No Animals
“We don’t have anyone who cares for us. We are just two orphans now, making a living with what we can. We don’t expect any help from our children or anyone else.”
N had two children from a previous marriage, but his wife died and his children did not visit him anymore. Aged 50, N’s second wife was significantly younger than 75-year-old N. Together, they lived in a two-room house on a bustling street with a temple at one end. Every morning they sat in the narrow entrance to their house to sell the idlis, dosas, and puris made by N’s wife and by 9AM, everything would be sold. Then, his wife would leave to deliver breakfast tiffins prepared on order and N would go do his full-time job as an electrician. He returned home at ten at night. At 75, N was suffering from bouts of wheezing and his eyesight was fading which made it difficult for him to do his job.
There was no sink in the kitchen, and the dishes were usually washed up at the front doorstep. There was also a bucket filled with batter for idlis and a large idli cooking apparatus in the kitchen along with metal canisters and pots, and though it was small, there were many things stored in it. The kitchen opened into a small bedroom where a wooden cot was propped lengthways against the cupboard as N and his wife mostly slept on the floor, only using the cot if it was especially cold or wet. Pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses hung from the walls, and N’s wife mentioned that she performed small religious ceremonies each morning. Their income was unpredictable and they had no fixed idea of their monthly income; there were days where they took a reasonable amount of money and days where they did not earn anything.
A dusty snowglobe with the Taj Mahal inside was on the corner of the bedroom window sill, and N’s wife explained that it was a souvenir from the only vacation she had ever taken - a trip not to see the Taj Mahal, but to New Delhi.