That Dash of Sugar

The smell of freshly brewed coffee woke up Ajit Garg from the macabre experiences of the night. He saw the petite figure of his wife, Avantika approaching him with a cup of coffee accompanied with a smiling face. An interchange of monotonous "Good Morning"s was followed by Avantika dictating him a list of utmost essential items to be bought from the pas hi mein to hai grocery shop while he sipped his cup of coffee. "Salt, biscuits, tea bags, sugar,flour, some namkeen and don't forget to ...." she chanted on but he heard nothing beyond the sugar part. His mind was anchored to that part like a human who had suddenly found his reason of resolved to never even dither from it. "Sugar?", he thought "Why do you even need sugar when you haven't the heart to use it?" looking dubiously at his coffee.

Milk right. Coffee powder right. Temperature right. Sugar wrong.

It had been like that for the seven years they had been tied in the 'sacred' threads of matrimony. All his polite attempts to tell her the far-reaching consequences of this everyday blunder(after all the way to a man's heart goes through his stomach) had gone in vain. And every morning he thought of just laying it on the the table, allowing her to deal with it the harder way but dare he commit such a crime against the spirit of husbandhood. But why?Why couldn't she make that divine coffee with the perfect sugar like his mother made. No, don't him wrong. He wasn't a mother patronizing poor fella, just a 36-year old computer executive who liked his coffee a little sweeter. Is that a criminal desire?

On a more solemn note, that extra sweet coffee for him stood like a symbol of warmth and induced a peaceful feeling of being understood. It is bitter that his 'better half' hadn't ever been able to provide that extra dash of sugar.

"Are you even listening?" asked a scowling Avantika. "Sorry darling", apologized Ajit "what did you say after sugar?"

- Sleeping Devika