Kishore Singh:The order of things

My wife has spent the last few weeks in a raging temper for which at least I cannot be held accountable, the culprit in this case being not so much the family as the house staff. First, the general factotum took off for a week on a "family emergency" - false, as it turned out - clearing out his room, which should have been a clue had his colleague thought of informing his employee. He took with him a mobile phone and music pod assigned as goodwill, but left behind unpaid grocery bills, and at the time of writing, everyone from the milk vendor to the presswallah and hair stylist - he being quite a dandy - are knocking at the door with IOUs.

Next, the cook left to fetch his family, but took his time about it, and my wife's mood is unpredictable at best on a hungry stomach. It didn't help that my son, on some "trainer diet" at the gym, wanted industrial quantities of boiled eggs, and an equal portion of chicken, cooked every single day according to an exacting menu that eschewed oil one day, spices the next, and as salad thereafter. He volunteered to do his own cooking, which was a fabricated promise as we discovered when he used his "crazy work schedule" and "social networking" to stay out of the kitchen, but refrained from sharing in the family's "takeaway diet", citing an expensive personal trainer as vindication. "Is it such a big deal to make a chicken steak in precisely two drops of olive oil under a covered lid for three minutes, seasoned with a dribble of herbs, with bell pepper juliennes on the side, and one zucchini sliced and sauteed with a sprinkle of poppy seeds along with a dollop of quinoa that," he asked his mother, "can be served al dente?" He's still wondering how his favourite jacket ended up in shreds in his cupboard.

The cook is now back but barely in the kitchen, spending his time tending to his family one flight of stairs above his workplace. Because his wife won't shop for groceries, he does it for her while she enjoys a saunter on the walking trails in the neighbourhood park amidst the memsahibs. She won't bathe the children either, or clean the loos, so we've had to employ someone to wash and scrub for her.

As his daughter is five (four according to a certificate he's "getting made"), my wife hoisted her off to a private school to have her admitted under its outreach for the economically disadvantaged. The child came home in a smart uniform with a bag containing books and pencils, chattering about the milk and cookie she'd got for tiffin, and how clean and cool everything was. But the school, insisting on hygiene, wanted her hair styled short - probably it's a way of keeping lice infestations in check, said my wife. "I will not cut her hair," the cook baulked. "She has to have her hair shaving ceremony in the village," his wife insisted when my daughter pleaded to let the child continue in school.

At the time of writing, there's an impasse at home. The cook is sulking. His wife no longer goes perambulating. The takeaway service has been resumed. My wife's temper continues to be erratic. My son has condescended to enter the kitchen and prepare bland, steamed chicken dishes without the benefit of side accoutrements. As for me, I've taken to locking my wardrobe. I'd hate to see a jacket, or kurta, shredded in a fit of pique.