The Other Side / Sep 7, 2008/ Times Life

The other side
7 Sep 2008, 0600 hrs IST, Gayatri, TNN
The man is more often than not forgiven an extra-marital affair, and the wife assumes martyr status. Where does that leave the Other Woman...


To the Other Woman of long standing, to borrow a line from Germaine Greer, watching society’s efforts to deny her existence is amusing. Angelina Jolie trots around the world collecting children in a do-gooding publicity blitz to wipe the memory of her home-breaking affair. Senator John Edwards smiles and is forgiven by a cancer-stricken wife who turns martyr for his campaign. The mistress becomes a ‘mistake’. And Carla Bruni almost makes it as a poster girl, until the too-socially-perfect a marriage to forgo happened.

The Delhi High Court considers the mistress equal to the wife in matters of domestic violence, but society still has its nose in the air. Shobhaa De, Pooja Bedi, Smriti Irani all distance themselves from even commenting. Other Women take the rap in Suchitra Krishnamoorthi’s rants on infidelity, on the cover of a society magazine pointing fingers at a silenced socialite Queenie Dhody, in Rani Mukerji’s professional isolation and self-imposed silence. Men dally and women take the blame. Hasn’t it always been that way?

When Shakespeare died, he left his wife Ann Hathaway only his ‘second best bed’ in his will. And who knows where the original went! But why go so far? The Other Woman remains embedded in Indian culture; in the harems of the Mughals, the erudite Bengali babu’s sonagachi of the 1800s and in the Tamil Brahmin’s chinna veedu. Mistresses were beautiful, talented, seductive magnets of men, and inescapably sidelined until they entered mainstream marriage.

At least those who were lucky did. Indian filmdom has pointed its finger at everyone from Waheeda Rehman to Madhubala, Rekha’s Silsila, Sridevi’s wait for respectability, and Hema Malini’s refusal to even pose for photographs with Dharmendra.

What motivates an affair? “Well the sex is amazing, I’m taken care of, and I have my parallel life. It’s fun without family,” says Sneha Upadhyay, a 34-year-old IT expert. She won’t extricate herself, though her partner’s wife is currently pregnant. “I don’t crave the stability his marriage has. If he gave it to me, I would run. My friends say I am in denial,” she says, “I think they’re denying I can be happy this way.” As Maureen Dowd phrases it, “Men are necessary not because we need them, but because we want them. It’s nice. Like an ice-cream or something.”

The man on his part treats his Other Woman as he would never treat his wife — international holidays, a penthouse, diamonds, flowers, and tenderly calling her the love of his life. The stuff of fantasies.

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, who most famously accused Priety Zinta of being a part of ex-husband Shekhar Kapoor’s life, questions the role of the man in an affair on her blog. “Is forgiveness a virtue? The new-age man has to apologise or be damned. So he did. He became a martyr to his hormones. Would it not have been more honest for him to say I did it so what?” she says, referring to Edwards.

Prahlad Kakkar though says men in affairs are the wimps. “Very few men in affairs have the spine to give the Other Woman the option of moving on. Most pretend its leading somewhere,” says Kakkar adding, “He’s not going to jeopardise respectability for a potential soulmate. Women fall into the trap when the man lagaos the miserable three lines — I need you.”

But why presume that men are seduced beyond their will? A page 3 hostess admits, “It’s the married men who are angling for an affair. It takes a special kind of woman to sustain an affair and still be on the social circuit. To accept being sidelined, people’s glances... It’s not for the faint of heart my dear,” she says adding, “I would run the other way.” “It’s not like the man is being kidnapped, drugged or stolen away,” says Rosa, once accused of being actor Saif Ali Khan’s Other Woman. “A lot of people see only what is outward. They don’t notice the home they’re accused of wrecking probably had its own reasons for falling apart. They only see the explosion. They see what follows and not what went before.”

Anil Dharker is happy to stand up for the Other Woman. “Would a man be called the Other Man? Never. It comes from thinking of women as more chaste beings. That women have sexual urges is a surprisingly new idea. That a woman initiates sex, wants an orgasm is odd. The Other Woman doesn’t have an easy time of it.”

“As long as there is marriage, there will be a mistress,” writes Victoria Griffin in The Other Woman. And as long as there is a mistress, may she find a voice.

Always a mistress, never a wife

I love him without a tag, freely. We find peace in knowing glances, shared moments, stolen sighs. Worrying if people would find out, what they’d say, was a fleeting instant of fear. We don’t need public acknowledgement. It’s been a year of constant bliss. There’s firmness to being the strength inside a man. I glow with secret love. I think a mistress is on par with the wife. We just own a side of a man she doesn’t. We are equals, with spaces in our togetherness.

We share joys without responsibilities, we console without being involved. There is a distance too because the relationship is fragile. On the other hand, wives and husbands go where I will never. We don’t discuss ‘their’ life much. Nobody knows about tomorrow so we each live more fully for today. Today, here and now, is all it’s about. We’re happy in our own ivory tower. One day, it will come crashing I suppose. Shrug. Tomorrow is another day.