My wife often bemoans indiscipline, procrastination, laziness and a hundred other weaknesses on my part. I believe that chairs are meant for me to sit; but my wife believes that they are for others to sit, and not for me to sit and dream! So whenever I relax in a chair, she finds some excuse to jerk me out of it. “Jo, it is time to start the washing machine. Don't sit idle like this. You know this house is 150 years old. Only if both of us work hard will this house last. Go and get some more milk.”
She doesn't like spoons, knives, forks and utensils lying in disarray. According to her, each article has an assigned place and it must be kept there and there alone. Her diktat is, you put them in their allotted place and then start other work. Postponement of your duty is, according to her, the worst disease you can have. Whatever work you do, put your heart and soul into it. One day, she brought to me a cup and a plate. There were, in both of them, stains which were rather pronounced. “These are the ones you said you had washed. See! Now, I have to wash them again.”
She wakes up at 4 a.m. and leaves for the kitchen switching on all the lights in the room and switching off the fan. So I have no alternative but to get up and present myself dutifully in the kitchen. “Don't stand like that, Jo. See the garbage can, it is almost full. Clear it.” The aroma of her coffee will reach my nostrils at that time. She knows it very well. The coffee she makes is really ambrosia. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold, and hurry, see if the water heater in the bathroom is switched on.”
She doesn't like excuses; and she doesn't condone old age. She believes old age is a myth. If she asks you to do something, she wants it done then and there. Her stubborn adherence to truth sometimes makes you mad. I always believed that bending the facts a little, so long as it doesn't harm anyone, is not a lie. But she doesn't agree. Her protestations were vehement and vociferous when I used to tell her that. When I used to narrate something and state in the course of the narration that a certain person borrowed Rs 5,000, she would stop my narration and correct me, saying that he borrowed only Rs.4,750.
She was very strict with her servants. She wants sweeping and mopping done faultlessly. If their performance is not satisfactory, she tells them to their face: “Mary, come and see this, the dust and dirt are still there. You should love the work you do.” Most of them do not like it. Who will?
The next day Mary did not turn up and the hunt for a maid continues. Almost 10 months in a year my wife is without a maid. Even then, as soon as she acquires one, she wouldn't ignore or condone her mistakes, major or minor. There were instances when the maid left the very day she accepted the job. Still, my wife doesn't regret her ways with the maids. She is an excellent cook. She doesn't believe in keeping her displeasure to herself when she sees that the maids are not doing their jobs honestly and competently. “Whatever I feel like saying, I say straight to one's face.
Whenever she visits any house, she always examines the floors, the front yard, table tops, chair backs to convince herself how well they keep their house! Wherever she visits, she always asks for a glass of water even when she doesn't need it at all. She sniffs the glass before she pretends to drink water. Her sense of cleanliness is almost ridiculous. After supper, she washes plates, pots, glasses and spoons; and then she cleans the sink and finally mops the floor of the kitchen. If you advise her to leave the cleaning to the maid to be done the next morning, she poohpoohs it.
When, in bed, she complains of so many aches all over the body, all, according to her, because of too much of work in the kitchen. “When will all this be over?” These are her last words every night before she goes to sleep.
(The writer's email ID is joserosamma@hotmail.com)
