by Vikram Seth
Motu Chand looked at Ishaq for a clue, but Ishaq’s face reflected his own perplexity.
‘It’s no more than she has prescribed for me,’ said Maan. ‘And, as you can see, I am flourishing as a result. My soul, at any rate, has avoided indisposition as successfully as she has been avoiding me.’
6.17
Rasheed was just picking up his books when Ishaq Khan, who was still standing by the door, blurted out:
‘And Tasneem is indisposed as well.’
Motu Chand glanced at his friend. Rasheed’s back was towards them, but it had stiffened. He had heard Ishaq Khan’s excuse to Maan; it had not increased his respect for the sarangi player that he had acted in this demeaning manner as an emissary for Saeeda Bai. Was he now acting as an emissary for Tasneem as well?
‘What gives you that understanding?’ he asked, turning around slowly.
Ishaq Khan coloured at the patent disbelief in the teacher’s voice.
‘Well, whatever state she is in now, she will be indisposed after her lesson with you,’ he replied challengingly. And, indeed, it was true. Tasneem was often in tears after her lessons with Rasheed.
‘She has a tendency to tears,’ said Rasheed, sounding more harsh than he intended. ‘But she is not unintelligent and is making good progress. If there are any problems with my teaching, her guardian can inform me in person—or in writing.’
‘Can’t you be a little less rigorous with her, Master Sahib?’ said Ishaq hotly. ‘She is a delicate girl. She is not training to become a mullah, you know. Or a haafiz.’
And yet, tears or no tears, reflected Ishaq painfully, Tasneem was spending so much of her spare time on Arabic these days that she had very little left for anyone else. Her lessons appeared to have redirected her even from romantic novels. Did he really wish her young teacher to start behaving gently towards her?
Rasheed had gathered up his papers and books. He now spoke almost to himself. ‘I am no more rigorous with her than I am with’—he had been about to say ‘myself’—‘with anyone else. One’s emotions are largely a matter of self-control. Nothing is painless,’ he added a little bitterly.
Ishaq’s eyes flashed. Motu Chand placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
‘And anyway,’ continued Rasheed, ‘Tasneem has a tendency to indolence.’
‘She appears to have lots of tendencies, Master Sahib.’
Rasheed frowned. ‘And this is exacerbated by that half-witted parakeet which she keeps interrupting her work to feed or indulge. It is no pleasure to hear fragments of the Book of God being mangled in the beak of a blasphemous bird.’
Ishaq was too dumbstruck to say anything. Rasheed walked past him and out of the room.
‘What made you provoke him like that, Ishaq Bhai?’ said Motu Chand after a few seconds.
‘Provoke him? Why, he provoked me. His last remark—’
‘He couldn’t have known that you had given her the parakeet.’
‘Why, everyone knows.’
‘He probably doesn’t. He doesn’t interest himself in that kind of thing, our upright Rasheed. What got into you? Why are you provoking everyone these days?’
The reference to Ustad Majeed Khan was not lost on Ishaq, but the subject was one he could hardly bear to think of. He said:
‘So that owl book provoked you, did it? Have you tried any of its recipes? How many women has it lured into your power, Motu? And what does your wife have to say about your newfound prowess?’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Motu Chand, undeflected. ‘Listen, Ishaq, there’s nothing to be gained by putting people’s backs up. Just now—’
‘It’s these wretched hands of mine,’ cried Ishaq, holding them up and looking at them as if he hated them. ‘These wretched hands. For the last hour upstairs it has been torture.’
‘But you were playing so well—’
‘What will happen to me? To my younger brothers? I can’t get employment on the basis of my brilliant wit. And even my brother-in-law won’t be able to come to Brahmpur to help us now. How can I show my face at the radio station, let alone ask for a transfer for him?’
‘It’s bound to get better, Ishaq Bhai. Don’t distress yourself like this. I’ll help you—’
This was of course impossible. Motu Chand had four small children.
Even music means agony to me now, said Ishaq Khan to himself, shaking his head. Even music. I cannot bear to hear it even when I am not on duty. This hand follows the tune by itself, and it seizes up with pain. If my father had been alive, what would he have said if he had heard me speaking like this?
6.18
‘The Begum Sahiba was very explicit,’ said the watchman. ‘She is not seeing anyone this evening.’
‘Why?’ demanded Maan. ‘Why?’
‘I do not know,’ said the watchman.
‘Please find out,’ said Maan, slipping a two-rupee note into the man’s hand.
The watchman took the note and said: ‘She is not well.’
‘But you knew that before,’ said Maan, a bit aggrieved. ‘That means I must go and see her. She will be wanting to see me.’
‘No,’ said the watchman, standing before the gate. ‘She will not be wanting to see you.’
This struck Maan as distinctly unfriendly. ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘you have to let me in.’ He tried to shoulder his way past the watchman, but the watchman resisted, and there was a scuffle.
Voices were heard from inside, and Bibbo emerged. When she saw what was happening, her hand flew to her mouth. Then she gasped out: ‘Phool Singh—stop it! Dagh Sahib, please—please—what will Begum Sahiba say?’
This thought brought Maan to his senses, and he brushed down his kurta, looking rather shamefaced. Neither he nor the watchman was injured. The watchman continued to look entirely matter-of-fact about the whole incident.
‘Bibbo, is she very ill?’ asked Maan in vicarious pain.
‘Ill?’ said Bibbo. ‘Who’s ill?’
‘Saeeda Bai, of course.’
‘She’s not in the least ill,’ said Bibbo, laughing. Then, as she caught the watchman’s eye, she added: ‘At least not until half an hour ago, when she had a sharp pain around her heart. She can’t see you—or anyone.’
‘Who’s with her?’ demanded Maan.
‘No one, that is, well, as I’ve just said—no one.’
‘Someone is with her,’ said Maan fiercely, with a sharp stab of jealousy.
‘Dagh Sahib,’ said Bibbo, not without sympathy, ‘it is not like you to be like this.’
‘Like what?’ said Maan.
‘Jealous. Begum Sahiba has her old admirers—she cannot cast them off. This house depends on their generosity.’
‘Is she angry with me?’ asked Maan.
‘Angry? Why?’ asked Bibbo blankly.
‘Because I didn’t come that day as I had promised,’ said Maan. ‘I tried—I just couldn’t get away.’
‘I don’t think she was angry with you,’ said Bibbo. ‘But she was certainly angry with your messenger.’
‘With Firoz?’ said Maan, astonished.
‘Yes, with the Nawabzada.’
‘Did he deliver a note?’ asked Maan. He reflected with a little envy that Firoz, who could read and write Urdu, could thereby communicate in writing with Saeeda Bai.
‘I think so,’ said Bibbo, a little vaguely.
‘And why was she angry?’ asked Maan.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bibbo with a light laugh. ‘I must go in now.’ And she left Maan standing on the pavement looking very agitated.
Saeeda Bai had in fact been greatly displeased to see Firoz, and was annoyed at Maan for having sent him. Yet, when she received Maan’s message that he could not come on the appointed evening, she could not help feeling disappointed and sad. And this fact too annoyed her. She could not afford to get emotionally attached to this light-hearted, light-headed, and probably light-footed young man. She had a profession to keep up, and he was definitely in the nature
of a distraction, however pleasant. And so she began to realize that it might be a good thing if he stayed away for a while. Since she was entertaining a patron this evening, she had instructed the watchman to keep everyone else—and particularly Maan—away.
When Bibbo later reported to her what had happened, Saeeda Bai’s reaction was irritation at what she saw as Maan’s interference in her professional life: he had no claim on her time or what she did with it. But later still, talking to the parakeet, she said, ‘Dagh Sahib, Dagh Sahib’ quite a number of times, her expression ranging from sexual passion to flirtatiousness to tenderness to indifference to irritation to anger. The parakeet was receiving a more elaborate education in the ways of the world than most of his fellows.
Maan had wandered off, wondering what to do with his time, incapable of getting Saeeda Bai out of his mind, but craving some, any, activity that could distract him at least for a moment. He remembered that he’d said he would drop by to see the Rajkumar of Marh, and so he made his way to the lodgings not far from the university that the Rajkumar had taken with six or seven other students, four of whom were still in Brahmpur at the beginning of the summer vacation. These students—two the scions of other petty princedoms, and one the son of a large zamindar—were not short of money. Most of them got a couple of hundred rupees a month to spend as they liked. This would have been just about equal to Pran’s entire salary, and these students looked upon their unwealthy lecturers with easy contempt.
The Rajkumar and his friends ate together, played cards together, and shared each other’s company a good deal. Each of them spent fifteen rupees a month on mess fees (they had their own cook) and another twenty rupees a month on what they called ‘girl fees’. These went to support a very beautiful nineteen-year-old dancing girl who lived with her mother on a street not far from the university. Rupvati would entertain the friends quite often, and one of them would stay behind afterwards. This way each of them got a turn once every two weeks by rotation. On the other nights, Rupvati was free to entertain any of them or to take a night off, but the understanding was that she would have no other clients. The mother would greet the boys very affectionately; she was very pleased to see them, and often told them that she did not know what she and her daughter would have done if it hadn’t been for their kindness.
Within half an hour of meeting the Rajkumar of Marh and drinking a fair amount of whisky, Maan had spilt out all his troubles on his shoulder. The Rajkumar mentioned Rupvati, and suggested that they visit her. Maan cheered up slightly at this and, taking the bottle with them, they began to walk in the direction of her house. But the Rajkumar suddenly remembered that this was one of her nights off and that they would not be entirely welcome there.
‘I know what we’ll do. We’ll visit Tarbuz ka Bazaar instead,’ said the Rajkumar, hailing a tonga and pulling Maan on to it. Maan was in no mood to resist this suggestion.
But when the Rajkumar, who had placed a friendly hand on his thigh, moved it significantly upwards, he shook it away with a laugh.
The Rajkumar did not take this rejection at all amiss, and in a couple of minutes, with the bottle passing between them, they were talking as easily as before.
‘This is a great risk for me,’ said the Rajkumar, ‘but because of our great friendship I am doing it.’
Maan began to laugh. ‘Don’t do it again,’ he said. ‘I feel ticklish.’
Now it was the Rajkumar’s turn to laugh. ‘I don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘I mean that taking you to Tarbuz ka Bazaar is a risk for me.’
‘Oh, how?’ said Maan.
‘Because “any student who is seen in an undesirable place shall be liable to immediate expulsion”.’
The Rajkumar was quoting from the curious and detailed rules of conduct promulgated for the students of Brahmpur University. This particular rule sounded so vague and yet at the same time so delightfully draconian that the Rajkumar and his friends had learned it by heart and used to chant it in chorus to the lilt of the Gayatri Mantra whenever they went out to gamble or drink or whore.
6.19
They soon got to Old Brahmpur, and wound through the narrow streets towards Tarbuz ka Bazaar. Maan was beginning to have second thoughts.
‘Why not some other night—?’ he began.
‘Oh, they serve very good biryani there,’ said the Rajkumar.
‘Where?’
‘At Tahmina Bai’s. I’ve been there once or twice when it’s been a non-Rupvati day.’
Maan’s head sank on his chest and he went off to sleep. When they got to Tarbuz ka Bazaar, the Rajkumar woke him up.
‘From here we’ll have to walk.’
‘Not far?’
‘No—not far. Tahmina Bai’s place is just around the corner.’
They dismounted, paid the tonga-wallah, and walked hand in hand into a side alley. The Rajkumar then walked up a flight of narrow and steep stairs, pulling a tipsy Maan behind him.
But when they got to the top of the stairs they heard a confused noise, and when they had walked a few steps along the corridor they were faced with a curious scene.
The plump, pretty, dreamy-eyed Tahmina Bai was giggling in delight as an opium-eyed, vacant-faced, red-tongued, barrel-bodied, middle-aged man—an income tax clerk—was beating on the tabla and singing an obscene song in a thin voice. Two scruffy lower division clerks were lounging around, one of them with his head in her lap. They were trying to sing along.
The Rajkumar and Maan were about to beat a retreat, when the madam of the establishment saw them and bustled quickly towards them along the corridor. She knew who the Rajkumar was, and hastened to reassure him that the others would be cleared out in a couple of minutes.
The two loitered around a paan shop for a few minutes, then went back upstairs. Tahmina Bai, alone, and with a beatific smile on her face, was ready to entertain them.
First she sang a thumri, then—realizing that time was getting on—she fell into a sulk.
‘Oh, do sing,’ said the Rajkumar, prodding Maan to placate Tahmina Bai as well.
‘Ye-es—’ said Maan.
‘No, I won’t, you don’t appreciate my voice.’ She looked downwards and pouted.
‘Well,’ said the Rajkumar, ‘at least grace us with some poetry.’
This sent Tahmina Bai into gales of laughter. Her pretty little jowls shook, and she snorted with delight. The Rajkumar was mystified. After another swig from his bottle, he looked at her in wonderment.
‘Oh, it’s too—ah, ah—grace us with some—hah, hah—poetry!’
Tahmina Bai was no longer in a sulk but in an ungovernable fit of laughter. She squealed and squealed and held her sides and gasped, the tears running down her face.
When she was finally capable of speech, she told them a joke.
‘The poet Akbar Allahabadi was in Banaras when he was lured by some friends into a street just like ours. He had drunk quite a lot—just like you—so he leaned against a wall to urinate. And then—what happened?—a courtesan, leaning out from a window above, recognized him from one of his poetry recitals and—and she said—’ Tahmina Bai giggled, then started laughing again, shaking from side to side. ‘She said—Akbar Sahib is gracing us with his poetry!’ Tahmina Bai began to laugh uncontrollably once more, and to Maan’s fuddled amazement he found himself joining in.
But Tahmina Bai had not finished her joke, and went on:
‘So when he heard her, the poet made this remark on the spur of the moment:
“Alas—what poor poetry can Akbar write
When the pen is in his hand and the inkpot upstairs?”’
This was followed by squeals and snorts of laughter. Then Tahmina Bai told Maan that she herself had something to show him in the other room, and led him in, while the Rajkumar took another couple of swigs.
After a few minutes she emerged, with Maan looking bedraggled and disgusted. But Tahmina Bai was pouting sweetly. She said to the Rajkumar: ‘Now, I have something to show you.’
‘No, no,’ said the Rajkumar. ‘I’ve already—no, I’m not in the mood—come, Maan, let’s go.’
Tahmina Bai looked affronted, and said: ‘Both of you are—are—very similar! What do you need me for?’
The Rajkumar had got up. He put an arm around Maan and they struggled towards the door. As they walked into the corridor they heard her say:
‘At least have some biryani before you leave. It will be ready in a few minutes—’
Hearing no response from them, Tahmina Bai let fly:
‘It might give you strength. Neither of you could grace me with your poetry!’
She began to laugh and shake, and her laughter followed them all the way down the stairs into the street.
6.20
Even though he had not done anything as such with her, Maan was feeling so remorseful about having visited such a low singing girl as Tahmina Bai that he wanted to go to Saeeda Bai’s again immediately and beg her forgiveness. The Rajkumar persuaded him to go home instead. He took him to the gate of Prem Nivas and left him there.
Mrs Mahesh Kapoor was awake. When she saw Maan so drunk and unsteady she was very unhappy. Though she did not say anything to him, she was afraid for him. If his father had seen him in his present state he would have had a fit.
Maan, guided to his room, fell on his bed and went off to sleep.
The next day, contrite, he visited Saeeda Bai, and she was glad to see him. They spent the evening together. But she told him that she would be occupied for the next two days, and that he should not take it amiss.
Maan took it greatly amiss. He suffered from acute jealousy and thwarted desire, and wondered what he had done wrong. Even if he could have seen Saeeda Bai every evening, his days would merely have trickled by drop by drop. Now not only the days but the nights as well stretched interminably ahead of him, black and empty.
He practised a bit of polo with Firoz, but Firoz was busy during the days and sometimes even during the evenings with law or other work. Unlike the young Bespectacled Bannerji, Firoz did not treat time spent playing polo or deciding on a proper walking stick as wasted; he considered these activities proper to the son of a Nawab. Compared to Maan, however, Firoz was an addict to his profession.