From behind the desktop, wife can be seen indulging her pleasure of doing much pointless work
After I have undertaken my mandatory walk or stint on the treadmill, I do not undertake any wasteful expeditions. My wife is no “mechanical bride”. She is as complete a human being as ever there was, and inordinately humane at that, but she is tidying up this, minding that apart from the regular chores all the time. Like planets, she is in a state of perpetual motion. Her living room is her pride, her bedroom her work of art. Having done my quota of physical activity, why should I waste man-power on frivolous movements? Parked in front of my desktop or sprawled on the bed, it gives me the vertigo to watch my wife indulging her pleasure of doing such pointless work. But women, I guess, do not understand much about man-power!
I had told my wife very early during our marriage that it takes many to solve a problem and there are various steps to solving it. My job was to reflect on the nature of the problem, so she could do the solving. That is division of labour. My wife gave me that look which she perfected in a short time living with me. The translation would run in volumes but I get it in an instant. Ever since she has gone about doing her things; I have learnt to manage to cope up with my vertigo reasonably well. But now that domestic helps are becoming a little unpredictable she expects me to join her in these mad pursuits.
I have some rule of thumb excuses to dodge the draft. “Is it necessary, we will be leaving in a couple of days, anyway?” “Is it legal?” I escaped the edict to locate the source of a leak (my version of investigating the source of Oxus) from somewhere behind the geyser. I said the municipality will have to be notified, the power supply company will have to be informed. “So the government has now entered our bathroom? And in the next move they will be sprawled right in our bedroom?” She said facetiously. But she let it pass; she was just testing me. She knew that my intervention would have resulted in flooding the bathroom anyway and a call to the National Disaster Management Authority.
During the course of the same week I was asked to go up to the terrace to see whether the help was malingering or tending to the many plants and pots. I pleaded that I had lost my cap and standing in the sun for long made me feel giddy and nauseated. My Ray Ban aviator glasses were missing. Maybe this was also just a dry run and she let me get away with this one as well. Now I know why; she was laying a perfect ambush, she trapped me on an S-bend!
My books—poor me in my untidy environment of books—are her greatest eyesore. There was a time when we could dedicate one big hall to my books, neatly displayed, easily accessible. Even in the middle of the night if I was seized by an urge to look up a reference or browse a few pages it was no problem.
But gone are days and in the more frugal circumstances, in the brutal struggle for existence my books have lost out to the many shelves and almirahs which according to my wife contain objects of absolute necessity. The rest of my books have been dispatched to a room on the first floor. I argued with my wife that I and my books had co-evolved. It is like my environment for me, you can’t destroy my habitat. “Don’t you have any concern for the sole member of that rare species called husband.” My wife said that you could survive with your thousand books and the rest of it is an indulgence.” I said these are not a thousand but only six hundred. She threatened to count each one of them so I climbed down and it was agreed that if I imported some books from upstairs an equal number would have to be deported.
Now my wife has a suspicion that some illegal immigrants from the first floor are hiding in the pile. Of course my children have sent me a few hundred in the last few years, but they are all legal. I told her, “I have papers from Amazon, even for the imported ones. Don’t husbands have human rights?” “So long as they don’t create a pigsty in the bedroom,” she said. The clutter and the pile are intruding into alien territory of her nicely curated corner. “Don’t you quote all the time “I would rather be an unsatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig”. “So, Mr. Socrates of the slums, don’t be a pig.”
My wife has served me notice that either I do the needful or she will take things in her own hand. And in matters like these she is an extremist. Either I find a way to somehow accommodate these books on the uppermost shelves by weeding out some for extinction or see them deported en masse. I am a human being not an uncaring cruel natural agency like evolution!
I have avoided the task so far by pointing out that the aluminium ladder has become a little unstable and by generally playing on her insecurity that her aging sixty six plus husband might take a bump. This has worked so far, but for how long? Aluminium ladders can be mended! Our departure from Patna has earned me a reprieve but how long can I be an exile?
I had asked my wife, sometime back, to buy me a pair of walking shoes and a couple of track pants. Normally I am pressured into accompanying her on these missions because of size issues but over the years I have managed to find comprehensive strategies to evade the demand. But this time she did not say a word. I got my pair of shoes and track pants from Decathlon but the inventory included an un-indented trekking backpack, a pair of mountain trekking shoes, a rucksack , trekking gloves, trek zip off pants, a solid looking harness, and waterproof all weather multilayer peel off jacket . She sat down triumphantly. “When we get back to Patna you are going to go on your climbing expedition and plant the books in proper order, tidy up the clutter on the lower reaches and leave no waste on the top. You are equipped for every season and every eventuality, the activity is perfectly legal and does not violate any of your human rights. I checked up with our family lawyer.”
It has steeled my resolution. I shall arise and go now and go to the Arctic tundra, report triumphantly for Facebook, wearing all that gear, petting a caribou or riding a sled. Chase the lions chasing antelopes and gazelles for lunch in the Serengeti Savannahs in the darkest Africa. At least I would earn some admiring oohs and aahs from known and unknown women friends!
(The author is a former IPS officer)
