I had written this story in college as a part of an assignment.Read it after long a time today and thought of sharing with you all -
It is commonly said that life has few surprises to offer as and when one grows in age.The same could be said for the old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Roy.The weeks, months and years comprised for them the same days, repeating themselves over and over again with little or no variation. Mr. Roy, a retired government officer, was known to be an upright man and lived by his own clock.He would take a cup of tea sharp at 5 in the morning, then a stroll in the lonely streets of the yet to rise neighbourhood.The newspaper, which he read with alternating expressions of disgust and disapproval, would then occupy the first half of the day.
Day would slip into noon and lunch would be followed by a siesta, sharp at 4 p.m. there would be a knock at the door, which would be attended by Mrs. Roy to let in a neighbouring friend. The two would talk for a couple of hours but then what shall they talk about, there was nothing pleasant to talk of. The Government seemed to be heading nowhere with the Minimum Needs Programme, the Nuke Deal was a recipe for disaster, the economic policies were no good. The leaders didn’t know how to take India- a nation where a large chunk of the population lived from hand to mouth - to progress. Mr. Roy too had lived in those strained circumstances for the better part of his life but then he knew how to fit in his needs within his income and managed to send his only son to a convent school and then to a nationally recognized medical college.Yes, that was the only pleasant thing to talk about.
It would be during this procession of conversation that Mrs. Roy would walk in with tea and snacks, and the neighbour would compliment her for the variety she cooked, she never repeated the same snack in a month.That was a compliment indeed for Mrs. Roy, who cooked with all her heart and soul. Kitchen was her sacred space and even before the sun could steal a look at earth she would be there cleaning her sacred space and making tea for her husband.
Serving meal to Mr. Roy was was the most priced thing for her, she would look at him as he would eat the meal quietly.He never asked for more and she never forced him to take more.It was this unexpressed contentment that she cherished all day.
Beside this Mrs. Roy would stitch clothes for new borns of some distant relations, acquaintance or neighbours, and while knitting in the verandah she would occasionally peep into the adjacent room and see her husband reading,sleeping or talking to his friend.He knew that she looked at him and yet he never would return that glance. Why should he, he had nothing to tell her?
The day would thus pass into night, followed by an early dinner at seven. The intervening hours before the couple went to sleep at nine were left to the newsreaders and the characters of the daily soaps, who bore the burden off talking and raising their voices in the otherwise quiet house. Sharp at nine the lights and television would be turned off and Mrs.Roy would wait for her husband to lie down, pull the coverlet over him and then go to bed herself being reminded of what she had once told her daughter-in-law. “How do you bear with Baba’s silence Ma?",her daughter-in-law had once asked, and she had just one spontaneous answer –“I love him, beta.”
