Just then, a different sound punctuated the quiet of the room. A metallic clatter from the kitchen, and then the familiar, singsong voice of his mother. Cynthia D’Costa emerged from the passage, carrying a large, steel vessel in her hands. She moved with a purpose, her voice a little louder now, meant to cut through the quiet and command attention. “Robert, Joseph, dinner is ready. The chicken curry is ready. You can eat it with the rice, or with the leftover chapatis from the morning, or with the bread slices.” She set the large vessel on the dining table with a solid thud, the sound of metal on wood a statement of finality.
She then reached for a smaller, a more battered stainless-steel vessel with a tight-fitting lid. She began to ladle the chicken curry into it, the aroma of spices and coconut milk filling the air, mingling with the older, headier scent of Sonny Aruja’s fish curry that still seemed to cling to the walls. She carefully placed a few pieces of chicken into the vessel, her movements precise and deliberate. She secured the lid with a practiced hand and turned to Joseph.
“Joseph,” she said, her tone a mix of command and affection. “Take this. This is for Lizzy Aunty. I promised her I would give her some of the chicken curry when it was ready. Go to the first floor and give it to her. And don’t you worry, Mr. Fernando will not be there, so you won’t have to talk to your teacher at home.” She said the last part with a small, knowing smile, as if sharing a private joke with him.
Robert, from behind his newspaper, chuckled, a dry, low sound. He lowered the paper a fraction, just enough to reveal his eyes and a corner of his mouth. “That’s right, Joey. You don’t have to worry. Mr. Fernando won’t be home. You can just hand it to Lizzy Aunty and run.” He then raised the newspaper again, as if the brief interlude was over. “I was just worried, you know. Mr. Fernando told me yesterday that you weren’t doing so well in the Maths class. He said you have to try harder.” The words were spoken casually, almost as an afterthought, but they landed on Joseph with the weight of a heavy stone.
Joseph’s hand froze over his Algebra notebook. A cold knot formed in his stomach. He looked up, his face a mask of sudden anxiety. “He said that? When? When did he say that, Mama?” His voice was sharp, a sudden break in the rambling rhythm of the afternoon. The thought of Mr. Fernando, a figure of authority in the strict confines of school, passing a judgment on him to his father, was a violation of the natural order of things.
Cynthia, her hands still on the small vessel, sighed, a long, exasperated sound that was part of her daily repertoire. “Yesterday. What else? As we were all walking up the stairs. Your father, he couldn’t stop himself. He kept on asking about you and your studies, and your school. Mr. Fernando, I don’t think he was even listening properly. He just said something to make your father stop asking questions.” She said the last part with a wave of her hand, a gesture of dismissal, as if to say that the entire exchange was a piece of inconsequential nonsense. “Don’t you worry, beta. He was just talking nonsense. You know how people are. They just say things to be polite.”
Her words, meant to soothe, had the opposite effect. Joseph felt a jolt of alarm. His father, the quiet, distant observer of his life, had been prying, inquiring. The thought of his father, standing on the staircase, making small talk with a teacher about his performance in a subject, was deeply unsettling. He was not a failure. He was just a boy, doing his homework. He looked at the Algebra page, the symbols now a hostile, impenetrable code. The thought of Mr. Fernando's casual, offhand remark, and his mother's quick, dismissive interpretation, seemed to hang in the air between them, a silent judgment that no one wanted to own.
A wave of silent anger, hot and unexpected, rose within him. He was not just a student; he was a person. He felt a deep sense of betrayal. The line between school and home was supposed to be a solid one, a boundary that protected his two separate lives. But Mr. Fernando, simply because they lived in the same building, had erased that line. He imagined the scene: his father, a man who rarely spoke about anything but work, cornering his teacher on the stairs, and Mr. Fernando, a man who seemed so serious and distant in the classroom, giving away a confidential, private matter like his grades. It felt like a small, petty kind of gossip, an intimate detail revealed to a stranger, or worse, to a family member he didn't want to know.
Joseph’s worry now wasn’t just about his grades, but about the integrity of his world. What else had Mr. Fernando told his father? Had he mentioned the time he’d forgotten his homework? Or the day he’d been scolded for talking in class? The thought of these small, insignificant moments being replayed and discussed by the adults in his life filled him with a quiet dread. He felt a newfound trepidation about passing Mr. Fernando on the stairs, knowing that the polite nods and small smiles they exchanged now hid a secret, a shared knowledge that he had not consented to.
He felt a sudden, fierce desire to finish the homework, to prove them all wrong, to show them that he was capable of doing it on his own. He picked up the vessel of chicken curry, its metal still warm from the stove, and stood up, ready to go on his errand. It was a good excuse to escape the quiet, tense atmosphere of the room.
Bharat Bhushan
21 August 2025
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