A few days back, I received this letter:
Goa
21/2/2013
My dear Arjun,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirit. Sadly, that is
not my state. My life is in danger.
How do I start? How I wish I had the comfort of saying the innocuous, ‘Trouble
started on a dark stormy night.’ Albeit a cliché, fact is always stranger than
fiction.
Trouble started when I took my mother-in-law on a honeymoon trip.
Every year, around February, my in-laws separate, for two weeks or so,
‘to revitalize their souls and bodies’, leaving behind damaged, ravaged hosts
in their ghostly, ghastly wake. This year, my father-in-law went to the east. My
guess is that he is now comfortably numb amongst Naga sadhus in the Himalayas or
in an old world house of a kind, podgy Bengali nymph stuffing himself to the
gills with sweets and fish. My wife’s mother was supposed to go to the west, around
the Thar desert, in search of gods.
We too, my wife and I, had planned a honeymoon getaway from the Mumbai
madness to serene Goa. There was supposed to be only a minor overlap in these
plans.
We were supposed to collect my mother-in-law at the airport at eight,
keep her amused for four hours or so, dispatch her on the midnight flight to
Jaipur, and then catch forty winks before setting off on our merry road trip.
She did land. We did our best to keep her amused. But we just could not pack
her off. At about ten that night, one of her fellow-pilgrims phoned to inform
her that their pilgrimage had been called off because of some epidemic of bowel
irritability. I tried to argue that the bowels have nothing to do with the
higher realms of spirituality. When that failed, I even found a rare seat on a
cargo flight to take her back to our hometown, away from us in Mumbai. But my
efforts gave me naught. I heard my wife’s mother say, ‘Oh here I am, for you,
for you!’ to which my wife replied with a treacherously joyful, ‘Oh Ma Ma!’ and
my ‘Oh No No!’ received only a brutal kick from my better, fairer half.
So, at five that morning, there she was, my mother-in-law, parked in the
middle of the backseat filling up the rearview mirror. Two hours into the
drive, she enquired about her accommodation. My efficient wife informed her
that she had managed, that night, to book a room, for her mother, in the same
resort. Her mother replied to that with, ‘Oh, you should not have bothered.
Won’t they allow an extra bed in your room for a nominal cost?’ I hit the
brakes involuntarily and the car swerved wildly. I nearly caused a pile-up on
the highway and received an extended tirade of threats and expletives from
without. I stopped the car, speechless and breathless, and turned to my wife.
My wife gave an unperturbed, flippant and only vaguely reassuring remark, ‘She
is joking.’ I looked in the rearview mirror. The reflection seemed blurred and
shaky with mirth. I too laughed the laugh of a death row inmate in the company
of a jolly, jocular executioner.
For the rest of that day’s road-trip, I thought deeply about fate,
destiny, karma and in-laws. Let me share with you the salient points of my
musing because it is relevant to understand why my destiny could not turn out
to be anything but my fate.
The fathers-in-law can be skipped because they are not really worth
mentioning. In fact, the men are usually so in any role, aren’t they? As for my
wife and her in-laws, they are like nations fighting over some inhospitable
terrain. They need the fight and not the land. After all, which sister really
cares for a brother that much? For that matter, which wife loves her man senselessly
to wage a war? For her social position she might, but never for her man. Look
at history – men have done every foolish act possible for women but have women
done anything like that for men? Even a mother’s love for her son, it is a myth
or at least a paradox - once he is an adult, that love is there only if she
sees very little of him. That is because she enters one of the best phases in
her life. All she wants then is the acceptable, alas manageable and lovable,
company of a spouse fast approaching dotage. The daughters and their mother
have few problems being together because a lifetime together have somehow made
them immune to each other’s chatter and petty demands. When a woman enters that
golden era, the only bee in her bonnet is her son-in-law. She hates it when he
visits expecting a free meal. She prefers to be the visitor, messing up his
life, constantly monitoring him in his role as her daughter’s main impregnator-cum-security
guard.
My man, I thought a lot during that trip about my predicament but if I
had known how precarious it would turn out to be, I would have driven that car
off a high cliff, along with that backseat content, happily singing on its way
down to a quick painless death.
Anyway, we reached the resort in Goa without any other hitch. The rest
of the day went by calmly. The ladies had no dearth of energy. I pretended to
be tired after the driving and got some quality ‘me-time’ with a bottle of
beer, snacks and the TV remote. Much later, my wife and I had a slow loving dinner
in our room. She mentioned rather vaguely that her mother had found new
company. Life did not seem bad then.
Next morning, my wife wanted an extended lie-in. I tiptoed past my
mother-in-law’s room and then raced to the dining room hoping to tackle a full
English breakfast, unsupervised by pesky women. Why are the most simple desires
the most difficult to get? With heaven so close, I tripped at the gates of
hell. There, near the entrance to heaven, at the dosa-cum-omelette counter, I
found my mother-in-law. She was giving careful instructions to two diffident,
thoroughly vanquished cooks. And, there was a parakeet near her.
He looked a few decades older than her. His wig, trying to emulate some
young fashion, looked like a pickelhaube worn backwards. My migraine was triggered
by his yellow-blue shirt with dazzling floral print, and Bermuda shorts a foot
too short with an unappetizing, unhealthy green-brown hue. His mouth reminded
me of old badly dubbed Chinese kung-fu movies with his lips and false teeth
totally out of sync. His hands seemed fidgety, desperately gearing up for a
grope and a feel. And, my mother-in-law seemed to be reciprocating to his
hideous flirting. Tell me, my man, which will upset you more – catching your
wife or your wife’s mother in flagrante delicto?
She noticed me then. She and the parakeet approached my table. The much-variegated
being perched uncomfortably close, gave me a wink, showered her with effusive,
embarrassing praises and sensibly flew away before I could put in a word. I
raised an eyebrow at my relative. She raised hers even further and said to me,
‘You look as attractive as those bulldogs who try to be the nation’s moral
whatever in Parliament.’ She was, of course, trying to say something nice to me.
She knew that I despised that lot. She herself claims to be left-leaning but
like most commies from my state, political ideology only applied to others and
not to oneself.
Then, quickly back on personal sphere, she asked me, ‘Why are you here
alone?’ ‘Your daughter wanted it.’ That seemed to be the right answer. She
subjected me to her customary head to toe survey, probably ticking off some
mental checklist, pondering if I remained the right choice for her sleeping
dotty. I had lost my appetite long before then. Still, under the influence of
that parakeet, I nibbled at idlis soaked in chutney-sambhar mix, pecked at a
limp omelette and munched fruits under that watchful eye, all washed down with
tepid coffee and memories of a full English breakfast. My wife joined us as I
was nearly through with the muck. She and her mother aggravated my system further
by detailing their plans for me that day.
Modern man has much grief, my man. When I married at a late age, I hoped
for a life of leisure, quite fed up of a bachelor’s life of hectic partying and
mindless activity. I wanted to be a Garfield. But what do I get? Not even rest
during a vacation. Haven’t you noticed these armies of husbands, wives and kids
at a beach or a hill resort - forever on the move, all dressed in uniform, with
the same low-slung half-pants over high-slung underpants, flaunting flabby pectorals,
imitation six-packs, bellies like jelly, shapeless breasts stretching sports
bras, vests, t-shirts, jackets, and of course, the ubiquitous big sunglasses to
cover the whole face? It is a highly competitive world, my man. So, I had a
full day of shopping, sightseeing, water-sports and other virile activities.
The only bright spot was that we rarely crossed paths with my mother-in-law who
graciously opted out of that busy schedule. I still worried about the parakeet’s
intentions and wondered about who would have an upper hand as a bad influence. I
could not, of course, discuss such matters with my wife. It was just a terribly
tiring day. And the terrifying day was still waiting to happen.
The next morning, I tried my luck once again and raced for a decent
meal, praying for peace and solitude. But once again, I found my mother-in-law
near the finishing line, though the parakeet was nowhere around. She approached
me with a worried look and said, ‘I have a problem.’
My heart sank and I collapsed onto a chair, profusely cursing the
parakeet. Every married man gets ready to hear those words but from his kids and
that too about twenty years down the line. But when the marriage vows are still
considerably fresh, which man is ready to hear those words from his
mother-in-law?
I was cold and numb, as if rigor mortis was setting in fast. I think it
was my mother-in-law who made me inhale a pinch of pepper like it was snuff and
brought me back to a spluttering, sneezing consciousness. It took a while
before there was a relative calm on that battlefield. I put on that old,
indignant bulldog expression. I was nonplussed when she hardly seemed contrite
or shamefaced with guilt.
She then said, ‘I have discovered a paedophile ring here.’ She did not
seem too pleased when I gave out a huge sigh of relief. But I recovered fast. I
know that a woman at her salacious worst is easier to manage than when she is
at her social best with feelers out to correct the ills of society. I sat up
wondering how I could slip a few tablets of Valium or Prozac into her coffee to
make her more amenable and less troublesome. But I was curious too, and as
promised by the adage, that curiosity brought with it the risk of an early
demise.
My wife’s mother has never been a good actor, and she was quite
deplorable there in that dining room when she tried to act the cool private eye.
With painful twitches of her head and rather obvious jerky gestures of her
hand, reminding me of new Tamil film songs I enjoyed watching without audio
during my ‘me-time’, she pointed out two sets of people in that sparsely
populated dining room. Her loud voice was suitable for a Mussolini raising
fascist rhetoric rather than for a Marlowe muttering dark secrets about an
ongoing investigation.
‘That young couple there, that shady man and that grim woman, yes, that
one to the far left, yes, that one giving me dirty looks, I think they are the
masterminds. I followed them the whole of yesterday. I smelt a rotten rat when
I found them snooping near that nice couple there with those lovely kids, yes,
that family in the middle, yes, those kids who are waving at us now.’
I managed to hush her to tolerable
audible levels. I promised to look into the sordid affair after finishing
breakfast. She did not seem very convinced with my promise, as usual. Those two
groups exited from the scene with rather unpleasant glares aimed at us. Fortunately,
my wife turned up then.
My mother-in-law did not disturb her dotty with details of her latest
investigation. Have you noticed how womenfolk can switch over in a jiffy from a
highly agitated state to a bewildering calmness leaving their men lagging well
behind with the appropriate and updated state of mind? We men seem like old
PC’s busy crunching out old data while the program itself went through various
revisions. Further, it seemed terribly unfair to me that she was guarding her
own while she had no qualms in exposing me to danger.
Breakfast remained a sorry affair like the previous day. But a silver
lining finally touched my cloudy life. The ladies decided to spare me that day.
They planned to spend that morning in the spa and, of course, they did not want
me around while they tried to relax. I was glad to have another extended
session of ‘me-time’.
So, there I was in my room, barely settled deep under the covers, with a
newspaper, a bottle of coke, a packet of crisps and the TV remote, when I heard
knocking on the door. I tried to ignore that but it grew more insistent. I
shuffled to the door and barely had I opened it, I was shoved back into the
room. I tripped and landed rather heavily on my backside. It was the couple
from the dining room, the duo of shady man and grim woman. They entered without
invitation and closed the door. The man and the woman walked around me, giving
my sides a regular kick as if to check whether the meat was fresh and prime.
Then, they bent towards me. The man asked, ‘What are you and that
middle-aged lady up to?’ The woman asked, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to be here with a
lady old enough to be your mother?’ I managed to squeak, ‘Yes, I am ashamed to
be here with my mother-in-law.’ They were taken aback. There was a noticeable
change in that shady man’s attitude towards me though the grim woman remained
as grim as ever. The woman continued with a harsh warning, ‘If she does not
scoot from here, I will personally send her packing.’ I could not help blurting
out with undisguised joy, ‘Will you?’ The shady man took pity on me and did
some explaining.
My mother-in-law turned out to be not all wrong. Those two are
undercover cops on a secret mission to capture a notorious criminal and
con-man. The foreign family was just a harmless family. The notorious one
turned out to be the parakeet. Those two undercover cops had been on his trail
for nearly a year. They were about to nab him when my mother-in-law messed up
their operation. First, her dalliance with the parakeet had made them wonder if
she was the Bonnie to his Clyde. Second, according to those cops, there was
some kind of fall-out between the parakeet and his moll, and the parakeet had
ended in hospital with a groin injury. That would have been fine without her
third action which involved tailing the duo around the place, drawing attention
to them and jeopardizing the whole operation.
Those cops warned me to vanish from the scene ‘with your ladies’. They assured
me that the villain was already on the prowl to seek vengeance for his bruised
manhood. And they added for my benefit that, if she remained elusive, the
easier target would probably bear the brunt of the retribution. For a moment, I
did not get the identity of that easier target. The grim lady for once looked
terribly pleased to inform me that they were talking about me. I asked them how
I could convince the ladies, the mother-in-law or the wife, to interrupt their
holiday. They were clueless about that.
So, that’s my situation. I know that my mother-in-law will stick to her
own conclusions about the case. For her, my life is anyway meant for collateral
damage. Even my wife will not be amenable to reason. She might expect chivalry
from me so that she can continue with her break.
There is the slim chance that the villain would be sensible and target
only my mother-in-law. It is a gamble worth dying for, is it not?
The mini-bar is empty now and the hotel stationery is over. I am shaken
and rather well stirred. But this letter-writing has made me calm. Let me post
it and wait for high noon. Please do pray for me.
Your friend forever however short that maybe,
xxx
I
have tried hard but the signature is undecipherable and gives me no clue about
the identity of this friend. I shall pray for you, dear friend, whoever you are.
May you rest in peace as you desire.
