonplussed by the Bollywood princess they had suddenly been landed with as a daughter-in-law, but Aman’s new-found money and status was by then bringing them a life of substance too, so it hadn’t been a totally unequal union. In the early heady flush of that youthful marriage, Aman had for a short while genuinely believed he was happy and in love.

      That was then, Aman mused, staring out at the waters of the Persian Gulf sparkling into the distance. He had certainly never bargained for Salma turning into a lazy, complaining wife who considered it his duty to keep her in comfort. Even his tentative suggestion that she try taking up the acting career she had seemed to so desire was met by a disbelieving look.

      The blazing blue of sky and sea was broken only by the occasional boat or aircraft and, as Aman watched a helicopter approach the hotel, he guessed that it was making for the helipad on its roof. He grinned, remembering a tennis match he had witnessed on the helipad a few years ago – a Roger Federer–Andre Agassi tournament that the smooth British MC had described as ‘strawberries and cream meeting the mile-high club’. Aman watched the helicopter progress slowly in the direction of the Burj and it slowly dawned on him that Salma had taken the option of using a helicopter transfer from the airport, despite his firm instructions not to do so. He felt bile and fury rise in his stomach as he thought of how heedlessly she had taken to ignoring his every request. She would, doubtless, accuse him of being tight-fisted but it wasn’t that at all. It was not just Aman’s fear of small aircraft but also his ever-present terror that something bad would happen to Ashfaq when he wasn’t near enough to help; an anxiety born from being forced to spend so much time away from his son. Salma would have been fully aware that a helicopter journey with Ashfaq would make him deeply unhappy – and yet she had chosen to do exactly that. Aman watched the small distant dot of the helicopter and felt his jaw clench in helplessness and fear.