Woman’s World: Part 3

Remember I told you about the woman who caught her husband in the act?!

Many times over. Upon many women.

The stupid woman, yes the same!

She came to me the other day. It had been a while since we met, or spoke, I was happy to see her, she came while I was sipping on my evening chai, that’s usually when she comes and we pour ourselves over tea and khakras, but when I began to make her a cup… this time, she refused.

She looked in to my eyes and smiled. A smile like never before, it was content but dead. As if the truth of the world had just hit her, and smashed her own. She went on to tell me…

Another greasy tale. It was short and sweet and… regular. I couldn’t figure out the surprise initially.

She told me she came back after visiting her mother in Tamil Nadu, and her train reached before schedule. (Who would have thought that ever happens!)

She entered home with her key, and there he was… sitting in the hall, talking morbidly in to the phone. It was his office, she assumed. He greeted her happily, acting surprised on her early arrival. “How was your trip? How about we do dinner outside tonight?’

She refused. She would rather spend time with her children or at her dance class catching up on all she had missed.

She unpacked, he watched her sweetly. He looked very pleased with himself, she told me. The children got back. She busied herself with them. Later she went to her room and changed the sheets on her bed, put them to wash.

See, I told you… It was regular.

Until she went to cook. Her tone of voice changed when she narrated this last part of the story.

She found a used pan in the sink. Her husband cooked, yes, but turning over the dosa on a pan… no, not him.

...

I kept thinking about it after she left. Her bed had been invaded on several occasions but somehow that didn’t affect her so much. She had made peace with it, changing the sheets on the bed each time. But the kitchen… that broke her.

Stupid woman.