He thought about martyrs who met their fate with blessed ignorance.
He read Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ (a la the Roman poet Horace, meaning ‘It is sweet and #becoming to die for one’s country’).
He decided not to tell her, "I love you."
#vss365
“You cause a hard on and blue balls. Let me lick you to heaven and back.
THAT is NOT a love letter, bro!
Try:
On this torturous rack
With sweet passion and pain tortuous,
Only #reward I lack,
It's to worship you, Blue Goddess!”
#vss365
Was it on that stormy day with an extended power outage? They feigned fright. His hands strayed on her body. A calculated risk or an assured #reward ? She responded with equal fervor. Is that when he realized he loves her? Was it a result of passion or a prolonged need?
#vss365
"The #bundle of books on one's table reveals one's state."
"What's mine?"
"3 Lonely Planets at the bottom...you haven't been travelling..."
"Genius."
"Intelligent Investor, In Praise of Older Women, Rankin, Oxford, Roget's, Einstein, Schrodinger. Too much of the past..."
#vss365
Fewer birds
Wake me up;
The lone tree
And me wait;
Hour-glass crack'd,
Countdown done,
#Bundled time
A mirage;
That's not new!
Our brief love
Guides new years
From nothing
To something;
A new love,
Maybe not;
New idea,
Possible.
#vss365
I remember the winter
I locked myself in
For a week writing
A story called '4% Deal'.
I ventured out
Onto the balcony
For a smoke,
To watch ice melt.
I remember that winter
I wrote about a man
Remembering a love,
Losing yet another.
That winter in Berlin-
The last time I cried,
Reading Emily Bronte's
Remembrance, giving up.
1. Free yourself of emotions.
2. Be dispassionate about results.
3. Cast your spell without #motive.
4. Be ready for it to boomerang.
-from 'Black Magic for Dummies'
#vss365
I did not deny my part in the deed. I did not tell them why I had to kill her. Had to? I am not sure if I really had to, but...
She left me dead long before I killed her.
Reasons, #motive, method...that will remain our secret...
#vss365
1998. Got my best (last) #birthday gift.
We were in two places, with no internet connection, no mobiles. Waited by the phone, early morn. Did you forget?
You were panting, after searching for a working phone-booth.
Those few minutes with you. Felt your tender touch.
#vss365
Love is fiction. Period.
But, I also trouble you with my many #flashbacks of love. Is that fiction too?
I who loved exists
No more.
Can I forget
Nearly all:
Money, religion, caste, family, society, etc. etc. etc.?
Can I?
That I who loved is now
Fiction.
#vss365
It's scary when fiction/poetry is easier to write rather than one's opinion on a current topic.
It's scary not just because of one's confusion about one's own thoughts.
It's scary because one's thoughts could actually be that of another.
Come election season (it's always that season here, isn't it?) and we have multiple groups wooing us with their perverse thoughts.
There are the obvious hate-mongers.
Then, there are those who seem sensible but are helping the hate-mongers by giving them more publicity.
Some of those 'sensible' ones are toxic.
Then, there are those who remain silent.
The silence could be toxic too.
To speak or not to speak
That is the question.
I remember the day when I met you:
At Cargèse, when we claimed to be married,
At Goa, when we were actually so,
At hospital, when I wanted to kill your husband,
At home, every day now, alone, with you.
#FromOneLine 139
"Where's your class prefect's #badge?"
"Teacher, my father has taken it."
"Why?"
"He's going to wear it in office."
"Why?"
"To remind his manager of the symbol."
"Ah yes! That of leadership and honour!"
"No, that of an idiot chosen by an idiotic system, he says."
#vss365
We wore #disguise only once.
She in her finest;
It isn't her, I said
To myself, to no one.
What did I wear?
No one saw us,
No one we were.
One cremated, other buried alive;
Houdini can't escape that trap,
Holmes can't better that guise.
We were separated only once.
#vss365
Some people want love letters
And here I am wondering
If I should visit public places,
Change the name on the wall
And claim to be The Lucky One.
There are calculated #risks & there are suicidal ones.
I took photos of the sand-mining mafia. Stood where I once swam, near the steps in the once shallow sandy river, now an excavated grave.
Half a dozen came, then the blows. I recognized a relative in that bunch.
#vss365
Which angel scattered diamonds upon this field –
O wicked one! Why do you #charm me so?
Life seems so light with its wish to join you,
But the gentle air alone caresses and beckons.
Regal trees in slow waltz to Nature’s measures,
Gilded crowns...
#vss365
-from 'The Last Time I Wrote About Love'
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/07/last-time-i-wrote-about-love.html
I have felt at home
In bars and casinos.
People like me, bare,
Not having to pretend.
No idiot talks of love
And freedom and glory.
We waste the minutes, we
Admit how wasted we are.
Existential ejaculation
Or a car crash paused,
The bluddy fcuking virus
Is the only one laughing.
Oh I am going crazy
Without carefree life,
The bluddy fcuking virus
Is into bdsm w/o safe words.
(Yes, I am half-crazy now. But, I think this should be the global anthem against Covid. :-) )
"The shadow seeped over the wall,"
The scared couple said to the police.
Was it Grim Reaper,
Warning love with cold cruel touch?
Was it playful Cupid,
Grinning at their coitus interruptus?
The Shadow Seeps Again, the rags say.
Whose wall will it be next?
#FromOneLine 135
Biodata:
A profiteer till ten,
Toothless smile got all.
Right-wing teens,
Thought my god's on my side.
Twenties, anarchist vagabond,
Burned myself at the stake.
Thirties, sold my soul,
A gigolo a-#float for money.
Stopped counting after that,
Toothless scowl for all.
#vss365
If I rise before the sorrow
Can escape from its restraints;
If I can live till tomorrow;
If I can bear the day's pains;
Bloody ifs to avoid absence
Of the reason to continue;
I thought a blindfold can block sense
Of that without you, when in you.
#FromOneLine 134
Went to the store.
Bought a small cabbage.
Realized the cost later.
I can't type
The #string of abuse
I let loose.
This is what you get
When people vote for idiots
Who promise better days
Who promise everything
Will be fine.
Fined, indeed!
#vss365
A man called I
woke up
surrounded
by
empty speech bubbles.
"What is this?" I tried to say.
That too was silenced.
I was scared.
"Which is mine?" I tried to think.
That too was erased.
-an idea borrowed from my short story 'Thoughts of a man called I'
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2013/02/thoughts-of-man-called-i_23.html
True love remains great
When there's a #pause in cash flow:
Strange fact or fiction?
#haiku ?
#vss365
"Honest opinion? You sure?"
"Yes, my love."
"Flowery words. Great vocabulary. With little else. Nothing new. Always the same for the same. Waste of time. You seem #starved for attention."
"You waited for this! Honesty, my foot!"
"Come on...love you, dear."
"I hate you."
#vss365
I never lived.
With an attractive one,
Thought of her in dotage,
And now there,
I don't have her;
At a grand feast,
The days I would #starve
Crept up on me,
Now, can't even eat;
It's a penance
After those days
When we stopped
Time in its tracks.
You never got to live.
#vss365
I thought of the days when the twins asked, "Whajjat?"
#Constellation or arts & craft or..., "I don't know."
It's my daughter's wedding.
"Appa, will I be like Amma and leave everyone?"
"No."
"And, him?"
"Him...I don't know."
They seem happy with that old comfort.
#vss365
"I know you are catfishing. But, I am in love with you."
"I love you too," she-he-it replied.
"Falling in love is like climbing a #steep cliff."
"Are you angry?"
"Never."
"What do you think of me?"
"Which battery do you have? Solar?"
"Are you...digital? How dare you!"
#vss365
An owl eyed child
With no shadow,
Unseen cherub
Unsmiling god,
Fingers strumming
Super-quiet-strings,
Blinks and remains
Supreme voyeur.
There's change in ways
Of #gravity,
Restful light worlds-
Puppets dancing-
The Nature spoil'd,
Vanish o'ernight.
#FromOneLine 132
#vss365
#Shift ain't good for poetry.
Hell no! Ain't good at all.
Now, if it's a short story,
It would be of much use.
"Shift to my side, my love."
"Shift your butt, woman!"
God, I need a story to describe
All I would do to you, for you.
No poem can fit in all that, hell no!
#vss365
A visitor spoiled my poem.
I was spoiled for choice,
My spirits so high,
Rhythm and meter right.
Then, that cursed doorbell.
A cursed friend of the past,
Grey, frayed, gloom-mantled,
He came to say goodbye.
For that, I lost lines of love.
He lost his job a few years back,
Tried farming, sold his wife's gold,
Now, ready to board a flight to nowhere.
As if I have not heard that before.
Hope to drive a truck there, I heard him say,
For my wife and kids, to live somehow.
I wish him luck (damn him!), race him out.
That damned poem gone for a guy called I.
If on a winter's night a traveller
Were to share our bread and wine,
What a tale he would take home!
With my love's hand in mine, her whisper sweet,
We will spin a fine yarn to tuck in our young-
With love, grit, respect, beauty and life!
Later, with the traveller well and gone,
And we, in our bedroom, together alone apart,
Lies in between, we will think of our past.
In another land, bartering dignity for abuse,
Future hanging from the noose, tired and angry,
We did not even plan to pass on the mantle.
I loved the movies with The Man with No Name.
Till she said, "They don't even mention your name."
The invisible, even the homeless, aren't so. I was at the end of the spectrum of nothingness.
I digress.
"Then, why do you love me?" I asked succumbing to love's #rival.
#vss365
I hate a beautiful morn.
Give me its #rival,
Overcast sky, muddy ground,
Birds hiding, dreadful.
It was a beautiful morn
When the doc told me
"She is brain-dead.
You should..."
On that beautiful morn
She looked peaceful
When I said I love you
And pulled the plug.
#vss365
Wrote about misunderstanding.
That too was misunderstood.
Didn't need an #oracle for that.
The future is easy to predict.
If those two are understood,
The beguiling past and present.
#vss365
"Met 2 of your schoolmates. Did you steal the #ribbon of every girl?"
"In kindergarten!"
"Other called you mansplaining sealioning sexting simp."
"I don't sext!"
"Didn't tell them you're my hubby. Good fun it was. Why are you wearing that #ribbon with that dress?"
#vss365
Once upon a time
there was a teacher
in my family.
He said,
"One god,
one religion,
one caste,
For mankind."
(He used G,
mine prefers g.)
He continued,
"Everyone follows
the same (good) principles."
He also said,
"No two people
Have
the same god."
(Go figure!)
Oh!
We kicked him out,
(and every teacher!)
cast him in stone,
forgot what he said.
We prefer to be
A rudderless boat,
(in a relative sense)
Shouting out
Our religion and caste,
Anything
To bring in the moolah.
(Even the atheists
Amongst us
Do so!)
I thought of writing erotica #worthy of your attention for this #vss365.
At 11 AM, it's tough not to beat around the bush, to get to the point, without making too much of a mess.
If you think there is double entendre in what I write, it is not 11 AM wherever you are.
"It's #genetic,"
I have said
Of nearly
Everything
In my life.
When I had
To love her,
I couldn't
Put the blame
On that.
There was no
History
Of such love
In my line,
In the code.
I felt like god
With no genes,
No precedent.
But god didn't
Like to share.
#vss365
I went for a wedding, that pass-the-#genetic-parcel event.
Tried to enter the dining hall only in the third round. The doors opened. I was left spinning like a frisbee as people rushed in for that 400-strong musical chairs event.
"Relatives!" I snarled at my genes.
#vss365
derived from
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2020/02/knots-and-goli.html
Self-made #crisis:
When I have lost
The count of times
I let them go.
One two the steps
Forward then back.
She was the one
Who knew my game.
She smiled when I
Pushed her away.
She knew I was
Holding tighter.
#vss365
My love,
Do take my #text
Before siesta
Lightly.
In sooth,
I know not
What I said.
This #vss365
Clashes
With lunch
And sleep.
What's that,
my love?
Ooops!
Sorry,
Wrong number, huh?
What's that?
You were my love?
Is that so?
Ah!
That explains the X
on my screen,
my love?
"When was the last time we had a decent #conversation?"
"Hush...this is my fave scene...Rick, Ilsa and what'shubby'sname."
"Talking of which...ohmigod..."
"Will you put down those binoculars? Are you stuck to that rear window?"
"What's your Mom doing in that guy's house?"
"They're trying out a recipe."
"In the bedroom?"
"What?!"
"Your Dad is there too?"
"With them?"
"With a carving knife!"
#vss365
"Name a fave movie."
"The Lives of Others."
"What's it about?"
"It's about a communist in Stasi Germany, a guy without a life accustomed to interrogation rather than #conversation, who corrects an unsuitable life to make it seem suitable."
"Bah!"
"Now, what?"
"You make every #conversation sound like a monologue."
"What the...I'll try a soliloquy next time."
"What's that?"
"A communist's speech."
#vss365
Swapna and I didn't believe in a prolonged #conversation.
"If I were to perform hara-kiri, will you be my kaishakunin?" one of us asked.
The other nodded.
#vss365
Soon after wedding, my wife found 'The #Journal'.
"THIS LOVE is NOT love. You are MAD. Can't forget HER, can you? AND you marry ME."
She burned it. Every storage device too.
Never told her the novel was about her, not even after divorce.
I write short stories now.
#vss365
Did I love you?
Were you a creation
of a moment’s fancy?
I did care for you.
I did #worry about you.
I wanted you helpless.
No! I didn't love you.
I didn't rejoice
in moments of strength.
You weren't clay to right mold.
Why do I think of you?
There’s nothing else to do.
#vss365
This is an edited version of old writing, to fit it in as vss.
I am trying to figure out what I was thinking about when I wrote this. You could help me with that. :-)
Dear Nobody
During this period of isolation and persistent #worry, I wanted something or someone different to hold close. And, all I could think of is this letter to you.
#vss365
derived from:
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2020/07/letter-from-anon.html
Grandma, then 80 or so, stayed with us for a few weeks.
Grandfather came by train from the village every day to be with her from morn till evening.
People called him henpecked. Males on that side have that trait.
A #vulnerability for others, a badge of honour for us.
#vss365
"Come on, write a few interesting words about #vulnerability."
"All my short stories are about that!"
"The operative part was few interesting."
#vss365
#Spouse without benefits,
That’s what we are.
We won’t even admit
How much we care.
When we are unsure,
We allow a long kiss.
Don’t call that a benefit,
A scowl and a growl follow.
#vss365
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2014/02/spouse-without-benefits.html
I am on a devil's staircase to nowhere,
In a maze of maddening self-similarity
My cries (and yours?) echo well within.
Start from the largest scale
There above in the sublime
It's a mess gobbling each other.
How about nations?
Do you think there are friends
And not just foes?
Within a nation?
Ooops, not a word
To spoil integrity.
In a state?
Ha! No one knows
Who is majority
Who is minority.
In a family?
Show me siblings
Who can get along.
As I said,
The self-similarity
Is crazy!
After we learn about Martians,
How to regenerate the brain,
The nature of dark matter too;
We will wake up from a dream,
A dream of a #kind touch,
Of fingers laced and lingering;
That thrill alone keeps us alive,
Our artificial intelligence
Has that minor limitation.
#vss365
In high school, I #kind of demonstrated the how-to of babies.
#vss365 (not really vss)
1. Keep one palm facing up.
2. With other hand, dangle a chain with locket.
3. Rub chain against the upturned palm, near the little finger, up down, thrice.
4. Separate them.
5. If the locket:
(a) swings from left to right, you will have a boy.
(b) goes in a circle, it's a girl.
(c) stands still, try for kid later.
33 virgins and budding soothsayers, boys and girls, discovered parenthood that day.
My best friend, nearly in tears after many blanks, finally stood up and said, in a hushed whisper, "I have a baby girl."
I have never seen a father more proud.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance to fiction is purely coincidental. No virgin was abused in this act. Vulnerable amateurs should not take part in this #SquibGame. After the first edition, it was found there were only 30 virgins. 3 claimed to be not so. That's fiction.
"Oh God, you look awful. Wanna drink?"
"That bloody Whatsitsname, plz."
"You said you wanna #consult moi, kemosabe."
"Human beings...why did I create such a pygalgia?"
"Them? That's above my paygrade."
"Bro, help me out!"
"In Hell I won't, that's for the nice lot."
#vss365
A riot started
where
A market,
A church,
A mosque
A temple
Are
Neighbours.
"#Shame You All"
Was scrawled there!
After the bloodshed,
The culprit was found!
The kid
And her anagrams:
shame you all,
a seamy hullo,
my halal esou,
Om Allah Yesu.
This had to stop!
#vss365
Ok, I admit with great #shame that this was derived from my short story 'Shame You All' :-)
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/07/shame-you-all.html
I like how the mind works:
I watched 'Galveston' w/o any thought,
I commented on 'Love Jihad' w/o love,
I joked about a pseudonym w/o a smile;
I could be with my love w/o her;
My mind's telling me:
"Good night,
Leave something from the past about me."
"#Normalise the curve," said the Statistician.
"What about the the fat tails?" asked the Secretary.
"What are you two talking about?" said the Politician.
"How to exterminate those who don't agree with you, sir."
"Of course. Don't use fuel this time. So costly."
#vss365
On this Children's Day:
To My Child - 30 Years Hence
Thirty years back
We worried about
The mushroom cloud
And the world ending
In 1999.
Now we worry about
The loss of freedom,
The hate of all
And the world ending
Close to 1999.
I fell in love
at a speed date...
For five and forty seconds:
Tender looks, witty repartee,
Nature's rhythm, our heartbeats
Treading the same measure...
Fill in the rest of that
Well-played act, will ye?
For five and one hundred thirty seconds:
With great #resolve,
We tackled the predicament,
Weighed our bank accounts,
Career prospects, credit scores,
She noted my shoe size,
I discreetly inspected her teeth,
We enquired about family's health,
Checked if history supported future...
Then, without much (more) ado,
We said, "I love you..."
#vss365
"I #implore you to love me,
Don't look with such hate.
I ain't weak, ain't defeated,
Yes, I used to feel more before.
I just can't fight, can't love,
I can't even get out of bed."
"Who are you talking to?"
"noBOdy. NObody. noboDY."
I snarled at the one in the mirror.
#vss365
How many times have I said,
"Consider the #hypothetical..."
When I could have stated
The obvious reality?
I even asked what you would do
If I married a lovely woman.
We knew that was you.
He still separated us.
No more of the #hypothetical,
When that's all that's left.
#vss365
The chit-chat was cordial at first.
I asked about her guy, the wimp. Got a report of "the hunk". That irritated me.
I shared my theoretical wisdom about matrimony and also #hypothetical cases where the guy ditched the girl at the last moment. That irritated her.
#vss365
Within, in a space
Neither dead nor alive,
There's a spyware:
Soulware or, The Altar.
There lies #dormant our secrets,
The love we don't recognize,
The grain in the chaff,
That we get when none's given.
To access The Altar
Ego, Or Id, or whatever,
Delete
The rest.
#vss365
Man : "I've just mopped the house and you expect me to have sex!?"
Woman : "I just wondered (with no metaphor intended) why the mop seems to be in suspended animation, a #dormant object for eternity, that flaccid fall with not even a limp urge."
#vss365
Let me erase
the #saga I wrote,
Let me escape
to the darker side.
Those lost words,
those lost thoughts,
The search for the one
Who knows it's about her.
#vss365
"Remember Prim Rose?"
"That plant?"
"Idiot...Prim Rose...in school!"
"Ah!"
"The rose of my life."
"We fought over her, didn't we?"
"How she laughed..."
"That laugh..."
"Why did we call her Prim?"
"She was wild."
"But, we didn't know what a #primrose was."
#vss365
"Like Caeser," SI Anu noted.
"A dozen stabs less," Insp. Shokie said.
"CM must have been killed by the 11 ministers in that meeting."
"But, the 11 daggers have one set of #fingerprints, that of the absent minister."
"Elementary..."
Shokie's cold glare interrupted.
#vss365
With this, lemme logout
(and you too)
and take a look outside
Oh I know I will
race back here
Seeing the crappy lot
Out there.
An old love of mine, she
Took a lot of pages
Of poetry about
Her true grit,
Strength,
Yes, she
Took a lot of pages.
Years have gone by
That #snowflake
And its fractal intricacy
That love vanished
When I got to know
Her best friend, she too
Took a lot of pages.
#vss365
In my concrete gaol
I have everything;
Can I open the window,
Can I look outside?
There's BCL, Fountain, Gateway,
A path by the sea, can I get there?
A stroll on the Embankment, to Tate?
Maybe not a #campfire in the park!
In my concrete gaol
My mind has nothing.
#vss365
I've done it again-
Self-destructed,
To ease the pain,
Soothing hatred.
Killed nine lives
And more, to spite
The One whose knives
Carved me right.
I had it all
In my past
Money and girl
And lost fast.
No more flipping
The hour-glass cursed,
No more slipping
Hope for days blessed.
"I am in love," my son declared.
"Bah!" his sis said.
We did not know what to say.
"Son, aren't you too young?" my wife said.
"I haven't got a condom to spare," I blurted out and got a kick.
"Ewww, you all have a one-track mind...which one...#sugar-coated donut or the choc one...hmmm," he said.
"Neither," his sis and I said, reaching for those.
#vss365
They say you bring souls
visiting for not too long.
I have placed a meal
For you then, for them.
They say the eagle
Outsmarts you by flying
High till you are left
Breathless, like me.
They don't say much
About us, do they,
With the pretty around,
We crows don't care, do we?
Them in the government
Try to divide us,
Keep us senseless us
In caged settlement.
We oblige, #sleepwalk
Thro' life, blind et al.
Fight all thoughtless all
To rise dead in our wake.
#vss365
"String-hoppers and mutton stew?" she asked.
"Nope, idli-sambhar," I replied.
She frowned.
I was dumb the morning after the first night, ignoring the future #foreshadow-ed by that exchange.
But, not for long.
Next morn,
"Pancakes and maple syrup?"
"Yes, ma'am."
#vss365
Googled
the meaning
of #inscape.
Nope!
That doesn't
mean much.
Unique
and
inner nature?
Bah!
That doesn't
mean much.
My love's #inscape?
I've overdosed
On that #prompt.
Yeah!
That does
mean much.
#vss365
Have you ever met a psychologist
And done the Rorschach inkblot test?
The gymnast is facing a mirror, I said.
That spook kept his poker face.
I could have told him what Google
Told me to say. C'est la vie.
Inviting straight jacket,
Shooing freedom away. On a whim.
Certain things should not happen together.
For example, saying “I am in love with you.” and
“When I was your age, you were not yet born.”. To be explained later.
It was a lovely day. The first rain of the year,
that too heavy. Autorickshaw still managed to cover the eight kilometres to
office in forty minutes. Only one passing car sprayed water. The first Mumbai drain
water on my face but not in my mouth.
By early evening, it was not so lovely. My boss
wanted me to pack my bags and leave the office. A head-hunter with my resume
had forwarded the same to my company and (bless the nitwit for finding the
right match) to my boss. It took half an hour of fervent begging to keep my
job. I was left a lot like Bond’s drink, shaken and stirred, was it not?
In between that episode, I had got two messages,
both from ‘MIL’. The first said, “My dear son, sorry short notice. Reach Mumbai
dom air pot at 7 pm.” The second said, “7. Airport.”
I told my boss my mother-in-law was coming to
town. He offered sincere condolences and reluctantly reinstated me in my job.
I got to the airport at 7:15. I did not have to
apologize.
“Sorry for troubling you, my dear.”
“Why are you late?”
And, I replied to both, “What are you two
doing here?”
You might feel as lost as I was without a bit of
history.
One, I should not have put their numbers under
the same ‘MIL’. Two, the sweet-sounding one is the remnant of the one who had
to go; and the other, that of the one who left.
It is tough to introduce them better. While my former
better halves do not want to have anything to do with me, their mothers had
their reasons to keep in touch. I remember vaguely that they did not turn out
to be like their daughters. While their daughters were rational and religious,
they were religious and rational respectively. Of course, that would have
helped only if I knew which was which.
Introductions were not required. They knew of
each other in that saga of betrayal. We made our way to my apartment. They sat
at the dining table expecting me to do the needful.
Beguiling, I thought, not realizing how beguiling
it could really be.
I did what I could. I called the third number
under ‘MIL’.
Again, history calls. I was a happy bachelor for
a long time, not before but after my first two forays into matrimony. Then, two
old friends pressured me to upset the steady cart. One was on the wrong side of
50 when he knotted himself to a 30-ish. The other was 40-plus 50-minus when he
entered into coy matrimony with a sub-30. They told me that the old regency
ways were fashionable yet again. Women these days want, they displayed a
classified ad: “a man who can handle himself, cook, manage house; a bit low on
pick-up, a bit high on empathy to compensate; experienced, financially
independent, low on ambition, short of time, company for not too long”. And, my
peers added, “They are exactly what we need.”
I bit that apple. I nearly spoiled the taste with
the afore-mentioned two lines at the start of this report.
My friends were right. My wife is a busy
professional. We see each other when she is in town. She is hardly a bother.
She coaxed me into putting our reproductive material in cold storage. She plans
to use it only in her 40’s when she is ready for that. I found my soul-mate
through her. That is, her mother.
Now, that is a really lovely character. And, it
was her who I called in my time of need.
“Will be there, pronto,” she replied sweetly,
succinctly.
The door-bell rang twenty minutes later. For the
second time that evening, I said, “What are you two doing here?”
I hate to do this but history, once again, is the
need of the hour.
A few months back, my wife surprised me with the
question, “Do you think we should try an open relationship?”
For a moment I forgot that women are prone to
such rhetorical questions.
It was a moment too long because I had blurted
out, “Yes.”
Don’t ask me why I wanted an open relationship.
Men do go to places no man should go to. To cut the story short, she gave a
curt nod.
I have not enquired if she has explored that
realm. It is sufficient, and necessary, to say that I tried my luck online.
On one site where one has to swipe right and
left, I found one match.
Our profiles matched because of the single line
in our bio, ‘Love cooking’.
Our chat was definitely risqué:
-Can’t wait to try it with you.
-Same here.
-Will you come here?
-Your house?
-Where else?
-Of course.
-I will get the kitchen ready.
-You prefer the kitchen?
-Where else?
-Of course.
I went to her house. Her mother opened the door
and told me, “She had to go with her husband. His father caught Covid. Sad
case. She told me to take her place.”
Before I could protest, she dragged me to the
kitchen. It was a pleasure-filled hour cooking Hyderabadi biriyani.
Again, don’t ask me where it had gone wrong or
right.
I have not yet seen that Covid-displaced daughter
but her mother and I have tried out many a recipe since then, at her place and
mine. Her number is also under ‘MIL’.
And, she was there at mine that lovely night to
try out jerk chicken.
Do you actually think the Grim Reaper is a
haggard figure in drab clothing riding a dark horse waving an unwieldy scythe
in the dark on a cold winter night?
I had the Grim Reaper in front of me: four
mothers-in-law seated together at my dining table.
