As a kid, I hung around our neighbourhood temple—less out of devotion, more for the prasad. It was not a grand temple, but it certainly had the grandest pujari, who was addressed as Pujariji. An encyclopaedia of Vedic trivia and Sanskrit, he conducted the aartis with rare grace. He performed the ritual five times a day, starting with the mangal aarti at dawn to say, ‘good morning’ and ending with the shayan aarti to say, ‘good night’ to the deity. Pujariji fluently recited shlokas and flourished a ghee-fuelled lamp like a demented pyromaniac, while simultaneously translating Sanskrit to street Hindi for the benefit of us clueless kids.
Years later, this same Pujariji presided over my wedding ceremony, insisting that he be addressed as Panditji because he was wearing a different hat. As my bride and I circled the sacred fire, Panditji solemnly announced that every couple whom he had bound in matrimony had enjoyed lasting domestic peace and a bumper crop of kids. I protested, but Panditji told me to ‘shut up!’ and not argue about the number of my future progeny while doing the agni pradakshina.
Now, five decades later, I realise that, like most things in life, Panditji was neither fully right nor fully wrong. The part about lasting domestic peace has proved (more or less) correct. The part about a bumper crop of kids, mercifully, has not. Over the years, the missus and I have settled into monotonous domesticity with few surprises and rare deviations. Our days mimic Pujariji’s aarti schedule, but with less ghee and more creaky joints. Our mangal aarti starts at a civilised eight am, and not at the crack of dawn. She brews coffee strong enough to kickstart a coma patient, while I butter the toast. We eat in silence, skimming newspapers with headlines so absurd that neither of us consider it worth the effort to disapprovingly go ‘Tchh, Tchh’ about them. Why bother? The world has gone mad, and we have cholesterol to worry about.
Illustration: Job P.K.
Midday brings the rajbhog aarti, a glorified term for our humble dal-chawal. We spice our khichdi with memories of Nargis koftas from our youth, when our stomachs could handle ambition. After lunch, we take a nap—less a luxury, more a necessity. We combine the sandhya and shringar aartis to flip TV channels, hunting for something, anything, watchable.
The shayan aarti is my speciality: it involves locking the front door, switching off extra lights, and ensuring that the microwave oven does not explode during the night. If Romeo and Juliet had made it to their 70s, they would have probably traded sonnets for practicalities. Juliet might have said, “My love is as boundless as the sea, but my back’s killing me.” Romeo would have countered, “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, but really dear, never doubt my arthritis.”
My wife and I keep it simpler. I say, “Turn around, I’ll rub this painkiller on your back.” She replies, “Hold still for your eyedrops.”
Then we sleep, no fuss, no poetry, just the quiet hum of a life well-worn.
Our island of domestic peace nearly crumbled last week. Out of nowhere, the missus dropped a bombshell: “Why don’t we love each other like we used to?”
I froze, with alarms going off in my head louder than a fire engine bell. She repeated, “You know, like once upon a time. Like 50 years ago.”
She was no doubt harking back to the time when I had a full head of hair and a six-pack to boot. Sadly, today, with my receding hairline, beer belly and dentures, no one will mistake me for a Bollywood hero. For that matter, she, too, is not a svelte size zero actress. We are no longer the lead characters; we are instead the ‘extras’, the stereotypical bumbling grandparents, starring only for comic relief.
But the old girl carried on, regardless. “Tomorrow’s our 50th anniversary. What’s the most romantic way to celebrate it? But no gifts—they just pile up. We can’t eat out either; you get such awful gas. Why don’t we have a quiet romantic celebration?”
I fleetingly thought of ordering biryani and, even as my mouth watered, my mind conjured up pictures of gulping fistfuls of antacids the whole night long. Sadly, romance after 50 years of married bliss is less about biryani and grand gestures, and more about not snoring too loudly. I racked my brain, and then I had divine inspiration.
“Let’s binge-watch your favourite soap opera all night!” I was quite certain Romeo would have never thought of such a romantic anniversary gift.
So, we binged! After the usual shayan aarti—eyedrops, painkillers, the works —we fluffed up the pillows, propped up the cushions, and sank into the couch. And we watched and watched her beloved saga of betrayals, garish weddings and women wearing unbelievably fussy jewellery. We watched in companionable and comfortable silence, till around midnight, when I dozed off, dreaming of Panditji and the aarti lamp swinging rhythmically.
Suddenly, it was morning. The sun was streaming into the room, and the television was muttering away. I turned to the missus and said, “Happy anniversary, dear.” She smiled and, in that moment, we were young again, circling that fire, with Panditji’s voice in the background, promising us forever.
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com