by Vanessa Rebello
In the depths of her desperation, Poornima Mehra had decided to ask her mother for advice.
“It’s just that I’m at work all day, you know?” she said. “When I come back, I’m pretty tired, and so is he, so... well...”
“So the neighbours have nothing to complain about?” asked her mother as her attention was diverted from the doodhi she had been chopping with a vengeance.
Ah, the art of subtlety! “Yes,” said Poornima, “Nothing to complain about.”
“Ahh, I see. Well I never really had a job, but there were days when I was tired too. Yet, no matter how tired your father was, he was never too tired...”
“Okay, okay, I don’t need to hear that!” she interrupted. Maybe her mother wasn’t that subtle after all.
The older woman laughed. Irrespective of age, it was still almost impossible for an Indian mother to have an open conversation with her daughter when it came to sex.
“All I’m saying is, just marrying the man is not enough, you have to learn how to keep him.”
“And how do I keep him?”
Her mother pointed the vegetable-mush covered knife towards her stomach.
“By killing him?!”
“No. Idiot. By feeding him! A way to a man’s heart is through his pants, and the way to his pants is through his stomach.”
“Oh God Ma! Only you could take such a terrible cliché and make it worse. He’s a man, not a road map!”
“When was the last time you cooked?” her mother asked challengingly.
Poornima had cooked for an entire year after the honeymoon. Then she got a job. Then they hired a cook. She had barely entered the kitchen ever since. That was eighteen months ago.
“And when did the graph start going downhill?” asked her mother. He had begun to lose interest around the same time, but that was only natural. It was only about two weeks ago that it had completely disappeared.
Without waiting for a response to either question her mother went back to punishing the doodhi for its doodhiness.
Poornima decided to take her mother’s advice. In the mornings she left instructions with Krantibai, the cook, to write down the recipes and leave the cooking to her. In the evenings she would come home from work a little early and begin her dance with the dishes.
Knead. Pat. Roll. Strain. Stir. Chop. Snip. Simmer. Mix. Beat. Sauté.
She followed the recipes to a tee, and plopped one delicious course after the next on to the dining table every night.
By the speed at which he ate, Poornima thought her husband loved the food. But only Mr. Mehra knew the truth; and the truth was that he really didn’t enjoy it one bit. Sure, he gulped down every last bite, but it just wasn’t the same. There was a coldness about the steaming meals his wife served which he didn’t have the heart to tell her about. He just shoved it in his mouth, one morsel after another, hoping to get done with it as soon as he could.
But was her mother right? Did this affect their sex life? Yes, it did! It made him so damn lethargic that he could barely make it up to the bedroom, leave alone think of anything else.
“Ma!” she complained on the phone. “He’s falling asleep faster than he ever did! It’s not working!”
Taking this to be her cue, mother dearest packed her bags and decided to spend the weekend with her daughter and son-in-law.
“If food is not working, then it can only be one thing,” she told her daughter. “He’s cheating.”
“What? He’s not cheating Ma. That’s one thing I know for sure.”
“Men don’t just lose their sex drives,” she said. “It’s got to be diverted somewhere else.” So she decided to do some investigating of her own. She made conversation with the watchman and she chatted with the driver; she ‘bumped into’ his colleagues and she interviewed the neighbours. Yet, much to her disappointment, she found nothing.
All that was left to do was speculate about his sexuality, and before it reached there Poornima packed her mother’s things and told her she would visit soon.
The next morning, the drivers in the building were discussing the events of the Mehra household.
“He doesn’t have a mistress,” said one. “If he did we’d be the first to know.”
“Maybe he has problems down there,” said Tarun, another driver.
“Everyone’s not like you,” said a third and they all laughed at the incapability of Tarun’s manhood.
Ashamed, the poor man walked away, stopping only momentarily to watch his ex-lover at work. He peered through the window and saw Krantibai kneading the dough.
She put the flour in the bowl and added all the ingredients one by one. Tilting the glass of water over it, she let the liquid drizzle down in a smooth straight line. She took the flour in her hands and rolled it together, squeezing, massaging, almost caressing it into firmness. She folded it, put the heel of her hand on it and pushed, grabbing the other end of the growing mass with her fingers and then repeating. Ingredient by ingredient she poured her passion into the food.
“She left you, eh?” asked the watchman, as he walked by the peeping-Tarun.
He sighed. “Yes, about two weeks ago. But I’m not worried. A woman’s sexuality doesn't just disappear. When she has nowhere else to divert it, she’ll be back.”
The diverted needs of the two, expanded into a perfectly round chapatti covered in ghee.
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