Autobiography Of A Duffer by Santosh Jha (good books to read for teens TXT) 📕

grueling day at work, braving the troubles of life, he is there for me. I do not even have to press the doorbell. I cannot tell you in words, how brilliantly satisfying is the feeling that never ever in my married life, I had to come home and pull out my keys from my bag to enter an empty house, with no one saying, how are you. For years, I would come back from school and college to find the door of my house locked and use my keys to open it. My parents would be away and there would be stale food waiting for me in the fridge. I hated the microwave and my husband has never insisted on buying it in our household.

When we are in bed, he would always ask me how I was feeling. If I am not in good mood or otherwise unsettled, he would start treating me like a kid and do all sorts of beautifully silly things to make me comfortable and get me to sleep. It is something, people may label as ‘abnormal’ and probably why he is called a duffer. The fact remains that this is something I consider best about him. He never counts himself. He always counts others. His first instinct is to look for what other person might be feeling or what other person might be going through. He has brilliant sixth sense of deep observance. Someday, even when I am not in good shape but still kiss him in the bed to make sure he is not bothered about me; he would sense that. I have had many boyfriends and I have kissed so many men but nobody had the sensitivity of a woman, my duffer husband has. This stupid can smell your intent and inner state of mind like a dog. God knows whether he learnt it from his dog or what!

What else a wife can want from her husband. If you know, you have a person with you in your bed, who does not fake himself and who knows you as good as yourself; you are relaxed and feel secure, assured and relaxed to be naked. It is such a relaxed feeling of wellness to know, there is this duffer close to you, to whom you have safely and profitably surrendered all fears and troubles of your heart and mind. He knows every bit of my troubled past, my misadventures with my life and my current life struggles. As I sleep hugged to him in night, I am happily sure, his special mind is scanning every heartbeat of mine to know anything, which I may never myself understand and accept.

I however have to be cautious about what I tell him. As he never counts himself, you have to be very careful about what you say to him. There is a way to get things done from him. As we have been together since long, I know him and he knows me inside out. If you ask him that he should shave, as he would look good, you can be sure he would never do it. He does not count himself. You have to say to him, ‘get a shave as I want to tell it to the world that how happy I am to have such a beautiful hubby like him.’ He would immediately move to bathroom and come out shaved within minutes. There has to be a factor of other’s joy in it for him to accept a worth and utility in doing anything. You do not and cannot give him joys; he has his auto mechanism to get it without your help. He would love his leisure and comfort, if there is nothing, which he has to do for other’s joys and wellness.

You have to be cautious about it. He does not think twice doing anything for others. This almost killed him first time he attempted suicide. He was 12 and his parents had a huge fight. His father told her mother to give him divorce and his mother said in a fit of anger that she would have been the happiest giving it to him had there not been this small stupid between them. She said she had to bear a huge nonsense of trouble like him only because there is a duffer breathing between them. This duffer was calmly listening to all this and his stupid genius could decipher that he was the cause of her mother being unhappy and in trouble. He searched Google for easy way to kill oneself and then gulped the toilet cleaner. Poor thing could not hide it as his noisy vomiting alerted his parents. He does not count himself and that is why, if there is something, he thinks is there for him to do, he shall do it.

For me, this has been a boon. I got him as my husband because of this. Last year, I was shattered and felt very low. I was in a steady relationship for two years and this guy I found cheating on me. When I queried him on that, he openly admitted it and told me that everyone had the right to experiment till one gets the right person to settle with. For him, I was only one of the many he was experimenting with. He also told me to be a good sport and continue with it to give time to each other. I am not sure, whether I reacted the way I should have but surely, I felt bad and violated. This is something, you can call hypocrisy but I could not handle it. If this word is something, which we can accept, I too have been experimenting with guys. I have had four boyfriends and I was intimate with all of them. Two left me and I dumped the other two. So, it was a level score. But, the last one I could not handle, as I was probably ahead than my boyfriend in life plans. I realized my hypocrisy and I was hugely upset. This beautiful duffer knew everything and he silently remained all the time with me, when I was feeling low and was confined to my room.

One day, he came to me, handed me a large chocolate bar and waited beside me for a while. As I did not say anything to him, he asked me, “what I can do to make you happy again?” I was irritated and not in a mood to handle his crap. I shot back, “what the hell you can do, can’t you see that the person with whom I wanted to be happy is happy with other girl?” This duffer has his own sensitivities and his strange sense of judgment. He thought for a while and said, “does this mean that your boyfriend shall be sad like you when you are happy with other guy?” I could not figure out what he meant. He looked at me and said very calmly and sincerely, “He is happy because he is not with you but with other girl. If this is the way, you too can be happy once again if you are not with him but other guy. If that is the rule of the game, I think, you can take me to him and there you can kiss me to show that you are with other guy and then surely, you shall be happy.”

I looked at him. I may be a drifting fool but I am also a woman. I looked in his eyes and could see that what his brain could think of a quick solution to my current trouble was actually a lifetime opportunity for me to be happy and satisfied. I kissed this duffer for first time in my life. He is such a big stupid; he did not kiss me back. He instead put the chocolate in my mouth. He then turned to get his car to go to the boy’s house and do it there. This duffer counts the utility of things his own way. He thought the kiss I planted on his lips was surely a practice as how I would be expected to do when I shall go with him to my boyfriend and do it in front of him. I pulled him, hugged him tight and kissed him like a mad girl. Only after ten minutes, he could realize that it was something different from what he was thinking. He asked me softly, “if you are happy now, I can make a sandwich for you. I know, people are sad when they are empty stomach.”

It took me less than 24 hours to decide, I am marrying this duffer. It however took me another 24 hours to decide on my lines, which I would need to tell him to agree to marrying me without telling his or my parents. I knew, I would need to tell him that marrying him would make me happiest and as I wanted to be happy without any delay, we must marry the same day. As I was expecting, he listened to me carefully and then turned towards the door, without any expressions on his face, telling me that he would be back by evening after arranging a house and necessary utensils for the new household. Late in the evening, he looked very troubled telling me that in such short notice, he could find a house but it had no balcony. He was apologetic but kept assuring me that he would find a better house within days.

You know, actually, it is never a man’s problem, what he should be like. If you ask me, men are essentially a confused lot just because we women are never sure how they should be like. How you would like your dad to be? What you expect your mom, your brother or for that matter, anyone in this world to be? The simple answer is; any person should be a good human being. It is as simple as this. But women have bizarre benchmarks for their husbands. They want rich husbands, smart husbands, humorous husbands, presentable husbands, tall-dark-handsome husbands, witty, famous and flamboyant husbands and so on. I think, all women just need simple and good husbands and my sweet duffer is just that. I do not expect him to be anyway different. He too does not want me anyway different. Just being affectionate and compassionate about each other in any relationship does wonders and this is also true with wife and husband. My duffer is very much this way. Why should I want him to be like what most women want their husbands to be!

It is surely not my biography still, I cannot resist to say this, that essentially, almost all men and women; from the bottom of their hearts, want a stupidly simple and duffer life partner. In intimate personal relationship, we never need the energy of intelligence. We just need simplicity and innocence. It is essentially an intelligent idea to extend the utility of intelligence in personal relationships, because we all unconsciously see this intelligence fetching success to us in business and societal relationships. I do not subscribe to this idea. I do not want my home to be like my office and markets. My home is where I am relaxed and assured. I do not wish to fetch in the fakeness, brutal competitiveness and inventively fabricated milieu in my home. My loving duffer ensures that this I have in my home. Everything about my stupid husband is real and innocently honest.

That is why I like him being at home and never venture into this sham world of corporate and markets. His grandpa bequeathed all his property to him and it is more than enough for us to have a simple but stable living. I just ensured that he invested it in right places. Actually, this duffer is not a duffer with his finances. Moreover, even as his father and mother are damn angry with