"Are you Batman?" asked Auntyji. Her husband made a swift, hurt denial. He was not Batman. He believed in justice for men, but his arthritis could not fight for it. "Then why are you dressed like Batman?" persisted Auntyji.
Mr S replied it was his new jogging suit. He was joining the Fat Nation Challenge. Auntyji observed that he had never jogged in his life, and it was too late to start now. Ghee was ghee, and next he would be suggesting that she needed exercise too.
"Do you think I need to lose weight?" she asked sharply.
To agree would have been the equivalent of answering the question British men dread: "Does my bum look big in this?" in the affirmative. A nubile woman jogged past the window in a pink velour tracksuit. Auntyji decided to accompany Mr S on a brisk walk. Shocked by the price of trainers, but blessed with Size 4 feet, she found a discounted pair.
Mr S suggested a nearby park, but Auntyji demurred. They could be mugged, she warned. They walked through silent residential streets instead. Crisp cold air whirled leaves to their feet. Mr S looked at the houses with their neat shaven front lawns. White net curtains were an ingenious invention, he thought. To observe life on the outside without ever letting anyone perceive what was inside was a concept whose originator had to be English.
The streets were deserted. Mr S fondly imagined a moustachioed desi doodhwala peddling through. His bicycle would have giant aluminium cans clanking on either side of the rear wheel. And there, at the corner where the silent brick house stood, Mr S thought he saw a paanwala’s shop with a faded awning, and the paanwala washed fresh betel leaves in a plastic bucket and polished his little pots and containers with a soggy red rag. He heard the circular swishing scratch of the sweeper’s broom on an English street. He heard a cock crowing and the shriek of parakeets in the peepal tree, temple bells clanged and incense wafted through his nostrils, followed by the smell of fresh parathas.
"Let’s go home," said Mr S to Auntyji.
As they walked back, they met a man with a dog. The man nodded, the dog paused. The man brought out a plastic bag. The dog nodded, and the man moved on. Mr S looked at the sophisticated alarm system on one of the houses opposite. There was a camera attached to the roof. It must have cost several hundred pounds, he observed in awe. Auntyji was unimpressed. "Of what use is a security system in this country? Anyone can walk into the Houses of Parliament now."
"Anyone, yes, but not Batman," replied Mr S.
(Saumya Balsari is the author of the comic novel 'The Cambridge Curry Club', and wrote a play for Kali Theatre Company's Futures last year. She has worked as a freelance journalist in London, and is currently writing a second novel.)