Cuckold

by Kiran Nagarkar

  What about the gods, what is their function? And is the meaning of the word ‘Almighty’ altered because of its interaction with us? And yet if ‘that’ is these and every other simultaneity including the time-space continuum, then is it all just a conceit, one that has ceased to have any significance? I do not know. There are no answers. Or rather each one must find or invent his own.

  Perhaps that was the reason that I had gone back to music. Now that is a reality without reason, rationale or explanation. Who pulls the strings, why are we moved, why do we feel transported to a different world? Who knows? What difference does it make?

  * * *

  I sat at my desk, picked up the thick stack of papers and laid my head on it. Paper was the transmitter of vidya. Anything related to knowledge deserved the highest respect. I recalled my teacher whacking me with a cane on my shin-bone when my toe accidentally touched a book. I myself would do the same now if I became a father and my child showed disrespect to any object of learning. I breathed deeply the bouquet of the off-white paper from Ahmedabad. How fine it was, almost translucent and yet it had great longevity, if you didn’t go out of your way to abuse it. I divided the papers into two exact halves and drew the diagram that a teacher draws on each student’s slate on his first day at school. Draw a circle and extend the line all the way down to the left, now continue the stroke to the right and end with an upward flourish. Crisscross the pattern in a descending order nine times and what you had was a graphic symbol of Saraswati. When the ink sketching the goddess of learning had dried, I chanted a prayer asking for her blessing.

  The agenda was to write two books. I wrote my autobiography on odd dates and the massive introduction to Shafi’s book on The Art and Science of Retreat on even dates. The second book, I knew, would be a major contribution to the state of current thinking on warfare. Shafi had got down to the nitty-gritty and dealt with seventy possible scenarios of fleeing. What the book needed was a full-scale treatment of the philosophy of defeat and retreat. No king could use defeat as a ploy for losing a battle and winning a war, unless he effectively conditioned the populace and soldiery to think of longterm objectives. My first task, perhaps doomed from the start, was to remove the stigma from the word ‘flight’ and then from the act itself.

  Despite its highly controversial subject, I was certain there was a genuine need for Shafi’s book. People would read it, argue about it and perchance even take it seriously. I was nowhere as sure about my reasons for writing my memoirs. Was I so disheartened, I asked myself, that I needed an apologia? My transformation from Maharaj Kumar to a nobody was now almost complete and that deck of cards called the fates would have to be shuffled to a freak statistic for me to be in the running again. But it had nothing to do with self-esteem. The mediocre will often find solace in identifying a scapegoat, even if it means pointing the finger at themselves. I may have been down but the almost extinct Maharaj Kumar had no intention of giving up. If the opportunity presented itself, I would fix that deck of cards in my favour. If, as His Majesty had suggested, the heir apparent was ahead of his times, I must learn the art of hurrying my countrymen slowly. I had to take a cold, dispassionate look at my life, find out where I had gone wrong and calculate how I could make a different but more propitious set of moves.

  There are no dress rehearsals in life, but sometimes if one is observant and lucky, one can detect patterns in it. The idea is not to make the same mistake the second time around but allow someone else to do it. Would I today pursue Vikramaditya’s treason trial with such single-mindedness or do Queen Karmavati a favour she could never forget and let her handle her son while he collaborated ineffectually with the enemy and conspired against his own country? Admittedly, there was no worse enemy in the country than the Queen but as an ally, albeit an unreliable ally, one could occasionally make her careless, get her to miscalculate or perhaps even come to an understanding with her. Perhaps it was too late to build bridges with her. But there was still the steadfast Vikramaditya. One could always depend on him to be devious without always knowing where his self-interest lay.

  Here indeed was a fecund field, a source that I had left completely untapped. But the motivation for the autobiography went a little further than the search for lost and new opportunities or even introspection. The past was with my countrymen every moment of their lives. History for them was that fabled second chance. They could rework the past and get it right this time around. It was an act of faith and invention where defeats turned to glory; courage, bravery and heroism were chosen above vision or long-term gains and enmity was more precious than alliances. Best of all, you did not have to tot up the accounts and pay for the grandeur of your delusions or the vacuity of your mistakes. To them five hundred years ago was the same as yesterday, an episode outside the orbit of time. The past was never your responsibility. It was not the sum-total of mankind’s wisdom, errors and insights. It was not the torch that lit the darkness and choices of today. My memoirs would try to go against the grain and break with tradition. If personal history was an inheritance, then I would leave behind a record that would allow the next generation, including my children, to understand how their fathers and forefathers negotiated the turns and twists of diplomacy and the business of the state; how they failed, what mistakes they made and how they picked up the pieces and started anew.

  I wrote as usual with a long, firm and neat hand. But the language and the thought processes of the two texts were different without any conscious intention on my part. The prose of the ‘Retreats’ text was formal and precise. I composed entire paragraphs, often several pages in my head and then transferred them to the page. I had worked out the architecture of the book in advance during the long months of my confinement in bed. Since I was dealing with a taboo subject, I had to spend far more time reinforcing the foundation or over-engineering it, to use the town planner’s technical vocabulary, so that it could withstand the full force of the backlash of orthodoxy and dogma. I knew which were the load-bearing chapters, the keystones of my thesis and made sure that both the vista and the goal were visible from every angle, jharokha and balcony: a retreat is a strategy to save lives and live to fight and win another day. It may be a feint, an attempt to await reinforcements or regroup resources; or a side show while the real action takes place elsewhere; or it might be a close call where your only chance of survival is to put your tail between your legs, pull in and streamline your body so that your getaway is swift and effective.

  I did not have a plan for my memoirs but its language came as a shock to me. I tried to resist it, at times tore up page after page but finally gave in. I realized for the first time that my mind was a two-tongued instrument: an austere, distanced and deliberative high Mewari for the purposes of ratiocination and logic; and a cross between the language of the court and the colourful, pungent and coruscating dialect of the eunuchs, servants and maids in the palace. I had no intention of striving for a cold and clinical objectivity (that kind of honesty, I was more than aware, was a sham and unreadable to boot) but I was amazed to discover such a strong, personal tone in my narrative. I am not a man to let my guard down, whatever the occasion or provocation. Or so I thought. Instead here I was, if not baring my soul, certainly throwing my usual habit and mask of caution to the winds, telling it all, taking swipes at myself and at my relatives including Father, meditating, digressing despite an ingrained habit of disciplined progression. I was alarmed by this openness and my willingness to express an opinion on any and every matter. Should I abandon the project? Was it getting out of hand? I had to admit that it was. But to censor it would be tantamount to a kind of doctoring. I would be just as guilty of a normative version of the past as the charans and their ilk. And not to write at all would mean that I, too, believed that truth was a good slogan but not to be confronted in the corridors of real life; that it emasculated us instead of enlightening and endowing us with a quality of rigour and introspection. I smiled wryly and decided to carry on. Maybe I was enjoying myse
lf too much to stop.

  Chapter

  28

  To combat a god, one must become one. (Or at least masquerade as one.)

  He was returning from a seven-mile walk along the parapet of the fort at eleven at night when he saw his wife sitting at the Flautist’s temple. He turned towards the palace but something about her made him go back. She sat still, her eyes closed. This was unusual, to say the least. One of the stories about her said that not just her feet but even her skirt and plait would never come to rest. There was a strange expression on her face. He knew he wasn’t making sense but he could only call it joyous, ecstatic tranquillity. She was no longer of this earth or of this world.

  He was sure that the light from the solitary lamp was playing tricks with her face. He drew closer to her. There was a light flowing from her, not just from her eyes which were shut anyway, but from her entire body. It had lit her from within and she had become transparent. He realized that it did not make any difference whether he gave credence to what he saw or didn’t. Nothing could touch her. She was a circle and a completeness. All else was without. She was in communion with something that was beyond comprehension. Only someone touched by the divine could be so insensible and self-absorbed. What was she thinking about? That was a silly question. She seemed beyond thought. He would never be able to penetrate the mystery at the centre of her being. But that, he suspected, is the nature of the mystical experience. It is a one-to-one rapport. The rest of the world was, perforce, shut out. To an outsider, the saint’s world was quintessentially solipsistic, but that was missing the point. There was no outside for her.

  He felt an odd desire. He wanted to cup his hands and gather the light emanating from her.

  * * *

  Late that night, he took off his clothes and stood in front of the full-length, vertical mirror. He poured five tablespoons of indigo powder into a shallow bowl and carefully mixed it with two tumblers of water. It was time to spread out four large gunnysacks in the centre of the room. Must be careful not to stain the floor or the walls. He dipped the thick brush he had bought into the indigo solution, pressed the bristles against the curving sides of the bowl and let the excess water flow back. He stood in front of the mirror, studied his reflection without much curiosity and applied the first stroke. Was it the water which was cold or the feel of indigo against his skin? He felt like an actor working with make-up. It was a slow process. He was in no hurry. He wanted to do it right. Under the arm pits, behind the ears, between his buttocks and over his crotch, on the ups and dips of the vertebrae of his backbone, he did not want a speck or line of his own skin to escape his eye. He examined himself in the mirror. A sliver of white showed between his littlest toe and the second-last one. One daub and that was done. He turned around. The back, the three ribs behind his right arm had been the most difficult but all that effort and attention to detail had paid off. He stood still for ten minutes. The paint was dry but he wanted to make sure. He picked up the yellow silk pitambar. It felt soft and rich and subdued. He tied it around his waist. Next, the finely meshed gold belt. Now the headband. He tucked in his hair carefully under it and then stuck the peacock feather a little off-centre above his right eye. One last look. He collected his flute, the one that the Bhil soldier from Raja Puraji Kika’s army had gifted him, and left.

  He opened the door to her room almost imperceptibly. She was sleeping. He started to play softly. He had no raga or tune in mind. The notes came effortlessly. Heart, soul, mind and flute were one. He played on. The sound of the reed had a deep, full and finegrained texture. Music was the smoke from a joss stick. He could see its lines rising and spiralling mysteriously. She turned on her side, semi-awake, then lapsed back into sleep. The notes seemed to drift in and out of her consciousness. She lay on her back and covered her face with her chunni. A lazy smile as diaphanous as the song he was playing parted her lips. She was awake now. The smile played mischievously around her eyes but she would not open them.

  ‘I’m not at home. Might as well go back to all your other women. Guess you didn’t have the time to look in on me when I had that slight fever and a touch of diarrhoea and kept throwing up as if I didn’t want any of my mortal remains left behind. Oh, please, please do me a favour. Spare me your cosmic reasons, matters of state and other excuses. It really doesn’t matter. After all, it wasn’t anything. I was on my deathbed and everybody had given up on me, he certainly had, the poor dear man, how he looked after me, night and day and cleaned my mess, he didn’t leave my bedside, not for a minute, nor did he sleep. But that’s nothing to get worked up about, is it? I might have died but as you are about to tell me, I didn’t. Then what’s all the fuss about? Let’s not have a scene, oh please, we are decent, civilized people here. You are quite right. Let’s call it a day. We had good times, some great ones too but that’s all over. You go your way now and I’ll go mine and never the twain shall meet.’

  He tucked the flute in his belt, turned around and started to walk away. She was working herself up into a regular tantrum. He could expect flying objects any moment now.

  ‘Can you hear me? Cat got your tongue? Don’t you have anything to say in your own defence, never mind if not a word of it is true? Don’t you have any shame? An iota of human feeling? You think you can concoct all those stories and expect me to believe them? Forget it. I’m through with you once and for all.’

  He was out of the door when she ran after him.

  ‘Hold me, hold me. Don’t talk, don’t say a word.’

  By eight the next evening, night, really, since it got kohl-dark by six, he was standing naked again in front of the mirror and applying the indigo solution.

  * * *

  ‘Stand in it.’

  He wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

  ‘Move, stupid. I can’t wait all night long. And why have you stopped playing?’

  As usual she had not lit any lamps and his foot landed on the rim of the large twenty-two carat gold platter. He steadied himself and took up the Bhil air where he had left off. She fetched a gold lota with a long spout.

  ‘What’s the matter with you today? Have you forgotten how you normally stand when playing the flute?’

  He hurriedly crossed his right foot over the left one. To his consternation she began to pour water and wash his feet. The game’s up, he said to himself as his heart fibrillated wildly. He watched mesmerized as the indigo from his left foot began to run.

  ‘Now the right foot. Careful, don’t keel over. Wouldn’t bother me if you dislocated your hip,’ she looked up at him and laughed, ‘but I don’t want my neck broken.’

  Did she really not know who he was? Was she indulging him? Or herself? Was it all make-believe, some arcane tableau that they had both decided to participate in? Surely she knew.

  ‘Step out,’ she wiped his feet dry with her pallu. ‘I’ll water the Tulsi plant with this holy water in the morning. She’ll be pleased and flower as if it were spring.’ She laid her head on his feet, clutched his ankles and stretched out on her stomach. ‘Bless me, O Lord. Never did I dare to presume that I would be worthy of you. Never did I imagine that you would choose me as your beloved. Is it all a dream?’ She craned her neck, her eyes looking into his with adoration. ‘Let me pinch you and make sure that you are real.’ She raised her right hand, dug her nails into his calf muscle and pulled it back till he cried in agony. ‘Did that hurt?’ She looked genuinely surprised. ‘How strange, then you really are real. That will teach you never to abandon me for that Radha woman or anyone else.’

  She plucked the peacock feather from his headband. What now, he wondered. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. It was soft and insubstantial-as-air like the Dhaka mulmul of her chunni. Perhaps it really was drafts and undercurrents of a rarefied ether and not a feather at all. He would have preferred the steel tines of a rake to drag through his flesh. A strange torture it was, a smothering, unbearable caress that seemed to test the limits of his endurance. He was not sure whether the ey
e of the feather touched him but it generated a charge that slid and prowled under his skin and left him bruised and raw. How was he going to reconcile the contradiction of the rutting of the peacocks in the time of cholera and the rapture of their dance on his body today?