DECAY

The van was headed back to town for cooking supplements. Ambika Prasad chose to ride back. The outdoors had exhausted him. His head reeled from the eddies of gossip all around, and the shrieks of unruly children. The pain was searing him all over now and he briefly considered visiting Dr Udayan Sikdar for some pain-relievers. 

We will send some lunch your way, his colleagues promised.

The fresh air breathed through his thin hair as the van sped back on the empty road, flanked by nude rice fields. It made its way into the industrial part of the town, first the wide avenues skirting sleepy British-era bungalows with front gardens, then the looming rusted chimneys of the iron and steel works. 

The artificial tar lake was next, its oppressive malodour like accumulated sin. It sat thick and gloomy with discarded sludge. 

It had all been wrong-headed, he thought as he neared home. He could have staggered home drunk every night, after spending his earnings on women of ill-repute. Instead of spending his life cooking and mending and sewing, he could have let a mistress take care of it all. No one would have known because no one would have taken the trouble to notice. Now it was too late to make amends.

As he unlocked his door on reaching, he noticed the cheap blue form of an inland mail lying under the door. It was a reply from his son. It read:

Respected Father,

All of us are very pleased to hear from you. We hope you are taking good of your health, especially as the cold is quite severe now. Mother is well; her joint aches come and go.

It will please you no doubt to know that soon you will be a grandfather again. We have been afraid to broach the news, knowing how you feel on the subject. But now we can all share the coming joy together.

Babli, Lovely and Divya (Jubilee), your three goddesses, keep asking about you.

Your loving and dedicated son

Shivnath

****

The new year dawned wet and raw. All through the day, bitter wintry winds made people look for any excuse to stay indoors. Like all vile, unforgiving things, the weather refused to relent over the next few days. Streets remained foggy and mysterious, the domain of working men herded around weak bonfires. Rich people arrived at deserted street corners to donate blankets to the poor, and hastily departed in their cars. The merrymaking of Christmas week seemed buried with all other signs of life.