Topic: Humour
ARE YOU TRAVELLING WITH YOUR WIFE? GOD BLESS YOU!
I do not like travelling much. What I dislike is the railways’ angry engines, whistling as if they are warning the whole universe to remain away from their way. Though I like to look at the coolies who wear red shirt matching their temper; who take labour charges equal to the half price of your luggage; and who drink country wine that makes them smiling at every one they see. But I dislike travelling. During vacation period what I wish is the successive cups of tea with half a dozen Sunday papers on my table.
Though it invites my wife’s high-pitched anger, I always keep my teacups on a newspaper. And as the fume from teacup goes higher, I keep looking at the rising fume. With that fume my thoughts about the current affairs of country goes higher and higher. (Had I been a smoker, my thinking would have been of much higher level.) But before I settle on any concrete idea on the news I read, my better half would find out a reason to drag me out of my stance.
“In this vacation we will go at a hill station.” She unfolded her resolution. She is very cost-conscious while spending money. So she is economical in using the words, too. In very few words and short sentences she talks. You know, the bullets have no big sizes.
On hearing her, at first, I did not come out of my brain-business; but on hearing the word ‘hill-station’, I began to think about how challenging it is to make a station on a hill. You know, it’s called the law of association. Like, whenever we recall our primary school days, we remember the head master’s stick. So whenever I hear my wife’s travel plans, I remember the word ‘challenging’.
Soon I had to come down on the earth, leaving the situations and conditions of country there in the pages of newspapers. But I was sure she would decide on a good but comparatively cheaper destination.
She remains always alert in cutting the extra costs. Last year, after finding herself turning from fat to fatter, she was worrying much. I still do not understand why the innocent fat gathering around their waists, the hands, legs, and et cetera bother the women so much. But it bothered my wife. The days came when she had to use soap for getting her golden bangles off. Cost-conscious is she; so for cutting the cost of the soap, she had resolved to have a new pair of the golden bangles. You know, the married life is not costly at all.
She is very proud of her cost-cutting virtue. One more example would be a sufficient proof. Last month one of my lower teeth had revolted and had decided to go out of my mouth. Hence it had started making its presence painful like a naughy peon in an office. I had to go to a dentist for removing and fixing a tooth.
She was with me like the shadow of a big tree.
As the dentist took a fork in his hand, I feared that he would make my mouth-opening wider than the God had designed for me. Before proceeding further he said, “It would cost Rs. 5000.”
Before I speak anything my wife asked him, “Can’t you make the bill reasonable?”
“Yes, ma’am. I can fix three teeth in just Rs. 10,000,” the dentist was a good salesman, too. The dentist is a person before whom the greatest and the strongest of the men lose teeth.
Cost-conscious is my wife: so she had decided to buy the three-teeth package for me. Resultantly I have to lose extra two teeth. But she was pleased, as she had managed to snatch a prudent deal from a hard professional like a dentist.
During last vacation she had decided to convert me, a lawyer by skin, into a dharmik (religious) person.
“Shall we go to Kedarnath?”
“Why are you asking me?” Buried under the heap of surprises, I tried to decode her polite-looking query.
“You know, you also have right to say something.” I had never found her voice so liberal, so democratic. Though quite prudently, but she has always embroidered every affair of the household with her authoritative needle.
But before I could exercise my windfall liberty, even for a moment, she raised her hand and said, “Okay, no more discussion. The tickets are booked. “ Order. Order. Order. My right to appeal and dissent was overruled, unquestionably.
Next twenty-four hours passed peacefully. No disputes. Her experienced hands, her exclusive control over the purse, and the good administrative skills she owns did not take much time to get both of us on the railway platform.
Unfortunately the tour was not a good start for us.
On very first day of the wee-klong tour to the sacred places, Badrinath and Kedarnath, the muscle pain caught my wife’s right leg. It forced her to take support of my shoulder while climbing steps of a temple, too.
We have to underwent the entire tour with the shoulder-to-shoulder combination. The rest five days were full of ecstasy. It was joy of enjoying the pain and pleasure jointly, as the situation had thrown us back in the days of our youth when we were used to walk hand in hand. Moreover it made both of us to realise that ‘if we can walk with such a shoulder-to-shoulder support, every tour is a pilgrimage; every step put ahead is a step towards happiness; and every word whispered is a song of life’.
But after that episode, if anyone asks my wife about the tour, she would reply that, “If you want to really see your husband’s love for you, then go to Badrinath and Kedarnath.”
After that tour, one noticeable change has also occurred in our life. Now sometimes while walking in a garden, talking about homely matters too, if my wife’s hand goes onto my shoulder, I feel it great. I feel that I am not alone in this world.
And for that I thank Lord Shiva and the pilgrimage to Kedarnath.
