Cuckold

by Kiran Nagarkar

  Sugandha was referring to a short expedition that I had taken the previous morning. There was consternation amongst Vikramaditya’s security guards and his retinue of servants as Mangal and I strode unannounced into his palace in the morning. His aide-de-camp was so flabbergasted that he asked me, ‘Who should I say is calling?’ I ignored him and walked into my brother’s bedchambers. He was still in bed with some woman from Rasikabai’s establishment who made a considerable fuss about her dignity and honour being compromised. I threw her clothes at her and asked her to leave.

  ‘Who do you think you are that you can order a guest of mine out of my house?’ Vikram yelled at me. ‘Guards. ADC.’

  Who-shall-I-say-is-calling had not recovered from seeing me stomp in but had had the presence of mind to follow us in case his master was in danger. I waited till the lady had left.

  ‘Shut up, Vikram, and listen to me carefully. If you raise your hand on my wife again; if you are anywhere within a hundred yards of her even by accident; if either you or your hired hands try anything funny with her; no, let me state it a little more precisely: if anything should happen to her, typhoid, pneumonia, a fall from a horse, an innocuous fire lit under her, or a poison that finds its way into her food, I will hold you personally responsible and I will kill you. Regardless of the consequences.’ I turned around to his ADC, guards and servants and asked them, ‘Do you get my drift?’

  ‘Hey, cuckold, which of your faithless wives are you referring to?’

  I went over to Vikramaditya’s bed. For some reason he pulled the blanket up to his throat as if to cover his modesty. I slapped his face hard with the back of my hand.

  ‘Now, why didn’t I do that all these years?’ I asked myself in puzzlement. ‘Either one, Vikram, either of them.’

  * * *

  ‘I don’t think he’ll dare touch you, Sugandha.’

  ‘It’s not me I’m worried about. Your life’s at risk.’

  ‘May I ask a favour of you, Princess?’

  ‘Are you trying to change the subject, Highness?’

  ‘No. It’s something that occurred to me yesterday.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Will you teach me to play the veena?’

  ‘You are making fun of me, aren’t you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think any other instrument barring the sarod has the richness of sound and depth that the veena has. Did you know that my great-grandfather Rana Kumbha was not just a fine veena player but that he wrote several books on music?’

  ‘I know. I had to study him.’

  I laughed. ‘Did you hate him?’

  ‘He does have a rather ponderous style and takes forever to come to the point. But it’s curious, now that nobody’s forcing me to study him or to play the instrument, I’ve been going back to him. He takes a different tack from all the classical thinkers who have written about music. He makes you rethink many of the things that you take for granted.’

  ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve not read him so far.’

  ‘But you must.’

  ‘I will. But first the lessons.’

  ‘When do you want to start?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning at six, is that all right with you?’

  ‘I’ve never woken up that early.’

  ‘We can drop the idea then.’

  ‘Highness, you’ll make a good wife of me yet. I’ll be ready at six.’

  The question of course is whether I would make a good husband.

  Impotence is a strange thing. It may strike you just once in a lifetime but you are a marked man. You live in perpetual fear of when it will visit you again. You learn for the first time that the body is no longer your creature; you are its plaything. It’s a terrible and terrifying realization but there’s worse to come. It doesn’t make sense, it is totally and utterly irrational but no defeat on the battlefield or anywhere else can eat at the heart of a man as the fear of being let down by his member. One of these days, it doesn’t matter when, it’ll happen again and I will begin to resent Sugandha for revealing my failure to me. Will I end up hating her? Who knows, for the time being happy days are here again.

  How little it took to make Sugandha happy. A bit of attention and affection and she would follow me around everywhere and do whatever I wanted.

  ‘Highness, I’ve something to confess. I lied to you yesterday.’ Sugandha had made me lie oh my stomach and without my asking her to, she was massaging my back and neck. My face was deep in the mattress and my answer came out a little garbled.

  ‘What did you say?’ She bent down to hear me better.

  ‘I said I know.’

  ‘You know? How?’

  ‘I surmised that my brother was, in his usual friendly fashion, warning you to keep whatever you had seen that day, under your odhani. Or else …’

  ‘He said if I told you anything, or anybody else, he would kill you.’

  ‘And what would you tell me that could provoke him to fratricide?’

  ‘Do you really want to hear this? I’m afraid of losing you all over again.’

  ‘It’s up to you and me not to let the foolishness of the past come between us again.’

  She was quiet for a minute before she spoke. ‘We had an assignation in the woods near the Mrikand Muni Kund Ghat. I had lost my mind in those days, I was impatient to be with the Prince and arrived a good twenty minutes before I was supposed to. I heard his voice, it had a demented tone to it and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see him but I heard him repeat the same sentence over and over again. “Let’s see how you can …” she hesitated, ‘you really want to know what he said?’

  ‘Yes, it may be important.’

  ‘Let’s see how you can fuck anybody anymore.’

  ‘Did you hear a scuffle?’

  ‘No. The Prince began to cry then like a child who’s terribly afraid. I ran out and I held him to me saying “Everything’s fine, don’t worry” and he said “What’s fine, you stupid fool?” and then he turned on me and asked me, “What are you doing here so early? Weren’t we supposed to have met when the hour struck two? Can’t you ever do what you are told?” He struck me then and walked away in a huff.’

  We had made progress, I would finally be able to report to Father that we had identified the culprit and yet in some ways we were now in greater darkness than when we had started out.

  Why had my brother fallen out with the eunuch? What did he mean by ‘Let’s see how you can fuck anybody anymore?’ It was indeed an odd expletive to use about a eunuch. Or was Vikram using the four-letter word figuratively? Perhaps he was incensed that Bruhannada had tried to harm or ruin someone dear to him.

  I was fairly certain that the murder attempt had come as a shock to Queen Karmavati as it had to the rest of us. Not only was she deeply upset by the near-fatal assault on her favourite eunuch and adviser, it appeared that there was for the first time, serious dissension between mother and son.

  But the Queen’s perception of the situation had altered radically since then. Vikramaditya had been able to persuade her that while the doubly castrated eunuch lived, he posed an unacceptable threat to both of them. What did Bruhannada know that was so dangerous?

  One thing I’ll vouch for almost blindly: Vikramaditya and his mother have misjudged their own retainer. He’s not the type who talks or tattles.

  ‘Do you think coercion will make me blabber?’ the eunuch asked me with a thin sardonic smile that sat slightly unbalanced on his face.

  My answer was matter-of-fact. ‘I don’t think so. But that’s what the people who tried to murder you, not once but on four occasions, seem to believe and would therefore like to shut you up for good.’

  ‘What is your interest in this case then, Highness?’ His asthma was acting up and he had to sip hot water to ease his breathlessness but he had lost neither his hauteur nor self-assurance.

  ‘His Majesty has put me in charge of the case so that whoev
er assaulted you is brought to justice.’

  ‘Fine word that, justice. Nobody brought anyone to book when I was violated and neutered as a child. Why should anyone take interest in the same act and consider it a criminal offence now?’

  ‘I cannot put the past to rights, Bruhannada, but will endeavour to do so with the present’

  ‘Good luck to you, Highness, but I must take you into confidence and tell you that it was a suicide attempt on my part.’ He was once again in full control of the situation and he was enjoying playing with me. I saw little point in continuing the conversation.

  I wished him a quick recovery and was about to leave when Mangal escorted my brother’s one-time odalisque, Urvashi, in. It was a long shot but Mangal wanted it to be a surprise for both Bruhannada and Urvashi.

  It was.

  Bruhannada lost his poise but only just. For a second his mask of supercilious urbanity cracked but he recovered it almost instantly. Urvashi was far more spontaneous. There was no stopping her joy as she rushed into his arms. ‘Oh God, you are alive, you are safe.’

  One can discount Mangal’s hunches only at one’s own peril. He had thought there was something between the Queen’s maid and her chief eunuch and he was right. The question was, what was that something?

  I made my exit then.

  * * *

  I thought it would be a good idea to keep up the pressure on the chief eunuch.

  ‘Are you moving me every day to make a show of how endangered my life is?’ It was obvious Bruhannada had regained his flippant spirits by the next day.

  ‘Maybe. Would you rather that you stayed in the same place?’

  ‘No, I’ll play along. I’m just as fond of the theatre as you are.’

  ‘I found your talk on the Mahabharata thought-provoking. It raised some important issues.’

  ‘Highness,’ the chief eunuch shook his head coyly from side to side, ‘flattery won’t get us anywhere.’

  ‘Where would I go with you, Bruhannada? Your life’s come to a dead end.’ I said that without malice but it had the desired effect. ‘If you’ll allow me to, I want to go back to the subject of your speech. May I?’

  ‘Yes,’ he was a little less sure of himself now, ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I think our countrymen have a rather warped idea of loyalty. Bhishma is the ultimate icon of our notion of sacrifice and loyalty. But it might have helped if he had ventured to question his beliefs. Is he recommending that we abdicate ethical choice and thus abandon the responsibility for our acts? Do we stick to people, however mistaken or evil they may be, merely because we were born on their side or have familial bonds or should we owe our loyalty, not to people or institutions but to values? Bhishma may have served humanity better if he had had the courage not to follow tradition blindly but to weigh in on the side of right, especially because he was perceived as a man of great moral fibre.’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Highness. Go back to your Gita. Whichever side of the river you are born, the Gita-god tells us, whichever caste or profession you belong to, be true to it.’

  ‘So he does, Bruhannanda, so he does. But gods too may be wrong occasionally and one must have the courage to go against them, perhaps even contravene their fiat.’

  ‘Beware Maharaj Kumar, you are overreaching and inviting the wrath of the gods. Bhishma, I would have you remember, is the expression of the highest integrity.’

  ‘Integrity, I’m afraid, is not enough Bruhannada. Only when it is in the right cause, is it worthwhile.’

  ‘You would rewrite the Mahabharata then, Maharaj Kumar?’

  ‘I believe you were doing the same when you traced the eunuch lineage to Bhishma.’

  ‘Where is this chatter leading us, Highness? I’m not interested in making any deals with you unless I can secure the future of my wife and child. I want an assurance with the full weight of the royal imprimatur behind it that no harm will come to Urvashi and the child she bears. I want it stated unambiguously that my child will not be a concubine if it’s a daughter or a eunuch if it’s a boy. As you can see the bloody surgeons, barbarians really, could not even do a clean job of it on me.’

  ‘No deal, Bruhannada.’ I let that sink in while I tried to grasp the fact that Bruhannada was the father of Urvashi’s foetus. ‘We don’t bargain with anyone by holding women and children to ransom. His Majesty will give you his word that no harm will come to Urvashi and your son or daughter regardless of what transpires between you and me,’

  I had had enough of the man’s trade-offs and deals. When I was at the door, I turned around. ‘Have you ever tried exercising your right to make a moral choice, Bruhannada? You’ll be amazed, truth too, has its lures and gratifications. More to the point, probity needs a Bhishma.’

  Did I really mean any of this nonsense? You’ll be surprised.

  * * *

  ‘When did you learn that the male principle in you had not been fully extirpated?’

  ‘I was puzzled when I had the occasional nightly emission in my teens but did not think that it contravened my genderless status.’

  ‘Would you define the approximate interval between two emissions?’

  ‘Anywhere between four and seven months.’

  Bruhannada’s hearing was in its third day. Since the commission sat in secret, Mangal had to take down the deposition of the victim. At the end of each day, the eunuch went over his testimony to check whether he had been misquoted and then signed the original.

  ‘Did your perception of your gender alter when you grew to maturity?’

  ‘I wasn’t certain but around the time I was twenty-five, it occurred to me that maybe I was not all eunuch.’

  ‘Why did you not report this to the concerned authorities?’

  ‘Every eunuch has just one regret and just one dream: that he has no gender, and wishes that he had. If I was even occasionally a man, I was not about to deliberately destroy my good fortune. Besides I wasn’t sure of my status since I never dared discuss it with anyone.’

  ‘When did you come to know Urvashi?’

  ‘About ten years ago when she first came to Chittor and was put in my charge.’

  ‘Did you know that she was Prince Vikramaditya’s mistress?’

  ‘Yes, but only for the first month. After that he lost interest in her.’

  ‘When did you start seeing her?’

  ‘Seven years ago.’

  ‘Did the Prince ask for her while you were secretly carrying on with her?’

  ‘Not once, Sire. He had declared that she was so shy and frigid that he would dismiss me if I ever brought her name into our conversations or suggested that he bed her.’

  ‘When did you discover that Urvashi was pregnant?’

  ‘About four months ago. I didn’t believe her at first when she told me that she had missed her period. But there was no mistaking it in the second month. Urvashi was really pregnant.’

  ‘How did you know it was your baby?’

  ‘It is my business to know who sleeps with whom in Queen Karmavati’s and the Prince’s palaces.’

  ‘How did you plan to handle Urvashi’s pregnancy in the seraglio?’

  ‘I thought I would send her to her parents’ place after the third month.’

  ‘When did the Prince discover that Urvashi was pregnant?’

  ‘He did not, at least not then. Later despite my best precautions, he caught me with her in the second month of her pregnancy.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘My master finds the bizarre highly provocative and becomes maniacally excitable.’

  ‘Did the Prince requisition your services in bed after he discovered your relationship with Urvashi?’

  If the eunuch was disconcerted by my switch in subjects, he didn’t show it.

  ‘He thought I was a freak of some sort and couldn’t leave me alone.’

  ‘Was the Prince’s interest in Urvashi rekindled when he came to know of your affair with her?’

  The eunuch,
or rather the former eunuch closed his eyes then. It was the first time since I began to question him that he showed any sign of emotion.

  ‘It was no affair, Highness. Urvashi and I were secretly married a long time ago.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that. But that is not the answer to my question.’

  ‘The Prince was incensed that Urvashi had responded to a eunuch and not to a real man like him. At first he only hinted at getting back with her. Then a few weeks later he said she had better visit him. I told him that I had engaged two virgins for him for that night. Stop stalling, he said, I want Urvashi, do you understand that, nobody else. I told him then that Urvashi was my wife. I should have known better for that only seemed to provoke him all the more. He had her. Not once but again and again. I won’t use the word hate because it is so inadequate but the more she withdrew into herself and resisted, the more he wanted her.’

  ‘Did you have any inkling that he planned to kill you?’

  ‘My master is an impulsive man, Sire. Sometimes I think he’s truly deranged. He had been friendly and even considerate on our way to Pushkar. He insisted that I share his tent with him. He asked me to see him after lunch when everybody was either asleep or sailing on the lake. I thought he wanted his pleasure with me and started to undress when he attacked me.’

  ‘Why did you not defend yourself?’

  ‘I’ve eaten the salt of this house, Highness. I cannot be disloyal to it’

  We had come to the end of the investigation. I had little sympathy for Bruhannada but I respected the way he had conducted himself. There was a bad taste in my mouth and it was mostly due to my brother. What does one do with people like Vikram? Self-indulgence is bad enough. But combine it with power and your appetite for brutality and evil becomes boundless. Your pleasure is the only law and in its pursuit you may ruin a stranger as readily as your closest companion.

  Bruhannada had encouraged my brother to think that his wishes took precedence over all else. He had been his pimp and procurer in matters of state as much as in his indulgences. I could be a moral prig and rejoice in the fact that Bruhannada had got his dues. I now had the power to lock up the eunuch for good. But the intolerance and wilful blindness of the self-righteous is far more dangerous and dehumanizing than the rampant destructiveness of someone like Vikram.