annashay 
by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
SHAILA POURS STOVE-WARMED WATER into a bucket and lugs it to the bathroom for her husband’s bath. Back in the kitchen to cook breakfast, she hears him splash water over himself, and thinks of how his body continues to fail him and her, how she continues to face the same physical frustration night after night.
The hiss of chai overboiling and dripping on the flame brings her back to the moment. It’s Friday, which means extra chores—ironing her husband’s kurta-pajama for prayers at the mosque, wiping the dirt off his slip-on shoes, polishing them to a shine, and cooking mutton biryani for lunch.
Biryani on Fridays is a tradition imposed by her domineering mother-in-law, Amma. Thankfully she’s away at the moment, visiting her pregnant daughter Meher—Shaila’s sister-in-law—to help with the soon-to-be-born baby. Ever since Amma heard the news of her daughter’s pregnancy, she’s been niggling Shaila about why she hasn’t borne a child yet. After all, Shaila’s marriage with her son has crossed a year mark without a child in the making. Shaila doesn’t talk back to her mother-in-law; that’s against their culture and her role as a housewife.
Dressed in starched, wrinkle-free clothes for work and later the mosque, her husband looks as good as he can with his ordinary features and physique, although the protruding belly makes him look shorter and older than his 30 years. She, on the other hand, is only 22, and pretty. Back at her parents’ house, boys of the neighborhood gathered on their terraces to catch a glimpse of her as she hung the laundry on the clothesline. She was attracted to a tall guy with a pencil-thin mustache who stood in the alley while she rode the rickshaw to the girls’ college. They had exchanged amorous glances, but before he could pass her a note to meet clandestinely, her fate was sealed in an arranged marriage with her husband, who according to her mother was a good match. After all, the boy—now her husband—was employed and owned the family house where he lived with his mother; his father was dead, and his only sister was married. That meant Shaila would marry into a small family; she wouldn’t have to cook a pile of rotis at every meal; she wouldn’t have to wash a bucketload of clothes every day.
Shaila’s husband eats the stuffed parathas she has cooked, sips the chai, wipes the sweat off his face with a towel, and leaves the house saying, ‘Shaila, cook extra biryani today. I’ll bring Tahir along for lunch.’
Her husband and Amma believe offering food to someone on Friday, the holiest day of the week, could help them secure a place in heaven after death. Although Shaila is a believer and doesn’t mind adding rice to her pot for one more person, it’s the clean up that gets to her nerves—sweeping away the scattered rice, trashing the chewed-up bones, scrubbing the greasy dishes. Yet, today, despite the labor and sweat involved, the guest’s name makes her smile.
Two Fridays ago, her husband brought handsome Tahir along unannounced. She resented the arrival of an unexpected guest but her opinion changed soon. That day, as she set the bowl of biryani and two steel plates on the crocheted tablecloth for the men, Tahir greeted her with the traditional ‘Assalamualaikum.’ Other guests before him had not acknowledged her presence, treating her like a servant who brought in the food and cleared out the plates. After the meal, Tahir thanked her with ‘Shukriya.’ She raised her lowered gaze and saw his lips glistening with biryani ghee, his eyes darting left and right across her face like tiny fish. She smiled coyly, not failing to notice his square jaw, the wavy hair on his scalp.
Later, she heard her husband tell Amma he had befriended Tahir at the mosque. The man was a village carpenter who had recently moved to their town for better money. He had landed a job, but was still searching for accommodation at a cheap price. For the time being, he was sleeping and bathing in the mosque.
Today, Shaila prepares the biryani with extra spices, grinds garlic and peppers into a feisty chutney on the side, the fire from the previous night still smoldering within her, a flame her husband kindled but hadn’t been able to douse. The dissatisfaction started on their marriage night when he kissed her neck sloppily, his fingers fumbling with the drawstrings of her salwar. As she undid her clothes for him, something turned off inside him, and he slept facing the wall. All his efforts at intimacy since then have been awkward and unsatisfactory.
After cooking the biryani, Shaila washes her body with sandalwood soap, applies rose attar behind her ears, and dresses in her newest salwar kameez. Her husband works at a clothing store and brings back scraps she fashions into outfits that she wears when she visits her mother—that is her only outing. Her mother is happy to see her dressed in new clothes every time, and Shaila keeps the pretense of normalcy and well-being. Although her mother had explained the physical intimacy of marriage to Shaila at the time of her wedding, she hasn’t brought it up since, and Shaila doesn’t know how to broach the subject now. Also, she’s almost sure her mother would do nothing even if she spoke about her unhappiness. There were enough examples in her extended family when her girl cousins were told to adjust with their husband’s families even in the face of domestic violence and abuse. If Shaila spoke up, everyone would advise her to be thankful for the fact that her husband did not hit her.
When her husband knocks on the door in his usual double-tap style, Shaila covers her head with a dupatta for modesty, but lets a lustrous lock of hair hang seductively on one side for Tahir. She waits for her husband to go to the restroom before entering the sitting room with a tray of steaming biryani. For the special guest, she’s taken out the floral ceramic bowl and matching plates from the trunk holding her dowry.
Tahir rises from the chair and takes the food from her hands. His fingers brush hers, sending a spark of sensation through her nerves, making goosebumps rise along the length of her arm. She notices how he towers over her, how strong the veins on his hands look, how a whiff of talcum powder rises from his armpits—unlike her husband who reeks of sweat and grime. After the meal, Tahir stays behind while her husband leaves to wash his hands and expresses his gratitude for the meal by air-kissing his fingertips, the pout of his lips making her tremble with desire.
After the men leave, Shaila licks the cylindrical bones left on Tahir’s plate, her tongue rolling over spots where his teeth had tugged and teased the flesh away, where his lips had sucked in the marrow. She lies awake in the afternoon, folding the pillow in half, then straightening it, turning to one side, then the other. Her hand slides inside her salwar, thinking of Tahir’s handsome features, imagining the solidity of his chest, a carpet of soft hair covering it.
That evening, she applies ghee to the rotis before serving them to her husband, hot and fresh, one by one. After the second roti, she says, ‘Why don’t you rent Amma’s room upstairs to your friend who came for lunch today? I heard he’s looking for a place.’
‘Amma isn’t gone forever,’ her husband says, dismissively, between bites. ‘She’ll return soon after Sister Meher gives birth to a baby.’
He chews while talking, sending particles of food flying away in the air. Shaila finds this habit disgusting and wishes he would eat quietly like Tahir did. She had observed him from behind the curtain.
Shaila brings in another puffed roti and pushes the matter further, saying, ‘Sister Meher will need help running the house with the new baby. Amma said, on the phone, that she’ll stay with Sister Meher for at least three to four months.’ Then, after her husband has taken a few more bites, she plays another strong card. ‘Amma says Allah is kind to those who help others.’
Her husband asks for more curry, not commenting on the perfection of the spices or the tenderness of the meat she’s cooked. While refilling his bowl, Shaila wants to spit into it, but she curbs the urge and garnishes the food with fresh cilantro instead. This time she has another tactic on her mind.
‘By renting out Amma’s room, you could save for her cataract surgery,’ she suggests. ‘Didn’t the doctor suggest getting it done as soon as possible?’
Leaving the question suspended in the air, Shaila returns to the kitchen and waits for her husband’s loud burps, one followed by the other like his knocks on the door. She brings him a glass of water from the earthen pot and decides not to push the issue further—she has done her part, anything more might raise suspicion. Her mind takes a delicious flight of fantasy, imagining the day Tahir rents the upstairs room. After her husband leaves for work, she’d bolt the front door, tiptoe upstairs, and startle Tahir as he applied talcum powder to his armpits. He’d crush her in his arms, press her to his solid chest and pry her mouth open with his thick lips.
After her husband puts the glass on the licked plate with a clang, she clears the dishes but is too excited to eat herself, her heart thumping in anticipation. As usual, to round off his meal, he slips on his shoes and heads out like most men to purchase betel leaf laced with tobacco from the corner shack. She climbs up the stairs to Amma’s room where she sits by the window in the dark to catch a glimpse of the alleys outside without being seen. She watches her husband take a turn to the shack lit by a tube light, swarmed with men in wrinkled kurta pajamas. While most men leave the shop after puffing a bidi or chewing a betel leaf, her husband stays perched on a plastic stool, chatting with whoever has a few spare minutes, delaying his return to his home, to her. Was he feeling trapped in this marriage too? Was he finding it hard being alone in the house with her while Amma was gone?
Her mind drifts inwards and she doesn’t see her husband walk back to the house until his double-knock interrupts her train of thought.
Stepping into the courtyard, her husband points to the stairs leading up to his mother’s room, ‘The window on Amma’s outside wall is broken, Shaila. I could see it from the alley. What happened?’
‘Oh, yes. . .it was a cricket ball from outside,’ she lies, happy that he had noticed the damaged glass. So far, her plan was working. She had smashed the window with the grindstone earlier in the afternoon for this purpose.
‘Nasty kids! Ruffians, all of them!’ Her husband shakes his head in annoyance. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?
‘I’m sorry, I forgot,’ she replies softly while her heart races with the anticipation that her scheme might succeed.
Her husband looks at the dark sky and mutters, ‘Nasty rain clouds. They’ll burst open any moment.’ He runs his fingers through his hair, his brow creasing with worry. ‘I’ll patch Amma’s window with a plastic sheet for tonight.’
He sits on a stool and removes his shoes slowly. Light from the overhead bulb shines on the balding spot at the crown of his head; his kurta is stained with a smattering of curry and betel leaf. He looks vulnerable, pitiable at the moment.
‘I’ll bring Tahir tomorrow to take a look.’ He sighs, inspecting the soles of his shoes, half detached from the body, almost on the verge of falling off. ‘He’s a carpenter. He can easily fix this window. Maybe, you can cook your special tahari for him.’
This is the first time her husband has indirectly complimented her cooking, and, ironically enough, now that her plan of having Tahir return is about to succeed, instead of elation, a surge of tenderness toward her husband rises inside her. Emotions undulate like waves in her heart; guilt replaces desire; righteousness washes over scheming and deceit. She cannot not cheat on this man, who although indifferent and physically inept, is, after all, her husband. He has never schemed against her or talked ill about her. With this new-found loyalty sloshing in her heart, she doesn’t want Tahir anymore. At this moment, when what she desires is dangling within her fingers’ reach, she doesn’t want to grasp it.
As her husband climbs the stairs to patch the window, slowly like a tired, deflated man, she says, ‘Ask someone else to fix the broken glass. Don’t know how good Tahir is. He’s new to the town, anyway.’
oOo
Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar is an Indian American writer. She is the author of Morsels of Purple and Skin Over Milk. She is currently working on her first novel. Her stories and essays have won several awards and have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. She is a fiction editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. More at X @PunyFingers
