BaloneyOpus

Captain Cook

My dear Amelia,

Sitting on the catamaran and moving gently over the waves, I feel as though I am sailing with you on an eternally calm and picturesque sea, with flocks of laughing gulls flying overhead and dolphins flanking our kayak .

As you may already be aware, I am a well known cook, a part-time artist, an occasional singer and a cook - a good cook at that.

And in case you are still unable to recollect who I am, I am Ramasami (Raw-muss-saw-me), your estranged husband .

At the outset, I would like to apologise for having entered into wedlock with you, without being aware of your desire, nay, your firm wish that you be married to a tough seaman. At the risk of sounding like the personification of many an excuse, may I tell you my dear Amelia, that it was the fault of my partner, Mr. Kuppanna, who told you, with his mouth and mind preoccupied in the grinding of fine betel leaves, fine ground supari and cherries, that I was a tuft (sporting) seemaan. Please note the extra A in the letter. In our language, seemaan stands for someone who is well bestowed with wealth. I presume you took seemaan to be seaman, as your people pronounce man as mAn and so you took seamaan as seaman. Now kindly tell me my dear, whether I am the one to be blamed for truly being what Kuppanna told you I was - a tuft seemaan.

I am certainly not one for the ocean, or for that matter, even the oar. However, I submit before you, the certain fact and promise that I am as adept with the long ladle as Amundsen or Scott must have been with their oar on their way to Antarctica in the North pole. That also reminds me my dear, that one day you saw me demonstrating to my junior peers on how to stir the tomato stew with a long ladle and you took it for my rowing skills. Now please tell me, my dear Amelia, how that counts as my fault? I perhaps could have told you that I was the captain of cook. However, I am certain you would have taken that too for Captain Cook.

And then the day when you saw me frantically fishing out a dead cat from a cauldron of thick lentil stew, and I told you I was fishing; it was figurative. My English may have been deceptively literal Amelia, but my heart was, as ever, pure and true, like the aroma of the food I cook.

Now let me tell you, why it is better to live with a cook than a Nansen, Amundsen or a Scott - people that I managed to read about for your sake. Nansen was a genius and a pioneer no doubt, but he also was a man of many women, if you know what I mean. I am not that and will never be in the first place or the last place. Amundsen? He never was married and lied about going north and went south instead - a lie several thousand miles long. I would do neither, for all my work is always confined to a radius of ten kilometers and lying? I would never do that, especially to you my dear Amelia. And then Scott? That bungling idiot killed himself and everyone else at the south pole. So, he would not have been your ideal match either.

That leaves you with only one option, Amelia. Myself. My dear Amelia, please introspect. I may not be a Cook on land, but Cook wasn't a Ramasami on the sea either. Please think. Please check with your father, the reverend bishop Mr. Ward Anger. He will vouch for me too.

Please come back. If you choose not to return, I have no option but to lament your going away, wilt like a creeper without water and finally die.

Please come back Amelia. Let us row the boat of life together on the ocean of life and conquer the East and West poles as well. After all, they are warmer and I can cook for you. I know I am not Cook, but I am a cook and that should do.

Lovingly yours,

Ramasami.

Dear Ramasami

I know you are Ramasami and you are not estranged yet. I will call you by name although our system doesn't allow the wife to call the husband by name.

I know you are a cook, having lived with you all these years. But I did not know you fished a dead cat out of the sambar cauldron, you idiot. And you made me eat it that day. I feel like throwing up now, although there is no point in doing so.

I will return only when you stop drinking and importantly, when you stop swimming in the overhead water tank after getting drunk. I will return only when you stop calling my father Ward Anger. For God's sake, his name is Varadaraja Iyengar and he is not a bishop, but a temple priest.

Who are Antarctica, Amundsen, Nansen and Scott? What have you been drinking and what have you been reading?And finally who is this Amelia? Last time you addressed me as Emily.

If you are so drunk that you don't even remember my name, stop writing to me.

- Alamelu.