“At least you have a doctor in the house to look after you,” sighed Bhatia, having vividly described his martyrdom to piles.
“Look after me?” cried Varma, his voice cracking like an ancient clay jar. “He—he does not even give me enough to eat.”
“What?” said Bhatia, the white hairs in his ears twitching. “Doesn’t give you enough to eat? Your own son?”
“My own son. If I ask him for one more piece of bread, he says no, papa, I weighed out the ata myself and I can’t allow you to have more than two hundred grams of cereal a day. He weighs the food he gives me, Bhatia—he has scales to weigh it on. That is what it has come to.”
“Never,” murmured Bhatia in disbelief. “Is it possible, even in this evil age, for a son to refuse his father food?”
“Let me tell you,” Varma whispered eagerly. “Today the family was having fried fish—I could smell it. I called to my daughter-in-law to bring me a piece. She came to the door and said no. . . .”
“Said no?” It was Bhatia’s voice that cracked. A drongo shot out of the tree and sped away. “No?”
“No, she said no, Rakesh has ordered her to give me nothing fried. No butter, he says, no oil. . . .”
“No butter? No oil? How does he expect his father to live?”