Forgetting

Just as he was lowering himself into the sitting room sofa with a new book, Mr Roy felt a certain dryness behind his throat indicating a craving for an afternoon tea. He was looking forward to reading this new book. He discovered it on his daughter's book shelf. He could spend the next two hours with this new book and he could do with a large cup of tea to go with it. 

This was a book by Perumal Murugan. He found it while dusting his daughter's book shelf. He was preparing for her arrival from Delhi. He wanted the room to be as spick and span as possible. At least the book shelves needed to be dusted. 

He had vaguely heard the name of Murugan before. But on the cover when he saw glowing comments from the New York Times he felt the urge to read it. Growing up in the late 70s and 80s Mr Roy had learnt to not like Indian authors writing in English. Not that there were too many Indian authors writing in English back then, he has never read even Ruskin Bond. But as an adult he has read some English translations of Indian writers. Not that he liked it, but he read a fat book by Geetanjali Shree and managed to finish it too.

He thought he would give Murugan the benefit of doubt and read his Pyre. He was currently struggling with Toni Morrison's Beloved. The book made no sense to him. He could not understand what was going on. Obviously the agony of black life in America. But the writing style is such that he could not even make out who was who. When he read her Bluest Eye he was quite moved by it. So moved that he bought his daughter some four five Toni Morrisons for her 22nd birthday. But he was making very little progress with Beloved.

As Mr Roy proceeded to make tea he suddenly remembered that he had already boiled some water in the kettle before going to his daughter's room looking for a book to read with the tea. All it needed were for the water to be poured into the tin cup with two tea bags. He was a little embarrassed by the fact that he had altogether forgotten about the boiled water. He has noticed that of late he keeps forgetting such little things. 

This morning as he was coming back from Dalhousie after dropping his wife at work, he suddenly remembered that he was to go to a friend's house to collect his current year's swimming club membership card.