We are as different from each other as a KFC burger and broccoli soup. We are from two different states of India. He loves sports and I am a couch potato. However, none of these factors have ever stood in the way of our matrimonial voyage. The only bone of contention that was a worrying factor was my husband’s legacy-bound love and devotion towards the British spy James Bond and the loyalty and oneness that I felt for the other Bond ... Ruskin Bond! It is an irony that two ‘Bonds’ could so successfully un-bond us momentarily, from time to time, as we went into fits of discord, probably because the respective Bonds seeped into our being and reflected our inner selves and choices in life!
Ruskin Bond had been always an emotional anchor for me during my childhood days, in boarding school, when I missed home. He teleported me to the hills, I almost smelt the fresh air in the Doon valley and felt the crystal clear water from streams splash on my face. Like him, I discovered at a very early age that books were the only reliable companions I had and seized upon any printed matter that came my way. He is a ‘walking’ person like me. I live life at my own pace much like him. Like Ruskin Bond, I would rather drive a steamroller for its “slow but solid and unhurried progress” than an Aston Martin. But sadly, due to the harsh demands of the ever surging world, I went through the painful driving lessons and ultimately got the licence that I use only as a utility card. Thus I opted for the good old Beetle, the people’s car, cosy and sturdy, to steer me to mundane destinations like the grocery store and my son’s school.
But the “Spectre” of James Bond, conjured up unconsciously by my husband from time to time, tends to be an antithesis to my leisurely being, who is stirred into furious activity only when goaded beyond endurance. The weekends tempt me to curl up in my comfort zone, in the ugliest of my pyjamas and read a P.G. Wodehouse or delve into the City of Djinns and bask in solitude like Rusty, rather than hopping around mindlessly in malls or spend time air-kissing as I don my social butterfly avatar, looking nearly like one of those James Bond women, speaking to people who cannot go beyond the latest cosmetic brands in an upscale market or the ‘Page 3’ gossip about the “amazeballs” of a hunk, the latest entry in the social circuit. One of the ladies even mistook the Arabian Oryx to be the new beauty salon in the block!
I relish staying at home over the weekend, as “there is a distinction between aloneness and loneliness”. Thus contrary to the James Bond fan who would probably love to spend an evening at ‘Casino Royale’, I find ‘A Quantum of Solace’ in solitude!
When hubby uses the cliched phrase “Never say never again”, as I reject the latest phone model that he wants to buy me, it releases the Taurean bull in me, I wish then that I could horn my way through the macho facade of the gadget-ridden Bond and show him the real Bond who, also a Taurean, has always stayed close to the grass. Gadgets, well, they have been an anathema to him; he’d rather write long hand than use a laptop.
As a new bride, everybody thought I would jump out of the window with joy because hubby was just posted in Malaysia. But my reaction did not really seem normal to my new extended family, who seemed to be ‘On her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and were trying to decipher me and my weirdness. Like Ruskin Bond I too was “at home in India”! He was always afraid to leave the country as, “I am almost paranoid at the thought of going away and then being unable to come back”. I marvelled at the way he said at a book-reading session that, “Race did not make me an Indian. Religion did not make me an Indian. But history did. And in the long run, it’s history that counts.”
The little children of the house, who were not allowed to watch even the benign Mr Bean and his funny antics on television were actually lapping up Mr James Bond and his brave stunts, thus leaving the audience at home teary eyed, wonderstruck, binding them in his spell while jolting ‘The Living Daylights’ out of me. They watched on ... unhindered by the British accent. I tried to sit through the movie, but failed to go on, I preferred to ‘Die another Day’.
Finally, I decided to make peace by downloading Casino Royale Ian Fleming’s first Bond book. It was an interesting read but in the end I was left only ‘shaken not stirred’.
Navanita Varadpande is a freelance writer based in Dubai.
