You have a shell-shocked car, but Hukum has a fine bum,” said the missus in a muffled voice.
I looked up from my newspaper and was startled to see her peering into my liquor cabinet. Right away, I had a sinking feeling. What if she discovers the sliding partition behind which I keep two bottles of some very fine stuff? Mercifully, she did not!
With her head still in the cabinet, she again muttered, “Hukum has a fine bum.”
Hukum Singh is the uncouth bodybuilder who lives next door and puts on coquettish airs whenever he sees any young lady. I was appalled that the old girl had noticed his preening, and even considered his derriere worth commenting about.
“What! What did you say about my car and… and that other thing?” I asked.
“You have a well-stocked bar but how come I can’t find rum?” she said—clearly this time. “Where’s the rum?”
For forty-odd years now, I have been trying to persuade my wife to have a drink once in a while. This ploy has, however, not worked till now. Those ignorant about the finer points of human psychology might not immediately grasp the deviousness, but my gambit is based on the cunning consideration that if the better half takes a drop or two, she is more likely to forgive her husband if he gets sozzled.
So, when I found the little woman searching for rum, my heart turned a couple of joyous somersaults.
“Why rum? Try that new whisky that Tony sent from Goa. Believe me, it’s really good!”
No, she said. She wanted rum, and not anything else.
“Try some Remy. It’s excellent.” But the missus would not budge. She wanted rum. Only rum.
Now rum has been my long-time favourite, but I had to sadly admit there was a temporary shortage and there was none in my bar.
“Not even behind the books on the top shelf? Or hidden among your socks in the wardrobe drawer?”
Oh damn! The missus had cottoned on to two of my secret stashing places. It was difficult to keep a straight face, but I did not betray any surprise. Still, I made a mental note to find some better hidey-holes for my strategic reserves.
“No,” I said apologetically, “There is no rum at home.”
“That is indeed surprising,” she said, “Considering that you often refer to yourself as Hercules or the Old Monk of Mokokchung.”
I ignored the jibe. “Look, why don’t you let me mix you a nice cocktail. Rum is not a feminine drink at all.”
“Will you get me rum? Or what?”
The “Or what?”—flung in my face like that—usually marks the end of awkward conversations. It means that I have tested her patience to within an inch of some precipice and the sensible thing is to now withdraw and, figuratively, slink off and hide under the sofa in some corner.
“I’ll buy a bottle tomorrow,” I said. But she wanted me to go and get one right then.
“There are just two weeks until Christmas! I want the rum today.”
I am pretty good at following my wife’s elliptical reasoning and chasing the meandering stream of her abstruse thoughts. But this time I was foxed because I saw no connection between rum and Christmas.
“I see no connection between rum and Christmas,” I mumbled. “I have heard of those bizarre gifts associated with the 12 days of Christmas, but I never imagined that I would give rum to my true love on the 13th day of Christmas!”
“You stupid man!” said the missus, “I don’t want rum as a gift. I need it to bake a cake. A proper rum-raisin Christmas cake!”
That solved the mystery why the missus wanted rum, but at the same time it raised the spectre of a burnt cake or, worse, an undercooked one. The little woman would beg off from eating whatever culinary disaster she created, citing her pre-diabetic status. That would leave me to have the whole cake and eat it too.
“Look, let us get ourselves a small cake like every year from the corner bakery. Why do you want to go through the bother of baking one?”
But the little woman had made up her mind. A rum-raisin cake and no argument about it. Quite desperate to avoid a fate worse than death, I blurted out, “Don’t you know, I have developed an allergy to rum?”
“Ah, is that so? Well, then, I will ensure no rum enters this house ever again,” she said in a grim tone, her lips pursed in a thin line.
My wife’s proclamation has now got me worried. If no rum is allowed in our home, how will I make my special eggnog at Christmas, the only drink that she allows me to consume in vast quantities?
We don’t have a chimney in our house and Santa stopped believing in me long ago. Nonetheless, I pray for a Christmas miracle and hope that Santa will come around one of these days with a gift for me, singing “Ho-ho-ho! Here’s a bottle of rhum!”
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com