Even
by Panda
Mr. Ahuja, of the Law Firm of Ahuja and Associates, reposed in a recliner by his bedside after lunch and thought of his fortuitous life. He unsuccessfully tried to concentrate on reading the book The White Tiger, not because the book was boring, but because the image of the new Law graduate with her swaying, narrow hips and full bosom kept dancing in his mind. She was in his office a week ago for an interview to join the practice as a junior. Since then his resentment of his marriage and his wife grew exponentially. He felt cheated in his personal life, first by his parents who arranged the marriage, and then by his wife for not giving him a progeny to carry forward his name. He had an uncanny feeling that this junior was the kind of woman who would fulfill all his dreams. He started thinking of ways to include her in his forthcoming trip to Europe with some of his colleagues who shared his enthusiasm for traveling. At the Mumbai Turf Club, mistresses were freely acknowledged and discussed during the cocktail hour.
Sunday evenings were for a game of tennis. Before leaving the house in his white shorts, with his seven-hundred-dollar tennis racket twirling in his hand to everyone's envy, a two-hour power nap remained a point of pleasure for him on sundays. He could vaguely hear the sound of his wife running the washer and then talking to their daughter in college, a ritual that would go on for an hour that required no input from him. He remembered the ugliness of fights with his wife on the issue of his fidelity in marriage as if she had a right to question him. That remembered rage pumped more adrenaline into his body.
The book rested on his broad, hairy chest. Soon, his snores shot forth like thousand bees buzzing and his lips quivered. The left side of his face refused to follow the right side; his one eye partially opened while the other remained closed; his feet shone where his wife rubbed Vaseline after his shower. He woke up with a start to the sound of his wife's voice in the room and tried to bellow, "Where's my damned shirt, I'll be late to the club" but to his shock, the voice refused to bounce off the walls as usual. His right arm failed to obey his command to swing the book at his wife. But Mrs. Ahuja ran out of the room as if he did, well before he realized that his left hand still worked.
