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| Kishore Singh: Too dim to be asleep |
| Kishore Singh / New Delhi May 08, 2010, 01:10 IST |
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It’s not that she’s an insomniac but my wife has odd habits that include getting up in the middle of the night to potter around, at which time she thinks it’s normal to wake up anyone for a conversation. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, she’ll call up her brother to discuss the day’s news, or exchange views on the perils of parenthood, or relish a particularly nasty piece of gossip. At other times, she’ll shake me awake to ask if I’ve signed the utility cheques, or to share some neighbourhood scandal.
So, it was with a start I came awake when I heard a voice ask, “Are you stupid?” Turning over, I could see my wife soundly asleep on her side. In my hand was my mobile phone which I must have answered when it rang, so I could no longer tell who was calling. “Only my wife calls me stupid,” I spoke into the phone, “Who are you?” “You’re a dumbo,” the voice said, “Do you know who Karl Gustav was?” “Do you?” I retorted angrily, wondering why anyone wanted to play 20 questions past midnight. “I went to finishing school in Switzerland,” the voice giggled, “There’s nothing you can tell me about Jung or Freud or Rorschach, but you’re a dimwit and know nothing. Did you,” I could now make out a slur in the voice, “even go to college?”
Hanging up, I turned back to sleep, but clearly my nocturnal friend was not giving up so easily — though this time I was at least able to make out her name before I answered the phone. “You a moron,” she screeched, not the kind of thing an acquaintance who had used a friend’s reference to make contact and ask a favour, should be saying. But already, in the short while that I’d known her, she’d referred to me as brain dead, dense and inane.
She was clearly someone used to both wealth and leisure. Her chosen time to make these calls was usually three in the afternoon — when you could almost smell the gin on her breath, even over the phone — to ask if I could tell the difference between Boss and Hugo Boss; or three in the morning, ignited by the fumes of whisky, while she drawled on about how maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the most idiotic person on earth by a whisker. “You’re a dullard,” she chortled, “I bet you don’t know your thumb from your toe.” If I ignored her calls, she’d message, “Are you too illiterate to pick up the phone?”
And now, whether seriously or for a lark, she wanted to know if I could tell the difference between Travertino and Valentino. “Travertino the stone or Travertino the restaurant?” I mumbled from the sleepy confines of my bed. “Not bad, silly,” she chuckled, “Something tells me you might even know Valentino.” “You probably know the brand,” I said testily, “but what you probably need,” I sighed, looking at the time, “is the lover.” “Silly,” she laughed drunkenly, “you actually have potential.”
Unaware of their relationship or even how closely she knew my friend, I swallowed my pride and kept my silence. But my wife, who must have woken up, clearly had no such qualms. Snatching the phone out of my hand, she shouted into it, “What kind of a dumb moron calls so late at night? Are you, like, stupid or what?”
It’s been a week now since my night-time phone friend has retreated into a wordless sulk. I might have savoured the victory more had I been able to go to sleep instead of waiting anxiously for the phone to ring. Maybe, just to pass the time, I could call my brother-in-law for a chat, it’s just past 2 am….
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