Skip to main content

The Perfect Man

Fiction

“I can get you arrested for attempting to bribe a government officer,” Alex said imperiously to the man sitting in front of him.

The man had come to get his contribution to the Labourers’ Welfare Fund assessed.  “One percent of the total cost of construction is the legal amount,” Alex had told him.  “I have assessed the cost of the construction of your house as ₹70 lakh.  So you have to contribute ₹70,000 to the Labourers’ Welfare Fund.”

The man pleaded with Alex to reduce the cost of construction to ₹40 lakh.  “₹10,000 will be yours,” the man said sotto voce. 

After threatening the man with imprisonment, Alex threw a glance at Leela who sat at the next table.  Leela was Alex’s colleague.  “Isn’t she impressed with my honesty?”  Leela pretended not to have heard anything and carried on with her work.

It didn’t matter, of course.  His honesty was not meant to impress anyone.  He was an honest officer unlike other government officers.  He had an exemplary sense of morality.  He was proud of that.

He was proud of himself.  He thought he was quite a perfect man.  A man of values and principles.  A man of convictions.  An ideal government officer.  And an ideal husband at home.

Catherine, his wife, had a high regard for him.  She cooked for him his favourite dishes, washed his clothes, pressed them, polished his shoes and kept the home spick and span as he wished it to be.

“Then why did she do this to me?”  Alex could not understand.  He had returned from office as usual.  He expected his hot cup of coffee as usual.  And some snacks prepared by Catherine herself.  Instead what awaited him was a letter.

Dear Alex,

I’m leaving.  What you need is a robot, a robot as perfect as you.  What I need is love.  Raju who works in our farms loves me.  I love the passion with which he makes love to me when you are perfecting your perfection at the office.

Good bye.


Catherine

Comments

  1. JaiNovember 27, 2017 at 7:03 PM

    Excellent story sir!!! It does not matter how perfect one may be unless he or she has generosity of soul and is capable of love..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 27, 2017 at 7:07 PM

      Self-righteous people fail to establish strong relationships because of that lack of generosity of soul. They become priests, I think. :)

      Delete
  2. Renu VyasNovember 28, 2017 at 11:38 AM

    Ouch...so much for righteousness and honesty ! In his quest for perfection he forgot the warmth of being a human :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pranju chakrapaniNovember 30, 2017 at 1:11 PM

    Now I didn't understand the sarcasm behind the post. What has honesty to do with love making capacity? Did I miss anything?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 30, 2017 at 5:59 PM

      Is it honesty or self-righteousness? When the protagonist turns to his colleague for approval or appreciation, it ceases to be honesty and turns into self-righteousness. A man who treats his wife as a cook, laundress and shoeshine cannot be a true lover. Such people have one face in the society and quite another in private life. No woman will ever find them an ideal husband, though some women may like such people because such women themselves share some of the qualities of their counterparts. They know how to make use of the given opportunity and find their own limelight in the society using the husband's light.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

The Call of Islamic State

A year ago, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) reported that about 4000 people from the West left their homes and countries to join the Islamic State (IS).  Many of them are women.  The reporters had made a special study of the women who joined the terrorist outfit and found that it was difficult to categorise which type of women were particularly drawn to IS. “While most of the girls are young, some as young as fifteen,” says the report,  “there are also mothers with young children who make the trip. Some of the girls have difficulties in school and are said to have an IQ below average,  but there are also women who are highly educated. It also appears that even though a relatively large portion of the girls had (or still have) a troubled childhood, there are some who come from families with no known problems with the authorities. Most of the girls come from religiously moderate Muslim families,  yet some converted to Islam a...
33 comments
Read more

The Plague

When the world today is struggling with the pandemic of Covid-19, Albert Camus’s novel The Plague can offer some stimulating lessons. When a plague breaks out in the city of Oran, initially the political authorities fail to deal with it as a serious problem. The ordinary people also don’t view it as an epidemic that requires public action rather than as individual annoyances. The people of Oran are obsessed with their personal sufferings and inconveniences. Finally the authorities are forced to put Oran in quarantine. Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, delivers a sermon declaring the epidemic as God’s punishment for Oran’s sins. Months of suffering make people rise above their selfish notions and obsessions and join anti-plague efforts being carried out by people like Dr Rieux. Dr Rieux is an atheist but committed to service of humanity. He questions Father Paneloux’s religious views when a small boy is killed by the epidemic. The priest delivers another sermon on the necess...
28 comments
Read more

AAP and I

Who defeated Arvind Kejriwal?  Himself or us? His party ruled for just 49 days.  They were momentous days.  He implemented his promise on setting up a number for reporting corruption; in two weeks instead of the promised two days.  He met people to discuss corruption issues, though the crowd was beyond his control.  He did what he could.  He would have done more if he could.  He put an end to the VVIP culture in politics.  The politician became aam aadmi.  Ministers started travelling in vehicles without the screaming red lights and horrifying screeches.  But the police had to go out of their way to provide protection to the chief minister.  Who defeated the chief minister’s vision that political leaders need no such protection from their own people? He revolutionised the admission procedures in schools.  Schools which charged hefty amounts from parents illegally stood to lose.  The aam aadmi would have g...
25 comments
Read more

Farewell to a Friend

This is a season of farewells for me.  I have lost count of the persons who have already left or are being hauled up before the firing line by the Orwellian Big Brother in the last quarter of the year.  The person, to whom we bid farewell today, however, had chosen to leave on his own.  He is going as the Principal of R K International School , Sarkaghat, Himachal Pradesh. Mr S K Sharma was a colleague and friend.  He belongs to the species of human beings whose company enriches you and whose departure creates a vacuum, notwithstanding the fact that Nature which abhors vacuum will fill it in its own unique ways.  Administration is an art for Mr Sharma, though he calls it a skill.  Management lessons, strategies and heuristics are only guidelines.  No one can manage people merely with the help of these guidelines.  People are not machines which can be controlled mechanically.  Machines work according to rules.  People do not d...
31 comments
Read more