If you were allowed to say one thing to your neighbour — only one thing — what would it be? I would tell Parthiv — neighbour on the left-hand side as I look out my front door — that he must definitely not enter a music competition. I have a sneaky feeling that this will come as a bit of a surprise to him — perhaps even a major surprise — but I also sense that Parthiv will take it in the right spirit, and more to the point, I have this additional feeling that my words will be akin to water on a duck’s back. They will have no effect whatsoever.
Besides, I’m not going to do it in the first place — I don’t believe I have the right to tell him what he should be doing to help pass the time when he’s in his kitchen cooking.
Some hate cooking so much they weep, then, when caught out, blame the tears on the onions; some give the kitchen a wide berth preferring to dine on a can; some covet their kitchens so much they banish everyone from its precincts in order to create their own cooking space; some cook grudgingly, but will not do one iota thereafter — certainly not the washing-up, that chore is reserved for all the others in the household who sit with their feet up watching television while the cooking is underway; some will cook and clean and scour ... and sigh heavily afterwards, inducing guilt in everybody else, instilling in them a sense of noncooperation; some will make a resolution (“I’m definitely going to learn to scramble an egg tomorrow. How wrong can you go with an egg scramble, eh?”) then procrastinate when the next day dawns; some will collect the children around (teach them to be independent and helpful from a young age) and allocate them different tasks — Deirdre peel the potatoes, love, Dave measure out the butter, 60 grams, Debbie sift the flour, Dennis go out into the garden and pick some coriander (Dennis! I said coriander, not parsley!)
Some, like Parthiv, will sing to the simmering curry — and while it’s not exactly birdsong to the aural receptors of those nearby, it literally helps put food on the table in time for when Mrs Parthiv returns home from a long day at the advocate’s office where she works and kicks off her shoes before entering the front door.
“Parthiv’s the perfect hubby, one out of a million,” she says, quoting from a statistical source known only to her.
“First taste the daal and then tell if it’s perfect,” counters Parthiv.
It’s apparent that the two of them have conducted such an exchange several times before a third party, for Mrs Parthiv responds like she has done a million times in the past, “It will always be perfect, Parthiv. You know that!”
Case closed.
One senses that Mrs Parthiv — behind the tiredness of her features: Gaunt cheeks, circles under the eyes — must be a good lawyer, if indeed that’s what she is. I am reminded of something either Mark Twain or Charles Dickens had once said: “If there were no bad people there’ll be no good lawyers.” Once she’s home, though, it is apparent that all judgement is suspended — like the rest of us who do more ordinary jobs, she too needs to unwind, distance herself from the legalese of the day.
Early in the morning — when nearly all of us are still abed — Parthiv leaves for his five-hour shift (“It’s not a pleasant job,” he says, “don’t ask about it! But in Australia nobody cares what you do. As long as you get paid for the labour.”)
On his return, he stops at the grocery store so when he walks past my window with rustling plastic bags of veggies, I know a Parthiv-version of some rock song is not too far away. “Rock is my passion,” he admitted, not long ago, cutting short Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb to address me.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.
