57
I knew I had to eat, my brain knew this, but my body wouldn’t hear of it. The day
after returning from Chennai, I only had soup at office; at home I pretended I’d
already had dinner. My mother asked me when I wanted to shave. She wanted to
schedule a meeting with a new girl. I told her I had decided to keep a beard for the
rest of my life. She made a face and left the room.
My father came home at ten. He looked extra tired. His normally tucked in shirt
was out, and his hair wasn’t neatly combed as usual. He sat in front of me.
‘I’ve eaten dinner’ he told my mother.
‘I don’t know why I even cook,’ my mother grumbled as she left the room.
‘You came back late last night,’ my father said to me. I had reached home only
at the midnight from the airport.
‘I had to work late,’ I said.
‘Everything OK?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘I had a really bad day,’ my father said. ‘My pension papers are stuck in
government offices. Bloody lazy buggers.’
I nodded without paying attention. My thoughts were all over the place, but
none in his department. I felt immense longing and loathing for Ananya at the
same time. I felt resentment towards my mother. My own problems, at least in my
mind, were far bigger than some retirement files stuck in a government office.
‘Now they have asked me to submit three different letters. I have to get them
typed tomorrow,’ my father said.
When my father had to suffer, he forgot his own vocation – of making others
suffer. He hadn’t shouted once since he had come home.