I am currently updating this site with my most recent writings. For the moment, I have put a short story here on this page...
The Cook’s Story
He gazed into the murky water of the dried-up lake and thought about the decision he had to make. He only had another hour before he had to be back at work, back at the company guest house where he cooked delicious meals for foreign businessmen.
It was his gift: conjuring up delightful arrays of flavour and texture. He made anything they wanted: meat, fish, oriental, continental. He had a flair for it since childhood, and after his training in Kolkata, he was drawn further into the subcontinent, working in places as far as Delhi, Goa, and now Mumbai. The guest house visitors still called it Bombay, the old British name. Hari didn’t mind what they called it, as long as they kept paying him for his good work.
But recently his work was suffering. His wife had come from Kolkata to stay with him. She had brought their three-year old daughter, Sonia. At first everything had seemed perfect. But after the first few days back together, the fights had started again. The on-going fights they had had since they first got married five years ago.
Hari thought of himself as a reasonable man. He worked long hours catering to foreigners. He answered to their beck and call. Late at night when he retired to his cramped one-bedroom flat, he expected his wife to at least acknowledge his arrival. But she would already be sleeping. The dirty dishes would be piled up in the kitchen sink and the dust from the last five days would cover the floors.
It wasn’t that she did nothing. She had got herself a job working at a nursing home, cooking and cleaning. How ironic, thought Hari, that they both spent their days taking care of other people’s houses while their own home went to ruin.
He wanted her to leave her job, to look after the home and their child. The child was left at the neighbour’s house all day while they both worked.
Even if his wife didn’t do what he wanted, he at least expected her to talk to him, to acknowledge his existence. But the hardest thing was that there was just no connection. She didn’t even want him to touch her. ‘Let me sleep,’ she would snap. ‘I’m so tired.’
Hari wasn’t the kind of man who could accept a loveless relationship. He wanted love, intimacy, companionship. He could bear the loneliness when she wasn’t with him, but he couldn’t bear the rejection when she was there. He asked her again and again, pleaded and begged, for consideration, for love, for acknowledgement. She shunned him again and again. Last night he couldn’t take it anymore and he slapped her. She said she would leave with the child, so in the morning he locked her and his daughter in the house before he went to work.
Tonight he had to single-handedly cook for eleven people. He had to buy cart-loads of beer for the guests and make a combination of European and Indian dishes. He was tired from not eating or sleeping for the past two days, and the sadness was evident in his sunken face.
He had to decide whether to leave her, whether to separate his child from its mother. He would certainly not let her take his little Sonia from him, his only real reward for working hard all day long.
He threw a pebble into the water and its ripples spread gently, soft and circular. Every action has a consequence, he thought. What consequences would there be to leaving her? He could get remarried, try again. He was only 32 and she 25. He could leave everything and go back to his home town, find some comfort in family. But what if his child resented him forever for taking away its mother? What if another woman couldn’t love his child? He had heard stories about unkind step-mothers who secretly poisoned the lives of their step-children. He didn’t know what to do.
The river yielded no response to his concerns, but gazed contentedly up towards the blinding sun. Altruistic, reflective, silent. If only he could adopt those qualities, then he wouldn’t care if his wife loved him or not.
He got up and dusted the dirt off from his trouser bottoms. He had to start preparing the night’s meals. He cycled back to the guest house and turned the key. The cool tiles of the guest house were a luxury under his blistered feet. He was grateful for the large kitchen, equipped with the latest appliances. He began his ritual of preparing herbs. Ten cloves of garlic, half a ginger root, three red onions, fresh green coriander. He made a thick red marinade from chilly and lemon and poured it over tender slices of lamb. He himself had given up meat, but continued to cook it out of obligation. Very few wealthy guest houses wanted to employ a vegetarian chef.
The pots simmered gently and the oven burned steadily under Hari’s careful command. But his heart ached.
The guests arrived home from the office and Hari served dinner. They drank great volumes of beer, and complimented Hari’s cooking as usual. It wasn’t enough to lift his mood today.
As night fell, Hari cleared up the dishes and cycled back to his home. His wife lay sleeping on the bed with their daughter in her arms. He slipped under the sheet next to them and closed his eyes. He decided to endure things as they were for now. Sleep was a more immediate need than personal ambition. Food, sleep and shelter for his family – that would do for now.