The writer has touched the theme infidelity that everyone wants to have and at the same time everyone rues. It is the absence of infidelity that every couple wants to lead a thorn less and pang less life. But it seems in Indian society this is a common thing. In India every woman wants her husband to be faithful to her. But life is not so in the changed situation. The workaholic lifestyle and the hunger to get rich in a very short span of time, many couple leave their children to governess or in the creche. And both the husband and the wife hop from conference to conference, prepare reports and earn a hefty salary at the end of the month.
But this workaholic lifestyle or career oriented life has got the seed of the break of fidelity or faith. Owing to insecure mentality, neither wife nor husband nurtures love towards anyone but remain inside a cocoon that they tend to create with the passage of time. Wife doubts her husband and vice versa. Marriage is an institution that rests solely on the fabric of faith and unless this fabric is there joining a wife and husband, there is chances of breakage or divorce.
Sheena loves Gaurav but no one had time to show love towards each other and in the end they found themselves leading a forced life without any zing or ripple or feeling. ‘I am busy’ both would say to each other. But married life is not so and never rests on distance and harping of the cliché ‘Darling I love you.’ Actually, the writer seems to suggest that marriage and relation should be saved and both partners should have enough room for the relation. Solely, for financial security one cannot push a relation to the wall as both Gaurav and Sheena did in the novel.
It is for this reason; Nikhil exploited the vacuum in the mind and heart of Sheena. Sheena was so blind that she also wanted to leave Gaurav.
The writer Sujata Parashar has touched the subject in a very good manner but stopped short of showing a bold path. She is an Indian and quietly did the Indian thing to allow Sheena and Gaurav to patch up, forget and forgive. Regrettably, the boldness is entering into the minds of the present generation as a majority of them think the institution of marriage is nothing but a temporary arrangement.
“In pursuit of Infidelity” is a well crafted Chik Lit novel written in plain English. The writer being a woman has touched the theme of sex in a very subtle way. She also depicted the importance of sex in the institution of marriage. It is a sine qua non of married life as life cannot be propelled further with the cliché of ‘I love you.’ She has not been that open as far as handling the theme of sex but was laconic.
In the end, the judge asked them to give a try to save their married life as breaking was but a dash of pen away. In all “In Pursuit of Infidelity” is a good read.