The Husband.

Meenakshi...the keeper of my soul, my angel come to rescue me, my Meenakshi...what worries you so? What is causing those beautiful eyes to brim up so? Pray tell me, my Meenakshi...I will slay the demons that distress you, pray tell me, every crease in your forehead, every tear that falls from your eyes mars my being, I live for you, Meenakshi...do not kill me so...

She was crying again. He had done all he could to make her stop. He did not know why she cried. What reason should a young bride have to cry? A month after their marriage, he still believed she cried because she was homesick. Eleven months later, he could no longer attribute her tears to homesickness. When he left to work in the morning, she stood in a corner, sniffling. When he came home after work, she would be standing at the verandah, listelessly looking at a distance, eyes red and tired and still wet.

"Every night, the same old story...", she sighs and yells, "Shantha, come here, give patient 26 the injection, he is going to sing his death knell throughout the night, otherwise..."

*****
Meenakshi, see what I have bought home for you...close your eyes, feel the softness? Do you like mani? That's what I have named him, look how he wags his tail, here, hold him...Meenakshi, why do you still cry, woman? (Tone raised) What should a man do? I cook in the morning before I leave to work, I take care of you...(subdued again) oh, do not cry, my life, my Meenakshi...

He returned from work that evening to find the puppy standing at the gate, it jumped delightfully when it saw him, he smiled, as if acknowledging the ironies that life doled out to him, he bent down to lift the puppy and walked into the house. She sat in a corner of the house, huddled and trembling, he rushed to hug her and she shrank back...

"How are you feeling today, Sir?", the monotonous tone evokes no response. It has not in the past month, and the doctor did not expect anything new today; he did what he considered his duty, checked his pulse and his vitals, shouted a few instructions to the nurses and moved on to the next patient. It was difficult enough trying to save lives that wanted to be saved...

*****
Where are you? I know I should not have screamed at you, my darling, my beautiful angel, do not leave me now...is that you I see in the distance? Is the rain blurring my vision or are these my tears? Oh Lord...protect my Meenakshi, she is the child that you bestowed on me, help me keep her safe...Are my eyes tricking me? Is that...no! take my life away but she should live...

That night, he came home a bit late, he had spent the evening worrying about how to handle her once he got back home. He had screamed at her in the morning and had left her crying. When he had woken up in the morning and seen her as she had been every other day, no hint of improvement, no shadow of a smile on her face, something had triggered his pent-up anxiety and worries to burst out; the words escaping his mouth sounded alien to him, but days and days of hopelessness and disappointments had numbed his patience and his cognition. That night, he did not find her home. He ran outside into the pouring rain, screaming her name like a mad man...he saw her walking unseeingly in the middle of the road, the car careened wildly as the terrified driver tried to avoid her, he had thrown himself at the car, a final attempt to save her from herself, he felt the impact and then darkness shrouded him, unable to bear his pain?

"6.30 PM, time of death", the doctor moved on, the nurses hustled behind him, they had been through this too many times to be affected by it. "Poor man, they say his wife was mad, he looked after her for a year, could not take it anymore and killed her and threw himself in front of the car...", Shantha said, "The driver saw him pushing her in front of the car, tsk...men like these, God knows what his wife had done to deserve a husband like him..."

*****
***Excerpt***

Perception.

Oil splattering, the sound of the cool, slightly wet steel ladle touching scalding oil, three quick flips of the samosas, maybe four and they are carefully removed and placed on bright green leaves, maybe a bit yellowish at the sides. I try to see a family of four buying the samosas at the shop, inconveniently situated in the middle of the platform, maybe...

A toddler on the woman's hip, sleeping peacefully - I feel a strange communion with him, we see alike now - a little girl with two oily plats, red ribbons, no, yellow...she tugs at her mother's salwar kameez, her father has his nose buried in a magazine at a nearby book store.

Magic lies not in black and white, waste not your life in the illusion of the written word, open your eyes, take in the magic that colors create...take it in when you can, look at the contrast that the delicate purdah creates on your wife's creamy complexion, see how her earrings glitter even through the smoke, notice the mischief in your child's eyes...are they not perfect? Foolish man, throw the book and breathe in life!

A shrill whistle, quickening footstpes, excited shouts, a crescendo heralding the train's arrival. "Walk faster Latha, here, let me carry your bag...", a woman's gasp, the bag lands with a thud. I lift it and hold it for her to take. She smiles gratefully - don't they all? - and takes the bag from me, our hands touch for a moment and she shrinks away, I hear the rustle of her dress as she hurries away from me.

She has soft hands, I want to touch them again...Latha...Latha, lilting...her name reminds me of an old Hindi song...

I have company. "Aapko patha he, mumbai se delhi jane waali gaadi kab aayegi?" Do they still look at their gold-dialled wrist watches when they ask this question?

I answer him and he sighs and flips open his cell phone, "Suresh, stuck here man, bloody schedules...never on time, we have to reschedule the ops meeting, yes that sounds ok, Catch you later." The young man studies me with interest, I start coughing at the cigarette fumes that he exhales on my face. "Sorry...", he murmers and looks away.

"Quite alright, I should be used to it by now..."

He looks at me, surprised? "These trains are never on time, doesn't it bother you? And look at the decrepit state of this station, I am just waiting to get out of here..."

"I like this station, infact, this is my favourite spot, right here, on this bench, I get to meet interesting people, you know?", I wink at him.

"That would surprise me...favourite spot? as in, you are here by choice?!"

I smile. "Yes, I find peace here, in the midst of all this...", I spread my arms out, "Here, in this station, I see, I see everything...watch that little girl by the corner, in that torn red dress, see the way she eats the ganna (sugarcane)? I cannot see that when I am home..."

He looks around - I hear the crinkle of his expensive suit - "What girl?"

I smile some more - people amuse me - "You wouldn't see her son, such is the magic of this place...let your senses overtake you, close your eyes for a second and breathe, feel...see!"

He does not understand, some people cannot understand. His eyes cannot see what mine can and I cannot see what his eyes can...perhaps, it is he who is blind.

***Excerpt***

Home.

"How much for a mozham?" He enquires, hurriedly glancing at his watch. He is in no mood to haggle. He carefully places the torn leaf tied with malligai poo in his front pocket and starts his vespa.

She is lost in her thoughts. She thoughtfully and methodically twines and smoothens out the end of her soft cotten saree.
"Appa eppo ma vitku varuva?", the child asks, stressing on the vitku, she is picking up new words quickly and delights in repeating each new word that captures her fancy, incorrectly but with child-like finality.

She checks the time on her daughter's fancy watch and frowns that it is two minutes past five-thirty and he is yet to come. Every extra second weighs heavily on her. She cannot wait to share her day's stories, about Pankajam mami and her daughter's marriage to a Punjabi, about the VishnuSahasranamam classes that she is planning to take at the temple and how the karigaikaran had charged her Rs.5 more than he had charged Susheela mami.
"I will teach that karigaikaran a lesson" She thinks. "I will not buy vegetables from him, serves him right..." She imagines his shrew of a wife wielding her ladle threateningly in front of his nose demanding that he appease her and get her to buy vegetables from him again and laughs at her silly imagination.

He deftly drives around the many potholes on the road and maneuvers his vehicle into the small lane where his house stands. He glances at a distance to watch his wife who stands demurely at the gate, anxiously waiting for him to return from the office. By her side, tightly holding her hand and half hidden in her saree, stands his fidgeting daughter, as eagerly awaiting his return as her mother. They paint a beautiful picture, mother and daughter. For a few moments, he cannot not take his eyes off them.

*****

"Talaipu Seidigal", Shobana Ravi intones from the small black and white TV. He listens with interest for sometime before turning his attention back to the Hindu supplements.
"Buy your flat in Velachery now", the full-page color advertisement screams at him. He distractedly pats his daughter's head, while nodding to her unending stories.
"Appa, shikanth is my best frind, patti says he is a good boy..." she gestures excitedly and her words go unnoticed. He looks thoughtfully at the chipping white paint on the walls and the rhythmic pitter of raindrops leaking from the verandah roof. An expression of fleeting pain crosses his face as he watches his wife coughing in the fumes in her tiny cell of a kitchen.

She looks at him and smiles, though her eyes sting with the fumes.
"Innum anju nimisham", she mouths and lifts the vessel from the stove.
He cannot take his eyes away from the pale, thin hands and the few glass bangles that adorn it. "Hands that need to be bejwelled in filigree...", he is surprised by how much ache love carries with it.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

"Should be home in 5, love you, bye", she presses the button under her steering wheel to open the moon-roof on her acura 3.2 TL and takes the exit to her town house. The fluorescent numbers on her navigation system show 6:45 EST.
"I cannot for the life of me figure out how that bug creeped in, must be that Meredith's fault, silly woman...", she shakes her head to clear it off bits and bytes.

Through the white brocade curtains, she could see two shadows in a blur, running after one another. Smiling, she dug into her purse to fish out her keys.

"Mommmy!", her chubby, effervescent daughter rushes to hug her.
She hugs her and enquires in a mock-baby voice "Has my baby been a good girl today? Did she trouble daddy?"
The child giggles and shakes her head shyly but emphatically. She herself cannot help grinning at her husband, the polka-dotted apron that he sports looks silly over his tshirt and jeans.
"Hot samosas ready", he declares with a flourish, little revealing that all he did was defrost the frozen samosas that he had purchased from the local Indian store.
They sit down to eat and the child plays around with the food, and soon has food bits strewn all around her frock and her plate.
"Chellam, now if patti thatha come to visit us from Madras, they won't like this, will they?" She asks the child.

The child stares back at her blankly.

Inexplicably, tears well in her eyes. "My own daughter does not know her grandparents...they are strangers to her, the very people that she should be running to now for every little thing...the very people who would do anything to play for a moment with her....and I blame myself..."
He understands. He places a comforting hand over hers and looks around, trying to hide his own emotions threatening to overwhelm him...his eyes touch upon the high ceilings, the delicate crown mouldings in the kitchen, the glittering chandelier, the flat screen TV and not a single sight gives him the peace of mind that his little home in India could give him. He looks up, helplessly, as if the heavens might grace them with an answer

***
Translating key words:
Appa - Father
Karigaikaran - Vegetable vendor
Chellam - Term of endearment
patti - grand mother
thatha - grand father

***Excerpt***