Nishi Pulugurtha

Kolkata, India

Water leaked from the tap even after it was turned off. She hated that dripping sound. Bapi never came on the day and time he promised he would turn up. He was an efficient plumber and trustworthy and hence she kept up with all his tantrums. There was a lot of work to be done. Aniket was out shopping for stuff, he had done most of the buying in the morning. He had already marinated the mutton, cleaned the pomfret, washed and stored the vegetables needed. They were entertaining on Sunday evening, dinner was on the cards. Lekha preferred doing some of the work beforehand, it gave her time to plan and execute. She would not prepare the starters, Aniket told her that he would get them from the takeaway a few blocks away. She agreed immediately. Who wants to do so much work. Office work kept her busy throughout the week and she looked for some respite during the weekends but Aniket was insistent that they should invite his friends over. Lekha liked them too, she enjoyed their company.

Aniket had studied in the local school. Most of his classmates had moved on and he had lost touch with most. Some years back, he reconnected with some of them and they bonded well. Kiron had taken voluntary retirement from work, his daughter had finished college and had begun working, his wife Ruprekha taught at a fancy school in the south of the city. Kiron had been disgruntled with work, he was disgruntled at home too. His daughter did not interact much with him at all, answered in syllables and kept mostly to herself. Ruprekha was a nice lady, who had absolutely no say in anything at home. Lekha always thought of her as simple. She sang beautifully and had trained in classical music. However, she did not get to sing or practice much and was mostly caught up with work at school and at home. The only place where she could still sing and perform was the school function. She loved working with the students, teaching them the finer nuances and helping the music teacher in training them for school performances.

Tushar was a school teacher, lived a modest life. His wife, Lalita was a homemaker who tried to dabble in some tailoring, mostly stitching clothes for children and grandchildren in the family. They did not have children and that was the reason of Lalita’s depression. Tushar was not helping her there and everyone knew of it. And there was Vinayak who had a history of being abusive, his marital life was in a discord because of that. These were the motley crowd of friends who met at times to catch up, to make life a little nice.

Lekha was alright meeting them and entertaining them once in a while, she and her husband Aniket were the glue that held this group together. She always believed that and made sure everyone realised that. That evening was no different. It began early, at about 6 pm, the conversation had just about begun when the starters made their appearance. “They are great,” someone said. “Yes, we get this from a fabulous place nearby. The food is just great there.” Lekha was ready with her answer. “I could have made a few starters but I thought that you all need to taste these too.”

As the evening veered on, Lekha, Lalita and Ruprekha moved in to another room. They were to have a look at Lekha’s new purchases. Lekha loved shopping - sarees, accessories and the like. She had a good taste and liked showing them to her friends. As she spoke of her new acquisitions, Kiron said “Oh no, not again.”  Vinayak sneered at the idea too, he was just not interested. That was when they decided to carry on their discussion in another room. The three women continued their conversation about things that made them happy, about stuff that made them feel nice. Aniket liked being part of this, he came in after a while.

It was soon time to serve dinner. The table was laid and all of them sat down and the conversation went on about sundry things, about the food, about their work and children.  Hot rosogollas made their appearance right at the end. It was soon time to leave. They needed to leave before it became difficult to get public transport that would become infrequent as it got late. It was a tiring task to get things cleaned after it was all over. Lekha was too tired and decided to take a break from it all. Aniket would do it as he did after each time. She freshened up and got into bed with her mobile phone in her hands. It was time to read the messages, jokes and videos shared by her friends and family. She would also spend some time on social media before doing a bit of reading that soon put her to sleep. As she checked the messages she was surprised to see quite a number of messages from Kiron. A call in, and then more messages praising her, her cooking, her hospitality and the like. “You really looked beautiful this evening.” She sent in an emoji and let it be. He went on messaging. She decided to ignore them.  She had one look at the messages before she decided to turn off the mobile data. There were quite a number of messages from him, praising her pictures, about how she carried herself and so on. There was something about those messages that she did not like. She decided to ignore them.

A late riser, her mornings were hurried. On the way to the post office and before settling into her work routine she decided to check her messages. There were many more from Kiron, they were mostly full of praises, the way she spoke, how she kept house, how she was  a great host, how he felt nice talking to her, how he thought about her the whole night and how he hoped to see her soon. Now she was troubled, there was something about those messages that didn’t seemed right. She decided to speak to Aniket about them. She did not reply to the messages and decided to put her phone away for the day. It was the start of the month and there was a beeline at the counters. Work held her up for most part of the day.

“Don’t pay much attention to all that. Ignoring all this would be the best thing to do. I mean, see he is a school buddy.” She was unable to react to Aniket’s response. It was not totally out of the blue, she hoped for a different answer, a different response. “I also think you should not tell Ruprekha about it. It will only make her upset. You do know they do not have a good relationship. Why increase their troubles” he went on, his eyes glued to the television. She tried to convince him, tried to explain her feelings about it, but Aniket stood his stand. The messages continued for quite some days. She decided not to respond to them. She spoke to Aniket too. But his response was the usual. As she went to bed checking the messages, she read Kiron’s message saying that her silence disturbed him, that he cared for her a lot, missed her a lot and was hoping to see her in a couple of days.

Her daily routine kept her busy. When she got home, Aniket told her of a dinner plan with friends at Kiron’s place. She stood stunned for a while unable to react. “I will not go,” she told Aniket. He looked at her and told her she was reacting way too much. Kiron’s message said “I am looking forward to seeing you. Do dress in red, you look stunning in it.” That evening she called Ruprekha and told her everything. There was complete silence on the other side for a while as she spoke. “I am sorry about all this Lekha. This isn’t the first time something like this happened. A couple of other times they came in as gossip. I am glad that at least you decided to speak to me about it. You did just the right thing. I deserve to know about it. Yours is a friendship I treasure and I am glad that I am not wrong in you. ” “Yes, I will forward the messages to you” Lekha said before she hung up.