A tale of two cups

Manasi
~

“Could you alter these gowns to make them shorter? My wife is a small lady.”
“Yes kaka, we know. Come back to pick them up on Friday okay?”

He nodded a yes as he walked away, satisfied that the job would be done soon. He
hurried back home, to his wife and the tea they would drink together. He wouldn’t
tell her that he’d gotten her new gowns. She wouldn’t ask where he’d been. They
knew what it took to sustain love, an unwavering trust and a faith that whatever
needs to be known will make itself known.
Marriage as an institution was failing around them when they decided to partake in
it. Most houses struggled with the throes of deep rooted patriarchy and a
conviction that women were mere objects in the house, little more than a matter of
convenience or ornamental value. It was a transaction, they noticed, a person in
exchange for a semblance of security and a very cheap second copy of the thing
they call togetherness. Having grown up in an India that was struggling to define its
own shape, love and peace were already scarce. Which is all the more reason to
create more of it. Both of them had agreed on ideals, on the life they wanted to live,
of creating something they had been denied. Till date, they were surrounded by
failed marriages- times had changed, human nature was more stubborn. The male
instinct to possess and the perceived female obligation of subservience was
intolerable and yet, rampantly persistent. The backdrop then, was national
independence and now, it was the competitive global world, tomorrow it would be
something else. The fundamentals of caring were misplaced, which is why they
were determined to get them right.
As the sun glowed obliquely disappearing into the evening, the two of them would
give each other the elusive gift of presence, a deep acceptance for another. They
had been happily married for a number of years that would make people’s eyebrows
shoot up at get-togethers, the elderly term for parties. The scene that should have
played out the following Friday was perfectly choreographed.

She would have walked out to him reading the newspaper early in the afternoon
and noticed the package wrapped in newspaper. Inside would be three gowns,
carefully folded and shorter than usual in length. She would quietly pick it up from
the dining table, smiling at the man flipping to the fourth page.
Not a word would be exchanged.
Saturday morning, the lady would have one of new gowns on as she emerged from
the bathroom. As she navigated her way to the dining table, she would wordlessly
look around the constituents of their home. The money plant he insisted upon, the
brand of agarbatti she preferred, the way he liked to keep the window half open so
that there would be breeze, her arrangement of the sofas so that they could see
each other as easily as the TV, the objects in the house reflected togetherness. She
sat down at the dining table as the man strained their morning tea and without a
word, motioned that the gown suited her well. His smile reaching his eyes, his lips
pressed together in admiration.

Is the height okay? He would ask good naturedly

Yes it is. She would say and then more quietly to herself, it always is.

Except.

He did not strain two cups of tea that morning, nor did he see his wife clad in the
cloth he had so carefully chosen.

His wife looked heartbreakingly small in the large hospital bed, the emptiness could
not be tailored for this time. He stayed up all night as she drifted in and out of
consciousness, the gowns forgotten. He fought for the lady inside them to be saved.
The wife was frail but not fragile. She swore this wouldn’t be the end, who would
watch him fall asleep as the TV flickered into oblivion. She was back on her feet by
the next week.

But what do you say to a lady who has fought death, only to be met by it again?
What do you say?

The post-covid complications took him, they said. It's just another way of
expressing the tender frailty of human life. It’s never the disease that takes them
away. We are alive one moment and a heap of flesh another.
They had mused upon the society they lived in, where more people came to meet
you in death than they did when you were alive. She smiled at the irony. The funeral
was a small affair. The gentle breeze carried the smell of agarbattis, a warm
embrace through the house. She nodded dismissively at all the people who’d come
to offer their condolences, none of them were there out of mere politeness, she had
ensured that. Her husband deserved more than politeness, he deserved fond
remembrance. They would not know what they had shared, she would have no one
to talk to after they were all gone, no more inside jokes would be shared, he would
not reiterate for the hundredth time how often marriage in India is just a
convenient thing, a cover for other things- merely a deal. She would not nod
smilingly and tell him that they were anomalies. He would not gravely say that it’s
about the magic of togetherness, not the conforming to convention that makes life
worth living as he set the water for tea to boil, one cup of water for two cups of tea.

A lady of few words by nature, that day she spoke. She did not talk about him. She
told those who would go back home to a partner to be kinder to each other, to be
more honest, to be more interested in each other.

The tailor called last night, asked why Kaka hadn't come to pick the gowns yet. They
have all been shortened. The lady smiled and pressed her head to the telephone. He
will come this Friday, she replied.

This isn’t a tragedy, it’s a love story.

Tomorrow, she would make one cup of tea, she promised herself. Today, she went
ahead and set two cups.