The Crow Eaters (18 page)

LAHORE was rapidly developing into the commercial and social centre that earned it the tribute, ‘Paris of the East’ during the Second World War. It was the seat of the government of the Punjab and of the administration of the North West Frontier Province.

Lahore’s glorious winters attracted throngs of wilting holiday-makers from all over India, and pallid English-women, their short, bright hair plastered in waves to their faces, alighted from carriages and shopped, arm in bold arm, with their pink-skinned male counterparts – or strolled languidly between the rose bushes in Lawrence Gardens.

Lorangs, Standard, Stiffles; restaurants with plush, extravagant bars and ballrooms came into being and were patronised by the British hierarchy and the Maharajas. But the sedate dancing that went on in these elegant halls offended Freddy’s sense of propriety and prevented him from frequenting them. He limited himself to the traditional, and what he considered unpretentious, entertainment of the dancing-girls at Hira Mandi.

Flowers bloomed all winter. Parks and billowing trees scented the air, and thousands of private bungalow lawns were lush green carpets.

The gardens in the Govermment House estate were particularly lovely, and approximately four times each winter, Mr and Mrs Faredoon Junglewalla received enormous, impressively crested cards inviting them to formal tea parties on its gracious lawns.

Although the invitations were properly welcoming, they
were more in the nature of a summons – and for Putli they contained all the jollity of a summons to her execution.

Freddy insisted she accompany him.

From the moment Putli saw the card she lapsed into a state of nervous depression that flowered into palpitating hysteria on the eve of the party. These compulsory appearances embittered her soul. How she implored Freddy to take Jerbanoo, who was quite agreeable to the sacrifice.

Freddy’s pacific instincts soon guided him to the expedient of slipping her the news only an hour before the time of departure. It was a hectic hour for Freddy. He selected the sari and bullied and bustled his rebellious spouse until she was safely tucked into the tonga. Putli growled and muttered all the way, till Alla Ditta, who served them on these gala afternoons, drove them through the imposing gates of the Government House. Then she froze into a mummy-like state of terror.

As their tonga crawled behind the line of carriages and limousines in the drive, Freddy relaxed. From then on Putli’s behaviour was more or less predictable.

What revolted Putli most was the demand that she, a dutiful and God-fearing wife, must walk a step ahead of her husband. She considered this hypocritical and pretentious, and most barbarous.

When they drew up before the entrance, Freddy handed Putli from the tonga with all the flourish of a courtier towards a cherished queen. It was a well rehearsed bit, and Putli acquiesced with the verve of a zombie.

Freddy directed her along the long red carpets to the garden. He did not merely steer her. He prodded, poked, and pushed her each step of the way. No one would have thought, to look at Freddy’s affectionate arm encircling his wife, the strength in it propelling her forward. Deep-rooted in the tradition of a wife walking three paces behind her husband, their deportment was as painful to Putli as being marched naked in public. Her legs beneath the graceful folds of her sari were as stiff as stilts.

No one guessed the surreptitious busyness of Freddy’s fingers beneath the sari at her waist. A dutiful, husbandly pinch, a little up and to the right, was to remind her to shake hands. This signal proved a handy improvisation when Putli was introduced to the Governor.

They were standing in a small informal group on the lawn when the Governor, accompanied by his A.D.C., sauntered up to them.

Freddy promptly presented his wife and Putli, just as promptly, bobbed her head and said, ‘How doo doo?’

The suave, imperious Englishman had offered his hand, and almost in the same gesture raised it to smooth his hair at the lack of any response from the oddly solemn little woman. But Freddy gave Putli such a fervent little pinch that her hand shot out, gamely hooked the astonished Governor’s hand from off his head, and shook it determinedly three times. Then she stood staring with a dismal, forbidding visage, awaiting further instruction.

Once Freddy managed to ensconce his wife at a table, usually with a bunch of equally awkward Indian ladies, he was free to wander among his friends.

Every now and again a man – or a woman – is born so good looking, so gracious, so exceptionally attractive, that all hearts surrender to them at sight. Freddy was such a man, and at forty-seven his appeal was still potent. He merely had to step into the presence of women, touch them, however briefly, with his hooded, hypnotic eyes, and there would be an excited flutter. That he remained oblivious of this and unaffected, enhanced his desirability. High-born ladies dreamed of braving the wrath of society, and of tearing down racial and class barriers to abscond with him in abject, love-lorn subjugation …

Most of the distinguished guests at these parties were of a much higher social standing than Freddy.

Putli misbehaved only once. This was at her second attendance.

Freddy was talking to Peter Duff. Mr Duff, in a zealous and
patriotic attempt to penetrate the impenetrable tribal frontiers to the North West of India, had married a tribal Khan’s daughter, a comely, illiterate girl who had spent her entire life secreted within the tall mud wall of her father’s fortress. Mr Duff was now stuck also with a formidable collection of warlike, feuding in-laws. His Muslim wife spoke no English, and as he could not hope to provide her with an ancestral fortress, she was destined to spend the rest of her existence in her father’s home in the mountains.

Peter Duff was regaling Freddy with an account of his hair-raising experiences as a tribal son-in-law when Putli came up from behind and gave Freddy a respectful prod.

Freddy whipped around with a start. ‘What’s the matter?’ he snapped.

‘Home! I go. You go!’ said Putli, obediently conducting the conversation in English. She had been instructed not to speak their Gujarati vernacular in the presence of Englishmen.

‘But we cannot leave until the Governor retires,’ Freddy tried to explain.

‘Home to go! I go, you go!’ she insisted.

Freddy took a firm hold of her arm and propelled her to a secluded table. He sat her down and patiently spelled out such a dire picture of ruin, disgrace, and business annihilation if they dared insult the Governor with their abrupt departure that Putli never again tried to get away. But she did not cease to hate the parties or resent being compelled to walk ahead of Freddy.

When Yasmin visited Lahore after an absence of four years, Putli was scandalised to see her push Bobby aside and rush forward to greet them like any bold English girl. Thinking the poor girl was carried away by her enthusiasm, Putli forgave her. But later, when she noticed Yasmin precede her husband down the steps and into the carriage, she took her aside to chide her unseemly conduct. What would Bobby and his parents think of her upbringing?

‘But he wants it that way, mother,’ protested Yasmin loudly. ‘Anyway, it’s stupid to walk behind your husband like
an animal on a leash – Oh Mother! Hasn’t Papa been able to modernise you yet?’

Bobby grinned at his mother-in-law – an impudent grin encompassing a challenging hunk of ‘generation-gap.’

But Putli, funeral faced, flaunted her chagrin by refusing to sit at the table until the men were served. As a practical demonstration of exemplary conduct, she trailed Freddy’s unsuspecting passage through the house at an assiduous three paces until he felt hounded, removed his shoes in the sitting room and jumped to his every need with such alacrity that he was bewildered. Yasmin’s conduct remained unaffected.

Having deposited his wife with her parents, Bobby returned to Karachi.

Yasmin’s visit had been occasioned by Putli and Jerbanoo’s impending journey to Bombay to find Billy a wife.

BEHRAM Junglewalla, Billy for short, was a taciturn, monosyllabic, parsimonious, and tenacious little man. His tight-lipped, shrewd-eyed countenance instantly aroused mistrust – precisely because he was so trustworthy. Unlike his father, Faredoon Junglewalla, Billy’s was an uncomplicated character. You knew right away where you stood with him, and his values, once you grasped the one-track bent of his mind, were straightforward. He was suspicious, and he exposed this aspect of his personality at once in any transaction. He was avaricious. His dealers knew exactly where they stood with him, and their faith in his cunning was seldom misplaced.

Billy had a simple vocation in life, money!

He existed to make, multiply, and hoard it. He was notoriously and devoutly penny-pinching. His one extravagance was a weakness for radishes – and, much later, for wine.

His frugality he might have inherited from an undiluted line of Parsi forebears. At the time of his marriage, he was twenty years old. His stars, swinging into full orbit, having exiled Yazdi and dispatched Soli, had launched Billy on taking over Freddy’s thriving commerce and on inheriting his considerable fortune.

Billy had grown to manhood – and his ears had grown with him. The lint-like cartilages had hardened and stuck out like
teapot handles. His straggling, five-haired moustache now made a substantial smear beneath the bumpy crag of his nose; and above it triumphed the centre-parting in his hair. Oil-glossed, blue-black, the hair waved away to end in a squiggly froth of curls.

Billy was a five-foot eight-inch youth with a square jaw. He was cadaverously lean, but without a particle of the irresistible allure that is the birth-right of all hungry looking heroes of romantic fiction. And Behram Junglewalla was the only promising progenitor of the Junglewalla species. As such his betrothal was planned and executed with the acumen of a new American cigarette being launched in the market.

All newspapers in Bombay and Karachi ran his advertisement, set in bold type, boxed in a chain of flowers.

Tall dark and handsome Parsi bachelor, having independent business in Lahore, wants to make a match with beautiful, fair-complexioned and accomplished Parsi girl of good family. Bachelor rich, young, eligible. Wonderful opportunity for suitable girl. Dowry no consideration. Write in confidence to P.O. Box No. 551, Lahore.

If a point was stretched, what did it matter? All is fair in love and advertising.

Letters poured in. They were written mostly in Gujarati. The entire family pored over them, scrutinising them carefully. It was hard to believe there were so many rich and exquisitely beautiful girls. Soon they were able to read between the lines and separate the chaff from whatever else there was. Out of the hundred-odd letters, five were set aside.

Jerbanoo, her half-moon spectacles low on her pert, plump nose, subjected them to a final autopsy. Like a deep sea diver surfacing with the magic pearl, she ran into the bedroom
waving an envelope in Freddy’s face. ‘This is it! This is it! Do you know who the offer’s from? Tear the others up!’ she declared autocratically.

The letter was from Khan Bahadur Sir Noshirwan Jeevanjee Easymoney.

‘He is one of the richest Parsis in Bombay!’

And not only was he the richest, he was also the most amazingly virile. He was renowned for the number of his progeny. No one could remember or keep track of the exact number of his children … Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two? Who knew!

‘From one wife?’ inquired Freddy sceptically.

Jerbanoo, who knew everything about the personal lives and foibles of the prominent Parsi families, raised a solitary finger, and nodded. ‘One!’

Her unwinking eyes round with pity, Putli groaned, ‘Poor thing! She must be as strong as a horse … but even then!’

‘I think I met him once,’ reflected Freddy, trying to recall where. ‘Oh yes! It was at the Cotton Exchange in Bombay. Fine, imposing fellow. Dressed and talked like an English lord-sahib. Lots of personality – very impressive. But I cannot understand his answering our advertisement.’

‘And why not? We are an equally renowned and respected family. And boys from good families don’t sprout on trees!’

Faredoon pondered Jerbanoo’s spirited defence. ‘Perhaps. But I am sure he can find a suitable swain closer to home. Anyway, you’d better go to Bombay and find her. His sir-ship’s kindly offering might turn out to be lame or blind or mad!’

Freddy left it at that and a terrible seed of doubt sprang up in the minds of both women.

Khan Bahadur Sir Noshirwan Jeevanjee Easymoney, who had married off fifteen daughters and still had three to go, was always on the look-out for eligible swains. Having been knighted by the King, he drifted in a rarefied atmosphere of lords, barons and sirs, far distant from the existence of Faredoon Junglewalla. The few inquiries he made at his
wife’s insistence, revealed that a lot of people had heard of the ‘chap’; and what is more, considered him worthy. He gave her the go ahead.

Postmen ran busily at either end delivering letters. Putli found Lady Easymoney’s style charming. She was conversant in Gujarati idioms and flowery flourishes. She adhered to all the endearing, old-world formalities of letter writing: ‘We beg you to honour us with a visit,’ she wrote. ‘And you must bring your august mother, noble husband, and beloved son with you.’ And, ‘Times have changed. Now the young ones wish to see if their ideas match!’ She could think of no earthly reason why their offspring shouldn’t like each other, considering they were both born of good families! But such were the curious demands of the modern generation!

The sarcasm was not lost on Putli and she was extremely gratified.

Yasmin, who was childless, was sent for to keep house and Putli, Jerbanoo and Billy were seen off by a sizeable congregation of Parsis.

Billy insisted they travel third class. They journeyed two nights and a day and on the second day Jerbanoo put her imperious foot down.

‘Look: we are not dragging ourselves all this way to palm you off on some riff-raff. Behram Junglewalla, you are on your way to marry Khan Bahadur Sir Noshirwan Jeevanjee Easymoney’s daugher! Do you dare show your face stepping out of a third class compartment? People will laugh at you! Ridicule us! Ha!’

Billy saw her point. At a station an hour’s run from Bombay they transferred their hundred and one pieces of luggage, earthen water containers, food hampers and bedding into a first class compartment.

Mr Minoo Toddywalla, brother to Freddy’s old friend in Lahore, and his wife received them at the Colaba Station.

Putli and Jerbanoo had visited Bombay before. It was Billy’s first visit. As the Toddywalla’s stately, four-wheeled carriage drove them through the bustling metropolis with its superb
wide roads, tall stone buildings, buses and trams, Billy was filled with awe and the beginnings of an inferiority complex. In this city he felt like a country bumpkin.