His routine is fixed. You can match your clock with his timings. Immaculately dressed, he comes to work at dot 8 am and works diligently till 11 am followed by a fruit for snack. Never skips his lunch at 1 pm. Eats the same good old home cooked meal prepared carefully and packed diligently with different bowls allocated for a proper four course meal. Has won consecutive awards for being the ‘Best Employee’ and never misses a deadline. He is the eye of everyone’s envy. Just the perfect man-polished and successful.
5 in the evening he performs a hurried puja at his desk to his favourite deity, Maa Durga. Then leaves the office at sharp 5.30 pm. Come cyclone or an earthquake, nothing shakes his daily routine.
The sound of his car nearing the driveway at home makes his family shudder in fear. The kids switch off the television and hide themselves beyond their course books to avoid him. Wife gets or pretends to be busy in the kitchen. Even his old mother is scared of him. She closes her eyes and pretends to chant prayers to the Almighty to avoid any interactions.
Dinner is served to him at sharp 8 pm. They all dread that moment because all the kids get to hear is the sound of crashing plates and dishes. The father screaming at their mother, “Woman, what do you do the whole day if you can’t cook? The rotis are so thick and the subji is so bland, didn’t your mother teach you how to please your husband?”
Only his voice would echo in the house. The wife keeps quiet and like a robot cleans the mess he created. Then once the cleaning is done, calls the rest to have a quiet dinner at kitchen. The mother prefers to eat in the sanctity of her room.
The alarm bell breaks the silence of the home every morning at 4 am. And if you think, the alarm is set for him, well it is for the wife to wake up and fix a bed tea for her man. She has to put off the alarm as soon as it rings else the man will get furious to be disturbed by the sound. She gives him his no-sugar, no-milk tea and goes in preparation for his daily morning puja ritual for his favourite deity, Maa Durga. Cleans herself, mops the puja room and never forgets to miss any single detail because if she does. Then her morning will begin with a tight slap and her man shouting, “Didn’t your mother teach you to do anything, you are such a lazy wretched woman?”
The morning mundane tires her. Everything has to be on time and elaborate, irrespective of any personal or natural calamity. Her world takes a breather when he eventually leaves for work at dot 7.30 am. Knowing that the curfew will begin again at 6 pm. In between she lives, telling herself, “Atleast I am better than the maid, he doesn’t kick me out and I have a roof over my head.”
All this for Maa Durga?
Pic courtesy: Google Images
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