Real Time

“Well, what should we do?” Mr. Mitra’s face, as he turned to look at his wife, was pained, as if he was annoyed she hadn’t immediately come up with the answer.

“Do what you want to do quickly,” she said, dabbing her cheek with her sari. “We’re already late.” She looked at the small dial of her watch. He sighed; his wife never satisfied him when he needed her most; and quite probably it was the same story the other way around.

As they passed a petrol pump, Mr. Mitra wondered what view traditional theology took of this matter, and how the rites accommodated events such as this — she had jumped from a third-floor balcony — which couldn’t, after all, be entirely uncommon. Perhaps there was no ceremony. In his mind’s eye, when he tried to imagine the priest, or the long rows of tables at which people were fed, he saw a blank.

They didn’t expect it would be a proper shraddh ceremony; they didn’t think people would be fed. So Mrs. Mitra had told the boy at home, firmly so as to impress her words upon him, “We’ll be back by one o’clock! Cook the rice and keep the daal and fish ready!” Without mentioning it clearly, they’d decided they must go to the club afterward and get some cookies for tea.

He felt bored; and he noticed a few others, too, some of whom he knew, looking out of place. Shraddh ceremonies weren’t right without their mixture of convivial pleasure and grief; and he couldn’t feel anything as complete as grief. He’d known Anjali slightly; how well do you know your wife’s distant relations, after all? He’d known more about her academic record, one or two charming anecdotes to do with her success at school, her decent first-class degree, and about her husband, Gautam Poddar, diversifying into new areas of business, than about her.

He had a vaguely unsatisfying feeling, as if the last half hour had lacked definition.

Once inside the car, he said to his wife, “I don’t know about you, but I’m quite ravenous.”