XI. Travel & Living
XI
Travel I didn’t tell Ruhee that we were supposed to go to Ma’s for lunch. I was happy, living in someplace blissful with Ruhee. I didn’t want to leave.
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday―Ruhee was working this weekend, and that suited me just fine. Priya called me every single day; but even Priya’s temper couldn’t make me go.
Sundays came around one after the other, and each time I refused to go home.
Every morning, I got dressed in my office going clothes, made breakfast, dropped Ruhee off at the hospital and went to the water office.
In the evening I went home before her, did the dinner shopping, cooked us a simple meal, switched on the water heater in the bathroom, laid the table before she arrived.
It was nice, to see how delighted she was by everything I did.
When my beard grew, I did not shave. I’d left my shaving kit at my parents’ house.
I took the scissors from the kitchen drawer and trimmed my beard as neatly as possible. I told Ruhee I’d joined a gym near work, when she asked why my shirts looked a little big for me. She thought it suited me, the beard and the baggy clothes. “You look very artistic,” she said.
One afternoon, Priya caught me before I left the office.
“Arjun, don’t ignore me―listen! You didn’t come to my graduation, fine. You didn’t call to congratulate me when I started at my first job, Arjun. That’s mean. But fine, don’t be there for me, but go to Ma’s. She doesn’t understand why you’ve cut everyone off. She’s worried.”
When I went home I switched on the TV and put on Travel Travel she rang from our house, and I knew the conversation would be happening within my mother’s earshot.
“Arjun, you don’t even have to bring Ruhee, okay? Visit her, Arjun. She suffers.”
Instead we met Ruhee’s friends from work, sometimes for lunch at a new restaurant, or we went to a movie, or to a show at the auditorium, or some art exhibit.
Once we went to the old temple ruins outside of town, another time we went away for the entire weekend, drove to Goa.
I imagined the phone rang in our empty apartment.
I made it a point to not step into the old neighborhood under any circumstances. Ruhee worked alternate weekends. On those days I cooked, did the dishes. Watched Travel the way people kept touching her elbow or hugging her or turning her attention this way and that, and finally how she’d rested her head against my shoulder.
Jiten calling me Zanjeer and her friends not caring what I did for a living, how they accepted me simply because Ruhee accepted me.
When I really thought about it, it was the day I’d truly fallen in love with her.
On Friday I woke up early and set the breakfast table: a cup of coffee, two slices of buttered toast, green sprouts, and a banana.
I packed Ruhee’s tiffin box with fried rice, roast cauliflower florets, and ragi pudding.
When she got out of the shower and came to the table her whole face lit up in surprise.
“Happy birthday, Ruhee,” I said. She kissed my cheek.
Her hair was wet and I let the wetness remain on my cheek, I didn’t feel like wiping it away.
I called my supervisor and said I was taking the day off as leave. He was so surprised by the leave request he didn’t even ask me for an explanation.
It was nice, to not have to go to work. I spent the day cleaning and preparing for the party.
I went to the flower market, the vegetable market, the fish market, the supermarket.
I went to the balloon shop but changed my mind; it was too childish.
I saw on Travel continental food wasn’t something I was in the habit of making or eating, but I brought cheese slices at Spar and gave it a try.
I went to the wineshop and bought beer, whiskey, brandy; whatever I remembered as being served that day at Ruhee’s old apartment.
I also remembered there wasn’t any actual food that day, only snacks, so I went to the bakery and ordered a tray of curry puffs, a smaller tray of onion samosas, a mixed tray of dilkhush and dilpasand.
I hoped it was enough. Actually it was a lot, embarrassing even, to be so excited for a birthday.
But Ruhee was thrilled, that was all that mattered. She laughed with pleasure at all the things I’d done. I felt so happy.
“You seem like the person you were always meant to be,” Priya said cryptically. She came to the party alone.
“You didn’t bring your boyfriend,” I said.
“No,” she said cryptically. She said something else.
“What?” I said.
“How was lunch?”
“Fine. Well, I didn’t eat much I was so busy.” I took a big gulp from my can of beer.
“She can’t have liked that.”
Oh.
“Must have gone all out because her favorite child came home. And for the first time since you’ve been married, it sounded like.”
Then she saw the expression on my face and said, “No!”
She grimaced and widened her eyes. “Arjun!”