My wife and I were driving in the US during our holiday with my daughter after a sightseeing trip to the Niagara Falls. We were so exhausted that we stayed in a motel. After an overnight stay, we resumed our drive discussing how Mother Nature has endowed the Niagara with such beauty and splendour.
Suddenly, we noticed that my wife’s wallet was missing. It had her vital travel documents. I was upset. After deep recollection, my wife said she had misplaced it somewhere near the counter while clearing the bill in the motel.
We contacted the motel over phone and were told the missing wallet was secure and safe there. I was almost battered then, as we had travelled over 1000 km since morning. Now, as penalty due to the lapse of my wife’s memory, we had to drive an extra hundred miles. My blood was up. “Radha!”, I cried in a big manly voice: “What silly stuff. You are attacked by amnesia too frequently. A day is not far off when you might even ask me who you are?”
I paused and then resumed the vitriolic attack. “To mimic Macaulay’s prodigious memory power is too much on my part to expect. But is the ‘memory, warder of our brain’, so fragile that you miss even your travel documents? Sans travel documents, you will be nobody on this land”. I went on sermonising her on the virtues of memory and its relevance to a housewife. My wife’s reaction was a stony silence.
Soon the vehicle reached the destination. The motel manager was away. This fuelled my anger. I reacted aggressively and gave him a dressing down after his return. Strangely, emulating my wife, he too played dumb.
We were driving back with my wife’s wallet. On nearing home, I found my wallet was missing. It carried my travel documents. My goodness! I prayed to a galaxy of Gods. We rummaged the whole vehicle. Where could it have been?
While I was working out various theories, my phone twinkled. Irked, I attended the call. “I am the motel manager. Sir, your wallet is here. You left it when you dropped in here just an hour ago in order to collect your wife’s wallet.” All my anger subsided giving into guilt and shame.
I looked at my wife’s physiognomy for a backlash. But it remained as it was before. She looked sane and serene. She demonstrated that ‘silence is torrential eloquence.’ Not only a wife was she, but also a valuable mentor.
T R Thiagarajan
Email: barsanites@gmail.com