I knew what to expect. I kept a straight face and looked straight ahead. If you look haughty enough, I told myself, no one will dare make fun of you or crack a joke, at least not to your face. But the people of Mewar were in a good humour and willing to ignore the public humiliation of their Maharaj Kumar. We were now on the central avenue, Bappa Rawal Path, the one that divided Chittor into two almost equal halves. Every fifty yards, there was a pot tied at a height of some twenty-five or thirty feet with ropes that had a profusion of vines and flowers entwined around them. This was a piece of decoration I was unfamiliar with. Did the pots contain, I wondered, the Flautist’s favourites, curds and butter-milk? I did not have to wait long for an answer. I heard the sound of a tugging at the neck of the pot above me. My first impulse was to duck my head. I was in no mood to be spattered with dairy products. Fortunately I kept my head and did not make an ass of myself. There was a shower of petals and by the time the seventh pot had emptied, not just Toofan and I but the entire road was a mosaic of pink, yellow, white and red.
Where were all the peacocks? Why weren’t the parabolas of their lonely cries drowning out the song of my wife?
Seen the sun today?
It’s gone peacock blue.
Looked at my tongue this morning.
Same thing. Stark blue.
Blue marigolds. Blue ravens. Blue grass.
Must be a blue cataract in my eye, I said.
Glanced, by chance at the calendar then.
Watch it impatiently for 364 days of the year.
Except today, of course.
Wish you a blue birthday, my love.
(Can gods have birthdays,
Thought they were without beginning or end.)
Blue is the colour of my beloved.
Blue is the colour of my universe.
They call me tart, harlot, whore
Slut, strumpet, fornicator.
Tell them, I beg you.
I beseech you, tell them.
Save my honour, beloved, save my honour.
Tell them who I am,
A god’s wife, nothing less.
(Are you ashamed of me,
Why have you kept me your dark secret?)
Tell them, I’m yours.
Legally married to you before the gods.
As the sun, moon and stars are my witness
Tell them, to my last breath,
I’m a true blue.
Save my honour, beloved, save my honour.
Seen the sun today?
The song and the voice rose to a frantic chant of one of the Flautist’s thousand names as we stopped at the portals of Brindabani Mandir. I alighted slowly from Toofan’s back. ‘Save my honour,’ she cried again and again. ‘Save my honour.’ There is some misunderstanding here, my dear wife, I believe it is my honour and the honour of Mewar which need safeguarding. I took off my shoes. I could feel the Pradhanji and the Chancellor avoiding my eyes. Did they know? Did all the courtiers and the raos and rawats who were accompanying me know the identity of the singer? I was willing to delude myself even now. Of course they knew. An old man bent down and touched my feet. I took his hands and lifted him up. He looked at me sadly, shook his head and said to no one in particular, ‘Princess, part company with the saints. Your own Merta is ashamed of you. And so is Chittor.’
If his commiseration for my plight touched a chord within me, I was not about to show it. I climbed the hundred steps solemnly and walked across the mandapa and the kalyana-mandapa. The guards were having a difficult time keeping the thousands of townspeople in check. My wife had worn a nautch girl’s bands of bells around her anklets and was dancing in full public view. Her skirts were a red blur, she was gyrating like a dervish in a trance. She was wet with sweat though her chunni and blouse had not yet turned translucent. How long had she been dancing? Only a woman possessed could have this order of preternatural energy. I have kept my peace all this while, Flautist, but I have a score to settle with you now.
How far was I willing to go to get what I wanted, Bhootani Mata had asked me. And my inane answer was ‘pretty far’. No wonder she thought me a fool who spoke without due thought.
Now I couldn’t go far enough. All the way Ma, all, all the way. As far as it takes. Whatever it takes to eliminate her but not without all the torture and suffering and pain that this world and every other is capable of. Do it Bhootani Mata, do it and give my soul peace. I have earned it.
I will make a covenant with the gods and the devils. Anyone you say. With Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, with Indra, Varuna, Agni, with the dread Yama himself. If need be, with the gods of a prior and primal time. I will not stop there. I will embrace evil and the black arts. I will blacken my heart and of a dark night open the gates and invite a black pestilence upon her and her kind. Open your treasure trove of death’s heads and parasites, Bhootani Mata, of the numerous hordes of worms and weevils, maggots and termites and let them cover the earth and eat through the substance of the three worlds till there is neither stone nor clay, neither sky nor water, neither air nor fire, neither god nor rakshasa, merely a ceaseless tumult and simmering proliferation of the creatures of the underworld. Let them eat through flesh and bone and crawl out of eyesockets and other orifices of the mouth and ears and nostrils and the anus till there’s nothing left for them but to devour each other. Let there be nothing, nothing, nothing.
* * *
‘Throw her at Toofan’s feet. Let the elephant trample her to death. Tie her up in the public square and whip her till every drop of blood in her veins has dripped to the ground,’ Queen Karmavati was screaming at me. The other queens and maids were in a state of shock. Even Kumkum Kanwar with her inordinate and blind love of her mistress looked distraught and on the verge of tears. ‘Do you see to what depths your spinelessness has brought us? I warned you when she was dancing at home. I told you to get rid of her, banish her, lock her up forever, get rid of her once and for all but you didn’t listen. How will we ever survive this shame? How will His Majesty, the Rana, your Father hold his head up again? I will tear her apart, limb from limb. Get up, you pansy and drag her home.’
‘Not now, Mother,’ my voice was low and dangerously calm. ‘I will have silence. I have come to offer greetings and prayers to the Blue One. I will have peace. Each of us,’ my voice was resonating and echoing now, ‘must pray in his own fashion. This is her way. We’ll all respect that.’
The Rani was speechless at the effrontery of my snub. It was as unexpected as it was unanswerable. She looked at me with ill-concealed hatred. She would get back at me yet for my insolence. But, for the time being, she was silenced.
Bhootani Mata was standing next to me. I felt the opaque white excrescence of the rock of the cave on my back and the wet slime of her palm as she took my hand in hers. ‘Why not take your time before taking a decision, Prince? In life there is no going back. You cannot undo any act, however much you may want to later on.’ I threw her hand off in disgust. Did the old crone really understand who I was up against? ‘Think about it, Maharaj Kumar.’ Her shrivelled flapping breasts slapped against my face. ‘Act in haste and repent at leisure. What do you say, Prince?’ I turned away and entered the Flautist’s sanctum.
Is there anything more painful and lonesome than betrayal? Yes, there is. It is loss. And worse than loss are the tricks that memory plays. I looked at the Flautist. It was like meeting a dear friend after a period of years. My first impulse, it was hardly an impulse but the most natural thing in the world, was to touch him as I had done when I was four or five years old, but the priest came forward to greet me and the spell was broken. We were finally face to face. Two mortal enemies. Correction. One mortal and the other divine and immortal. I was overtaken by such a strong wave of loathing, I wanted to strangle him till the last breath had gone out of him and then snap his neck. What was I doing here? I didn’t want to see his face again, not be anywhere in his vicinity for the rest of my life. It would be rhetorical and asinine to ask him ‘Why?’ Even on
the rare occasion when someone proffers a reason, a sound reason, does it ever get to the heart of things or reveal the truth?
The Flautist’s weakness for women was legendary. There were always women hanging around him. But what was astonishing, disconcerting and inexplicable was the curious nature of his attraction. The more women he had, the more women wanted him. When he discarded them, or rather, just plain forgot them, the more desirable and attractive he became. The truth is perhaps simpler than that: women love a philanderer.
But all that was a thousand or two thousand years ago. He had died a tragic earthly death and gone. Why after all these years … forget it, there’s no purchase in that line of thinking. I did what I had to do, the abhishek, the puja, the arati, the prostration and the circumambulation. I ate the prasad. When the senior ministers were done, we left.
* * *
The august gathering at my cousin Rajendra Simha’s rose to its feet to greet the Maharaj Kumar and the Shehzada. The invitation was from Rajendra but as the patriarch of the family, his father Uncle Lakshman Simha came forward to welcome us. He embraced me and then turned to Prince Bahadur.
‘Salaam alequm, Prince. Greetings to you on the mischievous Bal Krishna’s birthday. Treat our house as your home. Make merry and may the child Kanhaiyya’s blessings be upon you.’
My heart skipped a beat. Bahadur and I seemed to have put the Kausalya incident behind us. He was no man’s fool and was not deceived, I was certain, by Kausalya’s ploy. I’m not sure whether she said anything to him on the night of the tryst, something about her gonorrhoea flaring up or just stood there mutely in the full and livid flush of her flesh’s diatribe against her. He had been rejected and the Prince was not one who could conceive of anyone saying no to him. The offence had been noted and been kept like a scented flower from one’s beloved in the pages of a much-thumbed book. He would take it out one day, look at the dry and desiccated petals aimlessly and strike. When I reached the Atithi Palace to pick him up, he was his normal affectionate and warm self. No point ruining the pleasure of the present for the distant future. When the latter came to pass, he would exact the price of vengeance.
Was the mention of a Hindu deity going to stick in his craw? Was he going to come up in a rash and make an issue of it? He smiled a disarming, winning smile. ‘Wale-e-qum salaam,’ he triple-embraced my uncle in the custom of his faith. Lakshman Simhaji wasn’t doing too badly either. The funny anecdote Bahadur had narrated on his previous visit had been shelved and though the Shehzada couldn’t quite encompass his girth, Uncle dutifully put forth his left cheek, then his right and left once again.
I am rather fond of my uncle as I suspect he is of me. Don’t be put off by the enormity of his corpulence, his jiggling breasts, or the ripples of flesh that swim across to the distant shoreline of his body when he exposes himself to the masseur in the evenings. He is a man of great taste, puckish humour and a highly sensual softness that some women find irresistible. He is the only true hedonist in Chittor. He loves his food and wine and his bodily pleasures including farting in various keys. He is also a fine musician and has a deep, resonating timbre to his voice, which in the days when he was slim and active, made him one of the most sought-after amateur singers at parties. He didn’t ever make a fuss about singing. He likes himself and he’s sure that others like him too. He is Father’s cousin and since Father was away often and his son Rajendra and I were the same age, he took it upon himself to be my guardian.
Rajendra is his father’s son. He loves the good things of life. When I was young, I would go to him when I needed cheering. When we grew up, we drifted apart. No fights or falling out, just the normal going our own ways which didn’t seem to bring us together too often. We are going to be constantly in each other’s company from tomorrow since Father has appointed him head of a division of cavalry. I’m looking forward to getting close to Rajendra again and not only because I need friends and allies. I like Rajendra. As with many gregarious and loquacious creatures, you never know what goes on in his mind or why he hurts. A good man and a loyal one. At first I was a little wary of his hot-house friendship with Bahadur but part of it, I suspect, was nothing more than possessiveness. I felt left out but was not willing to join them on their nights out on the town. We are always laying claim to those whom we have not bothered to stay close to and nurture. Bahadur and he are still close as you can see by the way they greet and hug each other. Bahadur’s going to be a little lost from tomorrow.
The Pradhan Mantri Pooranmalji, Adinathji, the other cabinet ministers, my cousins, nephews and brothers came and greeted me. This is an informal function but I’ll mingle with them later on. As my Father’s representative in Chittor, etiquette demands I stand on my dignity till the performance starts. I know what they are thinking about but barring Vikramaditya, who, fortunately, is still in jail in Kumbhalgarh, no one, I’m certain, will refer to my wife’s song and dance at the Brindabani Temple this afternoon. I chat with everyone, ask after their wives and children and pointedly talk of inconsequential things.
The house is lit as if today is Diwali. My uncle is a collector of lamps and this is the ideal place to show them off. Sky-blue chanderi curtains are kept on a short leash in the huge windows but cross ventilation makes them strain and protest till they slip free and billow and reach for the ceiling. We may have more expensive carpets at home but the Persian and Afghan carpets at Lakshman Simha’s always seem more springy and inviting. You can sit on them, loll on them or snore away and no one’s going to come running and tell you to be careful because this one’s a gift from the Raja of Kashmir and the other one on which you are resting your mud-caked shoe is a collector’s item worth a king’s ransom and is from the Sultan of Turkey. There are hundreds of cushions strewn across the carpets. Some are round, some square, some are fat cylinders. I would prefer a more inconspicuous place to sit so that I can slip out if I get bored. But you can’t be cock-of-the-walk and expect to be ignored.
There is no formal dinner tonight. Whenever you feel hungry you go to the shamiana that has been set up in the courtyard. You may have a full meal, one of the best in this part of the country or make a meal of the endless varieties of snacks and savouries.
The pakhawaj player and the sarangiya enter and do namaskar to me and Bahadur Khan, to my uncle and Rajendra and to all the dignitaries, then settle down to tuning their instruments. Everybody has to wait on the Rana (or in his absence on the Maharaj Kumar) but there is one exception to the rule. An artist like a singer or dancer, or even the nautanki player, will not appear till the king is seated. This is the signal for the women to take their seats in the side wing. A red flash jumps over the extra sets of percussion and stringed instruments and is in my lap, its arms wound around my neck. Adinathji starts to protest but I raise my hand. Leelawati, as always, does wonders for my ego, spirits, heart, soul, and whatever bits and tatters of mind that are still around.
‘You are going tomorrow without even saying goodbye.’
‘That is not true. You are the guest of honour tomorrow at dawn. It is you who will present the pennant of Mewar to me.’
‘You could have come home.’
A year or two and Leelawati will not fly into my arms. They’ll marry her to some financier and we’ll hardly ever run into each other.
‘You haven’t done adaab to His Highness, Prince Bahadur of Gujarat,’ I changed the subject since I was not about to go into a long explanation about how little notice Father had given me to leave Chittor.
‘You haven’t introduced us.’
‘Shehzada, this is Leelawati, Adinathji’s great-granddaughter. Leelawati, His Highness Prince Bahadur.’
Leelawati got up and curtsied to the Prince.
‘I was wondering whether the Maharaj Kumar would get around to introducing me to the lovely young lady. Are you his favourite?’
‘Yes. And he is mine.’
What a fine head Leelawati had. The Prince must have read my thoughts. ‘She is going to be
one of the most beautiful women in Mewar.’
‘She is already one of the brightest.’
It was a tradition at Lakshman Simha’s Janmashtami celebrations that the name of the artist was never revealed before the performance. Part of the fun of the evening lay in trying to guess whether it was a man or a woman, a singer, instrumentalist or dancer and his or her name. People laid bets, a cask of wine, a thousand tankas, a horse, a camel and sometimes a couple of villages. Almost everybody had his private grapevine and wanted to check out if his information was right. Rajendra nodded his head and went along with every speculation. Uncle declared solemnly that there was a major shift in the policy of the house and a half-man and a half-woman named after the bisexual deity, Ardhanareshwar, was going to recite hermaphroditic verse and sing simultaneously in male and female voices followed by a dance duet given by the same person.
‘I’ll bet you my diamond and emerald necklace,’ the Shehzada told Leelawati, ‘that it’s going to be a dancer, obviously a female one.’
‘Wrong. Partially wrong. It’s going to be a woman singer.’ Leelawati told him.
‘Empty words won’t do, Leelawati. You’ve got to put your money where your mouth is. What are you betting?’
‘I have nothing to bet with.’
‘How about that gold chain around your waist?’
Leelawati hesitated. ‘Your anklet will do just as well. I’ll wear it around my wrist.’ Bahadur was tying Leelawati up in knots and for once she was not sure how to respond. ‘What about weaving a pennant for me?’ I hadn’t realized how deftly the Shehzada had tied a noose around Leelawati.
Cuckold Page 19