A Fine Family: A Novel (8 page)

‘Like Karan,’ she whispered.

Bauji raised his head and looked steadily into his daughter’s eyes.

‘Don’t look at me in that way, Bauji. Don’t look at me. I shall cry if you do.’

‘But he is your brother,’ said Bauji.

‘My cousin,’ she corrected him. Her voice broke; tears started in her eyes, and she turned away to hide them.

‘Still, it is not done. Not amongst Hindus. How can you even think of it? It’s sinful.’

‘Well I meant someone
like
him. Not him necessarily.’

‘Who else?’

‘Someone I like,’ she said.

‘You will learn to like your husband. One learns to like one another
after
one is married. It happens. Liking is created by habit, common interests, and children.’

‘No, some one I like
before
marriage,’ she persisted.

He was aware that the conversation was taking a dangerous turn. He wanted to change its direction. These romantic fancies were clearly the product of too much Western education. The English novels which these girls read were full of subversive ideas.

‘That sort of liking, my child, grows weak in time. But friendship is strengthened by time. The liking after marriage is like friendship. It lasts. Your kind of liking doesn’t last.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Does Karan want to marry you?’

She was silent.

‘Well, he does not. He doesn’t even know that you exist.’

‘Bauji, I don’t want to marry a stranger!’ she said in tears.

Bauji understood her fear of the unknown. A different and affectionate layer of his nature came to the fore, and he felt his heart wrenched. He was equally distressed at the prospect of losing his daughter to a stranger. Apart from sympathizing with her fears, he also thought of his own loneliness: who would he talk to after she left the house? As he was trying to hide his heart under the mask of patrician authority, he became suddenly aware of the presence of a third person.

‘Karan!’ exclaimed Tara, and she let out a cry of joy.

He had not heard his nephew come in. The boy was positively like a cat. He had on his usual amused smile. Neither Karan’s approach nor his eyes were those of a person wanted by the police.

‘Bauji, I am leaving. I have come for your blessings,’ said the young man, bowing to touch his uncle’s feet.

Although he had expected it to happen any day, this confident statement upset Bauji. But he did not show his feelings and continued to puff gently on his hookah.

‘And where are you going, may one ask?’ asked Bauji, after a long pause.

Karan threw his head back with youthful zest—a gesture which Bauji secretly envied, as it emphasized the difference in years between them—and he flippantly answered, ‘I am leaving Lyallpur. It’s not safe here, and I have work to do.’

Despite the manner in which it was announced, Bauji took the news seriously. The idea of his talented nephew going away to pursue the Quit India Movement was distressing. Even if he did not become a corpse like the one he had found in the Company Bagh, he would most likely rot in jail for the rest of his brilliant youth. This boy, whom he had seen grow from a child to a handsome young man of twenty; this boy, in whom he had placed high hopes and ambitions; this boy was now calmly asking for his blessings to ruin that brilliant future which he had clearly charted for him. There he stood with a confident twinkle in his eyes, just as he used to when he was sixteen after winning a cricket match.

Like most successful people, Bauji valued his peace of mind and tended to avoid anything that upset his calm. But there was no escaping from this situation, and he found himself getting irritated. It was difficult enough dealing with his daughter’s tiresome infatuation. He was conscious of Tara’s agitated state, which was not helped by Karan’s presence. But these worries were swept away by his prescient concern for Karan. With his sensitivity for public events, Bauji had developed an uncanny ability to read symbols and to presage what was to come. And what he saw overwhelmed him with regret.

‘Give me a list of books, boy, that you want sent to jail. You will have lots of time on your hands there. You are too young to write your memoirs.’

Karan smiled.

‘You’re mad, my boy, to go off with those people. You have such a future before you! Your mother has told you that we plan to send you to England. You could even clear the ICS exam there and then India will be yours to rule.’

Karan nodded and then touched Bauji’s feet, which at first the latter thought was from gratitude. But he quickly realized that it was a gesture of farewell.

‘Don’t you realize what you are giving up?’ Bauji persisted.

‘I’d rather be an ordinary citizen of a free country.’

Karan’s eyes smiled again as he turned to leave. Even though Bauji didn’t agree with this defiant youth, he felt strongly that this was his true son. He got up suddenly, pushing the hookah aside, and asked the departing youth to wait. He went inside with a quickened step and quickly returned with a wallet, which he thrust into the embarrassed boy’s pocket.

The bold youth mischievously said, ‘Bauji, don’t tell me that you are financing our side! I better not tell that to the police when I am caught.’ After a pause the boy added, ‘It doesn’t harm to buy a little insurance, does it, in case we come to power.’

‘Stop being insolent! Go and pay your respects to Bhabo before you go.’

As Karan went upstairs, followed by Tara, Bauji was left to his own thoughts. Fortunately, it was a dark night and he could hide his troubled face in the cloak of darkness. If only Gandhi had accepted in March the sensible offer of Cripps, he thought, we wouldn’t be having this terrible business. Once the offer was rejected the country’s mood naturally became bitter and frustrated. The future again looked gloomy. The British, on their side, had also stiffened their attitude. Gandhi, through his strange logic, believed that the British in India were a provocation to the Japanese. Thus they must quit India so that a free India could mobilize its full strength against the Japanese menace. What could be more impractical at this stage, thought Bauji. Now with the Congress leaders in jail, what would happen in the future? The Muslim League would again be in the center of the stage, and Jinnah would go all out to exploit the religious fears and emotions of the Muslim masses. Gandhi and Nehru at least tried to bring the communities together. But Jinnah only spread his poison to keep them apart. With Gandhi out of the way, Jinnah would surely hold sway, felt Bauji.

He wondered if this thought had crossed Karan’s mind. Probably not since he was too obsessed with getting rid of the British. Everyone seemed to think only about the British and no one seemed bothered about what would happen to India after the British left. Slowly Jinnah’s poison was bound to affect the body politic.

As the wedding approached, the house began to fill up.

Countless aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews began to arrive from the village. To many of them it was a great opportunity to visit the city, make merry, enjoy Bauji’s hospitality, and ventilate old grudges.

A family of Muslim craftsmen was engaged from Kashmir to embroider the bride’s trousseau with gold thread. They worked in Bauji’s house and were a source of fascination to everyone. The entire east wing of the house had been turned into a kitchen to feed scores of people daily. The hunchback was hired and located in the east wing in order to produce massive quantities of sweets for distribution to what appeared to be half the city. Lists were made endlessly of those who were to receive sweets. An army of tailors also moved into the only room spared from the cooking brigade. All day long there was a bustle of blouses being altered, petticoats being hemmed, salwars being stitched.

Bauji’s house had the festive atmosphere characteristic of Punjabi homes where there are eligible young girls and where a marriage is to take place. Tara’s sisters and their friends were continuously in and out of the house, chatting interminably, laughing incessantly. Their excitement and happiness was infectious and fed the matchmaking and gossip of the older women. The house was filled with the delicious breath of feminine anticipation, like the sensuous air before a thunderstorm. Although it was Tara who was getting married, it was the younger girls who found themselves immersed in the currents of desire which traversed the house, reverberated around them, and grazed their untouched maidenly bodies.

Every night for three weeks before the marriage, all the women in the family and Tara’s girl friends collected in the upstairs courtyard and sang folk songs late into the night, to the accompaniment of the round two-sided dholak. The courtyard smelled of jasmine as each lady was offered a string of jasmine for her hair. Big Uncle, much to Bauji’s annoyance and everyone’s amusement, took great interest in these songs, especially those relating to marriage and sex. He had a good voice and goaded on by the women, he sang night after night.

As the music and festivity went on upstairs, Bauji would smoke his hookah in the secluded part of the courtyard downstairs. He would sit in his usual cane chair, coax the tobacco bowl, and slowly the smoke would enter his lungs and the familiar sweet smell of burning cow dung would fill the courtyard. It was a delicious feeling and he would settle down in a comfortable, sensuous reverie through which came filtered the smells and sounds of the autumn night. Occasionally he would be rewarded by a gust of cool breeze, which left lingering behind the smell of jasmine.

Tara sometimes stole downstairs to sit beside him for short intervals. She did not say much, but seemed happy to be near him for the few weeks that were left before she went away to her new home. Their thoughts often wandered in the same direction: what would her new life be like? Would her husband be kind? What about her mother-in-law? Both of them were glad that the boy did not live with his family. But what kind of home would he provide her?

Bauji’s thoughts moved from the emotions he felt for Tara to the ironies of nature. Did he give her all his love and care for the past twenty years so that she should go away from him just like that? It did not seem right. Yet it was the way of nature. Birds did it. Animals too. So why not people? Perhaps it
did
make sense to live like a passenger on a train.

One evening, about ten days before the marriage, Bauji made a discovery. He smelled the same unmistakable fragrance right in his own house. He was certain that it was she. It occurred to him that anyone among the many women who had come to sing could be wearing the expensive scent. But somehow he had an intuition that it was the tantalizing veiled lady he had glimpsed on the corner of Kacheri Bazaar. His pulse quickened.

The burkha lady was in his house—he could not believe it.

He went to his rooms with an excited step to bathe and to change and to contemplate on the possibilities which fortune had brought his way. As the cold water fell on his tall brown body, he rehearsed what he would say to her. He wondered what she looked like. Would she be young or old, pretty or ugly? Like a little boy he felt nervous with anticipation. He dressed in a cool flowing muslin kurta and sprinkled some scent on his handkerchief. Feeling clean and refreshed he walked out with a swinging gait.

Snatches of a vigorous folk song could be heard upstairs. He went and sat down in the private part of the courtyard on his usual wicker chair, away from the bustle of the house. The immediate problem which presented itself was how to meet her. He did not generally go up to the ladies courtyard, he contented himself with greeting Tara’s friends and the other womenfolk downstairs when they entered or left the house. He would have to think up a reasonable pretext to go up this evening. Once he was upstairs, he would have no trouble identifying her, he was sure.

But fortune was on his side. As he was thinking over the problem, Tara came rushing downstairs followed by the mysterious lady, whose distinctive fragrance immediately gave her away. As the stranger approached, Bauji realized that she was beautiful beyond all his expectations. She had a pale, white, square face, surrounded by masses of long and dark hair, which fell below her hips. He thought her eyes were green, but he could have been mistaken in the poor evening light. Her nose and cheekbones were clearly chiselled on her face like the sculptures of Gandhara. She came like an apparition, and Bauji was afraid that she might disappear.

He immediately rose to his feet, and his tall frame overshadowed the two women. Bauji was big for a Punjabi Hindu and unlike his contemporaries he had not grown fat with age. His grey hair added to a physical presence, which could not be easily ignored even in a crowd. A glint of pride flashed in his dark brown eyes. It was not the pride of class, nor of worldly success, but a radiation called
raj-tej
by the Hindus. It was an energy radiated by a man of worldly power, usually a ruler. His long ungainly fingers caressed his moustache, the same fingers which could also caress the female body with extreme delicacy, as Bhabo well knew.

Tara introduced the stranger as Anees Husain, her teacher (and friend) from Lahore. Bauji offered her a chair. Tara explained that Anees’ father was the DIG of Police in Lahore, but they had originally come from Kashmir. This explained her fair skin and the unusual colour of her eyes. She must be around thirty, he thought. But why wasn’t she married, he wondered. He immediately placed her family since he knew many people in Lahore. He certainly knew everyone who mattered in Lyallpur but half of Lahore’s society were also his friends. And the other half he had heard of.

Bauji made Anees feel at home. He recounted a brief meeting with her father in Lahore, where he had gone to defend a client at the High Court.

‘Then you must have been on opposite sides?’ asked Anees.

‘Yes,’ he replied with a smile.

‘I’ll go and bring us some fresh lime water,’ said Tara getting up.

There was a brief uneasy silence after Tara’s departure. Curiosity finally got the better of Bauji, and he asked his attractive guest if she had been near Kacheri Bazaar on a certain evening.

‘It was I,’ she said boldly. ‘But I was wearing a burkha. How did you know?’

‘Ah, that’s my secret,’ he said.

‘Does someone always watch unsuspecting women in this manner?’

‘If someone visits the wrong side of town at the wrong hour of the day, she must be prepared to be noticed, especially if she wears Chanel No. 5.’

‘Oh, so that’s how someone knows.’ It finally dawned on her; she was impressed.

‘Someone has a good memory for scents,’ she said.

He smiled, acknowledging the compliment. There was a pause.

‘I have sometimes wondered,’ he said, ‘how it feels to be behind a burkha—to be always a spectator, forever observing the world, and never acting, to be always tantalizing others, to keep them guessing, whether it is a woman of eighteen or of eighty.’

It was her turn to smile. She was struck by the unusual observation.

‘I never thought of it in that way,’ she replied. ‘I have always worn a burkha on the streets. I was brought up to believe that it was the only way. But I don’t like it. I envy Tara and other Hindu girls, who don’t have to wear it. I don’t want to be an observer, I want to be part of the world.’

Bauji was intrigued by her answer. He would have liked to pursue this thought, but she quickly changed the subject.

‘Bauji, I want to talk to you,’ the stranger suddenly became serious. ‘It is about Tara.’ Bauji now understood the reason behind their meeting. The fresh lime drink had been carefully arranged.

‘She doesn’t want to marry this man,’ said Anees.

‘I know,’ he said.

‘Then why must she?’ asked Anees.

Patiently and gently, Bauji explained to Tara’s friend why it was a good match. He was articulate and she was intelligent and open to reason. Gradually he convinced her that the match was in the best interest of Tara. Anees had argued strongly on behalf of her friend, but slowly she began to see the wisdom of the choice. From Tara’s ally she became Bauji’s, and in the end she even promised him that she would talk to Tara.

After he saw that he had the upper hand, Bauji was careful not to press his advantage to ensure that Anees did not feel that she was letting down her friend. Anees observed this—and she was touched by the sensitivity of this tall, proud man. Apart from his cogent and persuasive reasoning, Anees was impressed by his sincerity, warmth, and charm.

On his part, Bauji was obviously attracted to her. He let himself be drawn by the physical stimulus of the beautiful woman, and did not attempt to control himself. Anees seemed to be aware of the impression that she was creating, and she was excited by the obvious admiration that she was arousing in the older man. Her face became flushed and she became perilously attractive to behold.

Soon the fresh lime water arrived. Tara watched the two of them as they drank the refreshing cool citrus drink in the silence of the warm night. Tara was anxious to know the outcome of their conversation but she did not dare ask anything. They talked about small things—the summer heat, the moonlight, the smell of jasmine, the need for rain.

Tara finally became impatient, and told her friend that it was time to go back upstairs. However, Anees did not respond immediately; she seemed to be caught in the voluptuous torpor of the moonlit summer night. She was confused, and she could not move. The heavy scent of jasmine added to the threatening sensuality of the evening. Every jasmine flower seemed to promise an erotic delight.

Eventually Tara and Anees went upstairs, and Bauji was left alone with his thoughts. It took him a while to recover from the seductive spell that had been cast by the beautiful woman. He felt a sensual nagging. But he also felt a hint of guilt—that his own thoughts seemed to move in the wrong direction. The sensual impulse stung him and made him blush. Deep inside he wrestled with his acquired middle class scruples. He thought of his marriage and of Bhabo. Had he wronged her in his heart? He said to himself, ‘I am weak it is true, but really, don’t I deserve to do better? Bhabo and I have been married for too long. She has become a habit, has even begun to look old. And look at me: I am full of vigour and at the peak of my powers.’ He felt sorry for himself, but he also felt ashamed. He could not help but envy his landowning ancestors in the village, who would have had a dozen women like Anees a hundred years ago. Yet neither could he overcome his feelings of shame, as he thought of himself flirting with the friend of his soon-to-be-married daughter. And that too a Muslim girl! The thought momentarily made him feel old. He felt a revulsion for the circumstances in which he found himself. But he quickly recovered as the pride of his Khatri blood reasserted itself.

He was diverted by the unanswered question—what had Anees been doing near Kacheri Bazaar that evening? She had not volunteered an answer and neither had he pressed her. A persistent intuition told him that she had been in trouble. He felt suddenly protective towards her.

After that evening Anees came to 7, Kacheri Bazaar every day. She was staying in Lyallpur. with her uncle, who was a man of liberal views, and her visits to her girl friend did not arouse suspicion. Besides, it was the most natural thing for girl friends to spend their last days together before one of them got married and left. Moreover, the nightly singing amongst the girls was an established institution. Bauji hoped in his heart that Anees had other reasons as well. The daily arrival of the tonga, carrying a woman in a dark blue burkha, became the central focus of Bauji’s day. He changed his routine, and came home earlier from the Company Bagh so that he would be sure to greet her in the courtyard. With sensuous anticipation he would wait for the happiness which came wrapped under the dark folds. He would tremble every time she came. She would not take off the burkha until she went upstairs to Tara’s room. Thus he had to greet her without seeing her. He would look admiringly at the slim body inside the blue garment, and then anxiously at the veil, trying to pierce the concealed green Kashmiri eyes. She would linger slightly longer than was customary in the circumstances and then run upstairs to meet Tara. But she would leave the characteristic fragrance behind her, which was like a promise to Bauji of the delight that awaited him during the later part of the evening.

Thanks to Anees’ persuasion Tara became more and more reasonable about her marriage and there were fewer scenes between father and daughter. Karan’s absence also helped. Bauji was grateful to Anees for reconciling Tara to her bridegroom. Although the lively social life of the house and especially the folk singing upstairs—which went on till the small hours—provided an excellent cover for the intermittent meetings between Bauji and Anees, Tara began to suspect. Anees seemed to spend more and more time in the secluded part of the downstairs courtyard beside Bauji. At first Tara was confused. She was afraid to talk about it lest she might hurt someone. She also found it strange and exciting. Because of her romantic nature, Tara felt an instinctive sympathy for the relationship which seemed to be developing between her father and her friend. She did not judge her father or her friend. Their relationship seemed to address some of her own romantic but unrequited dreams. Instead of interfering she began to go out of her way to protect them from the inquisitive eyes of others, and cover up for them when required.