Salt, Pepper, Chillies and Sugar

Woman #1 – “I have been a receptacle for children. If I count the moments I spent with my husband of fifty years, they would not amount to more than a year of our married lives. The rest of the fifty years was spent in breeding and caring for children, relatives, the house, the neighbourhood.”

Woman #2 – “When I became his wife, I became his property.” She has never spent time talking to her husband. They have been married for ten years. “He does not talk to me. He will speak to a woman in the village. But then he is not married to her. He does not love me. He rapes me every night. How can I say no to him? If I do I will be thrown out of the house. “

The act of love for her, as for millions of women, is dumb duty as compulsive as being a good wife and a good mother.

I do not know what I feel more intensely – sympathy for the women faced with such a situation or hatred for men (me included) who subject their women to such mental agony.

Now sample this –

Aneesh Jung's dhobi is an illiterate man. In the early mornings he picks flowers from large gardens and distributes them in different households where mornings begin with worship. He then leads his blind wife to an open space where she relieves herself. He bathes her, cooks for her, and leaves her sitting in the sun when he goes out on his daily rounds. “I don’t like to leave her alone in the dark,” he mumbles. “In the day there are birds and children and sounds of people moving. She is not alone. After dark she senses the silence.” Days have thus gone by for twenty long years. He never refers to his wife by name. She is his wife, a woman he brought home when she was twelve with flashing black eyes and strong brown hands. She ironed the clothes he washed, gave him a son and a daughter. Son tills the land in the village. The daughter is married off in another village. The dhobi lives with his blind partner in the old shed – days of dal and roti, nights that freeze in winters and remain airless in summers.

“Love has nothing to do with a house that never leaks and butter on your bread each day. Like the seed,it grows - rain or no rain, sun or no sun, house or no house,” says the old man embarrassed to put into words a feeling that he has always felt but not articulated.”

Why do we even try to find out the real meaning of love or Love? I think its relative. To every man/woman, his/her own, i guess ! some understand its real meaning in suffering while some in joy. Both have their own ideas and beliefs, of course shaped by this very own experience ( suffering and joy ) Now how does one tell the other that, " Look what I think is the real thing and my experience says that. And what you think or believe is not practical"

We all have this habit to actually try and understand love by its ' practical ' nature. Says our smart alec #1 - " Dude, I am telling you out of lots of practical experience of seeing people and also my own experience. Love actually is .... blah.. blah..." and says our smart alec #2 - " Look, all that you think is the bookish notion, theoretical and highly idealistic. In reality nothing of this happens. Time , give it time and then see how you become like me"
Yiikeeees , now do i really want to be like him after 'time' . What the heck ! maybe i will be like him one day... i shudder at the thought... but what again escapes me is the real answer... now there is no reason why i should actually be trying to find the answer...

My mind wanders and asks the question - " what if someone had asked the dhobi's wife about this same thing...? What would she say of her husband's actions and 'love'. If my imagination is allowed to give an opinion then she would say - ' Balls love !!! What love... I do not want to sit in the sun, I do not want to be taken care of... what does he think of me.? Am i not capable of taking care of myself? he trying to own me. I think i will put him in place once i get my eyes operated upon by the "bada daaktar" in the city. My friend Raju - the potter, is arranging it for me. His daughter got him operated upon in the city and now he can make pots with beautiful shape that fit into my hands like a child in a mother's arms. I love holding pots. I think I trust Raju more than the good for nothing dhobi who justs wants me to rot like this and not see the world again !"

Jesus ! Ayyappa ! Muruga ! Pray tell me ppl, what is right here? What is love here? And believe me what the wife of the dhobi said is the ' practical ' comment that ppl make about their relationships. Its the truth. And that is what she told me.

Think about it. I may have heard it wrong... maybe i am wrong, but still think about it.