Today, I got angry once again, after a long time, practically after 16 January 2013 in fact. I had promised my daughter that I would not get angry or have a fight in the house and I had struggled to avoid one since then. But, today, all the pent up anger and despair came out in a big outburst. There were some plus points however.
1. I did not raise my voice.
2. I did not set up a continuing explosive fight with my daughter's mother.
3. I did not smash anything up and neither did I indulge in any indecent behaviour.
It started in a vague sort of events coming together, as they always do. You do not know that it is going to coaelsce but slowly it gains weight, mass and momentum.
Yesterday, around evening, on a holiday post-noon, the mother and daughter went off to sleep for a 'quick nap' of sorts. It went past five, and slowly past seven, and near my dinner time, at about 7.30 pm, and there was no sign or movement of either of them. I went to the kitchen to see if there was any leftover lunch or breakfast that I could eat, and there was none. The kitchen was terribly dirty and extremely miserable looking. It was stinking. There was all sorts of grit, waste material and rotting items on the floor. The garbage bin seemed to be the only clean spot in the kitchen.
I tried to check the refrigerator, and it was worse than the kitchen. Miserable. Stinking and permeating of rotting food smells. Even the uncut and fresh vegetables seemed to be infected and were rotting. At two spots, when I lifted some vessel's lid, the stink from the gravy within was obnoxious and suffocating. I thought I would take off the vessel from the refrigerator and throw it in the sink, but the sink was full and overfull of vessels already. And stinking vessels. Even then, I persisted, but the vessel would not move in the refrigerator. It was stuck with the gravy left over from an earlier vessel.
Luckily, I had earlier asked the auto-rickshaw guy who helps me infrequently to get me vada pav, samosa, pakodas and potato wafers. This stuff was on the table, and I kept eating them, one by one, slowly, much against my will, for all that was deep fried stuff. I do not eat potato wafers by preference, because of the heavy salt content in them. But, now, I had no options. I would have to do so, I thought. By the time it was 10 pm, and later, I thought, it's ok... let them sleep. Perhaps they were too tired and fatigue had overcome them. So I did not wake them up even for their dinner.
I worked late, until 2.30 am hoping that someone would wake up, and may be hungry enough to make something in spite of the dirty kitchen. But it was without any hope, for they slept well. I crashed to sleep, very disturbed. I had taken a Metpure 12.5 XL at 11.55 pm and later at 2.00 am took a Restyl 0.50 tablet. Sleep was good, and I woke up without any disturbance at 10.30 am, walked around the house, saw that the mother and daughter were awake, and felt slightly irritated by their callousness, for there was no breakfast available. So, went back to sleep, thinking that if I would wake up near enough to lunch, I would not need to get angry about breakfast.
I woke up at 12.00 noon, and started cleaning up my room. My daughter made me a cup of coffee upon my request, but it was too sloppy, watery and very weak and too sugary. That buggered me further. I kept doing my work, and there was no sign of lunch. Finally at 2.30 pm, at least 30 hours since I had anything substantial to eat, I asked my daughter to get me something to eat for lunch. Her mother was having a bath at 2.30 pm, of all the timings.
My daughter put together some stuff, and brought it along. It was very terrible, and I also feel terrible in labeling it as such. The beans fry was extremely salty, and inedible. The lapsi upma-like stuff was icy cold, brittle and totally tasteless. Could not eat it. The single chapati that I had asked, was also icy cold, soggy, watery and felt like a watered up napkin. The rice was cold, and it was accompanied by a gravy that my daughter said had been lifted from a prawn curry that they had made for themselves. I do not eat non-veg items, and only indulge in some gravy if there is no option.
The gravy was just red-coloured water, without any taste, no spice and absolutely icy cold. I mixed it up with the rice and ate it in despair, hoping to stay a bikshu, and eat the food without any complaint. After eating it, suddenly something snapped. My anger burst out. I could not help myself.
I returned the beans and the lapsi and the chapati. I was able to control my anger until that moment. I completed eating the plain rice and the watery red coloured water-like gravy, quietly, without complaint and went to place the plate at the sink. At that moment, I noticed my daughter also eating the same plain rice and the same watery gravy. My irritation grew. And then, I noticed that her mother came in to the kitchen, picked out some vessels from the refrigerator and started cooking something for herself. I asked her, and she said that she was reheating and making some pot-luck style food, recyling them and heating them up. That got my goat, totally. Then why were we being given tasteless and absurd food, when we could have had recycled food, but recooked in a better way, that she was actually doing?
1. I did not raise my voice.
2. I did not set up a continuing explosive fight with my daughter's mother.
3. I did not smash anything up and neither did I indulge in any indecent behaviour.
It started in a vague sort of events coming together, as they always do. You do not know that it is going to coaelsce but slowly it gains weight, mass and momentum.
Yesterday, around evening, on a holiday post-noon, the mother and daughter went off to sleep for a 'quick nap' of sorts. It went past five, and slowly past seven, and near my dinner time, at about 7.30 pm, and there was no sign or movement of either of them. I went to the kitchen to see if there was any leftover lunch or breakfast that I could eat, and there was none. The kitchen was terribly dirty and extremely miserable looking. It was stinking. There was all sorts of grit, waste material and rotting items on the floor. The garbage bin seemed to be the only clean spot in the kitchen.
I tried to check the refrigerator, and it was worse than the kitchen. Miserable. Stinking and permeating of rotting food smells. Even the uncut and fresh vegetables seemed to be infected and were rotting. At two spots, when I lifted some vessel's lid, the stink from the gravy within was obnoxious and suffocating. I thought I would take off the vessel from the refrigerator and throw it in the sink, but the sink was full and overfull of vessels already. And stinking vessels. Even then, I persisted, but the vessel would not move in the refrigerator. It was stuck with the gravy left over from an earlier vessel.
Luckily, I had earlier asked the auto-rickshaw guy who helps me infrequently to get me vada pav, samosa, pakodas and potato wafers. This stuff was on the table, and I kept eating them, one by one, slowly, much against my will, for all that was deep fried stuff. I do not eat potato wafers by preference, because of the heavy salt content in them. But, now, I had no options. I would have to do so, I thought. By the time it was 10 pm, and later, I thought, it's ok... let them sleep. Perhaps they were too tired and fatigue had overcome them. So I did not wake them up even for their dinner.
I worked late, until 2.30 am hoping that someone would wake up, and may be hungry enough to make something in spite of the dirty kitchen. But it was without any hope, for they slept well. I crashed to sleep, very disturbed. I had taken a Metpure 12.5 XL at 11.55 pm and later at 2.00 am took a Restyl 0.50 tablet. Sleep was good, and I woke up without any disturbance at 10.30 am, walked around the house, saw that the mother and daughter were awake, and felt slightly irritated by their callousness, for there was no breakfast available. So, went back to sleep, thinking that if I would wake up near enough to lunch, I would not need to get angry about breakfast.
I woke up at 12.00 noon, and started cleaning up my room. My daughter made me a cup of coffee upon my request, but it was too sloppy, watery and very weak and too sugary. That buggered me further. I kept doing my work, and there was no sign of lunch. Finally at 2.30 pm, at least 30 hours since I had anything substantial to eat, I asked my daughter to get me something to eat for lunch. Her mother was having a bath at 2.30 pm, of all the timings.
My daughter put together some stuff, and brought it along. It was very terrible, and I also feel terrible in labeling it as such. The beans fry was extremely salty, and inedible. The lapsi upma-like stuff was icy cold, brittle and totally tasteless. Could not eat it. The single chapati that I had asked, was also icy cold, soggy, watery and felt like a watered up napkin. The rice was cold, and it was accompanied by a gravy that my daughter said had been lifted from a prawn curry that they had made for themselves. I do not eat non-veg items, and only indulge in some gravy if there is no option.
The gravy was just red-coloured water, without any taste, no spice and absolutely icy cold. I mixed it up with the rice and ate it in despair, hoping to stay a bikshu, and eat the food without any complaint. After eating it, suddenly something snapped. My anger burst out. I could not help myself.
I returned the beans and the lapsi and the chapati. I was able to control my anger until that moment. I completed eating the plain rice and the watery red coloured water-like gravy, quietly, without complaint and went to place the plate at the sink. At that moment, I noticed my daughter also eating the same plain rice and the same watery gravy. My irritation grew. And then, I noticed that her mother came in to the kitchen, picked out some vessels from the refrigerator and started cooking something for herself. I asked her, and she said that she was reheating and making some pot-luck style food, recyling them and heating them up. That got my goat, totally. Then why were we being given tasteless and absurd food, when we could have had recycled food, but recooked in a better way, that she was actually doing?
No comments:
Post a Comment