Fiction: Simple Love

Susmita Mukherjee

Susmita Mukherjee

The fan whirred lazily above the small dining table as the morning light filtered through the thin lace curtains. The sound of traffic from the main road drifted faintly into the modest two-bedroom flat in North Kolkata. Arup adjusted his glasses and glanced at the newspaper spread out before him. His wife, Meena, shuffled into the room, her slippers making a soft, uneven sound on the mosaic floor.

“Arup,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “can you button this blouse for me? My hands are not listening today.”

He folded the newspaper without complaint, placed it neatly aside, and walked over. Her fingers were curled and shaky, fumbling with the stubborn buttons. With gentle precision, he guided each one into place. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gratitude and frustration.

“I used to do this in a second,” she murmured.

“You still look the same in it,” he replied with a small smile, brushing a strand of greying hair from her forehead. “Maybe even better.”

This was how their mornings began now, slow, deliberate, filled with unspoken tenderness. Parkinson’s had begun stealing from Meena piece by piece. First, her handwriting, then her ability to chop vegetables, and later even her balance while walking. Yet, Arup adapted without a word of complaint, as if each new demand was simply part of their shared rhythm of life.

They had married in the late seventies, when life was still measured in the price of fish at the bazaar and the latest Doordarshan serial. Arup was then a young clerk in a government office, and Meena was a plain-faced girl from a respectable family in Shyambazar. There was no whirlwind romance, no filmy declarations. Their first conversation had been awkwardly simple.

“So, do you like tea?” he had asked, shifting uncomfortably in his chair during the arranged meeting.

Meena had smiled nervously. “Yes. With a little milk. Not too sweet.”

Years later, whenever their children teased them about how unromantic that first meeting was, Arup would laugh and say, “What more do you need? I still make her tea exactly that way.”

Their life together was ordinary. They argued about money, about whose turn it was to pay the electricity bill, about why the maid never cleaned properly. Sometimes, when Arup came home late, Meena would sulk and refuse to serve him dinner until he coaxed her with silly jokes. At Durga Puja, they strolled through crowded pandals, Meena clutching his arm tightly, afraid of losing him in the throng. They saved slowly, bought the flat in North Kolkata after years of sacrifice, and raised two children who eventually left for jobs abroad.

It wasn’t extraordinary. But it was steady, like the Hooghly flowing past the ghats every day, silent yet enduring.

The first signs of Meena’s illness were subtle. She dropped a cup one morning while washing dishes. Then she began taking unusually long to write grocery lists. “It’s nothing,” she had insisted. “Maybe I’m just tired.”

But Arup had noticed the tremors when she tried to hold a spoon. He had accompanied her to the doctor that day, listening carefully as the neurologist explained. Parkinson’s. A slow thief. Not immediately fatal, but cruel in its persistence.

On the tram ride back, Meena had stared out of the window silently. The city rushed past, the yellow taxis, the hawkers shouting at Gariahat, the smell of phuchkas and fried telebhaja in the air. Finally, she whispered, “Arup, will you… will you still look at me the same way when I can’t even hold my sari properly?”

He held her hand firmly. “I will look at you the same way, even if you forget who I am. Don’t doubt that.”

Life changed after that. Arup began rising earlier, preparing breakfast before Meena awoke. He learned how to cook simple meals like dal, rice, posto, and fish curry, guided at first by her shaky instructions. Slowly, he managed on his own. When her hands refused to cooperate, he fed her patiently, as one feeds a child, without letting her feel humiliated.

Sometimes Meena would snap. “Don’t treat me like I am useless, Arup! I used to run this house better than you ever could.”

“I know,” he would reply calmly, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “And you still do. I’m only your assistant now.”

She would glare for a moment, then soften, tears welling in her eyes. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Maybe you smiled at me over that cup of tea,” he would say, half-joking, half-serious.

The doctor advised that she should remain active and engaged to delay the illness’s progression. Arup took the advice to heart. He began planning small trips, weekend train journeys to Santiniketan, a few days at Puri, even a Darjeeling holiday when she insisted she wanted to see the mountains again.

On these trips, he became her shadow. He helped her dress, carefully pleating her sari, pinning it in place. He carried her handbag, made sure she had warm water to drink, and helped her climb the steep steps of the temples. When she faltered on the uneven beach at Puri, he held her tightly, both of them laughing when the waves lapped at their ankles.

“People are staring,” she whispered once, embarrassed at needing his arm to walk even a few steps.

“Let them stare,” Arup said firmly. “I am proud to hold you. Always.”

The words silenced her fears more than any medicine could.

At night, when the city outside was drowned in the hum of ceiling fans and distant dogs barking, Arup often sat by her side as she slept. Her breathing was shallow, her hands sometimes twitching uncontrollably. He would gently hold her fingers until they relaxed, whispering softly, though she could not hear, “Sleep, Meena. I am here.”

Their children called often from abroad. “Baba, you must get a full-time nurse. It’s too much for you.”

Arup always replied, “A nurse can help, but she cannot be her husband. Let me do what I must.”

One autumn evening, as the faint sound of dhaaks from a nearby pandal filled the air, Meena turned to him suddenly. Her words came slowly, haltingly, but her eyes shone with unusual clarity.

“Arup… do you know… this is love. Not the kind we see in films. Not flowers or chocolates. Just this. You, here, with me.”

He squeezed her hand gently. “Yes, Meena. This is love. Simple. Ours.”

She smiled faintly, tears slipping down her wrinkled cheeks. “Then I am not afraid anymore.”

Years later, when people spoke of grand romances, of candlelit dinners and declarations under the rain, Arup would simply think of Meena’s trembling hand in his, the soft weight of her head on his shoulder during train journeys, the quiet courage of sharing ordinary days turned extraordinary by devotion.

Their love was never written in storybooks. It had no audience, no applause. But it was real, carved into the slow passing of time, in countless acts of care, in the refusal to let go.

And in that small flat in North Kolkata, amidst the smell of boiled rice and fish curry, under the lazy whirr of the fan, a simple truth lived on:

True love is not what survives on words, but what endures through deeds.