– Suresh Subrahmanyan, Bengaluru-based former advertising professional

There is a tendency among many of us hack writers to attribute any slick proverb to Shakespeare who came up with so many smart lines befitting any occasion, that one can be excused for giving him the credit for aphorisms he didn’t write. I diligently researched my proverb of choice for this essay to ensure it was not one of Shakespeare’s. It was William Congreve who came up with this beauty in his Restoration play The Mourning Bride, way back in 1697. The playwright is also credited for ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,’ which has often been misquoted as ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage beast’. Dear reader, my apologies. I will come straight to the point.

I recently came across a news byte that a woman in the city of Pune was so incensed with her 30-plus husband that she punched him in the nose so hard, the poor fellow died. Possibly of nasal asphyxiation, if there be such a term.

Reportedly, it was the young lady’s birthday and she had her eyes set on a shopping trip to Dubai. When it became clear that no air or hotel bookings for Dubai had been made, and that the husband was planning to fob her off with flowers and dinner at a nearby restaurant, hell broke loose. You would not be far wrong in saying the gloves were off.

The better half hauled off and delivered a vicious right hook to the unfortunate chap’s nasal bridge that would have made Mike Tyson proud. Not only did the husband see stars, he soon became one among them! The husband had reportedly promised her expensive jewellery and luxury perfumes, but nothing was forthcoming on the big day. Perhaps you can understand where the hellish fury came from. The police are now trying to piece together the unpleasant episode. The killer widow may be full of remorse and crying her eyes out. Next time, if there is a next time, she must learn to go easy on the wrist work and follow through. ‘Heat of the moment’ will be her plea to the cops and the courts. My own take is that she will not face the ultimate wrath of the law, though a verdict of manslaughter could well be on the cards.

In a reversal of roles, an irate husband in Bengaluru hurled a pressure cooker full of boiling sambar at his wife, prompting severe burns and injury. I am not making this up, cross my heart and hope to die. This after not being able to push her over the balcony or finding a knife handy to stab her mortally. And the provocation? Reportedly, the family was living from hand to mouth and unable to pay the rent. The man of the house was an electrician and the distraught wife requested him to help a neighboring senior citizen with some electrical repairs, thereby earning an honest wage and keeping the wolf from the door. Why this perfectly reasonable suggestion should have shocked the electrician to such an extent that he should himself have turned into a werewolf, reached for the sambar-filled pressure-cooker and performed a discus throw with it, is a moot point. His wife was rushed to hospital.

Last heard, she was recovering and the husband was headed for the hills, tail between legs, being pursued by the local gendarmerie. So here we have an instance of a woman, not quite scorned, but scorched and scarred by sambar. I would suggest she follow her Pune counterpart, viz., find the blighter, and with hellish fury punch him with all her strength right on the nose. And let the devil take the hindmost.

For the most part, domestic physical violence has a been a conspicuously male preserve. Never a day passes without the media reporting a man abusing his usually better half for the flimsiest of reasons. Like the chappatis were too cold or the tea too hot. Once in a rare while, we get refreshing news of the tyrant getting his comeuppance, bobbitised by his partner in the dead of night. Such cases are few and far between. However tragic the consequences of the Pune lady’s pugilistic approach towards her husband, she was probably taking out her frustration for being ignored or rebuffed over long periods of time. The anger was building up to a crescendo. However, that is only me playing guessing games. I do feel a pang of sympathy for the unfortunate husband who was merely trying to keep the home fires burning by not splurging on expensive foreign travel and shopping sprees overseas. Truth will out. It is one thing to literally have one’s nose put out of joint, quite another to have the breathing apparatus rendered hors de combat forever.

Moral of the story. Next time your wife insists on a foreign holiday and a visit to Cartier or Gucci in Paris or Venice, keep your guard up and stand at a safe distance away from her before saying ‘No.’ Above all, learn how to duck and weave.

Also read: SHAKEFEAR? –Tips for studying Shakespeare