My wife loves the monsoon season. I don’t. She tells me that she loves the smell of rain. I don’t. Whenever it rains, she is happy. She tells me that she used to always dance in the rain. I then remember my childhood days. Whenever it rained, I used to gather my neighbourhood friends and play football and, of course, if your team won then you danced like crazy. Back then Michael Jackson ruled the world and we all wanted to do the moonwalk thing.

But now whenever it rains, I get a little angry because then I have to make sure that all the clothes are brought down from the roof in less than five seconds or else they will all be wet and soggy, and the wife won’t be happy.  And I’m no Usain Bolt and even if I knew him and invited him over to help with the clothes, he really wouldn’t be able the save the clothes because he doesn’t compete in stair-racing. I need to find someone who has won the Empire State Building stairs race.

I tell my wife to always carry an umbrella whenever she goes out but she never listens to me. That’s nothing new though. I always carry an umbrella even if I have to walk just 100 meters to get to the barber shop. I think the umbrella is probably the world’s greatest invention. You don’t have to get wet and you are also protected from the sun. And if you get into an argument with someone on your way to the barbers, then you can use the umbrella to either spank the person or give them nice whack on the head. I have tried it a few times but sometimes the cheap made-in-Khasa umbrellas can’t seem to stand Nepali bottoms.

I tell my wife to take the car when it looks like it is going to rain but she tells me that she is happy with her scooter. And she has her big raincoat that looks like you bought it from someone who used to go fishing in the Indian Ocean. Yes, the raincoats for our two-wheelers can probably fit at least three or four people depending on their body size.

And as monsoon comes from India, so does the mangoes. And my wife loves mangoes. I don’t. She puts a dozen of them in the fridge and then finishes them off in the next two days. I’m more of an ‘apple’ guy, not Steve Job’s Apple but the fruit. I have been eating apples ever since I learned to read out loud that ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ and so far it has done me good. I have never been sick except for minor headaches and my broken bones was due to diving in a concrete ground when playing football and trying to ride downhill on a cycle without applying the brakes.

I tell my wife that mangoes are not good especially the ones from India where I hear they inject stuff into it in order to ripen it. She rolls her eyes and enjoys her mangoes. She assures me that she won’t get sick because she knows which one has been injected with chemicals and which ones are organic. I think the government should hire my wife as one of their market monitoring officers and they don’t even need to spend money on lab tests because my wife can detect substandard and adulterated food products just by looking at it or feeling it.

Yes, my wife is a wonder woman. She likes vyar vyar momos and I tell her that we should not be eating such stuff or else we might get sick during the monsoon season. She then sulks around in the living room and I have to take her to the local momo pasal. We order two plates of buff momos. She only eats half her share and I have to finish mine and hers as well. But then she found out how our meat shops handle their buff products and she has now vowed never to eat buff again.  

Now, she is into pork and I have to tell her that we have to be careful with it. She likes chicken with bone whereas I like only chicken breast. She likes Pepsi, I love Coke. I love the winter but she loves the monsoon. We seem to have different tastes but I guess that’s what keeps our relationship balanced. I hate Salman Khan. But she asked me to get tickets for ‘Sultan’ last week. I only managed front row seats. She didn’t care if her neck might be sprained after three hours of watching Sallu Bhai flex his muscles, and make people double his size drop dead with a single blow. I do but if it makes your wife happy, you should also be happy with it. I guess that’s a secret of a successful marriage.

 
• monsoon
 
• mangoes