A
decade of married life and your wife can read your inside like an open book. One
look on your face, and she knows if you are happy or sad. She knows what is being
fabricated on in that workshop between your ears, if your heart rate is normal
or not, if your blood pressure is high or low. In addition, if you are not doing
well, she even has the medication for your ailment. You do not have to reveal
her anything. She will find it out and scoop your problems out of you, just
like you beat good behavior out of your lad.
Today
when he came back from work, he had a stressed out look. It was apparent that
he was not feeling all well. As he entered the house, she, that is his wife,
looked at his face, and she knew that he was struggling to act normal.
Was
it some unresolved issue from work that is troubling him? Was it the reprimand
from his boss for being negligent and late as usual, or maybe it was that stern
rejection to his advances from one of his young female colleagues, coupled up
with some taunting and shaming by his friends at work, or was it the abuse he
got from the local lad in the big car for driving too slow on the fast lane?
Whatever it was, she knew that it was something serious.
He
changed into his pajamas, walked lazily and slouched on to the sofa with a
tired, weary and distraught look on his face, and asked his kids if he could
change the channel to News, to which they hid the TV remote and enquired about his
day at work. He replied, “It was
okay” and slouched a little more, without contesting. He had no energy left
to fight for the TV remote or to give the lads their customary lecture on good
manners.
She
kept monitoring these events from a distance, and to break the monotony asked
him “Shall I make you some tea?” He replied “No”. “Not even
mint tea?” she followed. “No thanks” he came back.
Usually,
by this time, he would be begging for food, or raiding the fridge for leftovers
or stealing huge scoops off the pan under the pretext of tasting, but today he
was all still. He was not even humming any of his usual Bhojpuri songs.
After
a while, she asked, “Then, shall I get you the dinner? I have made your
favorite Gatte ki sabzi!” The exclamation mark that she left after the
Gatte Ki Sabzi went waste, as his reply came back as a curt “No”. Surprised
by his answer and stunned by the tone, she looked back at him, this time
staring in his direction. Her eyes began to squint, and her head tilted a bit
to the right, her lips twitched, just like those possessed dames in our good
old Ramsay movies. The sight lines of
both her eyes crossed each other, forming an X, which then multiplied into more
X’s, just like one of those old time sci-fi movies, and with her X-Ray vision
on, she went scanning his innards, verifying the pressure in his blood vessels
and decoding the signals within his brain.
Just a
couple of minutes of this scanning, and she had diagnosed his problem. She came
and sat next to him, held his hand in hers and said, “Drink this, all of it,
in one gulp. Did I not tell you, not to have that stinky Parotta sandwich from
that roadside cafeteria? But, you just don’t listen, do you? What did you have for lunch today?”
Like
an obedient child, he hastily drank the half glass full of bubbling antacid,
gave out an extended burp, followed it with a smile and replied “Kheema Parotta
Sandwich”.
