‘His Neighbour’s Wife’ by Ruskin Bond

A ‘handsome’, exquisite, middle-aged woman with a burly body—not the quintessential dame you would find these days. Bond enlivens the woman through his descriptions of her paan-tainted red lips amid the greasy bronze skin. The racy puffs at the hookah, no less.  

While the narrator and his friend Arun, awaits the dinner, the latter takes the plunge into his marital life, the story of how he met that strangely attractive woman, Leela, his wife. 

Though younger by five years, Arun made company with Leela, who at the time was subject to frequent desertions from her husband. As was apparent, this extroverted, ‘hard-drinking’ man cared little.  She had a son named Chandu, for whom the narrator took a fervid dislike owing to his unremarkable disposition, to speak nothing of the slurs and insults he would pass on. 

Troubled at Arun’s venture into eternal bachelorship, Leela scoured for a suitable bride for some time, but to no avail. 

The next shock blew in with the death of her husband which rendered her roofless with no option but to leave for her village near Agra. Yet she wasn’t done with the duty she had embarked on; a bride for her long-time friend. 

Alas, at the time of her departure, Arun has these words tumbling out of his mouth, ‘Why don’t you marry me now?’

It would suffice to say that the story only makes for a dulcet read, and doesn’t give anything new. A seemingly reserved tale which makes no pretensions. Nevertheless, it leaves the feeling that there could’ve been more to the story given the intricate lives of many such women of present times, in plain settings like these.