A Cut-Like Wound by Anita Nair Read Free Book Online

knewhow he preferred his coffee and where he liked his newspaper kept every morning. She sorted his clothes and sewed on missing buttons. She laid out his handkerchief and socks every day and replenished the toiletries in the bathroom. She told him what groceries were needed every month and shopped for the vegetables and meat herself. She said little and glided through the rooms, an apparition taking care of his needs without reproach or complaint. In fact, other than sleeping with him, Shanthi had slipped into the role of wife with a casual ease that saddened rather than pleased him.
    It occurred to him that his marriage couldn’t amount to much if he scarcely missed his wife.
    The ping of the microwave.
    Rasam and rice, Gowda thought as he toyed with his food, must be the loneliest dinner written in the destiny of any man. A meal you ate because anything else was too much of an effort. A culinary straw you clung to because the familiar taste and aroma, its suggestion of heat and spice evoked memories of a time when your mother stood at your elbow making sure you had everything you wanted. As it slid down your throat, you knew a strange pang: if there was someone else across the table, there would be accompaniments – pickles, vegetables and conversation. Not this silence, broken only by the sound of the metal bracelet of his watch clanging against the rim of the steel plate.
    Gowda put the plate into the sink and ran water over it. He stared at the lone plate in the sink and the saucepan in which he had heated the rasam, and the plastic box that had held the rice. He had never felt this alone before. At almost fifty, he had nothing to look back upon. Not even a real memory to clutch at.
    From the first floor that was let out to a young coupleand their dog, he could hear the dog’s nails as it scratched at a corner of the room.
    Gowda paused as he wiped his hands on a towel. He knew what he would do. He would get a dog. Not a silly fluffy yappy dog that his wife may approve of, but a proper dog with a loud bark. He would call Guru at the Dog Squad for his advice. Suddenly Gowda grinned. Maybe they had a retired inspector dog he could bring home. It was a thought. Two police officers past their prime, seeking consolation in each other’s company.
    Gowda walked into the living room and rifled through his CDs. He chose a Mukesh CD and slid it into the music system.
    He lit a cigarette and sank into a cane chair in the veranda. His house was the only one on that road. On either side and opposite were empty plots. A line of silver oaks demarcated each plot from the other. At first the developer had kept the plots spruced up for customer visits. But when the recession happened and people were laid off, the bottom fell out of the real estate market and the developer stopped bothering about cutting the grass and trimming the casuarina that lined the roads. Weeds took over. Shrubs grew and trees spread their branches, fearing neither the electricity department’s routine lopping off of branches nor the ruthless home builders who sought to fill every square inch of land they had paid for with brick and mortar. Some days it occurred to Gowda that he lived in the middle of a forest. He woke to bird calls, and when it rained, the frog chorus croaked all through the night.
    Four years ago, when Gowda broached his plan to build a home in Greenview Residency, Mamtha had been appalled. She had hated the thought of moving from Gowda’sfamily home in 5th Block Jayanagar. After Shimoga, where Mamtha had grown up, Jayanagar had been everything she had imagined Bangalore to be. You stepped out of your home into a bustling street of shops and people. And yet, it was like what Shimoga had been. There was Suma Coffee Works, where she could buy the coffee-chicory blend she liked. There was Shenoy’s, where she could buy her choice of condiments and short eats; and a sweetshop that sold the best obattus and chirotis. Brahmins Café and MTR were