The armchairs, with their flat, sedentary cushions, were designed for society, but the bed was made for… — Amit Chaudhuri

While reading the Times of India each morning, my father spares a minute for the cartoon by R. K. Laxman. While my mother is, like a magician, making untidy sheets disappear in the bedroom and producing fresh towels in the bathroom, or braving bad weather in the kitchen, my father, in the extraordinary Chinese calm of the drawing-room, is dmiring the cartoon by R. K. Laxman, and, if my mother happens to be there, unselfishly sharing it with her. She, as expected, misunderstands it completely, laughing not at the joke but at the expressions on the faces of the caricatures, and at the hilarious fact that they talk to each other like human beings.

At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star.

Years ago, my mother and I fell in love with Busybee’s voice, its calm, even tone, and a smile which was always audible in the language. My father, meanwhile, is clipping his nails fastidiously, letting them fall on to an old, spread-out copy of the Times of India, till he sneezes explosively, as he customarily does, sending the crescent-shaped nail-clippings flying into the universe.