Of Cradles And Snatchers

She was an unlikely Mrs Robinson. A flabby woman strolling down a beach with two snotty-nosed pre-schoolers in tow is hardly the stuff of your average wet dream, Sheela smiles wryly. But the strangest things do happen.

She was on holiday in Goa with her husband and kids. Shyam was a nice man. Nice and boring. And uncommunicative. His idea of a good holiday was to watch cricket in a five-star hotel room while his wife pottered around doing what all mothers do—mothering. The highlight of their day was this evening stroll on the beach.

That's where she met Jai. All of nineteen years and unbearably cute. As he dug sand-castles for the children, she found herself wondering how it would feel being together. Stop it, she chided herself, you're thirty-one, old enough to be his mother. Well almost.

Two days later, she escaped from her five-star prison for a shopping spree and ended up in his seedy hotel room. They talked about his secret novel, her claustrophobic marriage, about life. Jai was everything Shyam wasn't—interesting, energetic, liberal. "Know what Mummy? I think I love you," he said solemnly when she rose to leave. "Here's my number. I'll be around if you need me."

It took nearly a year after the divorce before she plucked up the nerve to call. They were married within a fortnight. "His family and friends were probably scandalised," she confesses. "At 23, he was already a father of two kids aged eight and ten!"

For Sheela it was like being reborn. "With Shyam, I had forgotten what it was to be spontaneous." No more three-course, nutritionally-balanced meals; they have pizzas when she's too tired to cook. And weekends are usually spent camping in some godforsaken spot. "With a younger man, you learn to live without a plan," she says. "It's marvellous."

But not without its complications. By the time Reena met Suraj, she was already on the wrong side of forty. He was twenty-nine. "I had 'seen' a dozen men, been 'introduced' to about a hundred. I guess they were kind of intimidated by my job at a multinational, and my fancy salary," she shrugs matter-of-factly. By 35, the suitors got few-and-far-between and Reena resigned herself to a fate worse than matrimony.

Then Suraj crashed his way into her complacent life. He was a junior employee on probation, she a senior administrative officer. The very first time he reported to her, he disarmingly confessed that he loved her perfume. (Which one was it? He wanted to buy it for his new girlfriend.) Reena was furious at herself for replying. The cheek of the boy!

Two weeks later, Suraj persuaded her out for a business lunch. "So did you buy the perfume for your girlfriend?" she asked at last with studied indifference.

"There's no girlfriend."

"Oh."

"That was nice, Ma'am. Let's do lunch again, shall we?"

After two months of peek-a-boo courtship, Suraj casually announced that he was thinking of leaving the job because corporate policy was strongly against marriage between employees. "My heart skipped a beat. I kept telling myself that it was all wrong." He was too young, too unconventional, too, well, cocky. (Yet, that was precisely what she loved, wasn't it?) Besides, her parents would have a fit. (They didn't). "Thanks to television and the media, people are more accepting of older women," Reena says.



But the inverse chronology makes for poor logistical planning. "When I fell in love with Abe, I wanted to get married and have kids at once," remembers Sara, a freelance graphic designer. Not everyone was delighted. At 33, Sara could hear her biological clock ticking frantically, but 23-year-old Abe's parents were adamant. They wanted their son to finish his mba and get a good job first. Her single friends obligingly calculated that by the time Sara was a pre-menopausal 40, Abe would be only 30 and inclined to more compatible arithmetic (read younger women). Her father found him too callow and her mother feared he would be irresponsible.

She married him anyway. Paid for his education, supported him through two years of unemployment when he chucked his job to take up interior designing. Things were tough, very tough. "But it made our marriage stronger," she admits quietly. Abe is a mature 29 now. And mathematics notwithstanding, their chemistry is still as strong as ever.

Of course, the chemistry is the best part, giggles 38-year-old Aaisha. But it's not just about wild sex: younger men evidently make more sensitive lovers. After six years, Rishad, Aaisha's 31-year-old boyfriend, makes sure her orgasms are, well, paramount. "My pleasure is much more important than his own. But I'm not sure it would be that way if I were younger," she says candidly. Reason? When a man dates an older woman, he simply doesn't take her sexuality for granted. On the flip side, older women are not afraid to ask for what they want from a relationship.

Yet, sometimes, the initial misgivings rear their ugly heads. "It's okay while you're still young," her mother had warned. "But what happens when you're an old hag and he's still in his prime?" Funny how Ma still had the uncanny knack of delivering her punches neatly below the belt. The question has haunted her for six long years, but Rishad refuses to take it seriously. "We'll just put you in a home while I gad around with the girls," he grins evilly.

"Rishad, I'm serious!"

"So am I. C'mon old girl, don't act like a kid."

And that, for the moment is that.