At Your Table: Gluttony

I watch you watch me. Your eyes follow my hands to my mouth and back, tracing the path of the hot tea as it slithers down my throat, like a hungry snake. They follow my hand, laden with food, as it makes its way to my mouth.

Sometimes, I wonder if you will swallow me whole, eating me slowly, while I struggle, drowning in my own blood. I dream of that often. You smile hungrily, your eyes intense, as you consume me, until there is nothing left of me but a wisp of a cotton sari.

Steam rises from the teapot as you remove the cozy, noisily sniffing the fragrance of the gentle slopes of a distant mountain. I saw it once in a movie, a green mountain with white clouds covering its tip; in the foreground a bejeweled heroine dancing in anticipation of her hero’s arrival. You pour at precisely the right time, when the tea glistens, pure wet copper.

A spoonful of sugar crystals falls gently into the liquid. A deft flick of your wrist pours the milk, turning it cloudy. You hand the cup to me. Then your hand languidly gestures, “Eat.” I look at the abundance of food.

Steam rises from the zarda, orange like marigolds at the temple, loaded down with the fragrance of kewra, sickeningly heady in its intensity. The mound of samosas are crisp, freshly fried, and through the thin, delicate dough I can see the lumps of spiced potatoes nestled within. A huge glass bowl holds bunches of leechis. Red and golden goosebumped skin cradles the soft, silky, translucent white fruit, whose juice runs down my hand and arms, drowning me in sweetness.

Every Tuesday, we sit at your table, laden with food. Food never passes your lips, though your ribs stick out through your thin muslin shirt as you lean forward to smell a particularly savory morsel or to touch the rumpled satin of the firni, slowly, lingeringly, leaving behind only the indentations of your thin fingers. I ask no questions. I am not paid to do that.

Lifetimes ago, I stand and watch from outside myself. I smile, and my bright orange lipstick cracks while the talcum powder on my skin mixes with sweat to form damp, white patches. Grasping the rusted bars of my cage, I lean forward to make the most of my meager cleavage. You stop and look at me, right at me.

You were thin, even thinner than I was. You examined my teeth, my jutting ribs, and my stick-like limbs. You asked how old I was. I said I didn’t know. Who keeps track of birthdays in the villages of my childhood and the by-lanes in which I live now?

You laughed without mirth. “You’ll do, I suppose,” and that was it.

I never knew how much money you paid them to let me be exclusively yours.

That first time when you and I were alone, I tried to seduce you with the wiles of my trade, not knowing what else to do. You laughed as you fended me away. "Have sex with a bag of bones? Who knows what diseases you have? When we start this, this thing, you will take a bath before coming to me. You will be clean, do you understand?” I nodded.

I arrive freshly bathed, made up and powdered, trying to camouflage the stink within me. You tell me to be here, outside your huge house, at this time every Tuesday. I cannot be late or you will find someone else. There are many like me in the city, and only one of you. I touch the red hibiscus tucked behind my ear, check my new red lipstick in the side mirror of the big car parked in your driveway.

“Eat until you are full. Eat until you can eat no more,” you whisper into my ear. You pour me more tea, hand me another slice of the shahi tukra, dripping with rose-scented sugar syrup. We sit silently, except for the tinkle of the dishes and the muted gossip of the servants in the next room.

The dense, creamy, violently saffron, sweet bread slides down my gullet with no effort. It is like swallowing a handful of sunshine on an early winter morning, warm, delicious, leaving me wanting more.

You never talk except when you have to. Your fingers, however, are never still. The skin, parched and cracked like the earth during a drought, is stretched so tightly over them that each knuckle stands out like a stubborn, painful knot. Your eyes move rapidly within their hollowed sockets, stalking my every move like a hungry dog.

Sometimes, one of the servants sets a cup of black tea in front of you, sometimes a heap of lettuce and a tomato. You rarely finish any of it.

Once, only once, I offered you a taste from one of the plates. You looked as if you had been stung. As if you wanted to kill me. Instead, you took a deep breath that rattled in your chest, like a baby’s toy, and said, “No, I like to watch.”

“Eat some of this halwa,” you say as you roll your silver spoon into the sticky orange shreds of carrots, sweet and spicy, crunchy with nuts, and slip it between my lips. I lick the spoon to suck down all traces of the sweet, knowing that your eyes will follow. Sometimes now, I exaggerate my enjoyment of these delicacies because you seem to enjoy seeing that. You half close your eyes, with ecstasy or need, I cannot tell.

You spoon chicken kurma qorma onto my plate. A red layer of ghee floats on top and spills from the sides. The chicken leg, bulbous with meat on one end, tapering to thinness on the other, sits in the middle of the plate. I dip hot roti into the spicy curry and tear the tender flesh before popping the whole delicious mix into my mouth. Later, you ask me to break the bone with my teeth and squeeze out the marrow. You strain your ears to hear the cracking and the slurping.

For dessert that day is a special treat, you whisper aloud.

Your narrow fingers grasp the ripe, yellow fruit, caressing it as the knife slides deep into it. The juice runs down your hands, and for a moment, you stop, as if you might lick it away. Instead you wipe it off, and feed the mango to me, slice by silky slice, not letting me wipe away the mess on my hands and mouth.

I am full, but you keep insisting I have more. You pay me. I have to do what you say. No more, I say. You force me. I eat until I feel the food bubbling up inside me. I rush into the bathroom and vomit. You are smiling when I return to the table. I hear the excitement in your breathing.

Sometimes when you breathe, you shake like a tin shack does at the passing of a train. There are times when you half close your eyes and I wonder what you are thinking. But then your eyes fix me with their piercing gaze, and I feel suffocated.

I look at myself in the mirror, under the dim lights of my room. The glowing yellow bulb hanging above me swings in the slight wind that manages to fight its way into my room. I can no longer see my ribs. I run my hands around my stomach and waist, feeling fleshy softness, not hard bone. I test the new heft of my breasts, my arms and legs. I can barely wait for my next visit to your table.

Today, there are piping hot pakoras, packed with the vegetables of the season. A mound of off-white barfis are arranged on a plate, their decorative silver foil shivering under the breeze of the ceiling fan. The seekh kababs are rich brown with little flecks of spices, so tender they fall off their skewers, arranged on a dark green bed of spinach. The room fills with their pungent, meaty odor.

Your hand trembles as you ladle food on to my plate. You make me hold my hand, scented with the spices and flavors and juices, under your nose, so you can smell it all.

The skin on your face, gray, like ash, stretches over nothing more than a skull.

As you dip the spoon into the rich, yellow cream sauce of the nargisi kofta, your sleeve falls back. Your arm is as thin as the bars on my cage. The skin has fallen away from the bone, in loose folds and deep wrinkles. You follow the direction of my eyes and quickly cover yourself up.

I focus on the spongy inside of a perfect pakora, dipping it into the luminous green mint chutney before popping it into my mouth. Aping you, I close my eyes to taste it fully.

You lie back in your chair, adjusting it until you are almost lying down. Your eyes remain alert as ever, consuming me as I eat. I eat until I feel my belly stretch, knowing that the tight cord of my petticoat will leave marks on my skin.

I spend the days between visits in eager anticipation. When I pass the food stalls I wonder what will end up at your table. Will there be chaat this time? Maybe some perfectly round and brown gulab jamuns, hot and juicy? Their heavy, sweet smell haunts me. My mouth waters, but my spending money for the week is long gone.

Bright blue, blinding sky, white clouds like perfect, springy rasgullas. A cool breeze kisses my skin and carries with it the smell of frying food. I follow that delicious aroma. The puris are round, puffed, golden balls, like miniature suns. I eagerly put out my hand, and one lands squarely on my palm. My skin shrivels with the heat and the burning oil. My shrieks of pain sound like the whistle of a night train tearing through the dark. I wake up hungry. My blouse feels tight as I struggle to feed the hooks into the eyes.

Your body barely dents the cushions of your chair. The cup of black tea has grown cold, untouched. Your unblinking gaze fixes on me. I fold a piece of potato-stuffed paratha around green mango pickle and chew slowly. Your eyes make the journey to my mouth and remain fixed there. They seem to go past my lips, into my food-pipe, and onward, to my rapidly filling stomach. A heavy, rustling breath, forced from the depth of your lungs, hangs in the space between us, silently, before it fades.

I eat until I cannot breathe. The biryani with its tri-colored rice, wet with thick cucumber raita. Perfectly fried, disc-like kababs singe my throat with their spicy heat. I wash down the food with nimbu paani. Thin threads of golden sewai swim in thick, sweetened, cold milk, studded with pistachios and raisins. There is some left at the bottom, that my spoon cannot reach. I hold the bowl to my lips and slurp it down before refilling it, twice.

Tears mix with the dessert, tingeing it with salt. I cannot make myself look at you, though your concentrated gaze bores into the core of my being. My soul hungers, already, for the meals that I will no longer eat at your table. I imprint each flavor into my taste buds, my mind, closing my eyes, sweeping away all other thoughts.

For the first time, since we met, I turn to look right into your eyes, seeking the source of your never-ending hunger. Even now, you give me no answers though your wide-open eyes impale me where I sit.

I leave before the servants come back into the room. The door closes behind me with a sharp click, and I return to my old life. In drifting nightmares that enter me unbidden, I follow visions of food that turn to dust and ashes in my mouth. And your black, depthless eyes devour me despite my silent screams.