Delhi (20 page)

I haven’t seen Bhagmati in weeks and, worse, haven’t even thought of her—so engrossed have I been in a series I’ve been doing for Doordarshan TV entitled: ‘The Delhi you do not know.’ I began with monuments in the suburbs of Mehrauli— the tombs of Altamash, Sultan Ghari, Balban and Jamali-Kamali. I threw in a few dilapidated mosques and some
baolis
. The appearance on Doordarshan has brought me an unexpected bonus—letter from a lady saying she had watched the programme and would like to meet me. She has signed herself by her first name, Kamala. Neither Miss nor Mrs nor anything else about who she is—what age or what she does for a living. The address is the room number of an army mess. Usually women who write letters to men they do not know turn out to be serious-minded bores. However, something impels me to write back to say that I would be happy to meet her. And this is when I think with some guilt of Bhagmati.

I spend an hour or two in the library of the India International Centre where I have asked Kamala to meet me. Since she knows what I look like she should find it easy to locate me.

Though I usually love flipping through the magazines and papers at the Centre, this morning I find I cannot keep my mind on what I’m reading but keep looking up at every woman who comes in. Will she be fifteen or fifty? Fat or slim? Fair or dark? And what the hell does she want to get to know me for? To bore me or to get laid?

At last she comes in and walks straight towards me, holds out her hand and says with a smile, ‘I am Kamala’.

I get up, take her hand and reply, ‘Pleased to meet you. Let’s have some coffee in the garden.’

She is small, dark and looks in her thirties. We find a table, I order coffee for two. I open the dialogue: ‘What is your full name, Kamala what?’

‘You are very curious. Okay, I am Kamala Gupta, wife of Brigadier Gupta. We have three school-going children — one girl, two boys.’

I express surprise. ‘Mother of three! You look young enough to be in college.’

She beams with pleasure. ‘Not as young as you think. I am over forty. Been married more than twenty years. People mistake my daughter to be my younger sister.’

‘Are you a Delhi girl?’

‘No. I am Tamil. My husband is from Delhi itself.’

The ‘itself’ is her first Indianism. It could as well have been ‘Delhi only.’

‘Convent of Jesus & Mary, Miranda House and arranged marriage,’ I guess.

‘Wrong on all three. Modern School and St Stephen’s College where I met my husband and eloped with him. Later forgiven by parents on either side for intercaste, interstate marriage. He is a Bania, I am a Mudaliar. He speaks Hindi; I speak Tamil. We speak English. Our children speak all three.’

‘Sounds wonderful! Where is the rest of the family?’

‘My husband is posted at a non-family station. The children are in boarding schools in Mussoorie. I’ve been allowed to stay on in the army mess. We get together during vacations.’

There is a lull in the dialogue. I try to size her up. She is lost in the depths of her coffee-cup. ‘A paisa for your thoughts,’ she says breaking the silence. ‘I can tell you what you are thinking, why did this woman want to meet me?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Well, I have nothing much to do. Can’t stand army wives. So I thought I’d write a book or something. Your programme on TV gave me an idea. Why not something on Delhi and its monuments? What do you think?’

‘There are hundreds of them on the market.’

‘Maybe. But they are all the same. None of them have those things you were showing on your programme. I know many old
havelis
lost in tiny lanes nobody knows about. My husband was born and brought up in Parathe Vali Gali. Ever heard of it?

‘Heard yes, seen never.’

‘There you see, even you don’t know! Ever heard of Gali Namak Haraman? I bet you haven’t. You show me what I have not seen. I’ll show you what you have not seen. And we do a book together. What do you say?’ She puts out her hand as her part of the deal. I take it as my part of the deal. ‘Done.’ And give it a gentle squeeze. It is firm but leathery.

We chat for an hour. It seems as if we have known each other for years. I have little doubt that I can extract more out of the deal.

I drop her outside the army mess, an old building raised during the war to house American G.I.s. She agrees to meet me at the Centre the following Sunday to be driven round the sites I had shown on TV. ‘Better the Centre than the mess. Too many prying eyes and bitchy wives,’ she says as she waves good-bye.

*

She is there waiting for me at the gate with a small basket containing two thermos flasks and a box of sandwiches. ‘Much better to carry your own stuff than go to those crowded cafeterias or
dhabas
,’ she explains.

I give her a miniature jade Ganapati that I had lying with me. ‘It is my good luck totem. I always carry one in my wallet. This one is to see nothing goes wrong with our friendship.’

She cradles the figurine in both her palms and kisses it. ‘Thank you. I am sure it will bring me luck.’

As we pass the Qutub Minar, she remarks: ‘I believe that the latest research has proved that this is a Hindu monument.’

‘So is the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort,’ I add sarcastically. ‘Where did you pick up this bullshit. All these buildings have the names of the builders and the dates of completion inscribed on them in Arabic. You’ve been reading Hindu fascist propaganda?’

We spend the morning in Mehrauli. I park the car alongside Auliya Masjid. We walk along the Shamsi Talab, past Jahaz Mahal into the crowded streets. I take her to the mausoleum of Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and show her the tombs of Mughal kings in the neighbouring graveyard. At Emperor Bahadur Shah’s tomb I tell her about the execution of Banda Bairagi and 700 of his Sikh followers. ‘He was ordered to kill his own child before they hacked him to pieces, limb by limb.’

‘When?’

‘Sunday, 19 June 1716.’

‘You must hate Muslims,’ she mutters. ‘You remember the day and date as if it was your birthday.’

‘No, I don’t hate Muslims.’ I protest. ‘Banda had slaughtered them by the thousands before they caught him and his band. Those were savage times.’

I take her to Jamali-Kamali’s mosque. She pours out the coffee, gives me a sandwich. She takes out a notebook and a ball-point pen. ‘Tell me of the places we’ve seen this morning. If I don’t write it down I’ll forget everything.’

I go over the itinerary while she makes notes and sips her coffee. When I come to Banda, she repeats, ‘I don’t believe you like Muslims.’

Once again I lodge a protest: ‘Most of my friends are Muslims, not Hindus or Sikhs.’

‘You couldn’t possibly like someone like Aurangzeb—a man who killed his brothers and nephews and put his father in prison. He destroyed Hindu temples and had one of your Gurus executed. How can you like a character like that? If you ask me, all our Hindu-Muslim troubles of today can be traced back to Aurangzeb.’

‘My dear young lady, you’ve been properly brainwashed! You’ve never been told that this Aurangzeb also gave grants to build Hindu and Sikh temples.’

‘That’s news to me. You’ve just made that up.’

She asks to be dropped at the corner of the road near the army mess.

Our next tour is to be in the city where she will act as my guide and mentor. This time I give her another miniature Ganapati made of crystal! ‘This is to double your luck.’ This time she gives me a kiss on my beard. We drive up to the Red Fort where I park the car. She takes me into Chandni Chowk. ‘I can’t take you through Dariba or the Parathe Vali Gali; I have many in-laws living there who may want to know what I am doing with a Sardarji.’

‘And I don’t want to be shown round Lal Kuan. I have friends living there.’ I reply.

‘Friends in Lal Kuan? What kind of friends?’ she asks suspiciously.

‘Very respectable, very likeable. I’ll tell you about them in course of time.’

We branch off onto Nai Sarak, into a narrow lane. She points out several old
havelis
and shrines beneath
peepal
trees. At places the stench from open sewers is overpowering. Stray cows, hawkers, and scooters and passers-by make the going difficult. It gives me the excuse to occasionally hold her hand. She presses mine whenever I do so. There is no want of response.

After an hour-and-a-half of wandering through winding lanes we find ourselves behind the Jamia Masjid. We cross the
maidan
to get to the parking lot outside the Red Fort.

‘Drop me at Connaught Circus,’ she says. ‘I have some shopping to do.’

I know it is an excuse to avoid being seen with me by the other residents of the mess. I am somewhat puzzled by her attitude. When I suggest she comes to my apartment, she says no firmly, though in our conversations she makes no secret of her being unhappy with the life she is leading. ‘What kind of life does an army wife lead? The husband is away for weeks and months. When he gets back for a few days he can think of nothing besides sex. He gets as much of it as he wants whether his wife likes it or not. And then he is off again, while the wife is left twiddling her thumbs.’

If it isn’t going to be my apartment and she is not going to let me come to her room, where in Delhi can we find a place where we can do what we are heading for? The initiative has passed out of my hands to hers. But I am determined to bring matters to a head. If she says no, I will drop her.

Our third rendezvous at the Centre is on a warm October afternoon. I give her yet another Ganapati—this one made of ivory. ‘How many Ganapatis are you going to give me?’ she asks as she kisses me on the lips. We drive away towards Purana Qila.

‘You know what I’d really like to give you?’ I ask her in the car.

‘No, tell me.’

‘What I’d really like to give you is a baby.’

She does not bat an eyelid but keeps looking straight ahead of her. After a while she replies, ‘That may take some doing as I had my tubes sewn up when I had the third child. But there is no harm in trying, is there?’

How does one cope with a woman like this one? I flush with embarrassment. I grab her hand and kiss it. We do not bring up the subject all afternoon as we trudge round the monuments. On the way back she asks me to take her to the INA market to buy fruit and provisions. ‘You stay in the car,’ she orders. ‘I won’t take very long.’

I know she doesn’t want to be seen with me in the market which is frequented by government officials and armed forces personnel. She comes back after a few minutes followed by a coolie carrying apples, tins, biscuits and cheese in a basket. He dumps the basket on the rear seat. This time she asks me to drive to the mess. ‘I can’t carry all that stuff up to my room,’ she explains. ‘You can have a quick drink with me.’

I carry the basket and follow her up the stairs and down a verandah. She has the last room. She unlocks the door and switches on the light. I can see she is relieved that no one has seen us come in. ‘I don’t mix with my neighbours,’ she says. ‘They are a nosey lot.’

I dump the basket in her kitchenette. She puts some of her purchases in a tiny fridge and others on the shelf. ‘I am afraid all I can offer you is army rum. Can’t afford anything else. With soda or water?’

‘I’ve never had it. Give it to me on the rocks.’

It is a sparsely furnished bed-sitter. She sits on her bed; I on the sofa. I take a sip of the sweet, smelly rum. It is raw, rough and heady. I cannot think of what to say. I break the silence with the first thing that comes to mind. ‘The other day you said something about Aurangzeb being a bigot. That’s not how Muslim historians see him. Even the ordinary Muslims of today think he has been unfairly maligned.’

She laughs. ‘Can’t you think of anything more interesting to talk about with a woman than a dead emperor?’

‘I could say how lucky I am being in the company of an attractive woman. But where will that get me?’

‘You know very little about me. Not even how attractive I can be. You’ve not even tried to find out,’ she says. She removes her sari
pallau
, undoes the clasp of her blouse and exposes her breasts. ‘Have you seen anything like these before? And on a woman who has suckled three children?’

I certainly had not. Ebony black, perfectly shaped and taut as that of a virgin of sixteen. Blacker nipples pointing directly at me. ‘You have the most perfectly shaped bosom I’ve ever seen the pictures of nudes included,’ I say. I have a strong urge to get up and sit beside her. She notices my hesitation. ‘Feel them. Nothing flabby about me.’

I go and sit beside her. I run my palms over her bosom; they are firmer than any I have ever encountered. I lay her head on her pillow and run my tongue round her nipples. ‘This is coming in your way,’ she says removing my turban from my head. My long hair spreads over her face. She pulls me down by it and presses my head closer to her bosom... I stop for a breather and take a look at her face. She has closed her eyes and is breathing heavily. As I press my lips on hers she opens her mouth to entangle her tongue in mine. My hand goes reconnoitring over her buttocks and then between her thighs. ‘Come inside and give me the baby you promised,’ she murmurs.

I do her bidding. She is a quick comer. It is all over in a matter of seconds. I go back to my rum on the rocks. She gets up, plucks a cigarette from her bedside table and lights it. ‘Now that we’ve got this off our minds, you can tell me about Aurangzeb,’ she says.