A Delhi Obsession

by M G Vassanji

  Ma got up first from the dining table, then Asha lumbered off. When the two of them were alone at the table, Ravi broke the longish silence with an unexpected offensive. Her late arrival two nights ago and the brooding afterwards had not yet been addressed. For the first time in their married lives she had not come to bed. Now the consequence.

  “This Khan…when is he leaving, Moi? He’s stayed a long time, I would say—and he has a family there—”

  Mohini lit up. “You’ve met him, he’s come to our home, and you still call him ‘this Khan’? Like he is some object—”

  Why couldn’t she have taken it easy? Let things be? Munir would leave in a few days, anyway.

  It was too late. There came the eruption, all of Ravi’s pent-up anger. “Why does it matter so much to you? Why has he taken such importance in your life? I have noticed, don’t take me for an idiot. And I have information—”

  “What information?”

  “Information. Why don’t you go to Canada with him? Become a grandmother in Toronto. What’s the baby’s name?—Joshua. Become a granny to Joshua. And leave my daughters to me.”

  “They are as much my daughters as yours! And when did you start caring so much about them, anyway?”

  And back and forth, until Asha came out of her room and said, “Mum and Dad, I don’t like the two of you fighting. Why spoil everything?” Saying which, she disappeared back into her room.

  Later Ravi was in the living room, consulting a bunch of papers from his briefcase, and Mohini began to clear the table.

  Ma came in, with purpose.

  “Go ahead and break your home. I told you.”

  “Told me what, Ma? Why are you harassing me?”

  “He knows, doesn’t he? Your father’s ashes still warm and you carry on this sinful affair.”

  “His ashes we put in the Ganga, Ma.”

  Trust a mother to know where to hurt you.

  “Think of the girl, what will happen to her? Have you thought of that?”

  “I’ve been thinking only of her. And I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Hm.”

  She went to join Ravi in the living room. Her phone rang and it was Aarti.

  “Is that you, Didi? I want to talk to you alone.”

  Mohini returned to the dining room, then shifted to the bedroom.

  “What is it, Aarti?”

  “I should ask you that, Didi. What’s going on over there?”

  “Nothing. What’s Ma been saying?”

  “This man…Didi…it doesn’t work.”

  “You would know.”

  “Yes, I would. Listen, you have everything to lose. Just swallow the bitter pill and stop it.”

  Mohini didn’t know what to say. Ma had no right to tell tales. But then, she was Ma. And Aarti was her sister.

  “Don’t you think there can be something genuine to it? Something real? Not all cases are the same. When you know someone is destined for you—is right for you and meant for you but he just got delayed coming to you? And don’t you go repeating what I just said!”

  “I won’t. I understand what you feel, believe me, Sis. Many people reach a dead-end in life. But you have your family, Sis. Please, please, consider this carefully.”

  “I will.”

  She came out and saw Ma giving dessert to Asha. Rubbing it in, reminding her she had a daughter.

  Then this morning, just having had his tea, Ravi said, “So what are you up to today? Off to DRC again?”

  “I’ll go where I want,” she said sharply. He took half a step to hit her, but Ma was hovering about and walked in. He left.

  An hour later, under Ma’s condemning gaze, she went out to the auto stand. She picked up Munir outside the Club gate, and then proceeded to hurt him in the place he was most vulnerable. Going home later that day, after all her sorries and tears, and their reconciliation and dinner, she knew she had resolved nothing. There was no resolution. There was only the now, as he had once told her. They would go on, and on. Distance would bring peace. And longing.

  Munir

  HE THOUGHT HE SHOULD do a tour before returning to Toronto, see something else of India. A change of scenery, a break to help erase the reminders of recent events. Reception arranged a car to take him to Agra, an obvious choice that he had postponed previously, and then on to Jaipur and Ajmer. Mohini, told briefly about his plans, said it was a touristic schedule, but still a must. While he was waiting for his details to be finalized, he received a phone call, and it would seem later that it had come straight from wonderland.

  The caller was Rajender of Odisha, who reminded him that they had met on the Paschim Express not long ago. Munir recalled with a smile the man in his train compartment who had so dramatically jumped up from his seat and touched his feet. He had been acutely embarrassed.

  “Professor Munir, sir.”

  No point in telling him he was not a professor. Even his hosts at the university in Gujarat, who should have known better, had insisted on the honorific, despite his protests.

  “Sir, I am in Delhi. I have done research on you…I want to come and personally hand you an invitation to come to Odisha.”

  “Thank you, Rajender. That is kind of you. But I am booked on a tour of Agra and Rajasthan, and after that it will be time for me to return home. You are welcome to come and see me, however.”

  “Today itself, sir?”

  “Later today is fine. Now is fine.”

  “I will come at five,” Rajender said.

  At a little before five in the afternoon Munir sat down on the patio to await the man; behind him on the green, more people had dragged out chairs and were sitting around in small, friendly groups; a steady stream of club members were making their way from the driveway to the tea lounge. A man in mufti holding an automatic weapon at the ready stood at the far end of the green, next to the fence, which was suggestive of some political eminence, retired or current, being somewhere on the premises. Munir turned and saw his acquaintance from the train journey walking briskly down the driveway towards him, having got off an auto. As before, he was dressed modestly in a light shirt over trousers; in one hand was a slim black briefcase, in the other a smartphone. Again, with a surprising abruptness he bent down and touched Munir’s feet, at which Munir looked helplessly around in case he was seen. He was: curious eyes were already sizing him up.

  They went and sat in the outside veranda of the tea lounge, in front of the lotus pond. Over tea, Rajender produced a brochure and a pamphlet and explained that he was an administrator at the Ashoka School for Children in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, founded by a mechanical engineer turned philanthropist called Harish Jain. The facilities in the pictures, Munir observed, looked remarkably modern, with three-storey grey-brick buildings set amidst lush green lawns and flower gardens. The school had some eight hundred student boarders from the villages of the area, brought to receive free education and advance themselves in life. They were taught arts and crafts, English, Hindi, and technological skills, and were given opportunities to play sports.

  “I am impressed,” Munir said to a smiling Rajender. “This Mr. Jain must be a remarkable man.”

  Rajender nodded. “Great man,” he said, adding that Mr. Jain had received an honour from the president of India.

  “We would like you to come and receive an award at the Ashoka School’s Annual Day, sir. It is on Friday itself. It has taken me time to arrange it.”

  Munir was flabbergasted. “What award…? I am interested in the school but…an award? For what?”

  “You are modest, sir. I’ve seen your profile on the internet. It took me a long time to find you, sir—I had lost your contact. New phone. But your professor friend in Gujarat finally gave me your number. We would like you to come and speak words of wisdom to the boys and girls at the school. They all come from poor tribal homes. You can tell th
em how you went from Africa to Canada and became successful. That will be very good.” Saying this, he looked at his smartphone, fiddled with it, and held it up for Munir to view a photo of his family. A plain-looking woman in a purple sari, beside Rajender in a brown suit, and a cheerful boy and girl in bright clothes and shiny hair. This seemed like a recommendation as to the worthiness of the man.

  Munir said yes. He had wanted a change in scenery, and he had decided on the Taj Mahal, but why not exotic Odisha? He knew little about it beyond what he had once gleaned from a guidebook. He could do the school and the children some good, though the invitation did sound odd, which in itself was nothing unusual in India. Munir knew nothing of Rajender, except what he had been shown by the brochure and the nice family photo on the phone. In the elite ambience of the Delhi Recreational Club, amidst the boisterous political and earnest academic discussions, his visitor—for whom he’d had to sign in the guest book—looked decidedly out of place, a fidgety country mouse.

  Through the glass wall on his right, when he took a glimpse inside the lounge, his eyes met Ravi’s. He was sitting against the opposite wall looking out, as he usually did, in company with the indefatigable Jetha Lal and a few others. Munir waved briefly but there was no response.

  The next day a ticket arrived for him by email. And early morning the following day, a Friday, he flew out east to Odisha.

  * * *

  —

  He stepped down from the plane onto a melting tarmac and walked the short distance to the terminal, a small low-rise building caught in the haze of bursting morning daylight. As he entered the shade, a young man stepped forward and put a garland over his head. He knew it was best not to become too conscious of this, he would remove it at the first opportunity. Immediately afterwards, Rajender came up and touched his feet. The two men accompanied Munir into a small private waiting room which had a table and four chairs around it, where he was asked to sit and offered a glass of water. Rajender was already on his phone instructing a driver to meet them at the front airport entrance. Shortly afterwards they walked outside, where a large white car was waiting. The driver too touched Munir’s feet before opening the door for him. Munir was feeling at that moment like a comical fraud or a bumbling idiot and surely the gods were laughing at him. He should not have accepted the invitation, however sincere it had sounded. He couldn’t be the right person for what these people had in mind. Now he simply had to go along with whatever awaited him, which thought was accompanied by the mercenary hope that the experience might perhaps be worth storing away for the future.

  The hotel was a modern high-rise set away from the road; a long driveway came curving up to the entrance. It was lunchtime, and as Munir walked upon the blue runner to his room on the ground floor he could hear a tremendous clamour coming down from the dining room on the mezzanine floor. He dumped his garland on a chair, washed his face, changed his shirt, and joined his hosts in the lobby, from where they went up to the mezzanine for lunch. After the meal Munir was told he could rest and to be ready at two-thirty, when he would be taken to the campus.

  At exactly the designated time he received a call in his room, telling him his ride had arrived. Two young men picked him up in the same white car as before. At the end of a long, moderately busy road they stopped outside an open gate where Rajender stood waiting. He was now in full colour, wearing a crimson vest over an orange kurta. On either side of the gate, standing to military attention were two young women dressed like girl scouts or cadets. As soon as Munir stepped out onto the sidewalk, a third girl appeared from somewhere and put a garland on him. He hurried forward, trying to act casually, and as he reached the gate, much to his astonishment, the two girl scouts suddenly stiffened their postures and saluted him smartly. He had gone from the implausible and mildly quaint to the bizarre.

  You have been misinformed! I am only a writer, a mediocre has-been, nobody even knows me anymore in my own country, let alone in India. I am not even flattered by this attention!

  Rajender and Munir walked together along a paved driveway, on either side of which were well-tended gardens with gloriously bright flowers. A short distance before them stood a modest-sized new building, into which they entered and went upstairs, where Munir was greeted by various teachers and taken into rooms where the students were ready for him. As soon as he entered they stood up and clapped their hands, faces beaming. In one class, the students were sitting at their computers and learning how to search the web. In another, the boys and girls were painting on easels, and in a third they were at work on the floor, block-printing on coarse pieces of cloth. A sports museum displayed on its walls some framed photos of winning teams and various glass cases displayed sports equipment of special significance. The rugby eleven had attained some fame in international competitions. Finally he was taken to the assembly.

  They walked some distance down a path to a large field, at the nearer end of which stood a high platform behind a rope cordon. Munir went up its steps with Rajender and was formally introduced to the redoubtable Mr. Harish Jain, the man who had endowed the school. He was a small-statured man dressed, like Rajender, in kurta and vest, but with a folded beige shawl thrown over one shoulder. A yellow mark on his forehead indicated that he had recently been to a temple or shrine. He welcomed Munir and, to his surprise, asked if he had come from Delhi. Just then, as they stood there talking pleasantries, there came from behind Munir a tremendous applause, and he turned around to face a sea of little people in maroon-and-white uniforms who had all stood up and were cheering. Munir waved briefly at them, following Mr. Jain’s cue, after which he sat down among other dignitaries in a row of chairs.

  The principal of the school stood up and introduced Mr. Jain, who addressed these children from poor communities in the tenderest manner, telling them of the importance of education, and how once they had succeeded they would be able to help their families. A few other people spoke, after which Munir was introduced by the principal, and there came more thunderous applause as he stood up and walked up to the mike. He spoke in English from notes he had hastily made that morning. He spoke to a myriad of small faces, yet he felt distinctly that he was speaking to himself; they could not possibly understand him, and to Mr. Jain and the others he was merely form, a program item. After he had finished, with much ceremony he was presented with a framed artwork consisting of a fine, intricate etching in an abstract geometric design, and a beige ceremonial shawl with a fine border was put on his shoulder. The principal spoke and dismissed the assembly, and suddenly there were clouds of dust in the bright air. After shaking hands with Mr. Jain, Munir left with Rajender for the gate. It had been too quick. He would have liked to speak more with Mr. Jain and chat with some kids, sit in on a class, see in more detail what they studied. His interest had been genuinely aroused. But Rajender was quiet and preoccupied and handed him over to the driver. There were no escorts this time.

  That evening Munir had dinner at the hotel with Rajender and a few locals, including two poets and a man who worked in a tribal area in the hills. It was a jolly evening, though Rajender was again quiet and looked somewhat out of place. He was, after all, a mere administrator. The poets spoke about their work and gave Munir copies of their books. The social worker invited him to visit him in the hills anytime he wished. Looking at the silent Rajender, Munir wondered what his host thought he had got out of him. The following morning a car took Munir on a tour of the city, and he saw many beautiful temples, for which the city was famous. In the late afternoon Rajender dropped him off at the airport, as respectful as ever, and Munir returned to Delhi. Unlocking his room at the DRC, it seemed to him that he had walked out of a dream.

  * * *

  —

  There was just enough time to get dinner, so he hurried to the dining room where a table was found for him. He had a glass of wine. Later he walked around the grounds a few times and then sat down on the patio, recalling his Odisha adventure. He had tex
ted Mohini while walking, and she called. She was getting bolder, he thought, perhaps because he was leaving soon. She gave a bright peal of laughter when he told her of his visit. “At least you saw another place. Now you’ve seen three different states, and Delhi. You’re becoming a real Indian.”

  Feeling positive after that exchange, musing vaguely about coming days, he closed his eyes. Quite suddenly he sensed a movement and a shadow fell over him, and he opened his eyes to see himself surrounded by six men in white. They pulled up chairs and sat down.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Jetha Lal in his growly voice, delivered in almost a whisper. “Relaxing?”

  “I guess I am. I was having a quiet time.”

  The man was on his right and moved his chair closer. His acolytes, for some reason, were also leaning forward.

  “Mohini-ji didn’t come today.” A little louder this time.

  Munir didn’t speak for some moments. Then he said angrily, “What—why are you telling me this? It’s her business.”

  Surrounded by restless white spectres, he now sensed menace.

  “Yes. Her business. She’s a wonderful woman. Our Mohini-ji. Smart and beautiful, no? A phataki.”

  “I asked you, why are you telling me this?”

  “She’s a flower of Hinduism. And you are a good Muslim. A pride of the Mohammedans.”

  “I’m a Canadian. Don’t put your labels on me.”

  “Canadian, sir. But you like Hindu women, I see. Better than Canadian women, no?” He waited. “No doubt. But you are Muslim, sir. Mlechha. Different.”

  “White women not good fuck?” butted in an obnoxious follower.

  A round of chuckling.

  “You like beef, sir? Meat of mother cow?” spoke up yet another cadre.

  “What is it to you?” Munir asked, in a louder voice. “And why have you surrounded me?” He hoped someone passing by would hear him. The spectres became wary and sat back.