THe looks at his wife who has been snoring slightly. He looks at the clock on the wall that reads 3 am, actually it is five to three. He sets the clock a little ahead of time, so he does not have to get late in life. But the fate is that he is quite late, in fact he feels that he’s missed the bus called life. He sniggers despite himself, he’s come up with the apt pun. Ever since his bus got into an accident with the oncoming tanker that killed five of his passengers,(Five passengers! the fucking driver is not dead, he hasn’t got a fucking scratch!) the shit has hit the ceiling.
He has not slept a wink in the last four days, he’s been feeling a maddening urge to have sex. He is just missing the old days when he doesn’t have to worry about his two daughters; the early days of marriage. a rose-tinted, euphoric world filled with wild sex on a loop and then falling into lazy, spent slumbers filled with wet dreams. For God’s sake he is fifty two, he admonishes himself for feeling like a teenager who’s just grown pubes. He need to think ahead, think about the future of his wife and the two daughters who are still in college. How am I going to take care of them? How the fuck am I going to put food on the table when the sword hangs over my head? If only I had made insurance with the bus. He has not told his wife yet. He is not ready for I-told-you-so eye-rolling, contempt-filled glances.
He is the bread-earner who takes care of everything. rescues his family from every storm. Basically he is a man. He is the head of the family who seems to have lost his head. And then he hears tsk, tsk, tsk. The lizard making that ominous noise that sounds like smooching. If only he could undo it, go back in time. Suddenly a young dead child’s image swims onto the shore of his shadowy mind, with its popped open, bleeding eyes that seemed to mock at him. His heart burns. He feels like he is going to have a heart attack. He goes into the bathroom. Standing before the water spotted mirror he sees a haunted, horrified face with its dead, wide-open eyes and they start to bleed. He squeezes his eyes shut with a gripping tightness that contorts his face. He looks away in a lurching motion like a child turning its gaze from a mad monster. Was that a hallucination? Am I going crazy? And then he starts to shake like a wet dog, he bites his tongue hard for a long moment. He pulls out his tongue to see it bloody that reminds him of the lice-infested stray dog named Jenny ( even though the dog is a male) with his lolled out, saliva-dripping, pink tongue. If only I could turn into a dog and escape from all this. But not with that rotten skin condition. Wow, from wanting to become the number one businessman in the neighbourhood to now wanting to become a fucking stray dog. What a fucking trajectory! But who is going to take care of my two little girls in this dog-eat-dog world.
He envisions going into the kitchen, pulling out the fish knife and slits his throat open putting an end to his misery once and for all. But who is going to take care of his family? Why did he have to get married in the first place? He buries his head in his hands and, leaning his back against the wall he slides down onto the floor and tries to cry but no tears come out of his dead eyes.
And then he hears knocking on the door. “Dad how long will you take? I need to pee!” The knocking give way to pounding now. The father clears his throat, tries to get to his feet. But his feet are a numbing mass of pin prick sensations. “Give me a moment alright?” He snaps and then he bites into his feet. He scrambles to his hurting feet. The daughter gets in and father comes out like they are in a stage play, their bodies brushing against each other as they do. The father jumps as if in contact with running electricity. The daughter is too worked-up to pay attention to her father. Hearing the pee hitting the commode make him feel like throwing up. Just let me get out of the house, which is going remain unfinished. He wonders whether his life is finished or unfinished.
“Ravi tea is ready. Did you you brush your teeth?” The wife hollers from the kitchen, a sharp edge to her voice that always rattles his nerves. Her voice reminds him of screeching tires on a rain-drenched road.
“Yeah.” He lies.
He sits on the long couch as his wife is already in the lone couch sipping her tea like she does not have any care in the world, like she is sipping margarita on a windy beach.
He looks at the empty area beside him on the couch, and runs his calloused hand over the soft, white leather couch and lets out a deep, shaky, witherhing sigh that seems to have come from a mossy, sunken well of his sleep-deprived subterranean mind.
The wife ignores him. She looks at her chocolate coloured tea and craves another cup. But who is going to make her tea? Her lazy daughters are still in bed, may be sleeping or daydreaming about boys. I wish I were them. The mother thinks unconsciously in her silent, roaring, broken train of thoughts that has its long-lost lustre, shine and chutzpah as they are filled with broken molars, greying hairs, sunken sleep, undigested traumas, rancid regrets.
The tea hits his tongue and he jumps. His sore-filled tongue scalded and he spits it out on the empty area on the sofa beside him. The wife looks at the stain on the sofa with horror as if it’s blood.
“What did you do that for? You’ve destroyed the sofa!” The wife says scratching her head savagely.
We are destroyed! You fucking bitch! Thinking about the fucking sofa.
“I need some sugar in my tea.” The husband says.
“Go fix yourself. And since when did you start taking sugar in your tea?”
“Since now. And I said I need sugar.”
“And I said go take go take yourself. I am not your mother.” The wife says rubbing at the stained leather vigorously. That gesture of hers reminds him of her vigorous hand-jobs offered to him, her soft, moisturised hand speeding in circular motion like a pinwheel until he cums. He feels a sense of deep dread and shame that comes up as bile up his throat. Burning and acidic. The husband grabs her arm, stopping her rubbing motion.”I said go add sugar in my cup.” The wife looks at his wrinkled hand and then at his wrinkly, sunken face; his eyes bloodshot with red veins zigzagging like a lightning in the whites of his milky, protruding sky, his nostrils flaring with dried black mucous, his cheeks droopy like an old person’s arm. She feels an odd, drowsy mixture of pity, resentment and anger that can seep through the bone and blacken the soul.
“Let go of my hand. So that I can add in sugar.” She says through her tight jaws.
The husband lets go her hand and slaps her right across the face and bursts to tears.”I am sorry. I am so sorry Rekha. I don’t what came over me.”
The wife does not say anything. She just takes the cup and leaves. It’s been a long, long time that he’s raised a hand at her, in fact she knows the incidents vividly like a montage of her favourite horror film: When she’d forgotten to inform him about her trip with her old friends, when she burnt his favourite white shirt while ironing, when she had forgotten his birthday, and then their fifth anniversary. But the fights, and the beatings tapered off like a pounding rain that’s has become a tingling tap-dance.
“Here’s your tea.” She says coldly, her voice like a grated onion that has the dark power to burn someone’s eyes. He rubs at his eyes with his both hands. It’s rubbing sound sounds like tiny feet squelching in the mud. The husband gets to his feet and plants a hot, sweaty, smelly kiss on her mouth. The wife recoils as if being in contact with a burning being. The husband’s face falls. He feels like garroting her soft, long neck with a wire. What kind of thoughts am I having? You sick asshole! You killed five passengers that involved a little girl. I did not kill them! The driver killed. But you took him on knowing well that he has drinking issues. And for what? To save two thousand rupees. Now everything is gone. You fucking miser!
“Hey are you alright?” The wife asks him. His face an agonized mass of contorting features.
“I am good. I am good. I am good.” He says the words like a wind-up toy that repeats a phrase like loony, cutesy being, almost alive. If only she could punch him in the face.
He stretches his lips into what he hopes is a smile. He looks like a madman to his wife. “Let’s go out and have some fun.”
“Wow we are going out. We’re going to have so much fun. I will have puchka.” The elder daughter Jyoti says, her eyes dreamy and distant like she is not in her home but somewhere else. Shiny and sweet like a popsicle.
“I am going to have burger, French Fries and Coca Cola.” The younger one Jyoti says. They are sitting on the sofa, right beside the tea-stain. Their bodies laid-back, and lazy, their minds still not fully awake.(It’s a Sunday, and they savour Sundays like sundaes in sticky summer.)
“I am not going to have that.” Jyoti says picking at her pimple on the chin. That’s begun its burning itch as if lice are trapped in the pus-inflamed pimple. Nowhere to go, but stay and multiply. If only I had a clear skin just like Priya. “I am not going to have that. I am trying to lose belly fat.”
“Then go for morning walks. But you won’t go for them because you are too lazy to get up. Right?” Their mother says staring at the stain that has strangely reminded of her period-stained grey skirt at her school: the stain blooming like a rotten rose that had leaked onto the bench, leaving her no choice but drape her grey sweater around her waist covering her backside. And her walk of shame as headed home with silent, heavy steps. Her feet leaden as they were ironclad.(Thank God it was winter. Otherwise what would have happened?)
“Mom don’t start now. Stop being so critical. Why do you always have to cast shadow on every good thing?” Jyoti protest, her nails digging into her pimple. And it bursts and bleeds.
“Mom we can go for picnic. We can take home-cooked food.” Rani says looking out the window, a white rooster on the boundary wall eyes her suspiciously, its red comb shiny and throbbing like it is wearing its heart on the head.
“No I am not cooking today. Cooking and cleaning! I am so tired of them. If you feel like taking a tiffin go cook yourself.”
“No. I don’t feel like cooking.” Both the daughters say in unison.
“And if I say that you are lazy then you protest.” The mother says sharply. A whiff of onion juice hangs in the air.
“You are also lazy.” Rani whines in a small voice.
“Don’t you dare call me lazy! Cooking and cleaning! I have been cleaning after your shit for years. I changed your diapers, I breastfed you! Hell the only reason you can see this beautiful world is because of me! I gave birth to you.” The mother rattles off like an unhinged clipped parrot.
The daughters look at their mother, their mouths open.
“Alright. Alright. Alright. Hurry up. We are getting late. And on the way we’ll go to a restaurant and have rice and duck curry.” The husband says surprising himself.
You are broke. And you want to splurge and eat meat. You fucking glutton!
“Got get ready!” The father declares. The daughters almost run into their shared bedroom.
“Why do you want to spend money on expensive food? You can buy clothes for the girls with that money.” The says. Or fix the sofa.
The husband looks at his wife; her SPF slathered face looks sad, the face she cares for like a newborn baby. Applying homemade smelly concoctions of curd, ground pulses and leftover fruits almost daily. The face that goes under facial twice a month. The face that spews venom and honeyed words like sorceress. You look so handsome in this shirt. You are worthless. I love you. I hate you. The face he’d fallen for, the face he’s come to dislike. Wait, am I thinking out loud or am I silent? Or am I fucking losing my mind? The husband looks scared now. He smiles at her, stretching his lips into thinning lines baring his yellowish, unbrushed teeth. The wife doesn’t smile back. Suddenly her back itches like a snake slithering inside it: slow-moving and sanity-sucking that sometimes keeps her awake at night. An image comes to her mind’s eyes unbidden: all four of them dying in their burning house as they scream for help. She shudders, her teeth chattering a little. Is it some sort of premonition? And then she remembers the news she saw on TV yesterday night: two little boys died an agonizing, slow burning death as their house caught fire incurred by short-circuit. The kids couldn’t get out because their grandmother locked them in to visit a neighbour round the block ( apparently the grandmother was asked by her daughter to keep an eye on her kids as she went out shopping). She lets out a sigh through her nostrils. Why is he acting so weird? Is she having an affair, fearing to be caught? At night he has his hands inside his pants. Or is he interested in re-igniting their sex life? But she no longer likes sex. In fact she finds it appaling. How did I like it so much in the past? Wow I am getting fucking old. Not only the hairs on my head, but my pubes have turned grey.
“Come on get ready” He says in a faux-cheery tone, startling her.
“You scared me.” The wife says putting her hand on her racing heart.
“Don’t be a coward my darling.”
“Snap out of it. Stop acting like a weirdo.”
He tears up. Not again. She would rather be anywhere else than her family.
“Are you okay?” She finds herself acting like wife from soap operas: concerned and always, always kind. She knows she sounds fake like those fake actors with their saccharine voice.
“Yeah I am goo I am okay,” He says, rubbing his eyes. “But be a little kind you know.”
“Okay. I will get ready. Give me a moment.” The wife says, ignoring his plea as if she’s not heard it.
The daughters come out resplendent in their shiny kurtas and pajamas. Their parents look at them for a moment, their mouths agape. They were babies in their arms. Now they have grown up. All in the blink of an eye. Time flies like crazy. The same thought buzzes in their heads like a furry fly.
“We are ready. You are not ready yet!” Rani says to her mother.
“I am hungry. I did some push-ups.” Jyoti says impatiently.
“Let me grab a packet of biscuit.” Rani says.
On other occasions the mother would have stopped them from a taking a packet of biscuit, instead she would have cut up some fruits and put them in the Borosil tiffin.
“Fruits. We’ve run of fruits. Buy some apples on the way back home.” She says looking at her husband who looks like who’s just eaten something sour.
“Or we can buy watermelon. It’s cheaper.” The wife say concedingly.
“But I like apples. After exercise I love having a spoonful of peanut butter with a few slices of apple. It just tastes like heaven.” Jyoti intervenes.
“All right I’ll buy apples. And you should eat apples not for your body but for your brain. You need to study well otherwise you won’t get a job like Sachin’s daughters.”
The daughters don’t respond to tha, not wanting to get into a sour mood. The mother cannot help but notice that the daughters don’t fire back at their father the way they do with their mother. Yeah always treat your mother like a scapegoat.
They are on the road now. The daughters sit in the back seats; with the windows rolled down, the wind whipping their hair like crazy.
“Ooh your hair is getting into my eyes. Tie up your hair.” Jyoti complains to Rani, who has her leg pressed against her sister’s. Yeah Rani is someone who leans almost always. Against wall, against legs, against any support and when she walks she hunches her back as if bogged down by her weight.
“You tie up your own hair. And why don’t you go to the other window?” Rani says.
“Because this side’s view is better. It’s filled with greenery, the other side has only boring buildings.”Jyoti says.
“Alright you come to this window.”
As they exchange their places.
“Let’s eat biscuits.” Rani says.
“It’s not biscuits. It’s cookies, cashew flavoured butter cookies or you can say nankhatai.” Jyoti says patronizingly.
“Whatever. And what’s in a name? The name we call rose we can call it by any other name.” Rani says proudly. Wow I can quote Shakespeare. One day I’ll write like Shakespeare. But that’s impossible. You cannot write like him. He is a genius. But I can imbibe some of his geniusness. But I did not understand all of King Lear, but I felt the emotions and that’s what matters right? When I reach home I’ll start reading Othello. No Hamlet. Maybe neither of those but his comedies. I need a break from catharsis. No I’ll read Othello. That’s final.
“How many cookies have you eaten you?” Rani says peering into the packet that has now got only two cookies. “You glutton.”
“There were only a few! And I was hungry. I was one who did exercise not you.” Jyoti says.
“That’s not fair. I completed King Lear today. Using mental energy also makes you fucking hungry.” Rani says.
“Language!” The mother snaps from the front the passenger seat of their i-20 car.
“As if you never swear.” Rani says through the
munching of cookies.
“Aah I got something in my eye. It’s itching. Rani look into my eye.” Jyoti cries.
Rani instantly looks into her sister’s eye.
“Stop closing your eyes. Let me look… there’s nothing.”
“But it’s hurting.”
“Let me blow into your eye.” Rani says blowing air into her bloodshot eye.
The husband and the wife look at their daughters in the rearview mirror: How can their conflict be resolved in a few seconds unlike us? Both are thinking the exact same thought. And then an image comes into her mind’s eye: all of them lying on the street, their bodies bleeding blithely. And their dear car is totaled. She shakes her head looking at her husband’s gnarly, white knuckles on the steering wheel and then his contorting face as if trapped in a bad dream with open eyes. He is hiding something. But what? Has he got some sort of cancer diagnosis? Her heart goes into the overdrive mode. Her hands form into fists with the uncut nails digging into her soft palm.
The car screeches to a halt. A big white bird flies by, almost hitting the windshield.
“Wow the bird was so lovely!” Jyoti says. “Actually the last night I saw the exact same bird in my dream. Is it trying to tell me something?”
“Will you just shut up!” The father shouts, startling Jyoti.
“Dad you don’t have to take that tone.” Rani says looking at her sister. He left eye still red.
“
