Another day in Paradise

Her eyes lit up with a spark but before Raju could notice it, the spark had been replaced by uncertainty and doubt.

“What’s the matter,” snapped Gunjan as she took the stem of roses from Raju’s hand. “Why did you have to bring flowers?”

“I didn’t bring them. I had to, sort of, buy it!”

“I knew it! It’s certainly not your nature to bring flowers back home! The days of gifting flowers are long gone! These things only happen in movies! Anyway, you can throw these flowers away!” Gunjan was trying to continue the fight that had been left incomplete because of Raju storming out of the house in frustration.

Although he could sense his tempers rising, Raju was too tired and in no mood to pick up the fight from where he had left. It was sultry and the humidity made him sweat profusely from every pore of his body. Frustrated and tired of fighting, he had gone out for an evening stroll thinking it would cool him down. Midway, he had stopped at a medicine shop to buy a few medicines for their daily requirements. When it was time to pay, the shopkeeper indicated that he was in no position to give him change for hundred rupees. In frustration, he had sought the help of a nearby flower vendor who agreed to give him change if he bought something from the shop. He had bought a stem of roses arranged in a neat formation because they were the cheapest and would be easy to carry back home. He knew that Gunjan loved to receive flowers. Never had he realised that this would be the source for the start of a fresh round of fight to break out! He tried to explain but by that time Gunjan had already walked off and had picked up a book pretending to get busy in reading. The roses lay unattended on the table.

Gunjan and Raju have been married for almost 17 years now. In the prime of their youth, they had met each other, fallen in love and after seven years of courtship, had finally got married with the consent of their parents. Being almost of the same age, they had grown together, breezing through the youth of their life enveloped in the warmth of their love for each other. The freshness of the marriage had lasted long, before things began to get a little bit dampened by the greying clouds of middle age. Both had reached the age of forty almost simultaneously and maybe, had finally begun to get a wee bit tired of each other.

When the novelty of a relationship wears off, couples tend to start taking each other for granted. Love is like an eye-shade that cuts out all the harsh glare of reality and paints everything with a shade of colour. Once the goggles are removed, the naked eye takes time to adjust to the glare. During such times, the relationship takes on a new hue. One tends to get irritated at the slightest opportunity. What appears initially as a craving to be as near to each other as possible, turns into an irritation at an attempt by the other to step on one’s toes. The body also starts to lose its youthful energy and is often mired in lethargy. As a result one often gets the feeling that he/she is taking an extra amount of load in running the family while the other person is simply shunning sharing of the household work-load. Fights like the one above, then become very commonplace. It’s as if both had become like a rubber band that had been stretched to the last limit and was ready to break at the smallest increase in tensile force.

“I am hungry, aren’t you going to serve dinner?” Raju wanted to divert the topic hoping a change would help lighten up things. He takes his seat in front of the TV and starts channel surfing in an apparent bid to divert his mind.

Without a word, Gunjan gets up and serves dinner before returning back to reading the book.

“Hey, will you not be eating? Don’t tell me that the smell of roses is so bad that it has left you devoid of any hunger! Arree baba, I bought it from a shop near your school. If you don’t like the smell, you can return it back tomorrow!” Raju tries to lighten the atmosphere with a dash of humour.

“Why should I return it? You brought it. You go and do whatever you want with it. You didn’t get those flowers for me! These flowers are certainly not my responsibility!”

If Raju needed a wee bit of spark to flare up again, this was it!

“See, who is talking of responsibility now! As if you are singlehandedly running the show all along! Why, you don’t even remember anything these days. There’s no salt in the dal and the vegetable is absolutely bland. Am sure you must have run out of spices and have forgotten to get them from the grocer. If you were a bit responsible about running the household, then all problems would have been solved!”

Pallavi, their little daughter who had turned sixteen last month, knew that it was time for her to intervene.

“Uuuuuffff…stop it, please!!! I am finding it difficult to concentrate on my studies.”

Truce is declared immediately and the battlefield falls silent. Having finished dinner, Raju gets up to go and wash his hands before hitting the bed along with a story-book that he had been reading recently. With the place in front of TV cleared, it’s Gunjan’s turn to occupy the seat and finish off her dinner.

The two would meet once again next morning, over a cup of tea. It would be the beginning of a new day. The sweetened cup of tea would act as a sweetener to erase all the bitterness of the previous day. Unlike the roses that have wilted overnight, their love for each other would emerge fresh, tempered and hardened after emerging through the fires of discord.