Scrabble

 

"Insp. Shokie, Scrabble with you is like a session with a yenta," her nemesis Shekhar said.

"Phpht!"

"I had #cwtch in mind."

"Brr."

"Byrls?"

"Not after caziques."

"Opened too much with your tits."

"Your horn, too."

"Hornswoggle!"

"With you, that came naturally."

#vss365

Another Rotten Day

Yesterday turned out to be a rotten day.

(No, it was not because of the usual water supply problem. That has been resolved. The Water Authority and the Minister for Water Resources have decided that my family can be ignored. We belong to the insignificant minority. It is such a relief when a case is closed so amicably.)

I received summons from my kids' school.

I had to meet the Principal (message on mobile said, "...to deal with a delicate matter...").

My better half wondered, "Is he (son, not Principal) the delicate matter? Or is she (daughter)?"

I asked her to come along for moral support. She gave the usual mother-talk about the eternal bond between mothers and kids, "I carried them for nine months...that is, eighteen months, mind you...you promised to bear everything thereafter." I am sure I am not daft to make a promise like that. But has anyone won a battle against that nine-month-mother-talk?

I took my time outside the Principal's office. Reels of déjà vu rolled, flashback in black-n-white and technicolor too.

"Ah yes, come in..." the Principal said. Four words, four swings of the paddle.

My son was already in his office, assigned to a corner. He looked like one in quarantine silently protesting his incarceration.

"Ah good sir, thank you for coming," the Principal said.

"Ah," I replied. The Principal frowned. He clearly had the patent on Ah.

"Ah!" he reclaimed possession. "Do you know why I had to call you?"

"Nah," I tried. He frowned again.

"He has spoiled the delicate fabric of this social community," the Principal announced.

"He?"

The Principal's squint-eyed stare made it clear that I was not to interrupt his judgement or execution.

He reached for a sheet of paper.

"Read this, good sir. Ah. This is what your son chose for the school's elocution competition. Ah. This poem by some unknown good-for-nothing."

I read it.

"You might know your mother
But never be too sure 
About your father."

I didn't have to read the rest.

I looked at my son. He returned a blank-eyed stare. Finally, I could understand the last scene in "The Omen" where the much-tortured Gregory Peck tries to kill his son Damien.

"Ah sir, now..."

I must have gone pale or looked terribly daft (the better half says that I am terribly good at it). I remember waking up from that reverie with the Principal looking down on me.

"Ah good sir. I thought we lost you there. Don't let this affect you so. Let us forget this whole matter."

"Nah," I said.

"Ah sir, I have decided. Say no more." The Principal told my son to go back to class. He dismissed me too.

Thus, I did not have to tell him that I am the unknown good-for-nothing. My son must have discovered my 'pome' among the boxes of old stuff. He has inherited that from my better half. She has this knack for finding my carefully hidden personal diaries. I tried to cure her once. On our first wedding anniversary, I noted in my diary, "She is such a pain." She found it. I had to endure two years of marriage counselling. I was cured of every desire to cure her.

Back to the 'pome'. I was very young when I wrote it. I had just discovered Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse" and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". My 'pome' was supposed to be a clarion call against patriarchy, caste-system and every other social ill that allowed some creeps to seem like well-endowed creeps.

Outside the Principal's office, my son tugged at my sleeve. "Great act, old man."

I whacked his head.

A lady-teacher appeared there out of thin air right then, made a clucking sound with her tongue or wherever.

My son scooted from the scene. I too tried. She blocked my way.

"Ah sir."

"Nah, naht agaaain." I howled internally.

"You are just the man I have been looking for."

When a woman says that, you can be sure the horror is about to begin soon.

"Sir, I have to talk to you about your daughter."

"She too, Bruteh!" my innards groaned. Why is it that teachers inspire stream of consciousness?

"Have you and your Mrs noticed that she has been acting differently lately?"

"It is a congenital condition," my brain noted.

"She seems so lost, so uncared for. She was such a good student. She is still good. But she seems lost."

"She gets that from moi. I too feel lost," I muttered silently.

"I asked her if her parents help her with her studies and other activities. She told me no."

"She told us to stay away," I wanted to say.

"I asked her if her parents make her feel secure with a promise of foreign education after school. She told me that you told her to get in somewhere good and cheap or be a home nurse and take care of her old parents. Surely, you did not say that."

"My parents told me that. Why can't I?" I wanted to cry about my deprived childhood.

"It seems you don't encourage her in any way. You don't even mention on social media about her success in studies or extracurricular activities."

"She promised to kill us if we did that." How could I tell that to a teacher?

"Ah. Please, sir. I have seen too many good kids end up badly. Please change your ways."

"Oh." I managed to say finally.

open relationship

He: I love you.

She: You talking to me?

He: Don't eavesdrop when I am talking on the phone.

She: Go to another room when you want to talk to your love. Not in the bedroom.

He: Geez...

She: I love you too.

He: Did you say something?

She: Shoo...

He: So, you can phone in our bedroom and I can't? Ok, ok, I am going.

She: Not to you, silly. He was hanging around.

past with no future

I love her a lot.
There's the past, no future though.
I loved her a lot. 

the play

My kids disturbed my siesta.

I woke up screaming, "No, I didn't take the chocolate."

"Hey, old man," my son said. He is in that phase now, the life-long antagonism between sons and fathers. I scowled at him.

"So, it was you," my daughter said.

"Don't do that," I pleaded.

"Do what?" she asked.

"Sound like my mother-in-law," I said. I decided to change the topic. "What do you two want at this unearthly hour?"

"It is 4 pm," they said.

"So?" I responded.

"We want a play for the school Drama competition?" my daughter said.

"How many plays?" I asked eagerly.

"One, of course," she said.

"There are two of you," I reasoned.

"We are in the same house," she said.

"You have no idea about us, do you?" my son added.

"I do. You are in the 10th standard..." I said.

"9th..." he corrected.

"When did you fail?" I asked.

"See.." he said.

"I bet you two don't know in which house I am in office," I said.

"Outhouse," my son said.

"You don't have any house," my daughter said. "Come on...the play!"

"Ah! The play!" I rubbed my hands with glee.

I thought for a while.

"In standard 8, I adapted a N.N. Pillai play," I said.

"Aren't his plays a bit crude?" my daughter asked.

"It was hilarious. The crowd loved it. My wife is pregnant...or is it my daughter...there is some confusion about the father..."

"Did they allow that then?" my son asked, totally incredulous.

"I am not sure if it was allowed. We did it," I said triumphantly. I added, "Well, from the next year, they insisted on knowing the storyline before the final day."

"Ah...so, that's when it started," they said.

"In the 9th, it was an Agatha Christie play. I was a lovely lady in a lovely dress...and the murderer too," I said.

"No wonder Ma wears the pants," my son said.

"That won't work now," my daughter said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Anti-women," she said.

"In the 10th, I was a blind beggar, award-winning stuff," I boasted.

"The differently-abled will get hurt," my daughter said.

"The beggars will protest," my son said.

"In the 11th, it was another hilarious play. I was this old man with a daughter in love with a rich waiter," I said.

"Too many negatives...old people...girl in love with money...waiters will want to know why them," she said.

"In the 12th, the priest-convict scene in Les Miserables. I was Jean Valjean, another award-winning stuff," I said.

They were not at all impressed.

"That's a Christian priest, right?" my son asked.

"Hey, he is a nice Christian priest," I said.

"They will think they are being poked at," my daughter said.

"How?" I asked.

"How do I know..won't do...it will hurt their sentiments," she said.

"It wil definitely hurt Hindu and Muslim priests," my son said.

"How did they come into the picture?" I protested.

"Exactly...why aren't they in it, they will protest," he said.

"In France...then?" I pleaded.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"How about the epics? There is that much-adapted story. The orphan who actually belongs to a second-class family brought up by a third-class family..."

My son whistled the tune of 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child...'

I ignored him and continued, "He goes to a first-class teacher pretending to be one of them. He gets cursed by his teacher. He gets cursed by a second-class person too. Come to think of it, only the third-class did not curse him. He has a more fortunate brother who was only cursed by a scorned woman and then became a transvestite for a year."

"Eeeks," she cried, "too many groups offended."

"Is that a Greek epic?" my son asked.

"Indian, I think," I said. "If it was Greek, the two brothers would have become lovers and developed a new complex. It was  definitely Indian. The fortunate brother kills the much-cursed one, that too via treachery suggested by gods."

"Do you want to get us lynched with gods in negative role?" they cried.

"Ok...how about Shakespeare? I always wanted to act in one," I said.

"He is problematic," she said.

"Merchant of Venice?"

"Anti-Semitism."

"Julius Caeser?"

"Men in skirts."

"Romeo and Juliet?"

"Teenage sex."

"Othello?"

"Anti-coloured."

"Hamlet?"

"Anti-crazy."

"I think you should stick to some Aesop's fable," I suggested.

"Those hurt too," they said.

scene from a first night

"Are you saying you would not have got into this arranged marriage if you had found a girl for love marriage?" she asked.

"huH," he said.

"Are you saying you are in bed with me only because you could not find a girl to fall in love with?" she asked.

"hUh," he said.

"Do you know how that makes me feel?" she asked.

"Huh huH," he said.

"I guess you think it's just logical, use head not heart," she said.

"UhH," he said.

"For me it was love at first sight," she said.

"uHh?" he asked.

"I fell in love when I first met you," she said.

"HuH?" he asked.

"Yes, all heart no head," she said.

"uhh?" he asked.

"You reminded me of a guy I was in love with," she said.

"Uhh huh hhU," he said.

Coffee With Another

Everything would have been fine if I had not been thirty minutes early. But, she had mentioned in our last call that she might finish off her tasks early.

There I was, on the opposite side of the road, in front of Shalimar Hotel, staring at the Fidalgo, our agreed meeting point. I saw my wife sitting within Fidalgo coffee shop, with a strange man. I did not know what to do. I do not know how long I stood there staring at them.

I did not hear the woman's words till she repeated it. I do not know how long she had stood by my side staring at the same scene.

'Is that your wife?' she asked, her head tilting towards them.
I nodded.
'That's my husband,' she said. There was anger in her eyes. 'We should do something.'
'What?'
'Let's have coffee too,' she said.

We went to the coffee-shop of Shalimar Hotel. Minus the two glass walls and the road, we could have been two couples sitting at the same table, my wife and that man, this woman and I. I ordered a latte. She had an expresso and a slice of apple pie. I did wonder how she could eat at such a moment.

Fifteen or twenty minutes went by. Then, the man turned his head. He saw us. He got up angrily, his chair falling backwards. My wife saw me too. The man came out of Fidalgo, raced across the road, not minding the traffic screeching to a halt or the loud curses. He entered Shalimar. He came to our table, mad with rage, nearly frothing at his mouth.

'What the f***?' he snarled at me and his wife. His wife got up defiantly. Before she could say a word, he said, "Don't you utter a word!"

He grabbed her hand and they walked away. My wife got to the table then.

All she had to say was, 'Aha! So, she left you to pay the bill, huh? I too had to pay. That creep had two chicken puffs, one samosa and a chai. What do you have to say about that?'

Reference: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40473553

Quote from the reference: "I'm a 52-year-old, white, college educated, atheist, left-wing, married woman ... and there's no way I would have a one-on-one meal/drink with a man who was not my husband. Not even a Starbucks."

Moral of the story: Enjoy coffee on your own. If your spouse agrees to pay, take her/him along.

The Cliché

It must be true that everyone has their railway platform moment, or some variant of the same: a tragic parting with a train’s whistle playing in the background, a heart-breaking arms-stretched tableau at an airport’s Departure terminal or a lingering handshake at the bus-stand with thirty or so impatient fellow-passengers grumbling, “Aw…get on the bus, will you?”.

I have mine.

She was on platform number one. I was running to the escalator. A kid came in between. We nearly collided.

I mumbled an apology, recognized her instantly. It took her a while.

“We have met before, haven’t we?” she asked.

“Madam, at the bank, the mutual fund investment,” I mumbled.

“Ah yes…they are not doing well, are they?” she said with a smile in her eyes.

“Madam, think long-term, blue-chip portfolio never fails,” I tried to sound confident. “Are you here to catch a train?”

“Is there anything else to catch on a railway platform?” she teased.

We laughed.

“How about you?” she asked.

“My train is about to leave on platform number three,” I said. I added, “Going on honeymoon…”

“Alone?” she continued to tease.

I blushed and said, “With wife…”

“You have a lovely time,” she said.

The kid, and a trolley-bag it was pushing, whizzed behind her. She took a few steps forward to evade a collision. I raised my arms. We nearly touched.

“Phew…” she said, “you better run, your train is leaving.”

I raced over the bridge, jumped into my compartment and slumped on my seat.

“Who was that?” my wife asked.

“Who…?”

“The lady you were talking to…?” she continued.

“Oh…no one…” I replied.

We had the coupe to ourselves.

An hour later, at Kollam, she asked, “How did she know you would be here today?”

“I don’t know…” I said.

“Really…?”

“Really...”

Just before Ernakulam, she asked, “Did she talk…” she paused.

I waited for her to continue.

“You know…about long-term stuff…?” she said.

I nodded.

“But, it’s over, isn’t it?” she asked.

I nodded.

I watched the setting sun, stared blankly at a winding river, my unblinking tear-filled eyes followed twittering birds, my thoughts could have seemed far away, sat back, gave a long sigh, blinked and then closed my eyes.

At Kozhikode, she held my hand.

“Let’s have biriyani,” she said.

The honeymoon was lovely.

We returned by plane, via Bangalore. We had a four-hour wait there.

When I returned after a toilet break, I saw her at a bookshop, talking to a tall, handsome man. They smiled sadly at each other, the farewell seemed long and touching. He walked away, haltingly, to another gate. She returned to me, wiping her eyes with a small tissue.

She immersed herself in the book she had bought, with him. It was the bestseller, ‘Farewell to Gods’.

“Tea…?” I asked.

She nodded without looking up. I patted her shoulder. She rested her cold damp cheek on my hand. 

Vada with Chutney on Top

“This post could be about us,” Amar told his friends. When the other two did not respond, he read it aloud, “We used to be Amar, Akbar and Antony. Now, we are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.” He looked at his disinterested friends and said, “So true. These are sad times.”

“What’s his name?” Antony asked Amar, pointing at Akbar.

“Akbar,” Amar replied.

“No, his full name…”

“Akbar M.”

“It’s Akbar Menon, you fool,” Antony said. “And, his sister’s name is Anastasia N. previously M., Anastasia married to some Nair.”

“Bloody hell…!” Amar exclaimed. He looked at Akbar, “Your dad crazy or what!”

“Aren’t they all?” Akbar said.

“But you are a proper Antony, aren’t you?” Amar turned to Antony.

“Oh yes, Antony Gonzales, son of a Big B fan. His last words to me were: I have mother, you have nothing.”

“Was that true?” Amar asked.

“Of course not, his mother was dead twenty years, mine has still got that many left,” Antony said.

“She may not be your mother,” Akbar said.

Antony threw a vada with chutney on top at Akbar.

“So, what are you actually?” Amar asked.

“That’s top secret,” Antony said.

“Come on, out with it,” Amar pleaded.

“Antony Namboothiri, son of the one and only Brahmadattan Namboothiri,” Akbar announced.

“Bloody hell…! You two are fakes!” Amar cried.

“Amar, my friend, you are the true original,” Antony said.

“Always Amar the low caste,” Akbar said.

“I am not,” Amar protested.

“Yes, you are, yes, you are…” Antony chanted.

The three threw vada with chutney on top at each other.

The Last Story

The murder was not a surprise.

On the sixth straight holiday, the supermarket did not even have banana or bread. That night, they had cracker and cheese for dinner, and Bounty chocolate, the old relic in the fridge untouched till then. The kids did not even notice. The man and the woman tried the television later, without luck.

It had started fine, the holidays. The picnic in the hills was good. A terribly disappointing movie after signalled the change of season. The man or the woman got irritated with the kids and their smartphones when they went out for an expensive dinner.

None of their friends called. They did not call anyone either. They kept their cool at his folks’ place, at hers too. On the way back home, one of them had muttered, “Bloody religion, have you noticed how eager people are to wish each other Happy This, Happy That, but can you talk about it, really talk, I can’t even talk about my own bloody religion!” The other thought, “Go on, talk about it, talk about my lot, isn’t that what you want to talk about? Before that, let’s talk about me, or you, bloody me, bloody you!”

The body was found…

Public Chat

                                                                  (Image from the Net)

There used to be a phone kiosk close to my Department–three booths with table-fans, standing space and, walls of fiberglass waist-up and plywood below; set up with Government funds for the disabled and run by twin brothers, both deaf and dumb. They kept the place clean, managed the queue and billed exactly. Some tried for a nod or a smile. The brothers never responded. ‘They can lip read,’ people warned. That troubled none. Anyone could listen. With three callers at most times, it was tough to keep track of one’s own line.

There, I declared my love for the first time. I got the middle booth, between a postgraduate in Aeronautics and a lecturer in the Mathematics Department. 

‘Surprised?’ I asked.

‘You listen to me…’ the postgraduate insisted.

‘Are you wearing the black bra?’ the lecturer whispered.

‘Are you going to listen to me or to your father?’

‘Stop worrying about your husband, he’s taking Number Theory.’

‘I’d this urge to tell you that I love you.’

‘Come on, it’s just the two of us.’

‘That bastard is ruining our life.’

‘Your father will kill me? Tell him to go and hang.’

‘You decide…me or him?’

‘Why should we do this face-to-face?’

‘Why aren’t you wearing it?’

‘Witch…’

‘Itch…?’

‘Bitch…!’

One couple lived happily ever after; another preserved the status quo; and the third drifted apart.

I miss that place. Those lip reading brothers must have understood all. Snoops these days just aren’t that good.

The Bird

Sunday morning was lovely–blue sky, birds chirping and breakfast on time–till our neighbour rang the bell. From the look on his face, I could make out that he did not think much of the morning.

I got to the point. “What happened?”

“Where’s your son?” he barked.

“Which one…?” I asked.

“Which one…?” he repeated bemused.

I have only one son. I thought a bit of humour would reduce the tension. It did not.

“The one taking photos of my daughter,” he snarled.

I was about to say “Which one…?” when my wife came to my side and intervened with “Ah!”

She called my son’s name.

My son came from his room upstairs, looking disgruntled, hardly apologetic and carrying his camera. I shook my head when I saw that.

“Why are you taking photos of his daughter?” my wife asked.

“Why would I take photos of his daughter?” my son asked.

“Don’t be cheeky, lad.” The neighbour and I sang that chorus.

“I was taking photos of a red-backed eagle,” my son said. He turned to his mother and complained, “You called when I had the perfect shot.”

“Let me see your photos,” the neighbour demanded.

We crowded around the digital camera. The photos were ambiguous. The leaves were in focus. The bird was a fuzzy patch of reddish brown and white. There was a hazy patch behind the bird, that too of reddish brown and white, which could be a lady.

“See, that’s my daughter,” the neighbour cried triumphantly.

“That’s not your daughter,” I said.

“My daughter is my daughter,” the neighbour stamped his foot.

“That is your wife,” I said calmly.

“My wife is not my daughter.” He was nearing a nervous breakdown.

“Your wife is wearing the nightdress with reddish brown back and white front, not your daughter,” I said.

“How do you know?” The neighbour, my wife and my son sang that chorus.

Mental Evaluation

‘Tell me about a traumatic incident in your life,’ the psychologist said.

‘I was in college. A girl wanted to meet me. We used to talk on the phone, that’s all. She was getting married. I don’t know why she wanted to meet me.’ I paused.

‘Go on.’

‘I told a friend to pick me up after ten minutes. I didn’t want to be with her for more than ten minutes. She getting married and all that, you know.’

‘Uh-huh…’

‘She came with a friend, a beautiful girl. It was love at first sight.’

‘What happened?’

‘My friend came to pick me up after ten minutes, on the dot, what else.’

‘Ah!’

The psychologist placed a Rorschach inkblot in front of me.

‘What do you see?’ he asked.

‘A ballet dancer leaning against an exercise bar, one leg raised and looking at her reflection in a mirror,’ I replied without hesitation.

‘You see a ballet dancer?’ the psychologist seemed surprised. He turned the inkblot and studied it. ‘Hmm, quite true, quite true…’

‘Bit heavy on top for a ballet dancer, isn’t she?’

‘Quite true, quite true…’ 

‘Reminds me of that girl, you know.’

‘Which one: the one who wanted to meet you or her friend?’

‘Oh no, the friend who came to pick me up...’

‘Ah, so, you did leave with a girl then. You should look at the bright side,’ the psychologist urged.

‘Who said she left with me? She went off with those two girls, didn’t she?’

‘Ah, so, it was traumatic after all,’ the psychologist sounded relieved. He continued studying the inkblot. ‘Amazing, I did not see the ballet dancer in this till today.’

‘Only because you reminded me of that trauma…’

‘Quite true, quite true…’

The Woman

‘Every man, even Sherlock Holmes, has a woman he calls the woman,’ Uncle Jose (Hosappan to us) admitted bitterly. That was a year back when I met his ‘woman’.

We were at a wedding reception, bored and irritated, through with comparing the dosa and kebab counters, the old and the new girls, the wealth and the intellect.

‘hHhossey,’ came a perfectly enunciated cry of delight from behind us, the first ‘h’ from deep down the throat, the main ‘H’ from the tonsils and the last ‘h’ lingering on the tongue.

Hosappan stood ramrod stiff, pale, lips quivering. He later confided that that voice always has the effect of an electric prod probing the gluteus maximus.

I turned around to find a graceful and charming lady. She reminded me of an old love’s mother, an old love I loved hoping she would turn out to be like her mother but instead the law of bad genes ruled and she took after her father.

Hosappan took his time to face her. By then, he was red in the face.

A few words about Hosappan’s nature might help to understand the situation better. He can be vain. He thinks he has the best of Al Pacino and De Niro. He feels that his intellect is being abused when his company cannot match Simone and Sartre. But there is a chink in that armour of vanity. He is fine as long as those ideas of grandeur are from within the realm of his own senses, and not from without, say from a friend or even a lover. Shower him with praise, and watch Hosappan squirm to escape from the scene like a tortoise flipped over and tickled pink.

No one seems to know that better than his ‘woman’. How she poked the dagger of attention at his Achilles heel, and liberally sprinkled the salt of affection on that open wound!

‘Ah, hHhossey, you look so smart.’ She had brought a crowd with her, a husband, couple of kids and mutual acquaintances. They circled around Hosappan. She started on her soliloquy, ‘He used to be such a heartbreaker, no? On stage or on the field, how we girls loved him! And so brilliant! Has the school ever seen a student like him since?’ She went on and on. The crowd swallowed her eulogy without a pinch of salt. Hosappan’s visage reminded me of an old fresco with scenes from Torquemada’s inquisition.

I observed her closely that evening. She is not pea-brained or garrulous.  She is, in fact, a very serious woman; that is, in all matters that does not involve Hosappan, of course. With others, her actions and words were precise and well-thought-out. That probably explains why she has maximum impact on Hosappan.

‘Wow, she is certainly into you,’ I said, at his place, after the party.

‘Bah,’ Hosappan retorted.

‘Come on, you don’t doubt her, do you?’ I asked.

‘The day I fall for her act, you can name your dog Jose.’

‘His name is already Jose,’ I joked. I refused to let go of the topic, ‘Aw, come on, tell me, were you two an item?’

‘An item…? Bah! In school, we were not even on speaking terms. We avoided each other right from the start. You know how decent I am, right?’ He did not wait for me to express my doubts. ‘I tried talking to her once. She sent word, through my best friend, that she does not like talking to riff-raff. Riff-raff…! My foot!’ he thundered.

‘Was she a stunner even in school?’ I asked.

‘No, actually, quite the plain Jane,’ he said.

‘When did this start?’ I asked.

‘Ah, this,’ he spat that ‘this’ with disgust, ‘this started much later, after our undergraduate years.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘We were at a party, must have been one of those dreadful school reunions. In a moment of weakness, I approached this, what’s your word, stunner. Riff-raff, am I not? Well, she had actually become quite a stunner. Bloomed, flowered to be deflowered, what-not. But in more ways than one had she bloomed, I soon found out.’

‘Why, what did she do?’

‘It was a full-frontal attack, worse than today. God, she put on such a show of drooling over me, that devious one. It was simply awful,’ he flinched, probably after refreshing his memory.

‘Is it the same each time?’

‘More or less; worst part is, people think she is sincere. They just can’t get it that she is a pulling a fast one on me. Even you fell for it, right?’ He sounded hurt. I shrugged. I am no expert in the ways of the birds and the bees. Hosappan continued, ‘I try to avoid meetings where our paths could cross,’ he paused, ‘I thought it would end when she got married. Did you notice her husband? Bet they are in cahoots.’

I nodded. Her husband seemed to be a close cousin of Jeeves and Count Dracula – a product of some aristocratic stable, bespoke-fitted with sangfroid and stiff upper lip, and definitely not riff-raff. It takes generations of good breeding to produce a man who quietly allows his wife to skewer, or go into an adulation overdrive over, another man.

It took a while for Hosappan to recover from that day’s attack. On one visit, I found him seated on his rattan armchair, lost in thought, muttering incoherently, convulsing involuntarily.

A year went by without another encounter with ‘the woman’.

Yesterday morning, I was at Hosappan’s place. I took a phone-call around eleven. It was her husband. Politely and succinctly, he informed that his wife wanted Hosappan by her side. He told me the name of a hospital.

I gently broke the news to Hosappan. He did not say a word then or in the car. I drove as fast as I could. I thought of all the clichéd endings in movies, people racing to the hospital or railway station or airport, the good ones always reaching too late.

At the hospital, we were told that she was under observation in the ICU. We joined her husband, kids, friends and relatives in the waiting room. The husband shook hands with Hosappan. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

Hosappan found a desolate corner. He refused to join me for lunch at the canteen. He remained there till evening, when she was shifted to a room.

We stood outside the room. The husband was allowed within. We watched him talk to the doctor. The nurses stood to the side, looking busy and efficient. All of them looked terribly serious. The doctor came out. A nurse informed the crowd that only one more guest could go in then, and that she had requested that it be Hosappan.

Hosappan sheepishly shrugged at me, the kids and the rest before going in. 

The husband stood to her right. Hosappan took the left flank. The husband spoke softly. I was quite surprised to see Hosappan shed a manly tear or two. The scene seemed very familiar; Rick, Ilsa and Laszlo, of ‘Casablanca’, in another attempt at a ménage a trois. Hosappan approached her. Oh ho, another clichéd ending coming, I thought. He smiled sadly, affectionately tucked a stray strand of hair, bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. She did not bat an eyelid, neither did her aristocratic partner. There were gasps from the audience outside the room. Hosappan whispered something to her. Then, he turned and left. Was he giving it back to her in her own currency?

On our way home, I asked, ‘Well?’

‘Just a scare, nothing serious,’ he replied.

‘And what was all that in there?’ I asked.

‘Ah, just her usual show,’ his cryptic reply.

I nodded, tried aristocratic silence and controlled my plebeian curiosity, for five seconds.

‘What did you say to her?’ I asked.

‘I told her not to do this to me ever again.’

That hardly explained anything. Which ‘this’ was he referring to, I wondered. Scaring him with her illness or teasing him with care, feigned or not?

But then, isn’t uncertainty that make the woman from a woman?

The Grand Prize

Raj was not one bit delighted when he wrote to the Creative Writers Society (Canary Wharf), ‘I am absolutely delighted to win the prize.’

In that missive, he dedicated a paragraph to how the Society changes the world. He clarified, ‘the world of writers like him’. Only after sending the mail did he wonder if the Society would misunderstand his sarcasm, and take it well. After all, even that was not a small world.

His disappointment was not unreasonable. The Society needlessly mentioned in its congratulatory note that the number of entries had been abysmally low for that month’s competition. They continued to twist the dagger in the soft sensitive areas by informing him that the eminent writer who was supposed to judge the competition had pulled out at the last moment ‘citing pecuniary differences’. They added, ‘The Society chairman had to carry the cross.’ As if that was not enough negativity, the very convenient recession was given as the reason for changing the prize from cash to coupons. Raj thought of protesting, ‘Why are you holding an international competition and offering a prize that can be redeemed in some store in East London?’ He withheld his protest only because the competition was without entry fee. It seemed wrong to criticize them when he could not figure out what they gained from the whole exercise.

He decided to send the coupons to a distant cousin in London. He was not sure if the cousin would pay, even with a discount, but the alternative was a friend who, without any reasonable doubt, would take it as a gift. Blood tends to be thicker when laced with hope.

As for the comment about the prize changing his world, he was not off the mark. Later, he would curse his foresight.

The change precipitated on the internet (where else?).

A disgruntled loser in the same competition spewed venom on a blog, and attacked ‘the winning entry that got the grand prize of fifty pounds’. Sarcasm, once again, faced the danger of being misinterpreted by the literally-minded.

That blog caught the attention of a junior correspondent of a local newspaper. Somewhere in the trip from that flunky’s browser to the editor’s desk, that metamorphosed into front page news about Raj and his ‘fifty grand prize’. The headline read, ‘Small town wins global prize’.

The first day brought with it calm dignity. At the milk-booth and the tea-stall, acquaintances congratulated him. A mother at the school bus-stop asked him, ‘Which book or coaching class should my kids attend?’

Raj’s friend Sunil turned up and demanded a booze-session.

Raj tried to reason, ‘Oye, I haven’t got any money.’

Sunil understood, ‘As if you would give otherwise, Scrooge.’ He tried to make that Scrooge rhyme with Raj.

Trouble started by the end of the day. Two nonagenarian writers in the vernacular who shared between them every award given in the state sounded miffed on a TV news-channel. The old man barked, ‘Bah! We should not accept alms from old colonial lords.’ The old lady was more cantankerous, ‘This is an assault on the vernacular. Now, every kid will write in English to get a pound. Mind you, with this pound, this award is taking our dignity, our freedom, our culture, our heritage, our national pride.’ She would have added more ‘ours’ if that had not left her breathless.

The popular newsreader called up Raj for his response. At nine pm, it was ‘live breaking news’. Raj tried befuddled incomprehension at first. When the reporter started putting words into his mouth, he decided for the shortest way out, ‘I agree totally with Shree Masterji and Shreemati Teacherji. I will use part of the funds to publicize their works.’ The nonagenarians, who were still on TV, well past their bedtime, seemed placated and they retired for the night after amiably blessing Raj.

The reporter was not pleased with that hot news losing steam so quickly. The next day he stirred the dirt in the shallow pool. The breaking news read, ‘Writer reveals all.’ The reporter used everything in his repertoire to express outrage, from constipated frustration to smug condescension. The message was clear to all. Raj had used all of them in his stories; without permission; worse, without compensation.

Some tried to read his stories on his blog-space. That was too arduous a task. Raj’s relatives, who had contacted him directly on the first day when they heard about the cash prize, got in touch with his parents, ‘What has he written about me?’ Even his siblings were worried.

The mother at the school bus-stop confronted him, ‘I do not abuse my kids.’ She wept loudly and cursed him. 

The owners of the tea-stall and the milk-booth were curious, ‘How did you know he was sleeping with my wife?’

Raj did not know what to say. What could he say when they seemed to be protesting about stories he had never thought of? He noted it down, however, for future use, after the dust settles.

Sunil turned up once again. He was not bothered if he was there in the stories or not. In fact, he hoped he was there in those stories, thinly disguised as serial rapist or lecherous alcoholic. Raj wondered if his friend had actually read his stories because he had used Sunil in similar nefarious roles. To his friend, he denied, of course. He was quite sure Sunil would ask for more than a pound of flesh.

Sunil’s attention shifted, ‘Hey, I met your old love, Anjana.’

Anjana was Raj’s first love, terribly unrequited and horribly embarrassing.

Sunil continued, ‘She is really livid with rage.’

‘Why so?’ Raj was surprised.

‘She did not like her role in your story ‘First Night’. Well, all that sex and fumbling, quite realistic, I say, but…’ Sunil reported.

‘But, she is not the one in ‘First Night’,’ Raj protested. ‘Who gave her that idea?’

‘I did,’ Sunil looked pleased, ‘Come on, you must have thought of all that, with her.’

‘Of course not, it was platonic,’ Raj said.

‘What crap, how many times did you cry on my shoulder about you and your bloody love for Anjana?’ Sunil asked.

‘But, I never thought of sex with her,’ Raj said.

‘Bloody hell, how could you love without sex?’ Sunil exclaimed.

Raj fidgeted for a while. ‘She has got a nasty husband.’

‘Hmmm… she told me that she would be telling him,’ Sunil paused, ‘they have a loving and trusting relationship, she claimed… holy crap, I felt like puking!’

‘Why did you tell her, you fool?’ Raj cried.

‘Well, she asked me if she was there in your stories. Narcissism, I guess,’ Sunil said, ‘And, I have read only one story of yours. The others don’t have sex, right?’

‘This goddamn prize…!’