In mid-2010, two days before my marriage, Baba had booked a beautician who would come home and give me a haircut and a facial, get the waxing done and do my make-up. The beautician was a petite lady from the northeast and had amazing white, silky-soft hands. She smiled as she entered my room. “Let’s do the facial first,” she said as she wrapped a peach-coloured cotton towel around my neck. And then poured some herbal powder on a plate and started mixing rose water in it.
Her delicate fingers made tiny ripples in the mixture as she smoothened it. She then gently patted the mix on my cheeks, stroking it first upwards towards my forehead and then downwards towards my chin. Saffron nourished my skin pores and my senses were soothed by her nourishing caress. She massaged my face for about 40 minutes.
Like a baby, I almost drifted into sleep. I wore a half-sleeve black t-shirt and a pair of low-rise, flared jeans and folded the hem a foot above my knees as the lady applied hot wax on my legs and pulled the stiff hair with a waxing strip. I nearly shrieked. I had never been fond of waxing and I still don’t know why girls get waxed to please their man. After the beautician was done with pulling out the hair on my arms, legs and thighs, she asked me to change into something comfortable like a maxi and remove my underwear. I then realised that she wanted to wax my pubic area for an unforgettable ‘first night’. “Oh! But I’ve lived many of those nights before,” I thought with a smug smile.
I was not comfortable baring my private regions to a stranger and hence I declined. “Are you sure?’ the beautician insisted, saying it was included in the bridal package. I was startled! She slyly suggested, “See, all good girls get it done. It makes their husbands surrender at the altar of sexual bliss.” She felt that I was making a gross mistake. I could not tell her that I had had sexual relationships before marriage and it no longer interested me.
But I was saddened to think about the girls who had never stepped out of home unassisted, never had any boyfriends and were suddenly expected to bare it all in front of strangers. Back in my maternal village, my cousin got married and gave birth to a child mere nine months after her wedding. While everyone in my family celebrated the arrival of the new born and congratulated the couple, I was dejected. In villages, the idea of premarital sex even between an engaged couple is frowned upon. Obviously, everyone wants to have sex.
Isn’t childbirth after just nine months of marriage proof enough that the couple had a sexual urgency to fulfil? I do not know how, after a long, tiring day of wedding rituals and standing for long hours, the couple even had the energy to have sex. Isn’t sexual intimacy about the right mood and not urgency? But in this culture of sexual deprivation, especially in villages, can couples afford to wait for the right mood or does sexual intimacy become like an involuntary nightfall?
It certainly happened on my wedding night. I was married into a lower-middle-class family and my husband was the lone earning member. My husband did not know that I was not a virgin, since ours was an arranged marriage. In an arranged marriage, even though the girl and boy meet and talk a lot before marriage, the decision to get married is sealed at the first meeting. In a meeting which is attended by the family members and relatives of either side, how can someone disclose her premarital sex experience?
I did not reveal it for the fear of breaking the alliance, and for the months preceding my wedding, I was scared about what my husband would do if he came to know that I wasn’t a virgin. On the wedding night, I was prepared to act like a virgin. The nuptial bed was decorated with bunches of roses. But it did nothing to lift my languished spirits.
I was too tired from the ceremonies and from greeting countless relatives. I came back home around midnight and when I finally entered the bedroom, I was ready to fall asleep. Everything around me was new and alien. I had never sat on the furniture before and their fridge did not have any of the things I liked eating, like jaggery roshogollas from Deshbandhu that Baba always bought for me. I was forlorn with the memory of my Baba’s house. I missed the sight of our familiar red carpet and Baba asking me not to watch too much TV. I missed the teakwood sofa on which I sat and lazed around. I even missed the cushions that adorned the sofa, embroidered by Ma with red-blue-green threads.
In this new house of mine, I did not know any of the objects. It seemed like a hostel. Even hostels had a mirthful atmosphere as friends giggled, gossiped and cracked jokes. Here I had to be quiet and obedient. The furniture, the windows and the house repulsed me. I longed to sleep in my own home, in the lap of my mother. Here I did not know anyone. All these people around me: my mother-in-law, who had never cradled me or fed me, was suddenly my second mother. My parents had toiled and spent sleepless nights raising me and caring for me, even before I could pronounce their names. They rightfully deserved to be called my parents, but what had these people done to be called my new set of parents, in a matter of a few months? Had they borne any hardships? Instead, they had taken money to let me into their house.
My husband, after consummation, all too happily became the obedient son of his authoritative mother. Keeping up with these dual roles was perhaps back breaking for him. On the bed in that house, among the hordes of unknown people who were sleeping and snoring in the other room, I had to make love in the first night of my married life.
I mentally prepared myself by clenching the muscles of my vulva. My husband did not know about my past sexual affairs and I was too scared to even bring them up. It was better to keep my mouth shut and clench the muscles of my vulva, instead. I also fake groaned to make my husband believe that I was experiencing pain associated with first-time penetration. In reality, I had no pain; I’m a woman who has sat astride her boyfriend several times. A woman on top of a man is a dominant, aggressive position and I loved that. There was absolutely no reason to feel threatened in a legally sanctioned relationship by a sexually liberated woman but I was playing the moral card to keep up my domestic harmony.
Excerpted with permission from Pallavi Barnwal’s ‘Sex Is’ published by Bloomsbusry
For the latest news and more, follow HuffPost India on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter.