Dharam Prakash Gupta

I had just returned from a trip to Banjar. Reaching home as my usual practice, I pulled out used clothes for washing from my bag and a wet towel from a carry bag. 

My wife was annoyed with this trip of mine since I went off on Saturday and returned on Sunday, both being holidays for my working wife and my school going daughter. As both of us were working, my wife was living with her parents along with my daughter on weekdays and used to join me on weekends.

To show her annoyance she was maintaining a stoic silence after my return. While I was going through a newspaper she came inside carrying a handkerchief in her hand asking – whose handkerchief is this?  Since it was a ladies handkerchief my natural reply was – it must be yours or our daughter’s. She said it was neither hers nor our daughters’.  On listening this I became a bit concerned and said it must be one of our female guests’.

Saying a big no she returned grim faced without saying anything leaving me nervous since it was found along with my clothes placed for washing.  I was confused as I had no idea about this handkerchief but was quite sure what my wife must be thinking.

As the day passed my wife did not talk to me and I was still wondering from where this handkerchief appeared in my bag since we were all male friends on the tour and met no females during the trip.

After a lot of pondering it struck to my mind we had stayed at the PWD rest house Banjar and after bathing in the morning I had picked up an empty carry bag lying in the room to pack my wet towel to segregate it from other clothes in the bag. Suddenly, it came to my mind that the carry bag must be of some female staying in the rest house and the handkerchief must have been thrown inadvertently along with the carry bag. 

 Now I was cursing myself for picking up this empty carry bag since this incident could have created deep mistrust in our marital life.

Thank god, I had not disposed of that carry bag and found the address of a female draper in Banjar printed on it. It took me quite some time to convince my wife about this wicked handkerchief.

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