Rose

Today I plucked a rose. I put it in my hair. Then after-tea, a change of mood swelled. The curtain were blowing with dusty wind. I shut the windows. I like the breeze but dislike the dust more.
I took out the rose.
Then my husband returned from work with his friend, Mummy came out of her room, the TV was making boring faces.
So I retreated to the kitchen. Stirring steel vessels of maid-cooked curry. Moving glasses with loud tinkles. Clanking spoons. Sounding busy. It is also alone-time for me, this kitchen.
I hunted for the rose. I wanted it back in my hair. But it was lost.

Dust

So much dust everywhere. Dust on the salt containers, dust on the kitchen shelves, dust on the iron window-grills, dust on mud, mud on dust...

Especially when sunlight falls, shifting its shrewd eye from angle to angle, dust gets revealed.
Frankly I don't care. But I pretend to wipe dust when people are around. Because it justifies my lingering in the house the whole day, and it does not tire me. Every few minutes, I spring up, dust, then get some water, then when it becomes too boring, I enter the kitchen, look between the leaves of the paan plant and think thoughts...

Peppercorn

I was grinding pepper corn into a thousand flakes. The smell of tumeric and cumin stuffed the air and I opened the window. An outside-pigeon moved out indignantly like a posh lady pushed to the corner.

My husband had been telling me how his parents=my parents, what is the difference, so when you do to my home it should be just like going to your home.

So I said I hate my parents and I do not enjoy going home to my house. And if we both have homes elsewhere- are we 2 strangers living-in? And if we are living-in, we may as well not since it is not fun at all.

This was in the morning, before I squeezed the clothes to dry and hung them on a wire at the back of the courtyard (the maid took off). It rained cloth-water which is unvirtuous since it means I have not been diligent in the water-squeezing. But Manju was not looking so it was safe.

The peppercorns are now flakes. The pigeon is gone. The sun has sketched lines on the floor. I will go to sleep now- it is afternoon. The clothes must have dried, crisp and almost edible.

The Cow Ate the Tulsi Plant

The tulsi plant in the courtyard has been eaten. I always tell the guard to keep a stick for the street-cows. First, we used to heap the vegetable greens outside for the wandering cows. Green stems of cauliflower, fine stems of coriander, the last slice of bread.But now they have learned to walk into the wide stony corridors of our house. On the way, they chew on the court-yard plants and the garden fruit (no pumpkin is whole).One by one in the evening, they sail in like slow boats. I have asked the guard-bhaiya to wave his stick at the cows. And he always says, bahuji- gaiyamata ko kaise mare, aap-ahee bataiye?So now the cow has eaten the tulsi plant. It is Holi v. Holi. I could share this problem with Manju (my husband's younger brother's wife) who is staying with us for a week. But if I take one side she will take another and emerge more righteous. Then I will have to remind her how I wake up a few minutes earlier than her and boil the milk. I will have to point out the parrot I embroidered on the net-cloth. This is so predictable. So I just give her a vessel of pea-pods to shell. This keeps her busy and every time I catch her popping a pea into her mouth, she loses more moral points.

Manju

Manju is the name of my sister-in-law. Her real name is Manjurshree. But when she came into our house, there was already a Manjushree (my husband's elder sister who is now married into a contracting-family).

So we changed the bride's name. She became Manjula. When her parents visit, we even call her her Manju so show off to her parents how fond of her we are.

Anyway. So today she asks me, "Looks like the milk is not boiled." Because there is no vessel in the sink and ayah has not come."

So I said, "I washed it and kept it back. In the morning when you were sleeping."

This silenced her. Sleeping is anti-virtue almost like bad city-girls in MTV who ride at the back of car lying down and sticking out a leg in the window for fun.

What thoughts you have started having these days, my husband says. So I say, I always had them. How would you know? Not like I knew you before we got married. You were always talking about your sister's baby son and what-all he does. As if he was the first baby that ever walked.

Why are you so bitter, he said.

I said no I am good. See, I even stitched a parrot on a net-cloth last week. And now Mummy has displayed it in the dining-room.

I hated sticthing the parrot. But Manjushree didi was visiting last week with her spoilt 1 year old son so I thought- better to stick the needles onto a cloth than in the skin of a child. It is more useful and the cloth will not cry loudly and make more noise.

Boiling Milk and Sister-in-Law's Affair

My sister-in-law is coming to stay for a week. She is here to meet her parents and ofcourse she cannot STAY with them as she has come into our House after marriage.
So she will sleep here and go meet them during the day. It is almost going to be like she is having an affair or something.
I can't tell my husband all-this coz when I did he told me I was getting a corrupt-mind and the only channel I should watch is Colours. And Aasthaa ofcourse.
Bye. The milk has boiled over the vessel and tongues of white are mocking my clumsiness. That's why I don't boil packet-milk half the time. I just pour it into a vessel and keep it in the fridge hoping that noone in the house suspects that I do not boil the milk. Plus I drink so much of it (in steel glasses so it does not look like I am over-consuming, nurturing the nurturer too much) that the half litre milk hardly lasts more than a day. Now my sister-in-law is coming and she is very shrewd so I will have to get into the routine of boiling milk.