Love, Sex Aur Dhoka – The Rise of Infidelity

It was a Sunday afternoon; I and my friend Maitreyee were having a lunch in a restaurant in Hauz Khas. She is getting married in a month. So, it was her last maiden lunch with me, as she was going home after this and then shifting to Mumbai. I was meeting her after a few years. But then we always had that connect, of picking up the conversation from where we left. Her fiancée was in Mumbai for the past two years and she was in Delhi. As the conversation unfolded, she talked about various sexual partners she had in this course of two years when her partner was absent.

As the conversation continued she talked about the much married men she had relationships with to boys straight out of college. I asked her, what made married men have an affair. She said that most of the time they seek for some spark and an emotional connect outside marriage as sometimes marriages become dull and boring. She questioned me if monogamy is normal as it’s only human beings in the whole animal kingdom who are supposed to be monogamous.

It was getting late, we hugged and said goodbye, I wished her the very best and walked back home. It reminded me of an interview I had to do with a Gigolo, to assist in someone’s research. I was just out of college. I did not have any exposure to any such interviews, so decided to meet this guy in a public library. I remember that one thing he said, “Mostly my customers are women who are either bored or unloved in their marriages. Once a woman paid me 60k just to hold and hug her because her husband would not hug or hold her.”

The So- Called Indian Sanskriti

India is a country where we are so much conditioned in the so called Indian culture, where marriages are arranged and you lose your virginity to the man/woman you marry. But then when we scratch the surface, the worms in the can wriggle out. No, we are not saints. All we need to do is scratch beneath our sanskaars, the truth is out there. Infidelity is on a rise.

Marriage therapist and an inspiring Indian woman psychiatrist Dr Sona Kakkar says to ToI, “If you compare the number of infidelity cases I get today in Hyderabad, as compared to five years ago, it’s gone up by more than 50%,” The question still remains why, especially in India where sex is still a taboo, where censor board still cuts kissing scenes, people are going for relationships outside marriage. Not to forget, marriage is still considered sacred in India. We will rather drive women to take on tortures rather walking out of a failed marriage.

Cheating has become easier

But if we look around, the answer is blowing in the wind. In modern day relationships, we have umpteenth number of opportunities to cheat. Technology has made it a cake walk. There are numerous dating sites and also there are so many people one meets when one walks out of the home. The office spaces have equal numbers of men and women. Dating outside of marriage is no more difficult.

As Ashutosh Dhar, an advertising professional says, “It has become so easy to cheat, all you need your cell phone. You can connect to someone or book a hotel for a quickie and no one will even know about it. Yes, it’s as easy as ordering a Pizza.” Then he added, “After a few years into the marriage and kids, things start to get monotonous. So, when things outside marriage are easily available, it becomes tempting. Though I keep having affairs outside my marriage, but I give 100% to my children and wife.” I asked him if he has ever thought of leaving his wife or children. Pat came the reply, “Of course not. It’s a perfect family and I have a loving wife. These affairs are only to break the monotony life brings, nothing else.”

Less time together

Another cause of having a relationship outside marriage is that these days both husband and wife work, they get less time to spend with each other. With tight schedules, they stop connecting emotionally and physically. As Rhea, who works for an MNC says, “I and my husband hardly meet during weekdays, we are mostly at work or when we reach home, we are always tired. I stopped feeling connected to him. I have a colleague, with whom I share a great rapport and I spend so much time with him that we started getting attracted to each other and one thing led to another. We both are married to our respective partners, but we have an affair to fulfil the emotional and physical void that we both had been feeling.”

The gift of Anonymity

And if we look around we see that big cities give a lot of anonymity that has always worked as an advantage to the ones to sneak out of their relationships. AS, my friend Matrayee says, that once she finds someone in a club or a dating site, she does not reveal her identity. She meets them at the other end of the city and takes it from there. In times like ours where families are mostly nuclear or people living alone, it’s much easier because we are hardly answerable to many people. Had it been a joint family set up, things would have been different. So with hardly any accountability and easy availability of people through technology, having an affair outside your relationship becomes very easy. Also with so much of travel people do these days, having a one night stand has becomes very easier. It requires no emotional investment by anyone involved. Many don’t even reveal their identities.

Guilt

The one thing that baffled me was the answers to my last question. It seemed that everyone I spoke to were okay with their affairs, they had no qualms about it. I asked them if they ever felt guilty about it. After a few moments of silence, they agreed that there are moments of deep guilt and repentance.

I left the conversation as no one wanted to go beyond this.

Back to old school

Infidelity is not something that is new to this age and time. If you look through the past ages and times, you will find many references to it. But it is also true, that no age has seen its rise as our age has. Maybe because it has become so much easier.

But to have a long lasting fulfilling relationship, we have to go to the old school teachings, where people are patient and most importantly spent time with each other. Maybe its time, we keep down scrolling that iPhone and hear what someone is saying just sitting next to us. Everyone in this world wants to be heard and seen, maybe if we give our relations that time, attention and respect, maybe we won’t need to find something beyond it.

All names and places are changed to protect identities.