This one, you can’t ever win!

JS Raghavan                

Eventfully  married for nearly 50 years, I can recall several colourful spats with my wife. However, I reveal here only two raw-cut slices. HG Wells paraphrased, ‘The marital crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow’. That sure keeps the wedlock intact, lock stock and barrel! 

 Scene 1: One evening I asked the wife casually what was going to be for dinner. Her reply was acidic, dripping  with characteristic wifely sarcasm.   ‘Hmm? Not paneer tikka starters  followed by dal bati churma and gatte ka pulao with Rajasthani kadhi, not chilled aam ki launji or banana caramel crunch for dessert. But what will be on the table for my maharana  are four leftover idlis from breakfast. And no chutney or sambar. Only chilli powder, please.’

No husband worth his iodised salt will be amused. Ergo, I was not.    ‘Those cold white rocks? No, hear this,  woman! I’d rather be like Oliver with a Twist, without ever asking for anything  more, than insulting my stomachic system with those petrified fossils.’

‘Up to you, sir. Then I’ll serve them to Jimmy. He is at our doorstep drooling like Pavlov’s canine volunteer!’

‘What impudence! Am I only one  step ahead of a street dog in your hospitality pyramid? Atrocious. You do take after your mother.’

‘Don’t you drag my dear mummy into this. The afternoon serial baddies will pale before your feminine folks in double-dealing and devilry.’

‘Indeed? Do you know what your sister did….’

Jimmy, privy to this skirmish, dejectedly trotted to the next house.

SCENE 2: I was relishing curd rice, made with creamy curd made from desi gau milk, with mango pickle. Fresh cuts of banganapalli mango fruits winked at me from the white surface. Muting a contended belch, I wanted to do a bit of after-dinner  palaver with her. But Shani Bhagwan must have landed on my tongue to exercise his machinations.

‘Did you notice Yamini today?’

She perked up. ‘Yamini? Which Yamini?’

‘C’mon. Don’t you know, the TV anchor?’

‘What of her? Has she grown spindly horns like an antler?’

‘My god! No. Why should she? You prove people only see and don’t observe. Come on try.’

‘Pray tell me the earth-shattering change you found in that  Y-a-m-i-n-i?’

‘Listen! She always parts her hair  in the centre. Today, it is in the left.  She looks more ethereal.’

‘Indeed? Mr Sherlock Holmes. I am moving around wearing the jamdani sari I bought in celebration of your  tax refund. You didn’t seem to notice,  whereas Yamini’s  shift in the parting of hair is Page 1 news. Super! Hear this, Mr Casanova, my brother will be driving down to Bengaluru tomorrow.  I will go and stay put there. You be here cultivating the study of tectonic shift in the parting of ladies’ hair.  Parting will not bother me, pun meant.’