Seven

7. Struggle for Temperance

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Raghuveer muttered as he tried to keep pace with Luc; the narrow streets dotted with single-story houses and apartments. The contrast was strange and jarring, ancestral houses, more than seventy to eighty years old, sharing walls with modern apartments. From the bits of conversations the flew around and seeing the elderly women draped in sarees worn in the distinctive Tamil style, he guessed they were in Chennai. In the distance he could hear the ringing of temple bells, they must be in one of those agraharams, though he could not identify the exact locality. However, as the signboards, the few that he could see, were all in Tamil, he could not make out where exactly he was.

And it unsettled him.

But if he were to be honest, it was not the unfamiliarity of the location that perturbed him, enough had happened over the last week for him to accept it. Being in a different city at unexpected times had become routine for him.

It was a mundane thing, yet not ordinary, that had him preoccupied.

He had lost his temper that morning and shouted at Kamakshi, which was a rare occasion in their two decades of married life. They had arguments and disagreements, long weeks when they did not speak at all, days when she sulked but he had never lost his temper with her. And never in front of his whole family. And for a stupid reason that she had prepared upma without onions. They were all aware of culinary restrictions in his house which had somewhat relaxed after he married, for Kamakshi had worked around a schedule where onions and garlic could be used to prepare the meals, especially when she had learnt that he loved onion upma. But today was Subramaniam Shashti, and hence onions would not be used. He had never bothered with the calendar, simply accepting that some days, or rather most days, onions and garlic were forbidden.

Yet, today at breakfast when it turned out to be peas and carrot upma, he had lost his temper. He had shoved his plate away, pushing is so hard, it slid across the table and crashed to the floor. The shocked silence amplified the ringing of the crash and he had walked out, more in shame than anger.

Unfortunately, things had not ended there. When he sat down in his study to cool off, he realised his father had followed him. It worsened as his father spared no words to let him know what exactly he thought of his behaviour.

After hearing his father for a couple of minutes, he retorted, "You are my father, but I am not a five-year-old child so I request you not to scold me like I am one."

"The temper you displayed is exactly a tantrum a five-year-old child will throw so you will be treated as one. I do not care how old you are or how unwell you are, I am not approving that sort of behaviour."

His father stalked out and almost bumped into Kamakshi, who had been carrying a large steel tumbler of filter coffee, guaranteed to set even his foulest mood right. The hot liquid sloshed, spilling on her hand and his father's shirt, angering him as Kamakshi blabbered apologies while his father gently tried to calm her. His mother reached them on hearing Kamakshi's cry and led her away to wash her hand, though Kamakshi kept insisting the nothing had happened to her but was worried if the coffee had burnt his father.

Raghuveer gritted his teeth; he was responsible for the mess, if only he had not lost his temper. As he walked out of his house, he felt Tarun's eyes bore into him, his son was a momma's boy and held him at fault. The fact that Trisha, who always supported him, was silent proved that everyone agreed he had been wrong. It did not matter that he did too, he was too angry to apologise and too ashamed to0.

A walk would clear his head, he thought and started walking around the colony, hoping that at nine in the morning, he would not run into any familiar persons. He was in no mood for any pleasantries. With that in mind, he took a left into one of the bylanes leading off the main road and after a few minutes found himself in the narrow streets of a different city, with Luc a few steps ahead.