There are certain jobs a married man should never be given. For example, buying a blouse for his wife, selecting curtains for the living room, and buying vegetables for the house.
If you are unmarried, you may think buying vegetables is easy. But a married man knows that buying vegetables is not shopping. It is an exam.
It may not have a fancy acronym like all the top exams of India such as CBSE Board exam, NEET, IIT-JEE, UPSC CSE, etc, but like them, the syllabus is vast, the instructions are unclear, and the evaluation is questionable.
Anyway, the other day, I had gone for my evening run when Rekha called.
She said: “Rajan, can you buy some vegetables on the way back?”
At that point, I had run 2 km in 15 minutes and was just beginning to increase my pace. Basically, India’s long-awaited Olympic medal in middle-distance running was taking shape on the streets of Chennai when Rekha messed it up.
There goes India’s Olympic medal, I told myself, taking the phone out of the pocket of my Adidas running shorts.
For the record, I am 165 cm tall. I have always believed that if only I was 180 cms tall I would have become an excellent middle-distance runner (800 metres, 1500 metres).
India would have had its Olympic medal….the national anthem would have played as I stood on the podium.
Rekha would have stood in the gallery, wiping tears and saying, “I told him to buy vegetables, but he chose his country.”
But fate had other plans. I remained 165 cm.
And you know what’s the difference between Asian Games medal winners and Olympic medal hopefuls like me?
The Asian Games medal winners are selling vegetables to survive, while Olympic medal hopefuls like me are buying vegetables because their wives asked them to.
I should have said no and continued to finish my 5 km run. But as you know, in marriage, a man says no only inside his head.
Outside, he says, “Sure,” which is what I did as well.
My wife immediately started giving instructions
“Buy tomatoes, but not too ripe.”
“Okay.”
“Buy brinjals, but small ones.”
“Okay.”
“Buy ladies’ fingers, but check if they are tender.”
“Okay.”
“Buy drumsticks, but not the old ones.”
“Okay.”
“Buy coriander, but make sure it is fresh.”
“Okay.”
“Get curry leaves.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t forget green chillies.”
“Okay.”
At this point, I had already forgotten tomatoes.
The problem with women is that they think men can retain instructions. We seriously can’t.
It is not that we are bad at storing information – ask us how much Ajay Jadeja scored in the 2nd Quarter-Final against Pakistan in the 1996 World Cup and we will know.
We can remember the exact bike number of the Yamaha we owned 23 years ago. Why, I even remember the name of the girl who smiled at me in American College’s canteen once and ruined my semester. For the record, this American College is not in USA….it is in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
But ask us to remember tomatoes, brinjals, ladies’ fingers, drumsticks, coriander, curry leaves, and green chillies, and our brain immediately gives up.
So, like all modern husbands, I said, “Send it on WhatsApp.”
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No article of mine is complete without a little nostalgia, so let us go back to my childhood.
Back then, buying vegetables were simple. We had a drumstick tree in our house, and every day for lunch and dinner we used to have drumsticks. And in between those drumstick meals our middle-class universe used to have only five vegetables – potatoes, onions, brinjal, tomatoes, and carrot. And only one fruit – banana.
Nobody in our house discussed ‘organic’ except that one time when we had a guest and my mother asked me to buy cauliflower…and we found two green coloured live worms.
Back then we didn’t buy vegetables looking at its texture, ripeness, firmness, or if it supported the Cockroach Janata Party or not. We just trusted the shopkeeper to pick the best and place it on his weighing scale, after which he would put it in our big shopper.
Once we were back home, there was no drama, no cross-examination.
Today, vegetables come with expectations. For example today a tomato cannot just be a tomato. It has to be firm, red, not too red, ripe, not too ripe, good for sambar, good for chutney, but not soft enough to become sauce by the time it reaches home.
We want even our tomatoes to be all-rounders. Exactly what we expect of our kids as well.
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Anyway, with a WhatsApp list from Rekha, I reached the vegetable shop with confidence.
This confidence lasted exactly seven seconds because the moment I stood in front of the vegetables, I realised something. They look different when your wife is not standing next to you.
When Rekha is with me, I am able to identify every vegetable but without her, the vegetable shop looks like a botany lab.
There are apparently two kinds of tomatoes – the desi and the hybrid. I couldn’t tell the difference…they were both round, and red and the perfect size to hold in one hand.
I asked the shopkeeper, “Which tomatoes are better?”
The shopkeeper replied with an attitude, “depends on what you are planning to cook.”
I got a bit pissed. I told him, “Bro, just because I am a man …you don’t have to make fun of my cooking skills.”
The shopkeeper didn’t know why I was getting worked up.
Later Rekha would tell me that the desi tomatoes come with a tangy, acidic flavor ideal for traditional curries while the hybrid tomatoes have a milder, less acidic taste, making them perfect for salads and sandwiches.
I didn’t know there was so much science behind vegetables.
Anyway, as I roamed around the vegetable shop, I noticed that there were three types of brinjals – long purple ones, small round ones and green ones.
Not knowing what to do, I moved towards a very green looking section. On display were coriander, mint, spinach, fenugreek, curry leaves, etc…all hanging around together like cousins at a family function.
The vegetable shop owner walked towards me, and came to help.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
“How did you know?” I enquired because I had thought we Rajans know how control our emotions and fool the outside world.
He just smiled and told me that the diploma course that the nearby Vegetable Sellers Association offers has a special chapter on how to identify a weak husband.
Apparently vegetable sellers can identify a struggling husband from 20 feet away. To figure out they see the fear in our eyes, WhatsApp list in our hand and the way we touch tomatoes…as if we were defusing a bomb.
Then he asked, “What do you want, sir?”
I looked at my phone.
“Tomato.”
“How much?”
I froze because this was not mentioned in the list. Rekha had written ‘tomato’ but had not mentioned ‘how much tomato.’
Now that we had become friends, I asked the shopkeeper how much I should buy. He suggested 1 kg…which sounded like a respectable quantity.
I said, “Yes.”
He started putting tomatoes into my big shopper even as I watched carefully. Whenever Rekha buys vegetables, she always says something intelligent when the shopkeeper is packing the vegetables inside the cover.
I also wanted to say something, but I didn’t know the technical words.
So I said, “I hope they are fresh?”
The shopkeeper looked at me as if I had questioned his family values.
“Fresh only, sir,” he said and moved on to packing all the vegetables in Rekha’s Whatsapp list.
Before he could close my big shopper bag, I asked him to add some coriander leaves.
The shopkeeper pointed to a bunch.
“How much?” I asked.
“Twenty,” He said matter-of-factly still looking down into his cash box.
“Twenty? For coriander?” I wanted to be sure.
“Yes!” He repeated taking some cash out to count.
I didn’t have any follow up questions so asked him to add it to my bag.
Then I remembered curry leaves (kari-patta in Hindi and karivapillai in Tamil), which in my opinion is different from every other purchase we make in a vegetable shop.
If a husband can get curry leaves for free, wife feels her husband has succeeded in life. If her husband ends up paying for them, she thinks he has brought shame to the bloodline.
“Can I have some curry leaves?” I asked. That sentence changed everything…I could almost hear the vegetable shop owner’s thoughts.
He was thinking: “This guy just got off a from a car and wants curry leaves for free?”
I looked down to avoid his gaze…it’s the same trick that I had used when as a 13 year old my mother would send me to buy vegetables, and also get some curry leaves for free.
I could see that the vegetable vendor no longer respected me. Even my salt and pepper hair, couldn’t be on use anymore.
He just picked up a small bunch and threw it into my bag. I don’t know if it was free or an insult. But I accepted it because it is better to be insulted by a shopkeeper for being cheap than by your wife for not having a spine.
Finally, we were at the billing stage and I was happy with the progress I had made so far. Rekha would be happy with me, I thought to myself.
After weighing everything the shopkeeper said, “Three hundred and eighty.”
This is my problem…I have no clue how vegetable pricing works. In fact, most men wouldn’t even know if they were being cheated.
I wanted to bargain. But I don’t know how.
Bargaining comes to women naturally. A woman can bring down the price of tomatoes and also make the shopkeeper feel as if he has done himself a favour.
When I got home Rekha was in the kitchen, and I placed the vegetable bag on the counter with pride.
My wife opened the bag and began inspecting the vegetables. I stood there as a student stands next to the teacher’s table when she is going through his maths homework.
Then she asked, “Did he give curry leaves free?”
I said, “Yes.”
She checked the bag and thankfully it was there.
After going through everything Rekha looked at me and said, “Next time, I’ll come with you.”
I smiled. It was a smile to hide my disappointment…because I know that this is how wives say, “You are useless,” without destroying your morale.
But next time also she will ask me to go alone, and I will go. You know why?
Because somewhere deep inside, I still believe that one day I will return with perfect tomatoes, tender ladies’ fingers, young drumsticks, fresh coriander, and enough free curry leaves to make my wife look at me and say, “Good job!”
That day may never come. But like all married men, I live in hope.