Hello! Can You Hear Me?

Shubha looked out of the window on her third floor apartment. She had heard the sound of a car being parked. But she could not see much. She came back to the living room and sat down on the sofa. She waited for the elevator to make its beeping sounds on stopping at her floor. It did not. Kailash was not home yet and it was almost ten o’clock in the night.

Shubha had a mild headache when she got up this morning. She wanted to stay put on the bed for some more time. After all it was Saturday and there was nothing to rush. But then she remembered that they had to get mosquito nets fitted to their windows today. Kailash had already talked to a carpenter two days ago. He was up already. She could hear his sound in the kitchen. ‘Was he making her breakfast?’ she thought. ‘In my dreams!’ she consoled herself. She pulled herself out of the bed and walked over to the kitchen. She was surprised to see him all dressed up. He was wearing her favorite striped blue shirt with a dark brown pant that did not match at all.

‘Why is my husband wearing a mismatching shirt and pant so early on a Saturday morning?’ she asked him.
‘I need to go to the office for 3-4 hours’ he replied.
‘What? Why?’
‘Some work has come up. Javed called sometime back. It’s urgent’
She was fully awake now. It irritated her how Kailash had completely ignored the mosquito net work that they had already planned.
‘So who will manage the fitting of mosquito nets? She questioned.
He stretched out his hand like a dance step and pointed to her. ‘You, the love of my life’ he said. He tried to be funny but she was not amused.

She was feeling full after the dinner though she did not eaten much. She waited for Kailash till eight but then she could not wait any longer. It was a bowl of plain khichdi with pickles on the side.

The carpenter didn’t show up till noon. Shubha called up Kailash at his office and asked him to check with the carpenter. An hour later, Kailash hadn’t her called back with any updates. She rang him up again.

‘What, it been an hour, did you ever call up that carpenter? She asked him.
‘I did immediately after you called. He said he will reach in fifteen minutes’ he replied.
‘No living soul has turned up’
‘But I called. What else can I do? I can’t follow him to the house’
‘At least you could have called me up and told me he was coming. You could have checked whether he came or not. You just don’t care, do you?’

The thought lingered on her - Kailash didn’t care. Had she made the right decision in marrying him? He still was the same person she had fallen madly in love with. He hadn’t changed, though she had hoped he would.

He didn’t care much when she first met him at aunt Sujata’s place. She was visiting her aunty during her vacation from work. Aunty called up her close friends and relatives one evening for all to meet Shubha. Kailash came that evening with his parents. He too, incidentally, was visiting his parent during his vacation. This coincidence became the excuse for both of them to start a conversation. Aunty was an awful cook but she insisted on making the dessert that evening. Evidently not much of it was consumed though everybody made sure that they complimented Aunty on her kheer. Kailash was the only one who didn’t. He had two bowls of Auntie’s kheer, which apparently was more than half of the total kheer consumed.
‘You, it seems, are the only one who did not like the kheer’ Shubha said to Kailash
‘No, I liked it. It was good’ he said
‘Really? You don’t have to pretend. Did you even have it? Nobody I know had a drop of that kheer’
‘Yes, I did have two bowls. Honestly, I didn’t like it too much though’
‘Then when did you have the second bowl?’
‘There was nothing better to do’

Shubha felt that there was an innocent disregard to think too much for mundane issues in his answer. Let’s have a second helping of that devil of a kheer if we’ve got nothing else to do! She liked it. But it was not love at first sight. Kailash changed his job and happened to meet Shubha in the new city. They met and then met often and she found him irresistible.

She never knew if Kailash also found her equally irresistible. She wondered if he really loved her as much as she did. He spoke so little about how he felt for her. Even in the argument today morning he did not speak much. He might not have even realized that she is upset. To add to it, he isn’t home yet.
‘Is he upset too?’ a sudden thought crossed her mind. ‘Is he late because he does not want to come back?’
The lingering thought left her. The converse of it gripped her now. ‘Does Kailash feel that I care for him enough’ she asked herself. ‘What if he too is asking himself whether marrying her was a mistake?’ She panicked.

She got up from the sofa and walked to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and took out her water bottle. She gulped down water till its chill made her mouth numb and it became impossible for her drink anymore. She gave it a moment to flow down her throat. She felt relaxed.

Around same time last year she was down with viral fever for about a week. That was the longest period she could remember being sick after getting married. Kailash had to take that week off. There was no one else to take care of her. He gave her whatever she asked for – water, pills, and soup. When she asked for nothing, he either read or watched TV. She had told him that her sickness was his vacation and laughed. He just smiled. All through that week, everyday just once around midnight, he would get up and place his hand over her forehead to check if she had fever. Then he would run over his hand through her hairs and pat the pillow very slowly. He always thought she was asleep but Shubha she was always awake.

She kept back the water bottle and closed the refrigerator.

The door bell rang. Shubha walked swiftly towards the door. She looked through the peep hole. It was Kailash. A drop of tear slid through her eye and hung on her eyelids. She opened the door. She felt an immense rush of love, such that she had not felt in a long time. She threw her arms around him as soon as he stepped in and held him tight.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

She drew back and looked at him. The selflessness of her love stared at him though her moist and beautiful eyes. Kailash looked into those eyes and for a moment stood mesmerized.

‘At least you could have called and informed me that you would be late’ she said and pretended to be angry.