Our Favourite Indian Stories (48 page)

'Let them. Provided the boy and the girl agree.'

'And what if they have children?'

'They should bring them up. Children are the responsibility of their parents. When they grow up God and the Government can solve their problems.'

But if we do this won't the family institutions itself collapse?

'What institution! Despotism is the right world.'

Our ideas were so diametrically opposed to each other, I realised we would get nowhere with this argument. I got up to leave.

'Are you leaving?

'It's late. My wife will be worried.'

Why didn't you bring her with you?'

'I got to the beach today only because I happened to be passing this way. And as chance would have it there you were...'

Cinderella took a bottle of
kumkum
from her bag and said, 'Please put a dot on me.'

'Why don't you do it yourself?'

'I don't have a mirror. For a woman the mirror is another tyrant.' Opening the bottle of red liquid, I dipped a matchstick into it. But then a disturbing thought rose in my mind. I wiped the red colour off the matchstick.

'What is the matter?'

'In our land only a husband may put
kumkum
on a woman. It signifies an intimate relationship between husband and wife.'

Cinderella giggled.

'Then you can make love to me.'

'We're followers of Lord Rama - we're monogamous.'

'Your traditions are very repressive, aren't they? Now what would happen if I were to fall in love with you?'

'Our lives would be ruined.'

'Why should that be so? If you love me does that mean that your love for your wife should diminish?'

I was confused. To end this inquisition, I put the
kumkum
on her forehead. She clasped my right hand with both her hands and taking it to her lips, kissed it. My body quivered as though a streak of lightning had passed through me.

I got up and walked towards my car. Cinderella walked beside me.

Abruptly she asked, 'When shall we meet again?'

'Next Sunday.'

'No. Sunday is a long way off. Come tomorrow.'

'Let's see. But I can't promise anything.'

Meanwhile another hippie came towards us. Cinderella raised her arm in greeting. The moment he drew close, she slipped into his embrace. He rested his chin on her head and hugged her tightly with one arm while his left hand caressed her breasts. Cinderella introduced me to him.

'Meet my friend Paul.'

I greeted him politely, but my heart seethed with envy. I wondered if it showed on my face.

 

Tuesday

Cinderella came to our house this evening. I wasn't at home. My wife can't speak English but perhaps she understood a little of what Cinderella said. Apparently she wanted to know how to make curry, but since we make enough of it in the afternoon to last us for supper she didn't get to see how it was done. But she seemed to like my wife's dry mackerel salad and ate quite a bit of it even while it was being made.

At dinner we tried to convince her to spend the night at our house.

'And become a barrier between you and your beloved wife? Oh no!'

'There's a room you can have all to yourself.'

'Won't that be a terrible punishment for you?'

I felt like laughing. My wife couldn't follow the conversation and Cinderella didn't venture to explain anything to her.

'So you won't stay, after all.'

'Yes, I will. But on one condition — all three of us should sleep in one place.'

'That's not possible. I'll take you home.'

'Why don't you stay with us instead?'

'And leave my wife alone at home?'

'Don't you ever go out leaving her alone?'

'I do, but what do you think she'd feel if under her very nose I go away to spend the night with you?'

'That's true. You can drop me and come back home.

It was quite dark when I drove the car with Cinderella sitting beside me.

'You surprise me. Why do you consider me a stranger?' asked Cinderella.

'Is that what you feel?'

'Yes. The other day you put the dot on me, but even now, if my hand so much as brushes against you, you seem to shudder.'

'That's because of the way I've been brought up.'

'Can you honestly say that you look upon every other woman, besides your wife, as a mother or a sister?'

'Frankly no. But in my culture that's how it ought to be.'

'Which means you do have desires but you repress them.'

'That's true. But to do otherwise is immoral...'

'There you go again with your morality. Tell me, are all these
sanyasis
and
brahmacharis
and
yogis
really like what you said?'

'Yes. Their minds are devoid of passion.'

'How can that be?'

'What else are their terrible sacrifices for? If someone moves his finger over the sole of somebody else's foot, it tickles. But move a finger over your own sole. Does it tickle? It doesn't. Why not?'

'You tell me.'

'Because the mind is aware that what is moving is one's own finger. In the same way it's not easy for a mind to believe that just any woman is a mother or a sister. It has to be conditioned to achieve this state.'

'So it's possible to conquer one's desires!'

'Yes.'

'But why should your suppress your desires?'

'If I didn't I would be being unfair to my wife!'

'What if another man was on your wife's mind?

'I wouldn't like that.'

'Doesn't this mean you are against her being a free person?'

'How can I help it?'

'You can. You can free your mind by snapping the chains of tradition. The more you suppress your passions, the more it increases, but once you satisfy them, that's the end of it.'

We had arrived at Colva by then. Cinderella exclaimed, 'See how quickly we got here. Let's go and sit on the beach.'

'But my wife is alone at home.'

'Just for a little while. Let's finish this discussion. Before coming to India I had visited Iran and I want to tell you about an incident there.'

'About the satisfaction of desire, isn't it?

'What else?'

Both of us laughed.

When we settled down on the beach, Cinderella said, 'Why does society expect only women to cover their bodies?'

'That stops people from lusting after them.'

'You mean it stops men.'

'Yes.'

'Don't you think women get aroused when they see men bare their chests?'

'How should I know?'

'All these standards of morality that women have to abide by have been imposed on them by men.'

I was silent.

Then, self consciously, Cinderella peeled off her blouse. Embarrassed, I turned my head away.

'Don't blush like that. Once you grow accustomed to this, you won't feel ashamed.'

'How can I control my feelings?'

'Don't control anything.'

Trying to behave as naturally as I could I turned towards her, while Cinderella talked away without the least trace of embarrassment.

She narrated an incident about Mazook, an Iranian
sanyasi
. He had left home with the intention of relieving the miseries of mankind. After having traversed the entire country, he came to the conclusion that when man's desires remain unsatisfied he becomes unhappy. Man suffers from two kinds of hunger, hunger for food and hunger for pleasure. If these hungers are placated he is at peace.

One day Mazook saw a young man singing a melancholic song by the bank of a river. Mazook felt that what issued from his lips was no song, but a shower of misery. He approached the youth and asked him why he was so miserable.

The young man replied, 'I love a girl but she does not return my love.'

'Why?'

'I don't know.'

'In that case the girl's at fault. One who gives rise to sorrow in a fellow creature commits wrong. Come, let's go to her.'

They went to the girl.

'Why have you made him miserable?'

'I have done nothing to him. But I cannot give him what he demands.'

Mazook turned to the young man:

'What have you asked of her?'

'I long for her embrace.... I want all the pleasures that man expects of a woman.'

'Young lady, why do you deny him this?'

'Should I lose my purity just for the sake of his whims?'

'Purity? The Kingdom of God has no place for such concepts. Out of such pretty words as Purity are made the chains that bind you. Have nothing to do with them! The hungry should be fed; the passionate should be gratified.'

'Then won't we turn into beasts?'

'Let it be so. Only thus one can achieve happiness. Which man has Morality ever made happy?'

I laughed.

'What's so funny?' asked Cinderella.

'So this is your way of life?'

'Yes.'

'But why should the one who seeks gratification impose his will on another?'

'That's true. There should be no compulsion. Suppose I wanted you to make love to me now and you were willing, then...'

I looked away.

Cinderella snuggled close to me. The cloak of morality in which I had shielded myself till now succumbed to her charms at last. I held her in my arms and kissed her fiercely.

'Are you satisfied?'

'No. This is only the beginning,' she replied.

God alone knows for how long we remained locked in each other's arms. Suddenly the thought of my wife came to me and my grasp loosened.

'What happened?' she asked.

'I have to go home. It's late.'

'Aren't you being unjust to me?'

'I shall repent for it,' I replied, kissing her again.

 

Sunday

I don't smoke cigarettes. But I wanted to experience that state of transcendence they say one could achieve after smoking marijuana. We were sitting in a room of a hippie's house. Everyone had arrived in some state of undress, but no one felt self-conscious about this. Cinderella was completely naked.

She ripped open a cigarette, mixed the tobacco with some hashish, rolled it in new cigarette paper and lit it.

She took a deep drag at the cigarette, savouring the sweet aroma of its fumes before holding it at my lips.

I sucked at it greedily. The smoke streaked to my brain. I coughed and gasped frantically. Cinderella slapped my back and cautioned soothingly, 'Slowly, slowly.'

For the first time in my life I experienced the world revolving around me.

'Enough,' I said.

'You haven't seen anything yet. Have another drag.'

'Stop!'

The beast in me was aroused. Her naked torso stood before me. From it jutted out breasts and thighs to taunt me. There and then I satisfied my lust for her like a beast and afterwards continued to smoke till I passed out.

When I returned to my senses I discovered that I had been sleeping with my head on Cinderella's bare midriff. Shaking my head, I got up and sat down. Cinderella was still asleep. I glanced at her naked body and shuddered. I could not believe that the lure of this flesh could have made me so blind. I looked at my own body. There was no cloak of morality there anymore. I felt ashamed of myself and, getting up put my clothes on.

Cinderella was still unconscious. I could not bear to see her in that state any more. I found a bedsheet and covered her with it. I searched my pockets for a piece of paper but couldn't find any and there didn't seem any in the room either. Finally, I found a bill somewhere. On the back of it I wrote:

Cinderella,

Thank you very much. My urges have been satisfied. You are always welcome at my home. But please do not invite me to this place again. Your philosophy may be true and it also may be good but I am not accustomed to such a purely hedonistic existence. Neither do I wish to get accustomed to it.

Yours

I returned home that night but I didn't have the courage to look my wife in the face. Women intuitively understand such things. But if she did realise what was going on, she didn't utter a word.

 

Sunday

Cinderella didn't turn up after that. I kept thinking about her again and again. I was mortally afraid that she would drop in my absence and in her usual frank manner explain all that had happened between us to my wife. But she didn't come at all. When one evening I asked my wife if she'd like to come for a stroll on the beach at Colva, she replied, 'You want to meet Cinderella, isn't it? Why do you want me along? I wouldn't want to get in your way.'

She had hit me where it hurt most. But I just laughed lightly and teased her, 'Are you jealous?'

'I am not jealous. But the moment I saw that bitch step into the house I knew she was up to no good.'

'All right, madam. Now get ready.'

'There's work to be done. Who'll do that?'

'Let's enjoy ourselves while we have the chance. In future who knows if we'll have the same opportunity, when we have children...'

'If you want to go, go! Don't bother me.'

Having said this, my wife went inside.

I didn't move from that chair for a long time. On the one hand I was constantly reminded of Cinderella and on the other I didn't want to offend my wife. Feeling guilty as I was, I didn't have the courage to meet Cinderella without my wife.

Eventually I did go to Colva alone.

I met Paul the moment I stopped my car. He told me that Cinderella was sitting in a restaurant.

Two couples were seated at a table drinking beer. 'Hi! Cinderella called me over.

I pulled a chair and sat with them.

'What'll you have?'

'A Coke.'

'Have some beer,' someone said. 'We're celebrating.'

I wondered why and looked at Cinderella. She certainly wasn't the shy type but to my surprise she actually blushed.

Before I could say anything somebody thrust a glass of beer into my hands.

'Cheers,' I said.

'Cheers to Cinderella and her baby in the womb!' said the other girl.

My hand shook in agitation and beer spilled all over my clothes.

'What happened?' the other girl inquired.

'He's thrilled!'