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

nearby. Mamtha had loved it there. It was also convenient for her as she was posted at the Vanivilas hospital in Chamarajpet, which was only a fifteen-minute drive away.
    After living in south Bangalore, the thought of moving across the city into the wastelands of north Bangalore worried her.
    ‘It’s just the other side of the city. Why are you behaving as if I’m suggesting we move to Outer Mongolia?’ Gowda said.
    ‘It may well be for me,’ she snapped. ‘What do I know about that part of Bangalore?’
    ‘The new airport’s coming up there,’ he said, clutching at any straw.
    ‘And how many times do I go to the airport?’
    Gowda had retreated behind his newspaper. He had seen his father do this with great effect when his mother was spoiling for a fight. Behind the newspaper, he held his breath, wondering if she would tear it out of his hands. But Mamtha was not given to such outbursts of emotion. She stared at him and walked away.
    She had sulked for the next few weeks but Gowda pretended not to see her distress and went ahead with his plans. The developer had given him a whopping discount on the market rate.
    ‘This is all I can afford,’ Gowda had tried to placate his wife every now and then as the house took shape. ‘At this price we’d get a hole in a wall somewhere else, but here we have a plot that is five thousand square feet. We can even have a garden!’
    Mamtha glared at him. ‘Did I ever ask you for a garden? For that matter, do you know the difference between a mango and a turnip?’ She turned on her side and went to sleep.
    Gowda had come to love the quiet and so when the first truck load of stone arrived two years ago for a plot at the end of the road, he felt as if his private space was being intruded upon.
    But Mamtha had welcomed the thought of neighbours. ‘About time!’ she had said. ‘It will be nice to have some people and noise instead of the cheep-cheep of birds all day.’
    Gowda hadn’t spoken.
    Despite Gowda’s daily glowering at the construction workers, the new house had been built and an elaborate housewarming ceremony held. Gowda and Mamtha had attended the puja, one reluctantly and the other compensating with an overdose of effusiveness. But after a few months the owners were transferred to Mumbai. Gowda had watched the movers’ truck arrive with a grin and, when they left, he had walked around with a light step.
    Mamtha hadn’t said much, but when Roshan’s medical seat at Hassan came up, she had broached the idea of a move. Gowda had refused to even consider the thought. And then Mamtha played her ace. Someone needed to keep an eye on Roshan, she didn’t trust him to be on his own. She would have the hospital find her a house right in the heart of Hassan.
    ‘Maybe when you are here on your own, you will beready to consider moving away from this wilderness,’ she had said as she packed.
    Gowda didn’t think he could live anywhere else. He liked it too much here. But he had to buckle in and let the first floor out when Mamtha insisted. ‘We’ve sunk everything we had into this house and Roshan’s medical admission,’ she said. ‘They are a young couple and will be no trouble. And I’ll know that if you need any help, there will be someone around.’
    Night had settled in and from the first floor, he could hear sounds of muted conversation. His tenants were back from wherever they had gone to. Had Mamtha and he ever behaved like newlyweds? He had been busy using up all his energy being angry with the system and she had her nose in her medical books. By the time his anger had run its course and she had become a qualified doctor, the baby had arrived. Suddenly they were parents worrying about inoculations and school admissions.
    He heard the man say something and the woman laugh. They laughed a lot, those two. Had they, he and Mamtha, ever laughed like that? he wondered.
    Gowda turned his head and watched the phone as it vibrated on the glass table. He picked