Read Online Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction. by Gabbar Singh, Anuj Gosalia, Sakshi Nanda, Rohit Gore - Free Book Online Page B
Ads: Link
in his words, in the same manner that she would in the No-
vember showers that she secretly loved.
Don’t worry, it’s just a cup of coffee , he assured her, smiling at her stricken
face that must have looked like the calm before a storm. What was she,
a loyal daughter and dutiful wife, getting into? With a stranger, someone
who could be much younger than her. Debauchery . The word reverberated
in her ears.
She tried to ignore the ringing moral refrain. She needn’t have worried.
The warmth that he exuded engulfed her, much like the rain used to, with
its promises of foison and companionship. She could talk to him and he
listened. And for now, that was all that mattered to her.
His name was Sandeep. He was new to the US as well. He was a student
who had come here to pursue his Masters. Like coffee, he was an acquired
taste. No matter how bad the both of them were, one for the health and
the other for her marriage they offered relief. In many ways, talking to
him was like going home. She soon discovered that he shared her love for
books. They vied with each other to quote from Shakespeare, Dickens,
the Bronte sisters, Sidney Sheldon, J.K. Rowling and R.K. Narayan. His
favorite author, he said, was Jhumpa Lahiri, whom she had just started
to read and abandoned on a whim. He compared her to Gauri from The
Lowland. She went back and finished it and treasured the comparison..
They started meeting regularly. She learned the little things about him.
Of how he liked to dress in black, for the familiarity of it gave him com-
fort. Of how he liked his coffee the same colour as hers, strong with no
sugar that it was almost bitter. She noticed how he would drink it piping
hot that it must scald his tongue. He shared his secret of dreaming to be
a writer someday, someone whose words would herald a revolution. It
was always in those tiny coffee shops, just like in the movies, where they
would lay their hearts on the table and seek each other out As it turned
out, he was twenty-four, just a year younger than her.
What brought them closer was their shared adoration for South Indian
food. One time, he happened to mention how much he missed the masa-
la dosas and vadas that his mother made back home. The next day, she
made it her mission to churn out food with undiscovered relish. When it
came to feeding her husband, the food was barely noticed. As if it were
an extension of her. Plain and bland, yet necessary.
She cooked to please and the result was worth the effort. The potatoes
inside the dosas were neither too soggy nor were they undercooked. They
were crunchy and just right, he certified. The vadas were a golden brown
and so crispy that they would have put to shame, even the most popular
vadas from Ambiswamy’s back home.
Magic fingers, that’s what Sandeep called her as he licked the plate clean.
She blushed and tried to brush him off, but was secretly delighted.
She could not help but compare him to her husband. Arjun never both
-
ered to notice the new recipes that she had painstakingly made upon her
arrival, merely to please him. In the secret hope of winning over the new
husband. But whoever had said that the way to a man’s heart was through
his stomach had apparently forgotten to exclude workaholic husbands
who hardly cared to notice what he ate as long as it was edible.
So immersed was he in work that he would sometimes even disappear
for long hours over the weekend as well. Was he having an affair? She
was not too naïve to rule out the possibility. She knew that he had very
attractive colleagues; Renuka had met them at the party that was thrown
to welcome the newly married couple. She had noticed him talk to one
of them, who she later learnt was called Olivia, a walking stereotype of
the Other Woman. Fair and outspoken, with her honey-kissed skin and
bouncy curls. Wearing a short, emerald-green dress that accentuated her
curves and holding a drink in her hand, she threw her
vember showers that she secretly loved.
Don’t worry, it’s just a cup of coffee , he assured her, smiling at her stricken
face that must have looked like the calm before a storm. What was she,
a loyal daughter and dutiful wife, getting into? With a stranger, someone
who could be much younger than her. Debauchery . The word reverberated
in her ears.
She tried to ignore the ringing moral refrain. She needn’t have worried.
The warmth that he exuded engulfed her, much like the rain used to, with
its promises of foison and companionship. She could talk to him and he
listened. And for now, that was all that mattered to her.
His name was Sandeep. He was new to the US as well. He was a student
who had come here to pursue his Masters. Like coffee, he was an acquired
taste. No matter how bad the both of them were, one for the health and
the other for her marriage they offered relief. In many ways, talking to
him was like going home. She soon discovered that he shared her love for
books. They vied with each other to quote from Shakespeare, Dickens,
the Bronte sisters, Sidney Sheldon, J.K. Rowling and R.K. Narayan. His
favorite author, he said, was Jhumpa Lahiri, whom she had just started
to read and abandoned on a whim. He compared her to Gauri from The
Lowland. She went back and finished it and treasured the comparison..
They started meeting regularly. She learned the little things about him.
Of how he liked to dress in black, for the familiarity of it gave him com-
fort. Of how he liked his coffee the same colour as hers, strong with no
sugar that it was almost bitter. She noticed how he would drink it piping
hot that it must scald his tongue. He shared his secret of dreaming to be
a writer someday, someone whose words would herald a revolution. It
was always in those tiny coffee shops, just like in the movies, where they
would lay their hearts on the table and seek each other out As it turned
out, he was twenty-four, just a year younger than her.
What brought them closer was their shared adoration for South Indian
food. One time, he happened to mention how much he missed the masa-
la dosas and vadas that his mother made back home. The next day, she
made it her mission to churn out food with undiscovered relish. When it
came to feeding her husband, the food was barely noticed. As if it were
an extension of her. Plain and bland, yet necessary.
She cooked to please and the result was worth the effort. The potatoes
inside the dosas were neither too soggy nor were they undercooked. They
were crunchy and just right, he certified. The vadas were a golden brown
and so crispy that they would have put to shame, even the most popular
vadas from Ambiswamy’s back home.
Magic fingers, that’s what Sandeep called her as he licked the plate clean.
She blushed and tried to brush him off, but was secretly delighted.
She could not help but compare him to her husband. Arjun never both
-
ered to notice the new recipes that she had painstakingly made upon her
arrival, merely to please him. In the secret hope of winning over the new
husband. But whoever had said that the way to a man’s heart was through
his stomach had apparently forgotten to exclude workaholic husbands
who hardly cared to notice what he ate as long as it was edible.
So immersed was he in work that he would sometimes even disappear
for long hours over the weekend as well. Was he having an affair? She
was not too naïve to rule out the possibility. She knew that he had very
attractive colleagues; Renuka had met them at the party that was thrown
to welcome the newly married couple. She had noticed him talk to one
of them, who she later learnt was called Olivia, a walking stereotype of
the Other Woman. Fair and outspoken, with her honey-kissed skin and
bouncy curls. Wearing a short, emerald-green dress that accentuated her
curves and holding a drink in her hand, she threw her
Similar Books
