Short fiction: A couple gets to re-know each other in their tiny Mumbai room during a Covid lockdown

“We say about a stinking rich man that he has enough money to feed seven generations without their having to lift a finger.” Vishwajit reclined in his chair. It creaked. The city was under lockdown and there was more time to share his bitterness with his wife than he had ever had.

Aruna nodded. She knew where this opening line was leading. She was snapping the heads and tails off French beans, stringing them and putting them in a colander to be chopped and washed later. There was no hurry. Her office was closed. She didn’t have to cut Vishwajit short because she had to rush through chores. She could let him talk. It made him feel good. That made her feel good. These were peaceful times. Mother-in-law was away in Pune, staying with her younger son, stuck there because of the sudden lockdown.

Ashu and his family had settled in Detroit. He was a doctor, she a physiotherapist. They had made a video call last evening. The latest figures for Detroit were 4000 cases, 130 deaths. Please be careful, Vishwajit had said. Please be careful, Aruna had said. Ashu had said, don’t worry. It’s only hitting the poor.

“Like that bus driver. We read about him in the newspaper,” Aruna said.

Vishwajit said, “You’re living in a developed country. Not like us uneducated lot. Why did that woman sneeze all over that bus driver without covering her nose? Poor fellow died.”

“He was old,” Ashu said stiffly. His voice made it clear he wanted to hear no more criticism of his adopted country or its people. The conversation ended. No use worrying about Ashu. What will worry do? Someone on TV had said worry lowers your immunity. We don’t want to lower ours. Vishwajit and Aruna had agreed on that.

“We say about a stinking rich man that he has enough money to feed seven generations without their having to lift a finger.” Vishwajit reclined in his chair. It creaked. “I had an ancestor who was filthy rich. I’m the seventh generation from him. I’m working my a**e off to keep body and soul together.”

“Me too.”

“What?”

“Working that thing off.”

“When I say me, I include you.”

Aruna snaps a bean. “Ashu’s doing well.”

“Not because of the grand old man. Because of this poor chawl-dweller.”

“I suppose that includes me.” Vishwajit was not amused. A quick change of subject was required but not too far from the present line of conversation or he would think she wanted to change the subject and be even less amused. “We really must clean out the loft one of these days. So much junk has piled up there since your great-great-grandfather moved from the hill to the plains.”

“Great-great-great grandfather. He’s the one who moved down. You’ve seen the house, haven’t you?”

“Once. Mother-in-law insisted I should. To see what a grand family we were. We went by bus, then climbed up a snaky path, she with her knees, huffing, puffing and laughing. There it is, she kept saying every now and again. Then, no not that.”

“So, it still stands.”

“Did. Twenty-five years ago.”

“She told you lots of stories about us, didn’t she? Family stories always travel down from one generation of women to the next. The kitchen was full of chatter when you first came. You couldn’t have been talking about your office. What did she tell you?”

“Oh all sorts of things.” Aruna gave him an arch look. She used to do that in the early years. He had forgotten the look. Something stirred in him.

“Stop playing hard to get,” he said, smiling a rare smile.

“But I am hard to get, saheb,” she said. “I can’t sit chatting. I have to cook dinner.”

“Saheb?” A tingle ran up his spine. She used to call him that on “special” occasions. “Come on now. Stop teasing. There’s plenty of time for dinner.”

“Ok. Let me just wash these and come.”

Aruna got up with the colander of stringed French beans and turned to go in. He watched her back. Twenty-five years and she had not changed much. The same curves give or take a few kilos. He remembered that back from their “seeing” ceremony in the small sitting room of her parents’ home in Prabhadevi. She had risen from her chair to fetch dishes of pohe from the kitchen. He had noticed a slender waist flaring into full buttocks, a thick braid of glossy hair swinging across them as she walked. He had read descriptions of female backs in novels. He was seeing a real one now. After that vision, he had not paid much attention to the bright yellow pohe she had placed in his hand, garnished with shavings of white coconut and fresh green coriander leaves.

Her mother had said, “Our Aru is an excellent cook,’ adding self-deprecatingly, “Which is more than my mother could have said about me when he came to see me.” She cast a sideways glance at her husband who sat in a corner looking at his nails. “We lived in a bungalow in Juhu back then. He came to see me there. Remember?” Her husband nodded at her look. “My father was a film producer. We had two servants and a cook. Why would I need to cook? But…” She smiled a sad smile, waiting for Vishwajit’s mother to ask “But what?”

Vishwajit’s mother asked, “But what?”

Aruna’s mother said, “You know what the film line is like. My father put a lot of money into a film that sank without a ripple.”

A melancholy silence followed, which it was all right for Vishwajit’s mother to break since she was breaking only the silence, not the mood. “I know how that must have felt. Vishu’s great-great-grandfather lived on Malabar Hill. A big man. A really, really big man. But he lost all. Everything. On the stock market.”

Had she missed a couple of greats? Things got a little confusing after two. Her husband had told her to count three before grandfather. But you can’t talk and count at the same time. Anyway, beyond two, it gets boring. She had carefully avoided looking at her husband after this public foray into family history.

Excerpted with permission from ‘The Bhikbali’ in The Way Home: Stories, Shanta Gokhale, Speaking Tiger Books.