The Book

I am Altaf Ali, an impoverished poet, a shayar from Lucknow. Once a year I am invited to the annual Mushaira at Delhi. I await the whole year for the invitation and when it comes, I feel I am on the threshold of paradise. I write mainly on the pangs of separation and joyous union of lovers of bygone times. I feel these sentiments had some meaning only in a courtly and refined age. But I am wrong. as I will tell you shortly

My wife does not think highly of my poetry and she nags about these yearly visits to Delhi. If I am so indispensable to the Mushaira, she reasons why don't they pay for my train fare? She worries that I will fall ill due to the hotel food, someone's car will run over me in the chaotic streets, my money will be stolen and so on. Farida has a vivid imagination but she has never put it to good use. I usually quieten her with promises of a silk salwar suit from Karol Bagh. It works. But appeasing Farida that I will return alive to Lucknow is the least of my problems. I am at sea in Delhi, I do not know my way around, I find the people's manners coarse and vulgar, the pace of life frenetic and worst of all, the shayars I had composed in the dimness of my study a,ided by bhang-laced sherbet sound vapid and prosaic. However, all this has nothing to do with what I have to tell you. While in Delhi I always stay in the Paharganj area. It is a bustling place which never sleeps, with trucks and thelas crawling in an out of the narrow galis. Pathans twirling their moustaches and arguing loudly in a strange tongue. kulfiwalas and badamwalas. stridently drawing attention to their wares, plump tandoori chicken strung in a string in glass fronted cases of cheap eateries, loud mmi music emanating from barber shops and shadowy men who offer to get you taxis and forbidden commodities for a commission.

I usually stay at Delite Hotel. It is the last hotel in the gali and is relatively quiet. The tariff is low and the check-out time is convenient for me. The bedsheets and pillow cases are reasonably clean and the bathroom thankfully doesn't have new fangled gadgets like geysers to confuse me. At night the roaches do crawl over me and the drippng bathroom tap seems to hammer red hot tongs on my head but I console myself that to be truly creative, one has to suffer in this world;

I am a cautiouss man. I usually arrive in Delhi a week before the Mushaira is due to start. However, being a man of frugal means, I cannot afford to go sightseeing and so confine myself to my hotel room, smoking cheap bidis. reading the newspaper, striking up desultory conversations with fellow guests in the dining hall and

idly seeking inspiration for my work. I pride myself on being a keen observer of people. I study faces with a curious mixture of passion and detachment. Instinct told me that the owner of the hotel Surender Mehra was a troubled man. He never made eye contact with his staff or hotel guests and he kept all conversations to a minimum. He was constantly wetting his lips with his tongue and his eyes were hollow and bloodshot and look sinister under those thick bushy eyebrows.

The lobby of Delite Hotel is a nondescript place with a marble founter, marble floors, a sagging rexine covered sofa set pushed against the wall and posters of Qutub Minar, India Gate and Bahai Temple tacked on the walls. There were also stickers thanking people for not smoking, information about conducted tours, the inability to accept credit and a rather pompous instruction that "If you are satisfied tell others, if not, tell us." On the wall behind the counter are pegs for hanging keys and a tiny alcove where a tubby gilt Ganesha contemplates the world passing by. I am describing this part of the hotel so accurately since I have come here for nine years in a row, ever since the Mushaira people deemed it fit to invite me. But this time, on my tenth visit, there was a small change. Immediately below the ac10ve and above the pegs for key~ was the framed photograph of a woman. It had obviously been enlarged from a black and white photograph because it appeared somewhat blurred and indistinct. The woman was not particularly beautiful, she had full lips and a long severe face. Her hair was parted in the middle and combed away from her face. There was a tiny nose stud on the nostril of her slightly hooked nose.

But her most arresting feature were her eyes which, lined with kohl, seemed to blaze with searing intensitly. It seemed all the more disturbing and at the same time somehow poIgnant as the woman was obviously dead because a garland of withered marigolds adorned the photograph and fragrant tendrils of smoke wafted from the joss sticks stuck on the frame. I was curious to know about the dead woman. 1 did not dare ask the proprietor who sat hunched under it, issuing staccato orders and

licking his perennially parched lips. One of the waiters who brought me my chapati., dal and pickle muttered, as a result of my persistent questioning, that the dead woman was the wife of the proprietor. She had died three months ago.

My memory fails me yet again. I have forgotten to tell you about Mishraji. Mishraji is an uncle who has been living in Surender Mehra's other house in Chanakyapuri for more than quarter of a century. He is a short tubby man, who is always dressed in crisp dhotis and kurtas. He sits in a cramped second floor cubicle at Delite Hotel and peers over the accounts chewing countless lime smeared paan. When, some six years ago, he first learnt that I was a shayari, he took great pains to convince me that he too entertained a great love for literature but kismat had reduced him to a bania juggling with figures. I discovered to my delight that indeed Mishraji was well versed in the works of Manto and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Ansari and Ahmed Ali. This drew us closer together and whenever he found some time he would come to my room, hear my shayaris and wag his head, a beautiful smile on his lips. He was full of admiration for me and at lunch time I was often surprised by an extra bowl of shrikhand, extra pieces of meat, all compliments from the hotel.

So it was but natural for me to ask Mishraji about the woman on the photograph. When I mentioned her, he looked uneasy and averted his eyes, scratching the side of his jaw with his podgy fingers.

"A sad business" he muttered at last. "At least I hope she is at peace now. It's a long story." "Did he illtreat her?" I asked in a low voice, referring to Surender Mehra.

"Oh no" he shook his head. "He never laid a hand on her. You are a poet Ali Sahab. Surely you know that one can suffer in a more abstract way?"

I was intrigued. Mishraji eyed me for a few moments, debating whether to divulge the details of the dead woman's life. Then, with a decisive movement, he waddled towards the door, bolted it from the inside and settled himself on

my bed, cross-legged, leaning back on the pillows. I listened.

Fifteen years ago Surendra Mehra brought horne his bride Kanta. She was then twenty, wide-hipped, big­breasted, ripe for bearing children. He was sixteen years older. Lala Dhyan Chand, her father had been impressed by Surendra's business acumen and good manners. Kanta's mother Paro said it was a blessing that Surendra lived alone with just a younger step brother. There would be no nagging mother-in-law to endure.

Kanta came from hardy peasant stock. She had not studied beyond the fifth standard but was adept at cooking and needle work. At her maternal home in Lalpur, she had patted dung cakes. winnowed wheat, churned butter, milked the cows and slaved for hours over smoky wood fires. Now, on her wedding night. she sat primly on-the ornate teak bed her father had sent as part of her dowry ..

It was a sweltering June night but the brocade poIlu of her sari was pulled well over her head. Her hair had . been washed with reetha and rolled into an elaborate bun, the hair pins digging into her scalp. Heavy Kundan ear-rings hung from her ears. Her henna tinted hands

. were folded on her lap and the heady scent of attar made her feel faint. The ribald hints of the marriage songs, her cousins had sung hours earlier still rang in her ears and she was tense with expectation. "Do what he tells you" her elder sister had whispered as her parting words. "Make him happy." Surendra gave a little cough and entered the bridal chamber. He bolted the door behind him and sat down beside her. His silk kurta was too tight for him and he kept licking his lips. as if he was very thirsty. She handed him the glass of milk from the side table. He gulped it down and handed her the empty glass. He clasped her hands and said in a low voice.

"Will you forgive me? Tell me, when I tell you this, will you forgive me?"

There were tears in his eyes. He brushed them away with the sleeve of his arm and spoke.

Kanta listened and her world came crashing down.

She seemed to hear his words from a great distance. A childhood illness, the illness that made him impotent, the secret he had kept from him family, the pressure to get married, his cowardice .... She would have a comfortable life, he would see to that.. .. She would be the mistress of the house, haye servants at her beck and call. Clothes, jewellery, anything she desired. The house needed a woman's touch and Inder, his eleven year old step-brother had grown into a wild and untameable child. There would be so much for her to do .... and now that they had sat before the fire, the secret was hers too, and she would keep it, wouldn't she?

Make him happy. Her sister's words.She nodded her head, mute. dazed. but dry-eyed.

Yes. She would keep the secret.

A month passed by. The relatives departed. The strtngs of coloured lights were dismantled. The servants stored away the extra mattresses from the floor. The house felt silent The henna in Kanta's hands began to fade. She stored her zari lined silk saLwar suits and took to weartng simple cotton clothes. Surendra spent most of his time in the hotel and often did not come home even for lunch.

But Kama had no time to brood. Her attention turned to eleven year old lnder. He was like a little wild untameable creature. with bright eyes and cunning wiles. He refused to take a bath or change his clothes. Buttons were missing from his shirts. Barefooted, his face smeared with grtme, he would be pla}ing marbles or gilli-danda on the galis of the mohaIla. Only hunger drove him home and he would tear the ghee-soaked parathas with his grubby hands, scarcely acknowledging her presence and wiping his greasy mouth with his shirt front, dash out of the house. When the summer acations ended and his school opened, Kanta took matters in her own hands. She was a strong woman and early morning when he was still asleep, she would carry him and dump him on a trough of water on the corner of the yard. His indignant yells awoke the whole neigh bo urhood. but she grimly held him down, soaped his

back, legs, his head, behind his ears and rinsed him with cold water from the well. Then she towelled him briskly, forced him into clean uniform, combed and parted his hair. All the while they traded insults at each other. She was a bhootni, a witch. He was a shaitaan, a laJanga. His nails left long angry weals on her arms. She boxed his ears. He tore her dupatta, she thrashed him with a belan. He slept and studied in the barsati on the second floor. She caught him cutting pictures of Dharmendra and pasting them on a scrap book when there was a maths test the next day. She sat next to him for hours, stick in hand, grim and implacable, not even rising when Surendra came back from the hotel, till he had learnt his lessons. Mter the day she found a stub of a matinee show ticket in his pockets, she took to accompanying him to school, returning only after he had entered the gate. When classes were over, he would find her standing there for him, her paUu pulled over her head, her dark eyes searching among the countless faces for him. His friends teased him and called him a baby. There she comes with your milk bottle they nudged him. He would walk away as fast as possible, turning to glare at her now and then with a ferocious scowl. One day he stopped to let her catch up with him and said "Do you know what I tell my friends?"

"What?" she asked.

'That you are the kaamwali baL Here, take my bag bai."

Years of conditioning at her mother's house had trained her not to display any emotion. But something about his jeering tone, the import of his words made her lips tremble. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Soon she was half-running, half-stumbling homewards, her body racked with sobs, unmindful of the stares of passersby.

lnder was astonished. How could a few words, carelessly spoken, reduce this tough woman to tears? He followed her home, expecting to be soundIly thrashed. Nothing of that sort happened. Kanta lay prostrate in her bed, face down, her shoulders heaving. Overcome by guilt

Inder did not have his evening tea. When she did not emerge from her room for the evening puja, he crept out of the house.

Hours passed by. Surender came from the Hotel. Only then was rnder's absence noticed. Sick with worry, not bothering to cover her bosom with herpallu or wear sandals on her feet, Kanta scoured the neighbourhood. She asked everyone if they had seen him and they all shook their heads. When it was close to midnight, rnder arrived home sleepy and dazed. On his right hand he held a lump of halwa wrapped in plantain leaf. On the other hand he held a cheap shiny pendant bearing a picture of the infant Krishna. He held them before Kanta, his eyes downcast. She crushed him in her arms and showered kisses on his nose, his eyes, his cheeks until he struggled and broke free. Years later, she was found wearing the pendant the night she died.

As the months and years passed by, Inder lost his wild ways. Then came a time when Kanta sensed that he was turning from a boy to a man. His voice cracked. He bolted the door of his room when dressing. His chin turned bristly and a fine down appeared on his upper lip. He shot up and soon towered over her. His appetite grew enormous and she was always in the kitchen, grinding mas alas for rogaryosh making methi ki roti or grating carrots forhalwa, Surender sometimes grumbled about the cost. Then she lashed at him and he fell silent. He was a man with frugal appetites and spartan tastes. But he was secretly relieved that Kanta was so wrapped up in looking after Inder. That made his guilt easier to bear.

When Inder passed his intermediate, Surender insisted that he now take responsibility of the hotel. But Inder had other plans. One afternoon he came home waving a letter. 'Tm going to Australia, Bhabi" he announced. "For a two years course in hotel management."

Kanta's heart sank, "Vilayat, for two years? I won't hear of it. You must help your Bhaiya at the hotel. He needs you. And where is the money to send you so far? I won't hear of it."

'The govt. is paying for my study there, bhabf' he explained impatiently. "When I come back after my training, I will help Bhaiya to make the hotel modern, don't you understand?"

Surendra too was excited by the news. He was not a highly educated man. There were many ways the hotel could be improved. Inder's training abroad would be a godsend.

The two men laughed away Kanta's apprehensions.

She silently packed his suitcases and performed PtYa on the morning of his departure.

* * * * *

Years of tears and taughter, shade and light, pain and tenderness, all swept away by an awful stillness and silence in her heart. Only a cavalcade of memories, phantoms of the past, appearing and disappearing like a mirage in the arid was.tes of the mind. Her meals were left half-eaten. She did not bathe for days. She babbled in her sleep. No diyas were lit it the PtYaghar. Surender would read Inder's letters to her. The weather was fine. He was doing fine. The training was fme. The food was fine. Hurry, she would say, what does he write for me? He sends you his pranam.

"Pranam'?''' She would repeat, Stupidly. Pranwn. Only that? What else?"

Surendra was weary and exasperated by her strange ways. Of late she had taken to sleeping in Inder's room. And in the evenings he would find her there, stitching buttons on kurtas Inder had worn as a child,· polishing shoes he had discarded years ago, humming under her breath, her hair uncombed, her clothes crumpled, a look of absorption on her face.

On other days she would cook enormous meals and sit at the table eating all by herself. She became fat and unwieldy. She wheezed as she climbed the stains. It took her a great effort to bend down or get up. Her fingers thickened and she had to be taken to the jewellers to have her rings cut out. Soon she was a mountain of flesh. Her stomach and buttocks jiggled as she walked. There were

folds of fat on her neck and her face looked puffy. She was only in her thirties but she looked like an old woman.The sheen had gone out of her thck lustrous hair and there were signs of grey on her temples. Surendra pondered about her and grew perplexed. As soon as lnder comes back I'll get him married, he decided at last. Another woman in the house will cheer her up. And soon there will be lnder's children and the house would be full of life. She would revert to her old self-scolding, coaxing. arguing, chastising, issuing orders.

Mter two years lnder came back, his suitcase packed with gifts for them and a degree that proclaimed his proficiency in hotel management. His smile faded when he saw his bhabL The two brothers went into a huddle. lnder nodded. He would marry at once.

"What's the hurry? Kanta asked.

"You have just come back. A wife will only distract you from the hotel."

But he was adamant. She struck a bargain with him.

She would choose his bride. A hectic round of bride viewing started. There were many offers from decent well established' families. Negotiations would begin and then Kanta would make her disapproval known. Mala was too forward. She was 'wearing a sleeveless blouse; Kavita's nose was too long. Pooja's father was a lawyer. Lawyers were cunning men. Manju. had narrow hips. She would have trouble at child birth. Amita had too many siblings. They would be a burden to lnder. At first lnder abided by her decisions. Then he grew impatient. Finally one evening, he and Surendra furtively slipped out of the house.

They came back late at night, talking in low animated voices. Then Surendra retired to his room.

Kanta pounced on lnder. "Where did you go?" She asked suspiciously. lnder loosened his tie.

"We went to see a girl Bhabf' he said carefully. "She's beautiful. educated, the only daughter. Her father is a top government official."

"You forgot our bargain." She rasped.

"What bargain?"

"You'd many only the girl I choose."

"Oh that" he laughed. "If I listen to you, I'll become an old man. My teeth would falloff, I'd have gout and still remain a bachelor."

"Don't talk to me like that." She said quietly. "I've made you what you are. Do you remember how I threw you in the trough when you refused to bath? Do you remember how I took you to school and you called me a kamwali bat? Do you remember-the nights I sat up when you read your books? And do you remember the fasts I kept? They were not for my husband but for you. You are the reason why I live. For there is no other reason for me to live in this house. Your bhaiya is incapable of giving me children, do you hear?"

"I've been your son", he said in a small voice, strangely uneasy.

"Son?" She spat out the word.

"How can you be my son. I am only nine years glder than you. Do you rememberthe times I've stumbled against you in the years you were growing up? I did it to feel your chest against my breasts. Does a mother lust for her son that way? I've wanted you too long and suffered too long. I will not wish the torture of these two years on my worst enemy. Do you think after all these I will let some simpering lass take you away from me? You are mine, Inder, you are mine!

She wound his arms around him in a desperate embrace. He could feel her massive breasts, belly and thighs against his body, her warm sour breath against his face. Long ago one afternoon she had returned home drenched in tl1e rain. He had stood in the shadow of the stairs watching her from behind. His eyes had taken in her tapering back, the hollow at the base of her spine, the gentle swell of her hips, her rounded buttocks, the supple thighs. He remembered that fleeting stir in his loins and the shame and guilt that haunted him afterwards. Now he looked down at her, changed beyond imagining, but then, within that ugly mass of flesh burnt a love so

all consuming that it frightened him. He stared at her with chaotic feelings of pity. tenderness and revulsion. Then. with a groan. he pushed her away and strode out of the room.

Mishraji fell silent.

"How do you know all this?" I asked at last.

"Inder came to me that night. He told me everything.

He couldn't tell his brother. He was in torment."

"What happened then?" I was almost afraid to ask. A week later he slipped away with a letter for his brother. He was going back to Australia where a job was waiting for him. A month later Kanta died in her sleep. She had a massive heart attack. With her gone Surendra sold the house. Now he has a couple of rooms on the top floor of his hotel.

"And Inder?"

Mishraji shook his head.

"Inder does not know of his Bhabi's death. He left no forwarding address."

Surprisingly. at the mushaira, my shayars drew enthusiastic applause. I returned to Lucknow. Real life was more tragic, more full of grand and terrible passion, than the airy insipid words I had conjured up for so long.