News
 International
 National
 Embassy News
 Arts & Living
 Business
 Travel & Hotel
 Medical Tourism New
 Taekwondo
 Media
 Letters to Editor
 Photo Gallery
 News Media Link
 TV Schedule Link
 News English
 Life
 Hospitals & Clinics
 Flea Market
 Moving & Packaging
 Religious Service
 Korean Classes
 Korean Weather
 Housing
 Real Estate
 Home Stay
 Room Mate
 Job
 English Teaching
 Translation/Writing
 Job Offered/Wanted
 Business
 Hotel Lounge
 Foreign Exchanges
 Korean Stock
 Business Center
 PR & Ads
 Entertainment
 Arts & Performances
 Restaurants & Bars
 Tour & Travel
 Shopping Guide
 Community
 Foreign Missions
 Community Groups
 PenPal/Friendship
 Volunteers
 Foreign Workers
 Useful Services
 ST Banner Exchange
  Arts & Living
He Has His Cake and Eats It Too
Special Contribution
By Shobha Shukla
Music of Marriage

Before committing matrimony, HE was known in the social circles for his very unsocial eccentricities and confirmed bachelorhood. His idiosyncrasies were widely known and hence criticised. This is precisely what attracted HER attention and endeared HER to his "could'nt — care — less" attitude towards life. HE ate sparingly and lived abundantly. HE would lecture avidly on the outrageous food habits of the Indians in general and men in particular. The preparation of a conventional Indian meal was, according to him, so disgustingly time consuming that it became a wretched full time occupation for the poor wife who had nothing else but food on her mind always. So, HE had wisely chosen to live on bread, butter, eggs, rice and the like which seemed a much more civilized meal.

This was good news to HER parched ears and in complete harmony with her views on the subject. SHE had all along dreamt of a house sans a kitchen cell where the head would be held high and the mind be without fear and the thoughts rise high to the poetry of Milton. Here at last was a house where the spice smelling web of scrubbed vegetables would not entangle the myriad colours of the rainbow of love. Coming to the house, it consisted of three large rooms (HE apologised humbly for this modest accommodation) and was a veritable treat to HER eyes. There was barely any furniture and whatever there was, it was scattered around in the most comfortable manner. It made one feel that the furniture was for the comfort of its users and not vice versa as is the case in most Indian households. SHE had always detested an immaculate house where everything (and that would be lots) is in its place (where ever that may be) with not a speck of dust to be found anywhere. One feels scared to enter such houses lest their eerie calm be disturbed, causing discomfort to the chairs and tables around. Such houses always reminded HER of a hospital or a museum.

So, here was a man who possessed two great qualities — ownership of a disorderly house and insipid tastebuds — besides respecting a woman's brains. Thus SHE thought HIM capable of leading her round the fire seven times. By God's grace and HIS willingness SHE had escaped that drudgery of housekeeping which is the inevitable destiny of the married Indian woman.

Marriage was indeed a miracle which happened to both of THEM but in different ways. It developed his taste buds overnight blossomed out his latent home décor senses. Once the first few days of that heavenly bliss called MATRIMONY were over he could smell dust in the house and feel the almost palpable disorderliness which, according to him, she had brought to every nook of the house. The doctor advised him to replace rice with freshly baked "chappatis" as the former was bad for health. And as for bread and butter, how could any civilized society thrive on it — day in and day out?

And so every evening she was confronted with that characteristic chauvinistic question — What do you do the whole day long when you can't cook even a decent meal and give some semblance of neatness to the house. Oh! how can anyone survive in such filthy and starving conditions?

She would try to mutter something about Keats and Tagore but her protestations would inevitably get lost in the noise of the pressure cooker whistle.

Marriage had struck different chords in their hearts. Its nuances for him were reflected in listening to a lively debate from the B.B.C. in the cosy comforts of an ever expanding sitting room, after a satisfying meal. The symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart still brought a twinkle to his eyes but not without a mouthful of butter chicken. Ravishanker's sitar and Browning's poetry sounded better over a plate of fruit cream. As for Turgnev, who is he without baked fish? And when a person hobnobs with such personalities , the least amount of respect that he can offer is by way of a disinfected house with not even a speck of dust out of place.

As for her, she has wrapped up her postgraduate degree in English literature in the kitchen aluminium foil and tucked it away in the farthest corner of the kitchen cabinet. The only dreams she dreams are of conjouring up new recipes which will help her find the way to his heart through his stomach ( and not through a path lying somewhere below it as he had exuberantly explained in the first flush of matrimony). The only thoughts she harbours are of food and the only books she reads are cookery books and those on interior decoration. Marriage indeed has transformed HER and HIM.



Related Articles
    Ending Tobacco Smoking Is Bedrock for ...
    Asia Pacific Has over 6.7 Million New TB Cases
    Will Shorter, Safer and More Effective TB ...
    Whither Women's Reproductive Health in Asia ...
    Build the World We Want: Healthy Future for All
    New TB Treatment Breakthroughs Must Reach the ...
    How Will Children Living with HIV Grow Up ...
    Writing Is on the Wall: Pictorial Health ...
    Failing on the Basics: Are We Able to Break ...
    A Bouquet of Novel Compounds: New Treatment ...
    One Size Does Not Fit All: Expanding the ...
    Tale of Two Pandemics: Follow the Science and ...
    Governments Must Adopt a Strong Political ...
    What Is the Ring?
    Disability Is Not Limited to the Body, It Is ...
    Accelerating Progress on Sexual & Reproductive ...
    Stop This Shaming of Menstruation
    Complacency Breeds Failure: Consolidate ...
    For Age Is Opportunity No Less Than Youth ...
    New Study Pegs the Number of TB Cases in India ...
    Self-stigma: Let Us Do More Than Just "Ttalk ...
    We Cannot Eliminate TB If We Leave Children ...
    MDR-TB Treatment Rgimen: Short Indeed Is ...
    A Plain Face Can Take the Sheen Out of Deadly ...
    Strike at the Root of the Problem to Kill TB
    Antibiotic Use Is Driving Antibiotic Resistance
    Big Push for Transgender and Hijra Welfare
    Where There Is a Will There Is a Way: Teeja ...
    Lung Cancer: Difficult to Diagnose, Difficult ...
    Long Road to Justice: Human Rights of Female ...
    Medical Malpractices: Is There Light at the ...
    Overcoming Roadblocks in Translating ...
    Management of Respiratory Diseases beyond ...
    Gender Justice to Be at the Heart of ...
    Connecting the Dots: Tobacco Use, Diabetes, ...
    It Is Time To Control Asthma
    Call for No More New HIV Infected Children
    Smoking Goes Electronic
    Break the Silence around Cancer
    How Can You Treat Your Illness Unless You Take ...
    Asthma Medicines Still Unaffordable for Many
    New Technique to Prevent Diabetic Lower-Limb ...
    Cycle Beads: The Bead String for Family ...
    Beware: All Forms of Tobacco Are Harmful!
    Mother's Milk Is the Best Nutrition for the ...
    Where Is The TB Quilt, Nay Mask?
    Hello, This Is Nature¡¯s Call From Garbage ...
    Tuberculosis: Ugly Scar on Beautiful Childhood
    Towards A More Enabling Environment for ...
    What¡¯s Cooking in Kitchen: Peace or Conflict?
    Feed Your Child Well: Prevent Pneumonia
    Costly Medicines Mean Debt or Death for People ...
    AIDS Epidemic at a Critical Juncture in ...
    Watch Your Tongue Mr. Minister!
    Free Trade Agreements: A Threat To People's ...
    In The Pursuit Of Healthy Happiness
    Empowering Rural Women
    Say Yes To Life: Say No To Tobacco
    Homophobia Is A Human Rights Issue
    Viva La Woman Power
    Rubbish Rubbish Food and Embrace Healthy ...
    Of Music and Divinity
    Wake Up Call on Childhood Obesity after Years ...
    A New Hope of Life for Our Ailing Education ...
    Reminiscences of Egypt
    Do Not Break the Nucleus
    Whispers of Sanity in the Frenzy of Madness
    Tobacco Cessation Can Piggy-back Ride on ...
    In The Spirit Of Freedom (from Tobacco)
    World Conference on Tobacco or Health to ...
    Requiem for Purity
    Rhapsody 2008 -- a Symphony of Different ...
    'Diabetes Doctor Is at Your Doorstep' in ...
    Activists Decry India's Deferment of Pictorial ...
    South-East Asian Diabetes Summit to Open Up in ...
    Special on Universal Children's Day
    The Wrath Of God
    World Food Scarcity and the Challenges of ...
    Victim of Terrorism -- the Common Man
    Teachers' Day: The Sacrificial Goat
    Hiroshima Day: Let Us Worship Peace and Shun ...
    Whither the Innocence of Childhood?
    Food for Thought -- on World Food Day
    Love Is the Missing Link in War-on-Terror
    Irom Sharmila: The Iron Lady
    India Poised And Shining
    Is It Just Another Day in Life of Indian Woman?
    To Be Young, to Be Married, and to Be in India
    The Mad Mad World of Ads

Other Articles by Shobha Shukla


Ms. Shobha Shukla has been teaching Physics at India's noted Loreto Convent, and has been writing for The Hindustan Times and Women's Era in the past. She serves as Editor of Citizen News Service (CNS). She can be contacted at shobha1shukla@yahoo.co.in)

 

back

 

 

 

The Seoul Times, Shinheung-ro 36ga-gil 24-4, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Korea 04337 (ZC)
Office: 82-10-6606-6188 Email:seoultimes@gmail.com
Copyrights 2000 The Seoul Times Company  ST Banner Exchange