Eating Women, Telling Tales Page 11

  Harish drank the lassi noisily, gulping it down, his throat bobbing like a frog. He had not been always like this. When he was young his eyes were shy and timid and he held her hand on his heart while they slept. Every night she would crush badams in his milk and he would caress her fingers when he drank, not taking his eyes off her face. Even when his mother was in the room, he tried to touch her under the quilt, making her giggle. Now she wished him dead. Every night she saw his body lying on the floor, his thin, unshaven face buried in marigold flowers. When he died she would cry with real grief, her heart would break for the Harish she had known many years ago.

  “Butter, fried things, ghee, milk, cream, all banned,” he said, slapping his forehead. “The doctor said I have a very high cholestrol and it is all your fault, woman.” Harish could eat only boiled food, porridge and dry toast from now on. But that was not possible. “A wife’s duty is to cook for her husband,” they had told her over and over again for so many years. She must cook his favourite food. He was her husband was he not? She had to look after him or what would people say? Doctors know nothing, just greedy for their fees. “Feed him, feed him all the richness all the sweetness,” she could hear her mother singing to her at night. Ghee will make his heart so strong it will burst out of his chest, butter – golden yellow butter she would churn herself – would make his blood so warm and rich that his body would not be able to tolerate its weight. All her cooking skills would now finally be put to test, she would make one rich dish a week to suck the strength out of his veins, one dish to poison his blood, one to clog his veins which run with so much hate for her and her family, I will cook for him one death dish a week, slowly and slowly he will die, not by my hand but because it is the will of the gods. I will look after him like a good wife.

  The oil floated on top of the curry as she put the spoon in. She stirred it and then spread a big spoonful on the rice. Then she added a pinch of salt – extra salt was good for him, a bit of ghee and then began mixing the curry and the rice with her hands. Once the proportion was right she made seven equal sized balls and placed them on the steel plate. It was easy for him to eat if she mixed the rice for him. His hands shook a lot these days and he dropped all the food down his clothes. She made gentle cooing sounds as he ate, coaxing him to eat more and sometimes he looked at her with fear and love as if she was his mother. She fed him with her hands because he was too frail to lift the spoon to his mouth. The richer the food, the more she loved feeding him. Each mouthful she gave with her loving hands she hoped would send him closer to his death. “The spirit of death waits for you, I can hear her footsteps down the corridor,” she whispered in his ears each night before he fell asleep, his body exhausted by rich greasy curries garnished with burning hot garam masala, sweets floating in cream, fried oily potatoes and a pan filled with coconut, betel nuts, aniseed and thin slivers of dates wrapped in silver foil. The fragrant zarda lulled him to sleep and the lethal curries churned in his stomach to give him nightmares.

  Harish slept with his eyes open, his mouth slack as if waiting for more food to be poured into it. He left the room, taking care that Nanni could not see him floating out of the window into the sky. He loved her still but when she sat before him, her breasts soft against his arms his body shook with a terrible desire which frightened him. Her gaping mouth looked at him as if she wanted to devour him like a witch he had once seen hiding in the forest many summers ago. The woman had stood still watching him and then touched his face with her long fingers. He ran home, crying silently all the way and when he looked at his face in the mirror, there were blue scars where she had touched him though he had felt no pain. Nanni was a gentle girl once and her eyes looked upon him with love. Then slowly she began to grow. At first her eyes grew large and then her hands reached to the floor. He had to control her by shouting and beating her or else she would kill him once day. Her breasts were huge now, almost as big as her body. When she sat next to him feeding him like a good wife should, he could not breathe. He tried to push her away but each day his arms grew weaker and weaker. She sucked all the strength out with each mouthful she thrust in his mouth with her long, soft fingers. He had to fly away each night from her terrible power, to look for a safer place where she could not follow him, where she could not feed him with her long witch’s fingers. He could hear whispers at night and even when he shut his ears and crawled under the bed, the voices followed him. Nanni spoke to him so gently when he was awake but at night she was the witch who would scar his face with her white nails. He wanted to shout at her, grab her neck and shake her like he used to when his mother was alive to protect him, but his body would not obey. He lay like an animal who had given up hope, swollen and white and the witch’s hands made blue marks all over his body. Nanni’s face, her glinting eyes grew bigger when he tried to lift his head to look at her. He had to push her away but his speech slurred when he tried to shout at her. If only he could catch hold of her once, break her into pieces, he would be safe. But she towered above him now, weighing him down with her breasts. But she would not harm him. She was a good wife and it was her duty to look after him, to feed him till his dying day.

  About the Author

  Eating Women, Telling Tales

  Bulbul Sharma

  Bulbul Sharma is a writer, painter, nature enthusiast and art teacher for children with special needs. She lives and works in Delhi. Her bestselling book, The Anger of Aubergines, was published by Kali for Women, and Eating Women, Telling Tales, was published by Zubaan in 2009.

  Hello Reader!

  We hope you’ve enjoyed this Zubaan ebook. All our ebooks are completely free of digital rights management (that is, DRM-free), so that you can read them on any of your devices and download them multiple times. We believe that this makes for a more trouble-free and pleasurable reading experience. In fairness to our authors, and in order to be able to continue publishing and disseminating their work, we’re relying on readers like you to buy copies, rather than sharing or giving them away free. Thank you for your support and cooperation!