‘O–Kay’
She looked around admiringly at my books and pictures. ‘Nice, comfy pad,’ she remarked.
‘Thank you. Do sit down.’
She took off her shoes, bounced onto the settee and crossed her legs. ‘
Nunc
! What you starin’ at?’
I quoted Ghalib, first in Urdu and then translated it for her: ‘She has come to my house. Sometimes I look at her, sometimes I look at my house.’
‘That means you’re pleased to have me here. Where are my thingees?’
I brought the bundle and untied it. ‘I didn’t order that one; it was too expensive, you remember? That old tailor is tryin’ to rob me. All you Indians try to touch us Americans. You think we’re a bunch of suckers, don’t you?’
‘He’s not charging you any more for this material. He knew you liked it better, so he’s just made it for you.’
She was nonplussed. ‘I am sorry. That’s very nice of him. And this?’ she asked, opening out a sequined
dupatta
, ‘It is very pretty, but I didn’t ask for this.’
‘That goes with the other things. Nothing extra.’
She draped it over her head and looked around for a mirror. ‘Where can I try them on?’ she asked, taking the bundle under her arm. I showed her to my bedroom. I was left alone for some time. I poured out a whisky and gulped it down neat. I moved from the chair to the sofa.
Georgine came out in Punjabi clothes. The
dupatta
was like a small white cloud studded with stars haloing her red hair, face and shoulders. The clothes fitted her: it seemed as if she were formed to wear Punjabi clothes. ‘How’s that?’ she asked pirouetting on her toes.
‘Very becoming! Much nicer than anything you’ve worn.’
‘Thank you, I sort of like it too.’
She came and sat beside me on the sofa. She opened her handbag, ‘How much does he want for this?’
My voice stuck in my throat, I forced it out. ‘Nothing. Allow me the privilege of making this a present. Please!’
‘Thank you and all that. But I know you can’t afford it?’
‘Yes I can; and it’ll make me very happy.’
‘Okay, if it’ll make you happy.’ She turned round and gave me a quick kiss on my beard, ‘Thank you, pop.’
The kiss paralyzed my tongue. After a while I was able to say: ‘And I owe you money. You paid me for the outings out of your own money, didn’t you?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I rang up your uncle.’
She turned scarlet. ‘That was a dumb thing to do! What did he say?’
I took her hand in mine. ‘Don’t worry. I did not tell him you had paid me. Now I can earn a double fee.’
‘You cunning ole Oriental!’ she laughed. ‘I’m relieved to know my ole uncle doesn’t know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him?’
‘I dunno.’
The initiative was now mine. ‘Maybe you wanted to be with me without his knowing.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied tossing back her hair.
Any experienced lecher knows that one should not waste words with a teenager because when it comes to real business she gets tongue-tied or can only say ‘No.’ It is best to talk to her body with your hands. That excites her to a state of speechless acceptance. I ran my fingers up and down her lower arm. She watched them till goose pimples came up. Thereafter all I had to do was to put my arm around her waist, draw her towards me and smother her lips, eyes, nose, ears and neck with kisses. She moaned helplessly. I slipped my hand under her
kamiz
and played with her taut nipples. Then I undid her pyjama cord and slipped my fingers between her damp thighs. A little gentle ministration with the hand made her convulse and she climaxed groaning ‘O God! O God!’ She lay still like a human-sized rubber doll. I put my hand on her bosom. She slapped it and pushed it away. She picked up her clothes and went to the bedroom. She came back in her jeans, tossed the bundle of
salwar-kameez
and sequined
dupatta
on the settee and strode out of the apartment.
That was the last I saw of Georgine.
She was the last customer Carlyle put my way. I do not know whether what I had done amounted to having carnal knowledge of a girl below the age of consent. But for many long days and nights I pondered over the words in the
Mahabharata
: ‘As two pieces of wood floating on the ocean come together at one time and are again separated, even such is the union of living creatures in this world.’
*
After many years I have come to Delhi by train. The railway station has changed. But not beyond recognition. The platforms bear the same numbers they did fifty years ago. The same line of coolies in dark-red shirts and dirty white
dhoties
, bearing metal brassards with identification numbers on their arms, line up on their haunches along the platform. There are the mynahs chittering and quarrelling with cows. The same hawkers; the same melodious cries:
lemon-soda-barraf
(ice);
chai, garam chai
. And the same all pervading stench of shit, urine and phenyl.
It is an early morning in October. Pleasantly cool and somewhat misty presaging the advent of winter. I skirt past people sleeping on the platform, go up the stairs, across the footbridge over rail tracks with mounds of shit on the sides, and down the stairs alongside the retiring-rooms. No one asks me for my ticket. I come out of the station and face the Company Gardens with its Hardinge library. Clean, fresh air. Motor scooters and taxis are lined up on the road as far as the eye can see. The drivers are sprawled on the seats, snoring lustily. I hail a passing
tonga
. The
tongawalla
is wrapped up in a dirty shawl. He eyes me suspiciously. He is Muslim. I am Sikh. ‘Where to?’ he demands. ‘Raisina! How much for Raisina?’ He hasn’t heard anyone use Raisina for New Delhi for many years and rightly concludes I am an old Delhiwalla. Raisina is also a good four miles away and will therefore have more money to it. ‘Give me whatever you wish; a taxi would cost you over ten rupees. You are my first customer so this will be my
boni
.’ I clamber up on the rear seat and place my valise beside him in the front.
He decides to go through the city; it is shorter, not crowded at this hour and safer than the deserted Ring Road. So we set off through the Company Bagh to the Fountain which has not spouted water in half-a-century. On the balcony of Roshan-ud-Daulah’s mosque men are lined up for prayer. Alongside is Sees Ganj Gurdwara festooned with coloured bulbs. There is much coming and going of worshippers. Swarthy, long-bearded men in blue and yellow armed with spears guard the entrance.
The
tonga
turns left. I see the ramparts of the Red Fort. The
tonga
turns right into Dariba. Herds of Hindu women in white carrying brass plates full of flowers and coconuts are shuffling along towards the Jamna. We emerge from Dariba with the Jamia Masjid towering above us. The sun has just caught the eastern minaret in its noose. Hundreds of figures wrapped in sheets sleep on the broad steps. A weary oil-lamp flickers on the headstone of Sarmad’s grave. It has been given a fresh coat of green; withered jasmine and marigold are strewn over it. We go through a very smelly Urdu Bazaar, past the lane leading to Razia Sultana’s grave, the high-plinthed Kali Masjid and out of the old walled city through Turkman Gate. The air is fresher. Hundreds of RSS boys drill with staves under the podium in the wide acres of the Ram Leela ground. Middle-aged Punjabis take their walking-sticks for brisk walks. We pass the massive equestrian statue of Shivaji brandishing his sword towards New Delhi. ‘When did they put this up?’ I ask the
tongawalla
. ‘Two years ago,’ he mumbles as he gives the statue a baleful look. We go down below the Minto rail bridge and up again into Connaught Circus. ‘Drop me at the Coffee House on the other side,’ I tell him. We drive round the colonnaded shopping centres and pull up outside the Coffee House. ‘How much?’ I ask him as he hands me my valise. ‘Whatever pleases you, you are doing the
boni
; and I have yet to feed my son,’ he says patting the flanks of his horse. The horse has apparently had plenty to drink; it sends a powerful jet of wine-coloured fluid splashing on to the asphalt road. I hand him a tenner. He fumbles for change in his pocket. ‘Keep it; give your son a good feed.’ He invokes Allah’s blessings on me, my kith and kin and drives off.
I buy the six English daily papers published in the city. It is a waste of fifty paise six times over. But old habits die hard. I flip through pages to read the announcements of citizens who have ‘left for their heavenly abode’. Quite a few have. I don’t know any of them. Nor any whose loss is mourned in verse and syrupy prose in the Memoriam columns.
Delhi
Diary
states it is a sectional holiday for the Sikhs on account of the anniversary of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur. And the column alongside mentions the promulgation of Section 144 of the CPC forbidding the assembly of more than five persons in certain areas. The Inspector General of Police states that—’
goondas
, miscreants and anti-social elements have been rounded up.’ You don’t have to read between lines to know that trouble is anticipated.
By the time I have disposed of my
idli-sambar
and the papers, the regulars who have little to do beside being regular at the Coffee House are at their respective tables holding forth on political developments. My regulars have dwindled. The bald, beady-eyed photographer left for his heavenly abode last year; the farting clerk in the Ministry of Defence who resented our calling him a farter has dropped us. That leaves the Sikh journalist and the political expert. They are not getting along too well. The Sikh journalist arrives first, plucks a hair from his sparse beard and says ‘You are back! When?’ and orders coffee. The politician follows: ‘I thought all
goondas
have been rounded up,’ he says in lieu of greeting. The journalist, usually quick-witted, is stuck for a proper retort. I ask, ‘What’s all this fuss about today? We’ve had hundreds of the Guru’s martyrdom anniversaries without Section 144 and the police
bandobast.
’ The politician—he is Hindu—fires another barbed shaft at us, ‘You can never trust the Sikhs. They couldn’t do much when their Guru was executed, so better 300 years later than never. Isn’t that so?’ The Sikh journalist explodes: ‘We settled our scores with the Muslims long ago. It is you Hindus, whose mothers and sisters they raped, who provoked us against them. You can’t bear to see Sikhs and Muslims becoming friendly.’ I try to defuse the tension. ‘How different would have been the story of India if instead of Aurangzeb, Dara Shikoh had become Emperor of India!’
The politician proffers his version: ‘He would not have executed your Guru and the Guru’s son would not have had any excuse to make you grow all this fungus around your chins. Also India would have become a real Hindustan—the land of the Hindus; and...’
‘And,’ interrupts the Sikh journalist, ‘if there had been no bearded Khalsa the only thing your Hindu ancestors could have offered in the way of defence against invaders like Nadir Shah and Abdali was their bare buttocks to be buggered.’
‘Don’t
buk buk
,’ snaps the politician warming up.
‘You are doing all the
bakwas
not I.’
So does the past cast its baleful shadow on the present. But nowhere do the shadow of history assume such bizarre patterns as they do in Delhi’s Coffee House. I pick up my valise and leave the two to dispute the past.
*
Bhagmati bursts in like a hurricane, flailing her arms and spouting torrents of words. ‘The Sikhs are up in arms. They are all over the city carrying long swords and are marching towards their gurdwara in Chandni Chowk. Do you know what they are saying? Three hundred years ago someone murdered their Guru in Dilli so they are going to murder every Dilliwalla today. Does that make any sense?’
‘Why don’t you ask your friend Budh Singh?’
‘
Hai Ram!
You should have seen the way he looked at me! He asked me “On whose side are you, Badshah Aurangzeb’s or our Guru’s.’”
‘On whose side are you ?’
‘He is mad. I told him as politely as I could, “I am on no side—neither Emperor Aurangzeb’s nor your Guru’s.” You know what he says to me? “So you are neutral,
hain
? If you were a man or a woman you would have been on one side or the other. “But I shut him up for all time to come; he will never bandy words with me again. I said “
Arre
, son of Budhoo Singh! The great Bhagwan who lives up in the heavens can perform many miracles. He can make a Bhangi (sweeper) into a Brahmin. He can turn a timid Bania (shopkeeper) into a Kshatriya (warrior). He can make a poor
hijda
into a man or a woman. But even Bhagwan cannot put sense into the skull of a
budhoo
like you.’”
Bhagmati flops into the sofa with a triumphant
hoon
. She takes out a cigarette and flings the matchbox across the room to me. I go over and light her cigarette. ‘You think there will be trouble in the city? There are policemen everywhere. Truckloads of them in Chandni Chowk and Nai Sarak and Qazi-ka-Hauz and Ajmeri Gate and Connaught Place– everywhere!’
‘Maybe!’ I reply. I have been a little off colour for some days and have not much appetite for Bhagmati. She has shown me a way out of my difficulties. ‘That’s the route the Sikh’s procession is to take this afternoon. And they will be in all the gurdwaras including the one right behind this apartment. You will be safest with your husband in Lal Kuan. I can drop you there.’
Bhagmati looks at me very suspiciously. I don a sanctimonious look. I tell her that I had forgotten about the anniversary of the martyrdom of the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur. I tell her that it is a day for prayer not fornication. Bhagmati is very superstitious about having sex on sacred days. She often says, ‘We have 364 days to do this; one day of abstinence won’t kill us.’
She finishes her cigarette. I give her twenty rupees. ‘What’s this for?’ she asks as she tucks the notes in her bra. I drive her back to Lal Kuan.
It was a few days before Diwali that news of the Badshah Jahangir’s death was heard in Dilli. No one was allowed to light a lamp or kindle a fire in their hearth for some days. Our elders said that anyone seen smiling or heard laughing during the next forty days would have his head cut off. My mother would not let me go out to play with the other boys lest I forgot not to shout or laugh. That is why although I was only a small boy I can never forget that badshah’s death.