Whenever I send Shibhu to the market, he comes back late, and smelling of tobacco. I instruct him, always, to choose the chicken carefully; not one of the biggest birds, but of a medium size with shiny feathers, with energy enough to peck at the curse of its cage. He chooses well, usually. But I suspect he has an arrangement. Of the money that I give him I am sure he keeps at least ten or fifteen rupees for himself, having organized a regular discount with the shopkeepers and perhaps some sort of quid pro quo; the balance surely goes on a session of chai and cigarettes, or the bottomless pit of the paan-wallah’s tin.
When he returns, though, singing and reeking of smoke, I say nothing. He is an old man, and he should be left to enjoy what little pleasures he can take from his life. Shibhu has worked in this house for more than fifteen years; for my uncle before me, shuttling back and forth to the pharmacy in an old, hand-drawn rickshaw carrying black bottles of medicine; and now for us, cleaning and running odd errands, or lifting the phone to admonish prospective telemarketers in his broken English. Nowadays he is thin, and drawn. A racking cough takes up residence in his chest at the change of the weather, and he travels less and less to his home village. I let him be, out of affection and concern for his health.
It sounds strange, but in this house I do almost all of the cooking. I’ve always enjoyed the experience of preparing food: the anticipation of lighting the stove and heating the oil, the cool, soothing feel of sliced vegetables under my hand, that first, happy aroma of cooking spices. I chop, I fry, I grill, I stir and boil and toss and bake: I do it all. Tucking my shirt under the little roll of fat at my belly, I busy myself at the counter, the stove and the oven simultaneously, oblivious to the world. The kitchen is converted into my playroom, into my own private temple. Nobody bothers me, and I need no one; everyday worries knock vainly at the closed door of my mind. I am absorbed by the process, consumed with the joy of transformation, in thrall to the ancient craft.
Meenakshi loves it much less, or not at all. Her mother warned me, of course, about her aversion to the kitchen, little realizing that it did not matter to me at all. I have my Meena for other things: for the infectious tinkle of her laugh, the smell of hair, the glad splash of her sari on the verandah in the morning. In her I have already been given more than I deserve; more than I should rightly have. My hands are full with treasure..
Our verandah is a pretty one, looking out onto the lane behind the main road, open to the sky despite the suffocating press of other buildings all around. I have decorated the area with plants, little ferns and various flowers that bloom one by one during the summer months. It’s where Meena likes to have her tea, in the mornings, reclining behind the curled branches like a shy starlet. I drink mine at the dining table just inside, where I can lay out the morning paper in all its mind-numbing detail.
Once the clock reaches eight-thirty, the verandah across the lane also stirs in a mirror image of ours; our neighbour, Akash, comes out for his morning cigarette.
‘Morning Akash,’ I call out, raising my hand.
‘Morning brother,’ he returns, pausing to light up, ‘Good morning, Meena.’
Meena laughs her own greeting, setting her cup down with a clink, and asks about his plans for the day. Akash is a journalist, too, but writing for a new website publication, specializing in ‘entertainment’ stories. He works from home, mostly, balancing a laptop on his knees or nodding seriously on his phone, pen in hand. He works hard; if I get up late in the night for some reason, I invariably see his figure at his bedroom window, hunched over in concentration. In the mornings, though, he is relaxed, rubbing the sleep from his dark eyes and blowing smoke down out into the already filthy air. Sometimes I come out to the verandah as well, my own cup still at my lips, and join in the conversation.
‘Not bad, brother,’ he drawls, in answer to my query about his work, ‘not bad at all. Some days good, some days bad. You know?’
On my own days in the office I leave the flat by about ten. I never need to stay long; after meetings and some briefings from my colleagues, I can usually bring my work back home. Shibhu is often having a siesta when I return in the mid-afternoon. I don’t wake him; if he has been to the market, he stocks the refrigerator himself and leaves me a short note if there has been any problem with my order. Or sometimes he tells Meenakshi, if she is there, and she passes on the message.
‘No goat meat, this week. Shibhu says there is a shortage in the city, because of the strike,’ she might say, sprawled on the couch, while I lay a kiss on the top of her head.
Meena doesn’t work, right now. She graduated last year, but hasn’t been on the job market since then. She doesn’t need to be, really. Since our marriage she has been working on a few small projects with friends, sending her own designs to the academy in Delhi and overseas. I ask her, now and then, what her career plans are, but she doesn’t seem eager to discuss it. We have a vague strategy to move to Mumbai, next year or the next, if I can utilize some of my connections with the paper. Meena wants to wait until then, I suppose. She keeps busy, thinking up new ideas and sketching, leafing through page after page of smiling models with a furrowed brow. I leave her to it. We don’t need the money, just yet; and I don’t want to push her to work if she is happier at home.
We are happy, I think to myself as I begin another afternoon in the kitchen, laying out the onions and drying my knife on the tail of my shirt. I chop the onions finely, place the lot into a deep pan and cover atop the stove to sautee, then grate some herbs. The smell of garlic infuses the house with warmth. There is time, after that, to slice the other vegetables with care, lightly frying the potatoes in their own pan while I wait. Outside, crows squawk in ugly orchestra at the windowsill, pushing their beaks against the grill; I have to bang against the frame with my wooden spoon to chase them away. Behind their retreating wings emerges Akash’s beaming face.
‘Brother,’ he says, ‘it smells fantastic.’
‘I haven’t even started yet!’ I laugh. I have never seen Akash cooking himself, although he lives alone. Perhaps he has his food delivered, or he eats out. I drop spices into the oil, raising a sizzling, sublime mushroom cloud. The bachelor life, I think to myself, smiling - how I miss those days!
‘Is it chicken curry?’ Akash asks, now looking at me intently. I reply in the affirmative. He licks his lips theatrically and gives me a thumbs up. I raise my spoon in acknowledgement.
‘I love chicken curry. You’ll have me over one day won’t you, brother?’
Of course I will, I answer. The poor guy, I think, probably doesn’t get all that much good food, living away from home as he does. Resolving to myself to have Meena invite him, I simmer the chicken and vegetables in my karhai and stare reflectively outside. The winter sun filters weakly through the smog and paints the evening a dull silver. Beneath me, gangs of puppies chase one another through the lane, yelping sharply when caught by the wheels of passing bicycles. Palm trees raise their dirty fronds towards the sky, willing the cleansing rains to arrive early. The city breathes fitfully and arranges itself for the night.
When I finish, I cover the pot and wipe a bead of sweat from my brow with my towel. I glance outside again, and am surprised to see that Akash is still at his window, regarding me with a curious gaze from the same position as before. Our eyes meet, and I give him a gesture of goodbye.
‘Good night, brother,’ he says quietly.
Meena and Shibhu both love my chicken curry – thick and fiery without being rich, the meat delicately spiced a perfect balance of hot, sweet and sour. I leave Shibhu’s portion aside, in a separate container, for him to take to his room. At dinner I finish my own meal early and watch Meena as she eats, slurping appreciatively at her fingers and mangling the chicken bones with her teeth. She scarcely looks up. When I reach towards her to stroke her hair, she flicks my hand away with annoyance.
It is my mother’s recipe, that curry, one of my earliest memories. I can still see her hunched and blowing at the coals, then raising herself on her haunches and fanning the oven with my father’s discarded newspaper. Potatoes and onions frying in oil, only to be laid out and put aside in crisp profusion on a plate. Dismembered chickens in a gruesome pile, awaiting their miraculous, genius transformation. It always amazed me, that such a varied and discrete gallery of ingredients could come together so perfectly; the end product tasted so gloriously complete, as if sprung directly from the forehead of Brahma, a divine inspiration rather than the toil of human hands. When I finally learnt to make the dish myself, I saw it all in my mind’s eye as clearly as a film-reel: my mother’s precise and slender hands at work above her utensils and cooking pots. No recipe was ever required; only the keen inner lens of remembered love.
‘We must have Akash over one day,’ I say at the table, sipping the last of my water. Meena looks up sharply, her hand halfway to her mouth. I give her a fatherly smile.
‘We should, you know. The poor guy hardly gets any good food.’
Meena does cook, too, very occasionally – a dhal, or some vegetables in a simple curry, or even a stew of fish. But she takes little interest in it. Perhaps she does it only out of guilt, as if she should at least contribute something in the kitchen. Usually, if I am out late for any reason, I leave her something already made. On the rare occasion that I must travel away from the city, she makes do with whatever is in the house, preferring to give Shibhu a holiday. I suspect she falls back into her old, bad habits, picking up fast food from the stalls that line the main intersection, fried bhajis and sweets and plates of spicy chaat.
That was all she wanted when we first married, that kind of food. I indulged her, then; we took trips to the city, strolling hand in hand through the gardens, sharing packets of fried nuts and devouring ice creams, wiping each other’s shoulders with sticky hands. But now, with the years, we have found a new kind of love, one that does not require the the greasy incitements of the chaat-wallah or the sweet mutterings of the ice-cream man; one that is based on the more sedate happinesses of hearth and home.
Meena comes rarely to the kitchen, so I am surprised when she appears at the door, smiling coquettishly. She rarely disturbs me, here. But this time she is unusually attentive; she comes right inside, raising herself on tiptoes and laying her chin on my shoulder.
‘You’re making chicken,’ she says, in a playful tone, ‘Can I watch?’
I plant a kiss on her hair and raise the lid to let her look into the pot. She coughs weakly in the rising fumes and squints inside. The chicken is simmering, and not yet ready. I quickly cover the pot again.
‘Can you show me how you make it?’ she asks.
I am even more surprised, but glad. I have already used most of the vegetables, but there are some extras laid aside, and I show her how they are sliced and prepared well in advance - the onions, the potatoes, the tomatoes. I take down the jars of spice and arrange them on the counter, explaining the order in which I add them, the right measure of turmeric and masala and tamarind. The chicken is cut to this size, I tell her, holding one piece out of the pot to illustrate, and must be on the bone. Then, the timings: when to cover, when to simmer, when to leave the entire pot open and let the water evaporate away.
She asks me a question, and then listens, closely, her lips parted in a beautiful pose of concentration. For the first time, I feel myself greatly distracted from my task. Let the pot simmer, I decide, turning the heat right down to just a tiny flame; then I hoist her onto my shoulders and carry her out of the kitchen, her legs kicking in mock outrage.
Afterwards, Meena is very quiet, playing with the bangles at her wrist. I make my way to the kitchen and switch off the curry just in time, then turn to the door to find Shibhu watching me with sad eyes.
‘Sir…’ he says, hesitating. I give him an inquiring look. ‘Sir, you showed madam how to cook the chicken?’
‘Yes,’ I nod. Shibhu looks at his hands, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
‘You should not have done that, sir,’ he says in a soft voice.
‘Why not?’ I am annoyed at his strange behaviour, and I don’t hide it. He does not answer straight away. I raise my hands in exasperation. ‘What are you talking about, Shibhu?’
He gives me an imploring look.
‘Nothing, sir. Only that … you can make it much better.’ I stare at him, bewildered, but he does not meet my eye. Then, before I can respond, he turns on his heel and disappears.
That Shibhu, I think to myself. He is definitely getting on. I should consider giving him his retirement.
The next day I embark for the office, fighting clouds of flies and the stinking mass of a million bodies on the underground. I emerge into the city centre and flee to the comfort of my building, thankful for the hum of air conditioning within. The day begins well. Almost before I can even check my email, my editor comes to see me. He gives me high praise for my latest feature series, and hands me a slim envelope with a meaningful wink.
I tear it open at my desk. It is a letter from the editor of the national edition, offering me a sub-editor position in Mumbai.
I lean back and let my heart do jigs in my chest as I contemplate the news. The others in my team have heard too, and come around to slap my back and tell me how much they will miss me. It’s a wonderful opportunity. I see a clear path opening ahead of me, fortune parting the Red Sea of circumstance in my favour. I promise to take my colleagues for coffee later in the week to celebrate. Then I quickly repack my bag and flit out through the mid-morning traffic straight to the market.
Today, I buy the chicken, not Shibhu. The market is less busy at this time, and I go straight to our regular corner. The shopkeeper eyes me carefully and offers me an outrageous price, then backs off when I begin to argue. I remind him about Shibhu, and he breaks into an enormous grin. No sooner have I pointed to a bird than he has extracted it from the cage and snapped its neck.
‘For you, sir,’ he says simply, folding the corpse into a paper bag and extending one wiry arm.
The auto rickshaw has hardly sputtered to a halt in front of my building than I press the money into the driver’s hand and rush upstairs. I fumble at the latch impatiently, then flick my keys onto the hallway table and burst into the living room. It is empty. I call Meena’s name, then Shibhu’s, but there is no answer. I stride to the back of the flat, still calling out. The clack clack of my shoes against the wooden floor echoes around me. The flat is dark, the windows in every room unopened. Meena perhaps has gone out, but I wonder where Shibhu could be.
‘Shibhu?’
There is a shuffling from behind the door of his room, but no answer. I take a step forward to investigate; but he appears soundlessly at the doorway. From his appearance I immediately know that something is very wrong. His usually immaculate shirt is crinkled and hangs crookedly from his shoulders, loosely buttoned. His eyes are red and swollen. The flat disc of his face is wet and dirty with tears.
‘Shibhu? What is it?’ I ask.
‘Sir, she is …’ His voice wavers, then breaks into a sudden sob, twisting his face with grief. He totters towards me and throws his arms around my body, burying his face in my chest.
‘Sir, I couldn’t tell you, sir, I couldn’t do anything. She is gone, sir. She is gone.’
I feel myself grow instantly cold, a chill running through every vein. I know he means Meena. An awful intuition settles over me. I stand limp, with my arms at my side, collecting Shibhu’s loyal tears on my shirt. His sobbing subsides, and he releases me slowly and stands back, then raises his left arm. I follow the line of his outstretched finger to the verandah across the street.
‘You mean, with … ?’
Shibhu nods, and lets his head drop to his chest. I walk to the window and peer into the flat across the lane. The windows are not shuttered, but the rooms are empty; there is not a single stick of furniture left. The walls are bare, and the floors completely cleared. The door to the verandah is open. Outside a solitary packet of cigarettes balances precariously atop the railing; as I watch it falls to the street below.
We stand there a long time, not moving. The din of traffic outside slowly rises and fills the silence between us. When I finally speak, I do so without turning.
‘Light the stove, Shibhu,’ I say in a voice I never knew I had, ‘We are going to have a feast tonight, you and I.’
I was born and raised in Australia, but my childhood visits to Kolkata were frequent enough to be routine; my memory of them is a 