Afterthought

It was a terribly confusing day. I woke up cold. I turned the heating on. A couple of hours later my flatmate yelled at me to turn the heating off. My predicament was being discussed on the BBC Breakfast show. I was informed, by the expert on the show, that women feel colder than men because they have more surface area, and for some other convoluted evolutionary reason. I recorded this gem of information for an occasion that might call for it. I heard some rumours about some political fun. There was a big summit conference on in Washington. The Indian PM and the Pakistani President had sneaked out to grab a coffee. The moment was awkward. If Sidhu were commenting on the situation, he would have mentioned something about cutting the tension with a knife. The pinnacle of politeness that he is, the Indian PM offered, “Latte?” The Pakistani President nodded. They got talking, and shared notes on the best mughlai restaurant in town. A lot can happen over coffee, I suppose. Occupy...

I repeated to myself, 'I'm Agastya's man through and through." I walked up to her, apologized for being late. I had been playing a game of Solitaire at work, trying to delay this tryst, reminding myself of the virtues of silence, gravity and iteration. We spoke of banal topics; the weather, the cricket match, the royal wedding and of the quantity of tamarind in the perfect sambhar. We walked on. She told me of their quarrel. Agastya had told me about this earlier. He was guilty. It wasn't the occasional slip, he didn't get carried away the once. It was calculated. He had flirted and courted and toyed. Agastya could do that without thinking. He was guilty. He had asked me if he should tell her all. I had asked him not to. "Arjun. He's not lying, is he?" I smiled and then dropped my voice to answer her question.

Shankar was dozing off. The train screeched to a halt at a tiny station. The PA system informed us that we had reached Balham. A family with three young kids got on and took the seats opposite us. Shankar stared at them with disapproval. He had stuffed himself with rice and sambhar, and was happily nodding off in accordance with the Madrasi custom until this family with three very young kids showed up. The mother yelled at the youngest one to take his mouth off the window sill. The father was continuing a 'guess-what-I-thought-of' game with the older kids. "Is it an animal?" "No, it's not." "Is it a bird?" "Nope. Try again." "Is it food, daddy?" "Yes" "Curry!" Shankar burst out laughing.