To Whomsoever It May Concern

A few days back, I received this letter:

Goa

21/2/2013

My dear Arjun,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirit. Sadly, that is not my state. My life is in danger.

How do I start? How I wish I had the comfort of saying the innocuous, ‘Trouble started on a dark stormy night.’ Albeit a cliché, fact is always stranger than fiction.

Trouble started when I took my mother-in-law on a honeymoon trip.

Every year, around February, my in-laws separate, for two weeks or so, ‘to revitalize their souls and bodies’, leaving behind damaged, ravaged hosts in their ghostly, ghastly wake. This year, my father-in-law went to the east. My guess is that he is now comfortably numb amongst Naga sadhus in the Himalayas or in an old world house of a kind, podgy Bengali nymph stuffing himself to the gills with sweets and fish. My wife’s mother was supposed to go to the west, around the Thar desert, in search of gods.

We too, my wife and I, had planned a honeymoon getaway from the Mumbai madness to serene Goa. There was supposed to be only a minor overlap in these plans.

We were supposed to collect my mother-in-law at the airport at eight, keep her amused for four hours or so, dispatch her on the midnight flight to Jaipur, and then catch forty winks before setting off on our merry road trip. She did land. We did our best to keep her amused. But we just could not pack her off. At about ten that night, one of her fellow-pilgrims phoned to inform her that their pilgrimage had been called off because of some epidemic of bowel irritability. I tried to argue that the bowels have nothing to do with the higher realms of spirituality. When that failed, I even found a rare seat on a cargo flight to take her back to our hometown, away from us in Mumbai. But my efforts gave me naught. I heard my wife’s mother say, ‘Oh here I am, for you, for you!’ to which my wife replied with a treacherously joyful, ‘Oh Ma Ma!’ and my ‘Oh No No!’ received only a brutal kick from my better, fairer half.

So, at five that morning, there she was, my mother-in-law, parked in the middle of the backseat filling up the rearview mirror. Two hours into the drive, she enquired about her accommodation. My efficient wife informed her that she had managed, that night, to book a room, for her mother, in the same resort. Her mother replied to that with, ‘Oh, you should not have bothered. Won’t they allow an extra bed in your room for a nominal cost?’ I hit the brakes involuntarily and the car swerved wildly. I nearly caused a pile-up on the highway and received an extended tirade of threats and expletives from without. I stopped the car, speechless and breathless, and turned to my wife. My wife gave an unperturbed, flippant and only vaguely reassuring remark, ‘She is joking.’ I looked in the rearview mirror. The reflection seemed blurred and shaky with mirth. I too laughed the laugh of a death row inmate in the company of a jolly, jocular executioner.

For the rest of that day’s road-trip, I thought deeply about fate, destiny, karma and in-laws. Let me share with you the salient points of my musing because it is relevant to understand why my destiny could not turn out to be anything but my fate.

The fathers-in-law can be skipped because they are not really worth mentioning. In fact, the men are usually so in any role, aren’t they? As for my wife and her in-laws, they are like nations fighting over some inhospitable terrain. They need the fight and not the land. After all, which sister really cares for a brother that much? For that matter, which wife loves her man senselessly to wage a war? For her social position she might, but never for her man. Look at history – men have done every foolish act possible for women but have women done anything like that for men? Even a mother’s love for her son, it is a myth or at least a paradox - once he is an adult, that love is there only if she sees very little of him. That is because she enters one of the best phases in her life. All she wants then is the acceptable, alas manageable and lovable, company of a spouse fast approaching dotage. The daughters and their mother have few problems being together because a lifetime together have somehow made them immune to each other’s chatter and petty demands. When a woman enters that golden era, the only bee in her bonnet is her son-in-law. She hates it when he visits expecting a free meal. She prefers to be the visitor, messing up his life, constantly monitoring him in his role as her daughter’s main impregnator-cum-security guard.

My man, I thought a lot during that trip about my predicament but if I had known how precarious it would turn out to be, I would have driven that car off a high cliff, along with that backseat content, happily singing on its way down to a quick painless death.

Anyway, we reached the resort in Goa without any other hitch. The rest of the day went by calmly. The ladies had no dearth of energy. I pretended to be tired after the driving and got some quality ‘me-time’ with a bottle of beer, snacks and the TV remote. Much later, my wife and I had a slow loving dinner in our room. She mentioned rather vaguely that her mother had found new company. Life did not seem bad then.

Next morning, my wife wanted an extended lie-in. I tiptoed past my mother-in-law’s room and then raced to the dining room hoping to tackle a full English breakfast, unsupervised by pesky women. Why are the most simple desires the most difficult to get? With heaven so close, I tripped at the gates of hell. There, near the entrance to heaven, at the dosa-cum-omelette counter, I found my mother-in-law. She was giving careful instructions to two diffident, thoroughly vanquished cooks. And, there was a parakeet near her.

He looked a few decades older than her. His wig, trying to emulate some young fashion, looked like a pickelhaube worn backwards. My migraine was triggered by his yellow-blue shirt with dazzling floral print, and Bermuda shorts a foot too short with an unappetizing, unhealthy green-brown hue. His mouth reminded me of old badly dubbed Chinese kung-fu movies with his lips and false teeth totally out of sync. His hands seemed fidgety, desperately gearing up for a grope and a feel. And, my mother-in-law seemed to be reciprocating to his hideous flirting. Tell me, my man, which will upset you more – catching your wife or your wife’s mother in flagrante delicto?

She noticed me then. She and the parakeet approached my table. The much-variegated being perched uncomfortably close, gave me a wink, showered her with effusive, embarrassing praises and sensibly flew away before I could put in a word. I raised an eyebrow at my relative. She raised hers even further and said to me, ‘You look as attractive as those bulldogs who try to be the nation’s moral whatever in Parliament.’ She was, of course, trying to say something nice to me. She knew that I despised that lot. She herself claims to be left-leaning but like most commies from my state, political ideology only applied to others and not to oneself.

Then, quickly back on personal sphere, she asked me, ‘Why are you here alone?’ ‘Your daughter wanted it.’ That seemed to be the right answer. She subjected me to her customary head to toe survey, probably ticking off some mental checklist, pondering if I remained the right choice for her sleeping dotty. I had lost my appetite long before then. Still, under the influence of that parakeet, I nibbled at idlis soaked in chutney-sambhar mix, pecked at a limp omelette and munched fruits under that watchful eye, all washed down with tepid coffee and memories of a full English breakfast. My wife joined us as I was nearly through with the muck. She and her mother aggravated my system further by detailing their plans for me that day.

Modern man has much grief, my man. When I married at a late age, I hoped for a life of leisure, quite fed up of a bachelor’s life of hectic partying and mindless activity. I wanted to be a Garfield. But what do I get? Not even rest during a vacation. Haven’t you noticed these armies of husbands, wives and kids at a beach or a hill resort - forever on the move, all dressed in uniform, with the same low-slung half-pants over high-slung underpants, flaunting flabby pectorals, imitation six-packs, bellies like jelly, shapeless breasts stretching sports bras, vests, t-shirts, jackets, and of course, the ubiquitous big sunglasses to cover the whole face? It is a highly competitive world, my man. So, I had a full day of shopping, sightseeing, water-sports and other virile activities. The only bright spot was that we rarely crossed paths with my mother-in-law who graciously opted out of that busy schedule. I still worried about the parakeet’s intentions and wondered about who would have an upper hand as a bad influence. I could not, of course, discuss such matters with my wife. It was just a terribly tiring day. And the terrifying day was still waiting to happen.

The next morning, I tried my luck once again and raced for a decent meal, praying for peace and solitude. But once again, I found my mother-in-law near the finishing line, though the parakeet was nowhere around. She approached me with a worried look and said, ‘I have a problem.’

My heart sank and I collapsed onto a chair, profusely cursing the parakeet. Every married man gets ready to hear those words but from his kids and that too about twenty years down the line. But when the marriage vows are still considerably fresh, which man is ready to hear those words from his mother-in-law?

I was cold and numb, as if rigor mortis was setting in fast. I think it was my mother-in-law who made me inhale a pinch of pepper like it was snuff and brought me back to a spluttering, sneezing consciousness. It took a while before there was a relative calm on that battlefield. I put on that old, indignant bulldog expression. I was nonplussed when she hardly seemed contrite or shamefaced with guilt.

She then said, ‘I have discovered a paedophile ring here.’ She did not seem too pleased when I gave out a huge sigh of relief. But I recovered fast. I know that a woman at her salacious worst is easier to manage than when she is at her social best with feelers out to correct the ills of society. I sat up wondering how I could slip a few tablets of Valium or Prozac into her coffee to make her more amenable and less troublesome. But I was curious too, and as promised by the adage, that curiosity brought with it the risk of an early demise.

My wife’s mother has never been a good actor, and she was quite deplorable there in that dining room when she tried to act the cool private eye. With painful twitches of her head and rather obvious jerky gestures of her hand, reminding me of new Tamil film songs I enjoyed watching without audio during my ‘me-time’, she pointed out two sets of people in that sparsely populated dining room. Her loud voice was suitable for a Mussolini raising fascist rhetoric rather than for a Marlowe muttering dark secrets about an ongoing investigation.

‘That young couple there, that shady man and that grim woman, yes, that one to the far left, yes, that one giving me dirty looks, I think they are the masterminds. I followed them the whole of yesterday. I smelt a rotten rat when I found them snooping near that nice couple there with those lovely kids, yes, that family in the middle, yes, those kids who are waving at us now.’

 I managed to hush her to tolerable audible levels. I promised to look into the sordid affair after finishing breakfast. She did not seem very convinced with my promise, as usual. Those two groups exited from the scene with rather unpleasant glares aimed at us. Fortunately, my wife turned up then.

My mother-in-law did not disturb her dotty with details of her latest investigation. Have you noticed how womenfolk can switch over in a jiffy from a highly agitated state to a bewildering calmness leaving their men lagging well behind with the appropriate and updated state of mind? We men seem like old PC’s busy crunching out old data while the program itself went through various revisions. Further, it seemed terribly unfair to me that she was guarding her own while she had no qualms in exposing me to danger.

Breakfast remained a sorry affair like the previous day. But a silver lining finally touched my cloudy life. The ladies decided to spare me that day. They planned to spend that morning in the spa and, of course, they did not want me around while they tried to relax. I was glad to have another extended session of ‘me-time’.

So, there I was in my room, barely settled deep under the covers, with a newspaper, a bottle of coke, a packet of crisps and the TV remote, when I heard knocking on the door. I tried to ignore that but it grew more insistent. I shuffled to the door and barely had I opened it, I was shoved back into the room. I tripped and landed rather heavily on my backside. It was the couple from the dining room, the duo of shady man and grim woman. They entered without invitation and closed the door. The man and the woman walked around me, giving my sides a regular kick as if to check whether the meat was fresh and prime.

Then, they bent towards me. The man asked, ‘What are you and that middle-aged lady up to?’ The woman asked, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to be here with a lady old enough to be your mother?’ I managed to squeak, ‘Yes, I am ashamed to be here with my mother-in-law.’ They were taken aback. There was a noticeable change in that shady man’s attitude towards me though the grim woman remained as grim as ever. The woman continued with a harsh warning, ‘If she does not scoot from here, I will personally send her packing.’ I could not help blurting out with undisguised joy, ‘Will you?’ The shady man took pity on me and did some explaining.

My mother-in-law turned out to be not all wrong. Those two are undercover cops on a secret mission to capture a notorious criminal and con-man. The foreign family was just a harmless family. The notorious one turned out to be the parakeet. Those two undercover cops had been on his trail for nearly a year. They were about to nab him when my mother-in-law messed up their operation. First, her dalliance with the parakeet had made them wonder if she was the Bonnie to his Clyde. Second, according to those cops, there was some kind of fall-out between the parakeet and his moll, and the parakeet had ended in hospital with a groin injury. That would have been fine without her third action which involved tailing the duo around the place, drawing attention to them and jeopardizing the whole operation.

Those cops warned me to vanish from the scene ‘with your ladies’. They assured me that the villain was already on the prowl to seek vengeance for his bruised manhood. And they added for my benefit that, if she remained elusive, the easier target would probably bear the brunt of the retribution. For a moment, I did not get the identity of that easier target. The grim lady for once looked terribly pleased to inform me that they were talking about me. I asked them how I could convince the ladies, the mother-in-law or the wife, to interrupt their holiday. They were clueless about that.

So, that’s my situation. I know that my mother-in-law will stick to her own conclusions about the case. For her, my life is anyway meant for collateral damage. Even my wife will not be amenable to reason. She might expect chivalry from me so that she can continue with her break.

There is the slim chance that the villain would be sensible and target only my mother-in-law. It is a gamble worth dying for, is it not?

The mini-bar is empty now and the hotel stationery is over. I am shaken and rather well stirred. But this letter-writing has made me calm. Let me post it and wait for high noon. Please do pray for me.

Your friend forever however short that maybe,

xxx

I have tried hard but the signature is undecipherable and gives me no clue about the identity of this friend. I shall pray for you, dear friend, whoever you are. May you rest in peace as you desire.