The earth laughs in flowers
Yesterday, my wife and I had a huge fight. It’s been 18 years since we’ve lived together in that tiny flat opposite the station, yet nothing has ever come between us—not that young 26 year old who moved in next door, not the annoying clatter of trains as the pass by, occasionally blaring their horns, not even her pet pigeons in the balcony I detest—nothing, that is, apart from the way she makes my favourite curry.
We’ve fought over it before, and it’s always the same dialogues repeated over and over again. She’ll say hers is the correct way to make mutton curry, I’ll repeat that it’s not the way my mother used to make it for me, she’ll snarkily retort that I should go live with my mother if that’s how much I like her curry, and the gloves come off. We always make up in the end though; it’s not like one badly prepared mutton curry can come in the way of a love that’s withstood nearly two decades.
She isn’t a bad cook, I can vouch for that. She manages our finances online, she gets money delivered to our son in his hostel on the first of every month if I forget to, and she manages to make me laugh even when things aren’t going quite as well as I’d have hoped they would. I’ve loved her since I first saw her at the bus stop that day, and I continue to love her as she clatters about the kitchen, her light feet moving noiselessly even as her anklet sound their music.
I don’t want her to feel bad. I’ve had a special relation with that curry. It’s the only reminder I have of the mother I once knew, now barely recognisable from that mass of tubes and bottles on the hospital bed. She’s been sick for a month now, and the doctors aren’t optimistic. I tried visiting her a few times, but the gloom of the hospital is a far cry from the sprightly and vivacious home I grew up in. It feels really bad to see the person who raised me stuck in there, and all I can do is watch helplessly. She used to make that mutton curry for us every Sunday, and perhaps those weekend lunches were the best memory I have of her.
It’s time to focus on the present. I take out my phone. My wife’s face smiles to me from the wallpaper, and I quickly open a website. I search for Online flower delivery, and it throws up irrelevant results. I quickly change to another engine and search for Flower delivery Mumbai, and immediately the perfect one turns up. Quickly and easily, I send her a bouquet of apologetic lilies from my desk at work. There are, after all, better things to fight about than curry. I go out for a short stroll. As I come back inside, I notice a bunch of lilies on my desk. Confused, I throw open the note. They’re from my wife. She had flowers delivered to me as well. She’s a real treasure. One of our blessings in disguise is being able to access online flower delivery, and flower delivery Mumbai has made life simpler and happier for us.
