The water was so cold. It sent goosebumps up my spine. Why did I lay out the new cutlery? I asked myself out loud.
“Because you wanted to treat your wife,” she said, sliding her hands along my torso.
“Your hand goes any lower and you can say goodbye to this plate,” I warned my wife.
“Alright, alright. Finish this and come to bed.”
“No,” I groaned. “I have to finish transcribing the interviews. They need the edits by tomorrow.”
“What were you doing while I was cooking dinner then?” she asked, irritation seeping into her voice.
“Let me think,” I drawled, turning around slowly, the soaped plate, carefully placed between us, “Did the furniture dust itself? And the walls of the balcony painted itself? Oh, no! That was me! That is what I was doing for the past three hours. Remember?”
“Alright,” she offered, rolling her eyes, “Let me finish these for you. Then you can complete your work.” But I knew better.
She’d cooked a scrumptious meal and the least I could do was clean up after. I did not enjoy it because it required all my focus – no multi-tasking. Folding clothes was more my thing, I could work with my hands but my brain could actively think about the next project! I set the cleaned plates on the marble pantry one after the other carefully. Poornima had walked out of the kitchen; she must be tired too. We both were, on most days. We were still getting used to Seville and having been brought up the middle-class Indian way, a bunch of servants around to render services all the time, Spain hit differently. Back home, I’d always magically found my clothes in my wardrobe, food on the table, my shoes clean and back in the shoe rack. Here, I realised, spiders weren’t just a sign of abandonment and cutlery didn’t come with the house. With Poornima away at work, her creative house husband had to meet deadlines and keep the house running as well! My mother is proud of me, my father must be rolling in his grave though. More like, be kicking up a storm with his ashes.
My father probably didn’t even know what food he loved eating. His whole life was managed by my mother. He was a sculptor, not world famous or anything but a man so possessed by his passion that nothing else mattered to him, not family, not food, and from what I recall, not even money. I did not inherit his art but I did cultivate my own. I wrote and he saw in me a spark for the art. He kept me around his workshop, gave me a small room to recuse myself into, to read, to write, to do whatever I needed to do that kept my pen scribbling. Often I would just go there so I didn’t have to finish my homework or after an angry note from my teacher highlighting my incompetence at school. Somedays, I would sit and watch my father work, peeping out of the small window in the room that was mine, lost in the clay, the arms he was building, the face he was sculpting. What would he say now if he saw me washing dishes and cleaning fans instead of writing? Was his passion was worth it? Was his neglect right? Be as it may, I better kiss my wife to sleep.
Graciously Yours!
P.S. This piece is based on a creative writing prompt from http://www.thinkwritten.com. The prompt was as follows: “Even writers and creative artists have to do house work sometimes. Write about doing laundry dishes and other cleaning activities.”
Inking The Thinking. 