XVI
The next day Swarna Lata, the room-mate, came. Her name meant golden creeper, and she crept around Virmati without tightening her grip and shone on her as long as they were together, because she was generous and had plenty to give from a life that was full.
‘Do you have anything to eat?’ she now asked as she started unpacking.
‘Why yes‚’ said Virmati, eager and wanting to make friends. ‘Mathri, pickle, mango and lemon, namak-para.’
Later, as they ate the fresh, flaky mathri and lemon pickle made from garden lemons, covered in large red chilli flakes, Virmati asked delicately, ‘Your mother? Didn’t she send anything with you?’
Swarna sighed.’ She’s annoyed with me.’
Virmati pricked up her ears.
‘You look too nice for anybody to be cross with,’ she probed.
‘I wish my mother thought so.’ Swarna licked her fingers. ‘It’s only because of my father that I am here. My mother wanted me to marry. She said I had done my BA and that was enough. Where was all this study going to end?’
Virmati positively glowed. ‘And then?’ she asked, hands suspended in mid-air, a drop of oil dangling from the dull-gold lemon piece.
‘Then what? I love Lahore. All my friends are here, all my activities. I had to stay here, and so I decided to do an MA. I wrote and told my parents. There was not a moment to lose. They’d already begun to send me photographs of prospective husbands! Each looking uglier than the last.’
‘Didn’t they try and stop you?’ asked Virmati wistfully.
‘They had no choice.’ Swarna arched her brows, totally in control of her life. ‘I was very clear that I wanted to do something besides getting married. I told my parents that if they would support me for two more years I would be grateful. Otherwise I would be forced to offer satyagraha along with other Congress workers against the British. And go on offering it until taken to prison. Free food and lodging at the hands of the imperialists.’
Virmati stared at her in amazement. ‘They weren’t
very
angry?’
‘They probably were. I don’t know. But they agreed because they knew I meant what I said. Which was just as well, because I am too insignificant for our rulers to arrest. They would have let me off with a fine at the most, and money I didn’t have.’
Swarna Lata got up from Virmati’s bed, where they had been eating, and brushed the crumbs from her khadi kurta.
‘Thank God all that is over,’ said Swarna Lata. ‘It was quite unpleasant while it lasted. I prefer not to quarrel with my parents, but sometimes there is no alternative.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Virmati dejectedly, ‘sometimes there isn’t.’
*
A few days later, Shakuntala cycled down to the RBSL College during visiting hours, to check on her cousin.
Virmati greeted her cautiously.
‘Settled in nicely?’ enquired Shakuntala solicitously.
‘Everything is very homely,’ stated Virmati firmly. ‘And the food is really not bad.’
Shakuntala at once looked interested. ‘What do they give you?’ she demanded.
‘Mornings, toast and milk. Lunch, dal, rice, chappatti, vegetable, dahi, sometimes a sweet dish, for tea, pakora or mathri, for dinner, dal, sabzi, sometimes with paneer, rice, chappatti.’
‘Sounds good. Chachi will be pleased. And your room-mate? What is she like?’
At this Virmati gushed, ‘Oh Pehnji, she is very nice. I am so lucky she is staying in this hostel, even though she doesn’t study here. Her parents also wanted her to get married, but she is doing an MA because she wants to do something with her life first.’
‘Hoon,’
grunted Shakuntala.
‘Come and meet her‚’ said Virmati, grabbing her cousin by the arm and pulling her towards the hostel. ‘Luckily she is in.’
But the meeting was not a success. ‘I must say she is rather plain,’ remarked Shakuntala as they left the room.
Virmati looked at her a little coldly. Fancy Pehnji going so much by looks. Anybody would be impressed by Swarna’s eyes behind her glasses, eyes that refused to smile just because they were looked at. And what about the intelligence in her round face, and the friendliness that was frank and open?
‘But Swarna is not who I want to talk about,’ went on Shakuntala. ‘What about
him
? Has he tried to get in touch with you yet?’
‘Of course not, Pehnji,’ said Virmati resentfully. ‘Besides how would he when …’ She stopped.
‘Doesn’t he know you are here?’
Virmati wished her cousin would talk of something else. ‘I’m so lucky to be here,’ she said quickly. ‘Thank you, Pehnji, for helping me.’
‘Arre,
where is the need for thanks in the family?’ responded Shakuntala, flicking Virmati’s cheek with her finger. ‘And thank God there is no quota system in SL. In Government colleges, the quota is so high that good Hindu students have to wait until the Muslim quota is full, though of course their quota is hardly ever filled because those people don’t like to study …’
‘How do you know, Pehnji?’ Virmati enquired timidly. ‘Maybe they have other difficulties?’
Shakuntala looked surprised. ‘Everybody knows that,’ she said firmly.
I wonder if Swarna does, thought Virmati as Shakuntala swept on. ‘And only then are the Hindu girls, really good students some of them, allowed seats. Miss Dutta – we eat with her – says the quota system is part of politics, and we mustn’t get upset about something we can do nothing about.’
The girls parted at the gates, Virmati wondering a little sadly whether she would ever feel the way she used to about Shakuntala Pehnji.
*
In Amritsar, the Professor’s thoughts kept circling around Virmati. Had she forgotten him? It was obvious she was trying to. Away from him, away from all associations of their relationship, who knew how quickly the unthinkable might be accomplished?
An open invitation from his friend, Syed Husain, to use his house as his own, went a long way in helping the Professor achieve his objective. Syed Husain was married, had regrets, and was involved with a specific alternative. A situation enough like the Professor’s own to make each one eager to help the other.
‘Stay here and meet her‚’ said Syed Husain, the friend. The Professor was sitting in his drawing-room, in his house on the campus of Government College.
‘It is so difficult,’ said the Professor gloomily. ‘I write to her but she doesn’t reply.’
‘Oh?’ Syed looked surprised. ‘Don’t they open letters?’
‘I was lucky. The BT girls have their letters opened only on random occasions. Even though I had taken the precaution of signing myself as a female, she was extremely annoyed. She wrote back only once and asked me – me, imagine! – if I was trying to get her expelled before she had even started her course of study.’
There was a brief silence as the bearer came in with the tea service. The Professor looked at the tray and bearer appreciatively. Both were completely uniformed – down to the white gloves on the hands of the man, the small, gleaming slop bowl, and lace-embroidered milk-jug holder on the tea tray. Syed knew how to live well, thought the Professor wistfully. The set must have cost at least a hundred rupees.
‘Lay siege to her,’ declared Syed as he poured the tea.
‘How?’ asked Harish. ‘I’ll never be allowed in there. Her mother couldn’t have rushed to put me on the list of acceptable male visitors,’ he added drily.
‘Faint heart never won fair lady,’ laughed Syed. ‘Remember the women we went out with in Oxford? You had no problem with them!’
‘Virmati is different,’ complained the Professor. ‘She is so serious. Just because I’m still living with my wife, she chooses to doubt me. And then, she’s staying in a fortress, so that it is impossible to meet her and explain things.’
‘These women don’t understand our predicament,’ said Syed understandingly.
‘I could convince her, I’m sure of that,’ said Harish. ‘It’s her family that has poisoned her. And then the difficulty of managing contact with her is proving insuperable. It is certainly not easier here than it was in Amritsar.’
‘Persistence is all you need, Harish. She’ll come around eventually. Wait and see for a few weeks.’
*
It took slightly longer than that. The Professor wrote and wrote. He pretended he was a girl in all his letters. He used different names, different references that he was sure she would understand. He said he would risk everything to come and see her: ‘My parents are unwilling to send me to Lahore to study further, but when a girl has been educated so far, it is foolish to not pursue the subject, and I am so far determined that nothing should stop me. What do you think, Virmati?’ was how he put it.
Virmati understood the meaning of the letters and grew fearful of discovery. The Professor was very exigent. The first time he called, he posed as one of her brothers. Virmati, guessing who it was, said she was unwell and couldn’t come out. The second time he asked Syed’s lady-friend to call her out of the hostel. Virmati, embarrassed by a strange woman’s appeals, came, but she only spoke a few words, cold, confused and tentative. She refused to go out with them, but the reproachful glances out of her large eyes left the Professor full of hope and joy.
‘She’s coming around, Syed, she’s coming around,’ he announced to his friend, who was naturally very interested in the outcome of the whole thing.
‘What did I tell you, Harish?’ said Syed, triumph in his manner. ‘It was just a matter of time.’
The Professor’s third visit to the college passed without his managing to meet Virmati. For just before his entrance to the compound gate he saw Kasturi being escorted outside by her. He could see the mother look angry and turn Virmati back to the hostel, talking all the while. He could see Virmati vehemently shake her head. It was obviously impossible to see her now, so he hailed a tonga and left.
The fourth visit was successful.
*
The first thing they discussed was the Professor’s baby. A boy, a few months old. She had heard about the birth in detail from Kasturi, what a difficult time the woman had had of it, but how it was all worthwhile, God be praised, a son had come into that family, and every well-wisher must rejoice.
‘I am happy for you‚’ said Virmati twisting her dupatta round and round in her fingers, till the cotton looked as though it had never been ironed.
‘It is my mother who is really happy,’ said the Professor quickly. ‘She keeps saying how grateful she is to God for allowing her to see her grandson before she dies.’
The boy in the eating place they were sitting in brought them hot kachoris with green mint and coriander chutney. Virmati looked at them miserably, crisp, flaky, brown kachoris for which she had no appetite.
‘Please don’t take out your anger on that innocent baby,’ said the Professor in a low voice. ‘You are everything to me. All the sons and daughters in the world are nothing next to you.’
Virmati was sure she should not believe him. Even allowing for the fact that he might be telling the truth, was it desirable for a man to abandon his children for the love of a woman? And what about her? The daughter had been bad enough. Now she would be ruining one more child’s life. How could she do it?
‘Please, Hari,’ and her voice trembled with the weight of months of unshed tears.
‘Darling,’ The Professor showed his desperation. ‘Co-wives are part of our social traditions. If you refuse me, you will be changing nothing. I don’t live with her in any meaningful way.’
Virmati gazed at him.
‘No, I don’t‚’ repeated the Professor. ‘That night was the only night. And I told you how it happened.’
Virmati looked away. Were they really arguing about a single night?
‘And I never will‚’ he continued. ‘There is a void in my heart and in my home that you alone can fill.’
By now Virmati’s kachoris were a mass of crumbs, and her fingers shone with ghee as she continued to desiccate them.
‘In time you will forget‚’ she said, but even to herself she sounded trite. She wished she had greater power over words. Forgetting or remembering was not the issue, but she didn’t know how else to express herself.
‘Never‚’ said the Professor, leaning forward. ‘Never.’
*
When the Professor first took Virmati to the guest room in Syed Husain’s house, it was after hours of haggling.
‘Why do you want to be alone with me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Darling, it is not so unusual for lovers to want to be alone‚’ Harish explained. ‘We were a few times in Amritsar, remember.’
‘Yes, but that was before –’
‘For heaven’s sakes, Viru, will you never stop bringing up the past? Why do you always want to torture me?’
Virmati looked mulish.
‘Besides, there is no other place to meet. We can’t spend all our time in public places.’
Virmati had no answer to that. They were walking down Anarkalli. The area was crowded. They would have something to eat, and then they would go in separate tongas to their respective destinations. It was unsatisfactory. The Lawrence Gardens would have been nicer, but they were considerably farther away. Reluctantly she agreed to go to his friend Syed Husain’s place. It was a red-brick house, with a small angan at the back and a garden in front. The high, green, mehndi hedge all around made it look reassuringly private to Virmati’s apprehensive eyes.
*
And now they were in the guest room.
‘What if someone sees?’ Virmati asked, trying for more sophistication in her nervous tone.
‘Here, nobody cares who comes and goes,’ replied the Professor soothingly.
‘But suppose someone does?’
The Professor pointed to the curtains. ‘We are safe from prying eyes, my love,’ he said. ‘Take off your shoes. They must be hurting you. I know you hate shoes.’
‘I bought these at a sale for three rupees, fifteen annas,’ said Virmati in explanation. ‘One rupee less.’
The Professor did not reply. Instead he bent to slide off her sturdy black shoes. Hastily, not wanting his hands on her feet, Virmati bobbed down to take them off herself. ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled.