After decades of living together, when husbands finally start telling the truth, wives decide not to trust them at all
A FRIEND once asked me who wore the pants in my family. We were having tea. He explained that if the wife called the shots, then she’s the one supposed to be wearing the particular piece of clothing. I didn’t reply because both of us knew after eons of marriage what the right answer was. In the presence of our spouses, we just exchanged nervous smiles.
It reminded me of James Thurber. Some rate him as the second best humorist after Mark Twain. He started as the editor of New Yorker in the 1920s, and then became its regular staff writer. He also drew, although his sketches were not always easily understood. Thurber’s characters were rotund and his captions were precise and cutting. The cartoon that made him a hit across the US showed a seal at the head of a bed and a couple in it. The wife says: “Okay, have it your way. You heard a seal bark.”
I quoted Thurber as a similar incidence overtook me many years ago. And it was not exactly a seal that barked over my head but something quite different. We were living in Gulshan. We had a front lawn and I love plants. Over the hedge and through my Crotons and Philodendrons, sometimes in the evenings, I would exchange pleasantries with our neighbour (lets call him Anwar). I am a late riser, but that spring I had brought in Euphorbias and some rare Cacti that I was desperate to see bloom, and had taken to getting up early just to have a look at those species. And if no one was around, I would exchange a word or two with my shrubs.
One morning, over the hedge, I spotted Anwar. Before I could greet him, I froze and tried to look away for our neighbour was absolutely short on dress. Upon seeing me, he zipped back into his house. Maybe I was wrong, but how could I be seeing things? Some people like to air themselves early in the day. The author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carol, used to indulge in that sort of thing. Many aged Brits sun themselves without setting things astir. So, I thought nothing more of the matter. With the passage of time you start giving leeway to others.
One day, I casually mentioned it to my wife, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. She started arguing with me. “He has a teenage daughter, for God’s sake.” She said I should be ashamed of myself, sullying the name of a respectable and educated gentleman.
My wife is an early riser. She prays and then unlocks the doors, turns the lights off and inspects the kitchen before the cook takes over, never venturing to step outside the house in the wee hours. One day, she opened the door early in the morning to let the cat in that had been left out the night before. She chanced to look out and there she ‘heard the seal bark’.
At present, we live near the sea. The area is thick with trees and there are a lot of cuckoos around. One early Sunday morning, I thought I would pay a visit to the sea and went strolling. Hardly had I taken a few steps on the road when a crow buzzed me. I heard it distinctly; instead of a regular jarring caw, it sounded like a cuckoo. I thought that if crows start cuckooing, could the Day of Judgment be far behind? I am a sign-seeker and a connector (If I were an FBI agent, 9/11 would never have happened). I was scared and started reciting holy verses. I also retraced my steps home and wrapped myself with a quilt. It was May and I was shivering. My wife asked me why I was so disturbed, as if I had seen a ghost. I poked my head out of the quilt and said in a trembling voice: “I heard a crow cuckoo.”
“Now, why should you be saying a thing like that? Crows croak, everyone knows that! Cats mew, they don’t bark. What have I done to deserve this. I will take you to Dr Shabnam who is very good in these sort of things.”
“I will never go to that shrink. She talks through her nose,” I said. She is nasal and while talking to her, no matter how hard I try, I end up in titters. So I keep myself at a safe distance from her and she hates me for it. I had a suspicion that she would eventually commit me to the loony bin.
Soon, we forgot the whole episode. Then one day, we were sitting out in the lawn marvelling at a Tamarind tree laden with pods when a raven flew overhead. And instead of its usual raspy croak, it rhymed its cry like a cuckoos’. I heard it and so did my wife, telling her that what her husband had been saying all along was indeed true.
After decades of living together, when husbands finally start telling the truth, wives decide not to trust them after all.
After decades of living together, when husbands finally start telling the truth, wives decide not to trust them at all 
