The Sens sit down for lunch.
Except Mrs. Sen, of course; she remembers her virtues still
From behind her Man, she watches
As her family appraises the day’s spread,
her husband sifting through the course,
her children hoping against the predictability of it.
As they break at the fresh mound of rice,
Nikhil’s phone buzzes.
She shoots him a glance of admonishment
but it goes unnoticed.
His phone is throbbing with the unrest erupting at the University —
A couple, getting affectionate, was harassed in the campus.
His father clears his throat ceremoniously
and he takes the cue
not looking up
but biting into the bitter gourd,
offering a stalemate,
the flavor reinforced by the bruises down the boyfriend’s leg.
Bile rises to his mouth,
and he puts the phone away
Rebellion would have to wait till lunch.
He finishes the gourd and moves on to the daal,
the watery staple, a buffer between the courses.
The fish, however, is good today.
Mrs. Sen doles out a piece that she thinks will have fewer bones
and sits down beside her husband implored by her limbs.
Mr. Sen, devouring his own, remembers something
and asks her to bring his phone charging in the other room.
Together they peer over the photographs he clicked last night-
it was a colleague’s wedding.
Mrs. Sen scrutinizes them unhurried,
in the break afforded by the finicky fish,
zooming in at places Nikhil believes is the bride’s face
or her neck.
He thinks he should say something
but the fish is really a handful.
His mother is still scrolling through the photographs when he is done with the fish
The fish bared down to its bone looks naked and ugly.
He clangs the side of his plate and the dessert presents itself-
a brilliant yellow chutney of the season’s first mangoes.
He helps himself to the mango pit to spite his sister
who is appeased by their parents with the prospects of a next day.
Mr. Sen, between licking his fingers, asks for news at the University
and he gives a shrug, practiced to betray no solidarity.
His father, duly convinced, turns to his mother for comments
and somewhere in the hushed tones, he thinks he hears a
‘Serves Them Right ’.
The pit, now sucked raw and white, tastes bitter in his mouth—
he had been chewing at it for a bit too long.
P.S: The writing is shoddy but then I was never really great at short forms and I hadn’t posted in a long time so here goes nothing…
