‘I was the other man’

Their eyes met across the room, they felt the spark and fell right into an affair that would change their lives. Rahul, an HR consultant, opens his closet of skeletons and tells Prachi S Vaish about his real life extra-marital affair that didn't fare so badly after all!

“We met as strangers in a group”

“Simran* was the fiancée of a friend of my very good friend and just happened to accompany him one day when all of us met.” “I was 25 and she, a year older. At first it was just hanging out together with the group over beers and coffee. Then gradually we started catching up after work, alone, while we waited for someone else to arrive. Soon it was just us…talking, listening and sharing each other’s woes.”

“Her wedding changed everything”
“It progressed from there to something deeper. We held hands one night but that was it for then. But then on her wedding day she called me, distraught; she had a fight with her husband and when I met her she hugged me in public. That day we sat and talked for long and I guess the real bond was formed there and then. We knew it existed, but it was too late, she was getting married that day!”

“It turned into more than a movie-and-beer night”

“The marriage stayed on the rocks. Trouble was brewing for sometime but during the wedding week it got worse due to the usual jitters plus some fights; things were okay for a bit but then they continued to have lots of squabbles. When she got back after marriage, we met some more and one night I went to her place for a movie and beer. Her husband was travelling and it all began after we had watched the movie all alone till 3 am and couldn’t bear just sitting next to each other anymore. I knew the seeds to an all-out affair had been sown when I sneaked off to my own place at 6 in the morning because we didn’t want her neighbours to know. I did want to stay the night with her, many times, but had to hold back, because I knew it would mean trouble for her.”

“It felt good the morning after”

“There was no guilt. We had held those feelings at bay for a very long time and that night bodies just took over. She, on the other hand, did feel a bit of guilt for long, but that never stopped us. For me there wasn’t any hitch other than the fact that I knew if he knew he’d be hurt. Although again, he wasn’t my best buddy. I would never betray a close friend but I barely knew this guy through another good friend.”

“It lasted for about six to seven months”

“We continued to meet at her place even after he came back since I was living in a PG then. He often worked late and she just told him she’s meeting me for coffee. But we always took pains to plan it well so that we never get caught.”

“Then she got posted abroad and the meetings stopped”

“It was a bit difficult to bid goodbye, especially for her since she wouldn’t have any friends where she was going. Her husband had moved with her too, but we spoke often while she was there and met up whenever she visited back here.”

“I met someone else”

“This affair clearly had no future and I knew one day I would move on. Since I was still pretty young then and didn’t care much about future so it didn’t bother me much then. Plus, I had never invested myself too much in a way that it might bite me in the wrong place. So, when I started seeing someone seriously, I knew it was time to call the shots. It was logical; we were on different continents and we had discussed this earlier. So we ended the affair mutually on one of her visits here.”

“I never thought of marrying Simran”

“I couldn’t see myself married to her. Ever. Because, while we got along like house on fire, she was in some ways a little too much for me to handle, something I wouldn’t prefer in my life partner.”

“It all worked out well in the end”

“She and I remain friends till date; her marriage got worse; they almost divorced each other but decided to give it one last shot on the d-day and have stuck on strong since then!
Although I have absolutely no regrets about what I shared with Simran, this is not something I see myself doing again. You can just handle it once in a lifetime!”