Love in the Time of Corona

No, I have not read Gabriel Márquez’s masterpiece, read the review though, but I promise to read the book before the lockdown is over. The very idea seems fascinating- the protagonist Florentino holds the flame alive for the love of his life Fermina for half a century. In the end, Florentino seeks to protect his loved one by undertaking a voyage in a riverboat on the river Magdelena! I understand, thanks to literary critics on Wikipedia, ‘cholera’ is metaphysical. In Spanish ‘có­­­­lera’ means passion or rage. Márquez thinks ‘lovesickness’ or passion in love is a disease, like cholera. Márquez probably leaves the reader with the question hanging in the air, “Is too much passion in love good?”

That brings me back to the topic at hand- love. For those of my generation, love was restricted largely to Bollywood movies, and passionate love to Hollywood. Onscreen passion was restricted to songs as “Roop tera mastana…”, with the heroine singing back “Nahi, nahi, abhi nahi! Abhi karo intezaar…”. Lust was personified by Helen’s sinuous gyrations to suggestive lines. These were the times when two flowers on the screen touched each other to a gentle breeze, and the heroine got pregnant! Slightly short of immaculate conception! Sex as a word was not a part of public lexicon in our times, yet miraculously we become the second most populous nation on planet Earth! I am quite certain rabbits do not have this three letter word in their dictionary either.

Falling in love with any girl in Bihar was fine, but persisting with it to get any cogent response consisted of a thoughtful consideration of whether the girl in question had elder brothers, their musculature and estimated level of their belligerence and of course, the pater and his level of influence. Associated factors like whether there were likely competitors from that locality were important. The temporal and geographical aspects of ‘staking the claim’ were paramount. One’s own musculature, circle of equally belligerent friends and male siblings, and risk taking ability were the ameliorating factors. The underlying thing was, si vis amare para bellum, if you seek love prepare for war, or thereabouts!! One embarked on  voyage d’amour after weighing in all the aforementioned factors, hopefully the paragon of female pulchritude actually reciprocated, usually by batting her eyelids, nudging her female friend and ultimately dropping a few squiggles on a piece of paper in response to your long impassioned outpourings. Love could afford a start, but the odds were lower than that of winning a jackpot in Vegas! Not to forget the caste factor, the Rubicon that must never be crossed!

At 16, being rather a runt at 5’2”, with a slight built and a pair of spectacles, not so bad looks though, testosterone bowed to reason and instinct for self-preservation, in my case. Some dormant gene woke up late, height increased to a respectable 5’8”, exercise with vengeance changed the physical topography enough to wear shirts with sleeves rolled up to display biceps and two top buttons unbuttoned to give a hint of the pectorals. This happened while at engineering college located in a small industrial town. Now the young females of this town, in fact all the inhabitants, were mortally scared of the engineering boys. To limit the digression, at 22 it was too bloody late, there were too few girls ready to risk falling in love with the ruffians  (soon to be engineers notwithstanding) and too much competition!

To cut a long story short, one had to wait one’s turn, at least in my case, wait for my sister’s marriage to be over, re-narrate the story of the young man who asked his parents to have his bed sawed in half and one was finally married at 28 and my wife was all of 22. Thankfully, Indian husbands unlike their western counterparts, do not have to reassure their spouses with “Love you” and “Love you too”, every other hour, neither did I. Public demonstration of love and affection is neither done nor expected. Love is a four letter word never uttered in public, we do better with a six letter one- ‘adjust’! While doing so we live together, fight, bicker, adjust, produce children, and adjust our budgets and lives even more to the needs of our children. 1980s and 1990s salaries left little scope for extravagant gestures of declaring love; no diamonds (DeBeers be hanged!), no elaborate greeting cards (Hallmark Cards be hanged too!) and no bloody roses either! When the children outgrow their homes, it is an empty nest! Diminishing testosterone on one side and menopause on the other, couples are like two punch-drunk boxers  after 15 rounds! Both realizing that they do not have much fight left, and adjust, a little more. Exaggeration though, it is not that bad. Work-life balance for my generation, huh? You were lucky to have a good job, family and life would adjust around it!

When our daughter left home to pursue her education, it was almost twenty year since our marriage! Suddenly the focus of life for eighteen years for both of us had vanished. From Nestle baby-food, milk, school dress, Monday test, homework, school project, annual drama, art class to nothing! Focus lost, a vacuum, an uncomfortable one at that. One must confess, the ideas of ‘family project’, ‘family time’, ‘me time’ always seemed so quite alien! The concept of regimented togetherness, except at meal times at best, somehow seemed too much of an American affectation. Luckily for me, with my career change from industry to academia, passion had become profession, and work filled the empty space.

Cut to 2020, still at work, not 12 but 8 plus honest hours per day. Two TVs ensured that there is no ‘Battle for the Remote’ every night; enough space around for two people not to stub each other’s toes ensured genuine not brokered peace, and a modicum of tranquillity, barring minor jarring notes of “where are the @#$% are my reading glasses (mine)?” and “that is my pillow (hers)!” etc. Now there is this Corona-19 virus  outbreak, grows to a pandemic and then there is lockdown! Apart from the concerns about stocking up on vegetables, milk, staples and possibility of maid and house-cleaning person not coming, my wife’s biggest concern was having me at home 24x7 for a month to be handled by her and her alone, something she had not done in the last nearly two score years! Justifiably so, I s’pose. My concerns are equally deep,what do I do all day?

Anyway, the first day of confinement dawns. I am deeply repentant of not having been a demonstratively loving husband and get up first and brew the first cuppa, both for her and me. Having recently watched the movie Thappad, where Tapasi Pannu the doting wife adds sprigs of lemon grass to the tea, I follow suit. Excellent response, a quirked eyebrow, a quick clearing of the throat and an approving nod! Augurs well. We binge watch all the news regarding corona, on the same TV! This followed by an unhurried lunch eaten together. As she is taking the customary forty winks, my idle mind suddenly turns to childhood memories- my grandmother baking cakes.

Little reminders from Youtube later, and vague flashbacks in sepia tone and I am on. Flour is ready at hand, sugar and eggs are in view. Hunt for baking powder and vanilla essence involve bending, finally kneeling down and peering in to the innards of the fridge. The search for a suitable baking tray is fraught with dangers of lifting various sized dishes and trays of silica glass from various drawers, all lovingly stacked and each waiting for its apocalypse. The microwave oven is a mysterious black box moment I try to decipher the hieroglyphs beyond the customary three presses of the start button that are required for boiling a cup of water. What I require is a convection setting for pre-heating at 170-180 C. Random press of buttons produces the desired result and the oven hums with ’Convo’ and ‘170’ in tiny letters on the panel. Two cups of flour, nicely mixed with tea spoon of baking powder. Grind the sugar, whisk the eggs and slowly mix the eggs and sugar in to the flour. Slather a generous layer of butter on to the glass baking tray. At this stage, the racket in the kitchen has has disturbed the forty winks  of the better half. With a ‘not again’ look camouflaged as interest, she goes over the ingredients and measures and asks, “Have you used all the butter?” Butter, holy cow, I had completely forgotten butter! Quick solution comes from the lady of the house, and I suspect a strategy to conserve the butter to cover the upcoming breakfasts under lockdown, “Use white oil”, she says and walks away. With a heavy heart, I drizzle the oil little by little into the dough and gently mix it in, lastly adding ten drops of vanilla. Finally I pour the dough in to baking dish, not forgetting to sprinkle pieces of chopped walnut, almonds and raisins. In to the oven goes the tray laden with my expectations. An OTG (Oven Toaster Grill for the uninitiated) is more forgiving than a microwave. In an OTG you can see what the cake is upto, poke it with a fork once in a while without harming the cake or offending the machine. Fifteen minutes and zero visibility is all that I can bear. I press Stop/Reset button and peer inside and poke the cake with the customary fork. It is not baked yet as the poked fork does not come out clean. All my efforts to reset the old setting fails, I randomly press the buttons, aimlessly pace the kitchen and step out to the balcony remotest from where my wife was, and a light up a cigarette. With failure leering at me, my synapses need nicotine to assuage them and restore the feel good. Barely six puffs in to the forbidden pleasure, there she knocks on the glass door with beckoning fingers and walks away, not wanting to partake second hand smoke. There is a miasma of vanilla and scorched if not burnt flour that permeates the house. I let the damned cake remain there. To distract myself, I half-heartedly poke up the soil in exactly eight small pots on the front balcony, and the two large pots of guess  what, the lemon grass.

By that time the evening tea is ready and I am unaccustomed to having it at home.I bring out the cake, or whatever is in the tray, cut it into small squares, put four of the pieces on a plate and take the offerings to the balcony.  The lady of the house picks one piece, blank expression, one rather deliberate bite, pregnant pause, few munches and finally, “Cascuit”, she pronounces, “a wannabe cake that ended up as a biscuit”. No recriminations, no “I told you”! That is the casket in which my dreams of baking lie buried.  Next morning, deep appreciation comes our maid Pushpa, who munches through the plate with her tea and asks me to teach her how to bake such wonderful cakes!

Love in time of Corona!