Standard Operating Procedure: Tea at 0600

By Nidhi

Major Bhaskar wakes up at five.

Sharp. No alarms- alarms are for civilians.

The wristwatch beside his bed has ticked through four decades.

He winds it every night like a ritual,

presses the crown twice,

listens to the small sound of gears catching.

It keeps time better than his heart does.

Tea is made in a steel pan, always.

Toasters are Western nonsense.

Bread, when he buys it, is charred directly on the flame.

The chipped white mug his wife once called ugly

is his only indulgence.

Guests laugh when he insists it’s the only one that doesn’t leak.

It leaks.

Still, he holds it carefully,

as though keeping the crack from widening

is a matter of discipline.

The newspaper boy knows better than to be late.

So does the milkman.

A late paper is dereliction of duty,

an insult to order.

He scolds the neighbour’s boy for saying math instead of maths,

then corrects the spelling in his homework,

his red pen firm and unwavering.

He leaves Parle-G packets at the gate

with the dignity of a commander issuing supplies.

Claims they were extra.

The boy knows they weren’t.

He argues with Alexa like she’s a new recruit.

Calls her bloody inefficient,

demands she repeat the orders in full.

She mangles his favourite ghazals,

refuses to understand his accent.

Still, every evening, without fail,

he asks her to play Lag Jaa Gale.

He says it’s the algorithm.

But the first notes of that song

fall like stones into a well,

breaking the silence of his hall

where the sofa still holds the memory of her shoulder.

The cat isn’t his.

It arrived one monsoon afternoon,

fur matted, ribs showing,

and simply chose him.

Now it naps on the sofa where she used to sit.

He complains it sheds too much.

Grumbles about fur on his olive blankets.

Then buys it tuna.

From the expensive shop.

He rinses the bowl twice, muttering,

“Useless civilian",

but his hands tremble at the sight

of a creature that returns to him every evening,

without uniform, without command,

without condition.

He owns three umbrellas.

All black. All broken.

Calls them veterans of monsoon campaigns.

Refuses to throw them away.

Steel has memory he says,

opening the bent spines and folding them again,

like saluting old soldiers.

Once he tripped on the stairs.

The watchman rushed forward.

Major Bhaskar, on the landing, knees bloodied,

announced he was rehearsing combat rolls.

Then laughed too loudly.

His laugh was a bark, 

as if it surprised even him.

The laugh echoed down the stairwell

long after the watchman had gone.

Dinner is cooked for two.

Two plates. Two bowls. Two spoons.

One always goes back untouched.

He says he’s saving the second half for the morning.

He never eats leftovers.

The refrigerator hums like a sleeping child

to keep the lie alive.

The neighbours say he’s too strict.

Too sharp. Too loud.

They complain about his booming voice in the stairwell,

the way he corrects their children’s posture,

their spelling, their cricket technique.

But when his kitchen window glows yellow,

their own lights flicker on.

It is an unspoken reassurance:

if Major Bhaskar is awake,

the building is safe.

Their kids don’t mind the scolding,

especially when it comes with biscuits.

Major Bhaskar doesn’t like fuss.

He says he’s fine.

He isn’t.

The walls know better.

They hear the click of a lighter at midnight,

the shuffle of footsteps pacing out

precisely twenty-two strides between sofa and sink.

They hear him replaying her voice

on the answering machine,

a message from 2007 about groceries.

They know he doesn’t delete it,

though he pretends the cassette player is broken.

The medals in his drawer

have grown heavier with dust.

He polishes them once a year,

on Independence Day.

The ribbon of one is frayed,

she had stitched it once, clumsy, laughing,

her fingers pricked by the needle.

He runs his thumb over that place now,

a ridge of memory sharper than any blade.

In the evenings he sits on the balcony

with his three umbrellas lined like sentries.

The cat climbs into his lap.

The chipped mug rests beside him.

He reads the headlines,

shakes his head at the words peace talks.

He knows peace is only the silence

between two explosions.

But sometimes,

when the neighbour’s boy comes to collect his homework,

and forgets his notebook in the hallway,

Major Bhaskar keeps it safe,

writes in the margins:

“Good attempt. Try harder.”

The boy finds it the next day,

eyes wide,

as though the general himself had written a medal.

And sometimes,

when Alexa obeys without glitch,

and Lag Jaa Gale fills the room

without static,

he closes his eyes,

lets the ghost of her hand

rest on his shoulder once more.

How absurd, he thinks,

to have survived the battles, the blood, the fire,

the endless drill of life,

only to endure the one thing he never wanted,

her absence,

her light extinguished,

while he, a dementor of joy,

remains,

bound to a world she no longer walks.

He doesn’t cry.

He doesn’t.

But the cat stays.

By Nidhi