I
"Major Saab, wait.. wait. You are leaving without taking the dabba," Paro ran after her husband, even as he got ready to start his bike and leave for work. He let out a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes and she wondered if he would just ride away. But like always, he stopped. She smiled. That was exactly how her relationship with her husband was. He would run away as far as possible from her, and then wait for her to catch up with him. When she would catch up with him, he would have a scowl on his face that seemed to say, what took you so long. At least that is what she thought. Hoped.
"Paro, I am getting late for work. Let me go now. Why do you always interrupt me each morning? Isn't that considered ill-luck?" Rudra said, even as he took off his helmet and looked at his wife seriously.
"Don't be ridiculous, Major Saab. And I know you don't believe in such superstitions. Anyway, I only came to give you the dabba," she said handing to him a five-tiered stainless-steel dabba.
"I have told you so many times, I don't need this. I seldom eat lunch. I usually have just chai and some biscuits. I never even open the dabba. What do you do with the cold food that I bring back each night? Throw it away? It is a waste, Paro," and having said his piece he proceeded to once again fix the helmet around his head.
"I know, I know. This is not for you. This is for.. Aman," Paro told her husband and watched amusedly how a scowl appeared on his face.
"For Aman? Are you serious? I am not some dabbawallah. Why must you feed Aman?" Rudra said, his bafflement writ large on his face.
Yes, that was the reaction she expected from him. Either he was really predictable or she was reading him really well.
"Aman really likes the food I make and he is tired of eating canteen food. So I am sending him home-cooked food, okay. Kakau-sa usually takes it for me, but today he has taken the day off. If you don't take it, I will have to take it. Sometimes I don't get rickshaw and then I will have to walk all the way to the BSD office and then..." she trailed off.
His scowl deepened and he grabbed the dabba from her and muttered something about how she was slowly but surely driving him insane. She had to stifle a giggle.
"Well-fed soldiers will be happy. And a happy soldier will do his work better. Don't be mad at me, Major Saab. Or at Aman. Thank you," she smiled at him as he revved up his bike and rode away.
II
Rudra was on a conference call with the BSD headquarters in Delhi and was listening in to two senior officers argue with a human resources person about setting up coffee-vending machine in all the BSD stations. Now Rudra was a soldier, he liked the adrenalin of investigating, giving wrongdoers their comeuppance and helping to secure his country and people. But these mindless administrative duties that he got sucked into almost every other day just because he was the senior-most officer stationed in Chandangarh really bored him to death. Usually it was something utterly mundane like what kind of night-lamps should the offices have or how much should the chairs recline. Today it was evidently about coffee vending machines and why soldiers doing night duty deserved easy access to caffeine. He just listened in to the conversation, not contributing, his attention drawn to the five-tiered tiffin dabba that his wife had handed to him this morning. And inspite of himself he smiled. Thankfully this was not a video conference call, else he would be hard pressed to explain why the normally stern major Rudra Pratap Ranawat had something akin to a smile on his face. This had been happening too often lately, like somehow his facial muscles had just discovered that it was possible to do this and wouldn't stop. It was all her fault. His wife - child-woman, stubborn as a mule, fierce mother-hen, wide-eyed vixen and manic feeder.
If Paro had a hobby, it was feeding people. She took food very, very seriously. Each morning, when she woke up, she usually said a prayer and the very next thing on her mind was to start planning the meals of the day. Though Mohini Kaaki-sa controlled every aspect of the household, she allowed Paro to prepare food for his father and him. He was unsure why his wife was allowed this concession, it was probably because even Kaaki-sa recognised how stubborn and fierce his wife could be when it came to food.
"Probably Dhuaan Kumari's mother delivered her when she was cooking dinner in the kitchen," sometimes Mohini Kaaki-sa would quip. But Paro remained unperturbed by this and offered a good-natured smile and continued with her chopping, grinding, frying and tampering.
"Major Saab, what should I make today? What do you feel like eating?"
Each morning that was the first thing she would ask him. He always felt ill-equipped to answer this having sustained a lifetime on burnt rotis and underdone aloo subzi.
"Make anything, Paro," he would say and somehow this would not satisfy her. She would look so disappointed at this that he would even feel slightly guilty as a result. She would tie up her hair, offer him a pout and go look for her father-in-law and repeat the question. His father of course had no trouble answering his daughter-in-law and usually would recite an elaborate list of calorie-laden dishes. This would please her and she would offer him her dazzling smile and skip into the kitchen. Paro had very firmly lodged herself in his father's heart and they both loved each other with a fierceness now that made him feel a sense of completeness, like finally there was someone for both his father and him.
One thing that he had to admit was that her cooking was really good. Though he was not a foodie and very much was a follower of the eat to live philosophy and not vice versa, even he could tell that the subtlety of flavours in her food was uncommon. Perhaps it was because she cooked with a lot of affection it reflected in the taste as well. However, the proof of the cooking was obviously in the eating, which is why she took the feeding bit very seriously. She would stealthy appear with plateful of food and not leave until the last morsel found its way down his throat. And while he ate, she would chatter about her day, a random anecdote about her life in Birpur, sometimes it was about a secret recipe and how she found it, sometimes with a list of complaints that she had against him, just about anything. He was amused and loved their meal times. In every meal he learnt one new new thing about his wife and he filed away the bits and pieces of it in his head. She had once told him that he would need to put a lot of effort to get to know her better and this was him trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle.
After every meal she demanded feedback on the food. Was it nice? Could it do with some improvement? Though she was one of the most secure people he knew, she always sought validation for her cooking. And nothing pleased her more than when he praised her cooking. She would offer him her brightest smile and sometimes even hug him, that too without her usual self-consciousness. But she was not so self-indulgent that she only cared for praises. She was very open to and in fact appreciated criticism. She would make sure to adjust salt, spices and oil levels based on what he said. Sometimes drop a vegetable or a spice from her pantry. Sometimes dropping one of her secret recipes.
These shared food moments were however restricted to dinner and breakfast time. Lunchtime was still his. Though she had invaded almost every part of his life, during lunch he was still holding on to the last remnants of bachelorhood. He wasn't sure why it was important to him, because the two of them had come too far from the time he had put a gun to her head and had all but dragged her into the BSD investigation room. They had loathed each other, denied the attraction and pull they felt towards the other, fought with each other and eventually fought for each other. And yet, their relationship had reached some kind of status quo. Not regressing, but not moving forward either.
Of course, he had very rational reasons to avoid a big meal at work. After all he had to be alert and agile at work. He could not afford a big meal, certainly not a well-cooked meal like his wife would surely make. No, he absolutely refused to eat a meal from a five-tiered tiffin box. But God, it did smell heavenly. How could Aman eat all of this and not want to take a postprandial nap he wondered. He probably was sleeping in the cabin each day after he had a meal, he thought irritably.
Paro and Aman were quite a pair, the two of them felt immense affection for each other. In the early days, it annoyed him, but now he had made peace with it. In fact, he felt grateful that Aman and she shared an equation that gave her someone other than his family to rely upon. With no real family to call her own, she needed support that went beyond the Ranawats.
Once the call is over he would hand over the dabba to Aman. Or perhaps he should just peek in. What could be there in five dabbas? Of course he was not going to check what was inside. That would be.. ridiculous.
Okay this conference call was beginning to get on his last nerve and with no sign of ending. He wondered if he hung up would anyone notice. No he could not do that. Maybe he should just open the dabba. He could do with some distraction. It was not like he was going to eat anything from it. No, he would not open it. That would be dishonest.
He finally opened it.
In the top container were rotis, six of them, soft like tiny pillows. The next had aloo and bhindi subzi combining two of his favourite vegetables. The third dabba had pulao with peas and cloves. The fourth had gate ki subzi which he hadn't had in years and the bottom most dabba had giant gulaab jamuns that invited one to plunder them. He normally did not care for sweets, but had a slight weakness for gulaab jamuns , something that he might have mentioned at some point to her.
The lil minx, he thought and was glad that the conference call wound up just then.
He needed to hand this over to Aman right away. He picked up the tiffin and walked out of his cabin.
III
Paro was waiting for him by the fountain when he walked into the house. She always did that even though he had told her several times to not wait up for him. It was close to 11 O'Clock and everyone had retired to their rooms.
"Why are you so late? Why didn't you call me? Get changed and I will get dinner ready. I just need to make rotis," she said in a tone that was a mix of both irritation as well as concern.
"Sorry, Paro. Got caught up with work. I am not hungry. I had a heavy lunch. Have you eaten," he asked, even though he already knew the answer. While he did appreciate the gesture of her wanting to eat with him, he would much rather she be practical and eat her meals on time. For someone who was obsessed with when, what and how much other people ate, she took scarce care of this when it came to herself.
"I will eat. But you never eat lunch, so how did you have a heavy lunch? What did you have?" she asked, looking at him suspiciously.
"Today I had, okay. You eat and come to the room. And here take the dabba," he said and handed over Aman's tiffin to her.
"Oh it is empty. Did Aman like it? Was everything okay? What did he say? Hope you are not mad at me for making you carry this dabba? Hope you are not mad at Aman? It is okay if you are mad at me, but please don't be mad at Aman because of me," his wife rambled on rather incoherently.
"Shut up, Paro. I am not mad. Aman left you a note inside the dabba. From now on, don't bother Kaaku-sa, I will carry the dabba everyday, okay? I will get changed and you come soon. But eat your dinner first" he warned her sternly.
And as he started walking towards his room, it happened again, his face broke into a smile involuntarily. Thankfully she couldn't see his face.
IV
Dear Parvati,
Six rotis, six gulaab jaamuns and half a kilo of rice is enough to feed the whole army and not just one soldier of the army. You are spoiling this army rotten.
If it were possible, Paro would have hugged the tiffin dabba and gone to sleep that night, but she had a husband waiting for her.
The End
A silly OS inspired by the fact that Paro spends a lot of time feeding her Major Saab 😆
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