God seemed to shower his blessings on Devi Lal’s family. The three girls, though no beauties, were presentable, well-mannered and above average at studies. They helped their mother in the kitchen and stitched their own clothes. When Savitri was eighteen and Leela sixteen, one of Devi Lal’s junior colleagues who had sons in their twenties came to him with marriage proposals. Besides being a government servant, he owned two provision stores in Chandigarh which were looked after by his sons. The girls were married off on the same day that winter. Three years later, a building contractor whom Devi Lal had obliged, asked for Naina Devi’s hand in marriage for his son, a young doctor who had just completed his MBBS. Naina had passed her tenth standard and wanted to go to college. But her parents refused to let her. ‘What use is college education to girls?’ they said. ‘It only puts wrong notions in their heads. You don’t need to go to college to learn how to look after your home and husband.’ So at sixteen Naina too was married off. Devi Lal did not have to arrange for a dowry: he was head draftsman and still had a few years of government service left, and the contractor would need other favours. God was indeed being kind to Devi Lal.
*
By the time Devi Lal retired from service, Chandigarh had grown into a modern city. He had seen its birth in the small rest house in Chandi Mandir where Le Corbusier had made his rough sketches of the new city, its lakes and gardens, boulevards, government buildings and neat colonies. To Devi Lal, Chandigarh was like his own child. He was satisfied with what he had achieved in his profession and looked forward to a quiet retired life.
He was a contented man. His daughters had been married into good families and his son showed all signs of growing up to be an officer in some service or the other and earning enough to look after his family and ageing parents. Devi Lal had spared no expense in giving him a good education. The boy was sent to Chandigarh’s most reputed public school, where former royal families had sent their sons. Whenever tuitions became necessary, the best private tutors were hired. After every year-end examination he was rewarded with an expensive gift—a watch, a sports bicycle, cricket gear, and a Yamaha motorcycle in his second year of college in Punjab University.
Raj Kumar excelled in his studies and made his parents proud. Devi Lal loved nothing more than showing off his son to relatives and friends. He was not only a brilliant student but a good athlete as well. While Devi Lal was a man of modest build and average looks, Raj Kumar was six feet tall and powerfully built. He had probably taken after some ancestor of aristocratic stock.
After college, Raj Kumar sat for the civil services exam. Devi Lal was certain that he would be among the top hundred successful candidates. And he was. He could not make it to the most coveted Foreign Service or the Administrative Service but the rest, like the Police, Revenue, Accounts and Forests, were his for the asking. Ultimately, he took his father’s advice. ‘No service commands as much prestige as the police,’ Devi Lal told him. ‘A policeman is respected and feared by all, including politicians and ministers. He may have to salute them for the sake of courtesy but he calls all the shots. And his ooper ki amdani is much, much more than in many of the other central services—even a thanedar of a police station can make a few lakhs a month if he gets a good thana in a locality with a high crime rate.’ That made sense to Raj Kumar. He opted for the Indian Police Service. He was built like a police officer and had a fascination for uniforms, so it seemed right in every way. It was a proud moment for Devi Lal’s family when Raj Kumar got the letter confirming his selection, with orders to report at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie. People, including many Devi Lal did not know, poured in to congratulate him and Janaki. Several of them brought proposals of marriage. Devi Lal thanked them, noted down their names and put them off till the day Raj Kumar completed his training and was allotted a government bungalow. ‘This little jhuggi is not good enough to receive the bride of an officer of the Indian Police Service,’ he told them. ‘We will talk about it when the time comes.’
Raj Kumar left for Mussoorie. Devi and Janaki got down to discussing the merits of the proposals they had received for their son. ‘She must be from a respectable, well-to-do family of our own caste,’ they both agreed. ‘She should also be well-educated, modern and good looking,’ suggested Janaki. ‘No one wants a plain-looking gharelu type like me for a wife these days.’ Devi Lal poked a finger in his wife’s belly playfully and said, ‘And she should be able to produce sons. Not like you, one daughter after another.’
‘That was God’s will. He did give us a son in the end, didn’t he?’ protested Janaki.
Devi Lal had to agree. Not only had the Ooperwala given him a son just when he had lost hope, He had also blessed the boy with intelligence, looks and good fortune. And all this when neither he nor Janaki had even prayed to Him!
Devi Lal and Janaki now began dreaming of Raj Kumar’s marriage. They would have a grand wedding with the elite of the city invited to the reception; they would put up a huge pandal in the open space in front of their modest house. Later, they would rent out their house to a reliable tenant and move into their son’s bungalow, to be looked after by a dutiful, enlightened daughter-in-law.
They were in for a disappointment. Six months into his training at the Sardar Patel Police Training College in Hyderabad, Raj Kumar wrote to his parents asking their forgiveness for having got married to a woman probationer in his batch without seeking their permission or blessings. ‘We fell in love with each other and could not wait,’ the letter explained. Worse was to come. ‘She is a Sikh,’ Raj Kumar wrote. ‘You will like her when you see her. Please send us your blessings. Her name is Baljit Kaur Siddhu.’
That year, fifty candidates had been selected for the Indian Police Service, of whom five were women. During the common training for those selected for the Central Services at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, those of the police naturally grouped together. Baljit was the best looking of the girls. Raj Kumar was the only other Punjabi in the batch, and quite handsome. It was Baljit who started to sit beside Raj Kumar in the classes and the canteen. They went out together for evening strolls. After four months in Mussoorie, they were sent to the Civil Defence College in Nagpur. By then they had started holding hands and kissing. Then followed a six-month course at the Sardar Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad. Boys and girls were housed in different dormitories. Baljit found a way out of the strict segregation of the sexes. One Sunday she took Raj Kumar with her to the city. She had booked a room for the night in a hotel near the Chaar Minar. They made love all day and night and returned to the Academy the next morning. Their absence from the hostel was reported to the Director.
They were summoned to appear before him. ‘You know you can be dismissed from service for breaking the rules of the academy,’ he said sternly.
Baljit broke down. ‘Sir, we are engaged to be married,’ she said with tears flowing down her cheeks. ‘If we lose our jobs, we’ll be ruined.’
It was the first time Raj Kumar had heard of his engagement and impending marriage. He nodded his head vigorously to lend support to her plea.
‘Have you got your parents’ permission to marry?’ asked the Director.
‘No sir, not yet. We will ask for their blessings after we are married. Here in Hyderabad you are our father, mother—our guardian. We will do as you order us.’
The Director relented. After a pause during which he kept tapping his pen on the glass-top of the table he said, ‘Okay, get a marriage licence and I will get a magistrate to perform a civil marriage in the Academy.’
And so, two months later, Baljit Kaur Siddhu and Raj Kumar were pronounced husband and wife. The Director—whom Baljit had begun calling Papaji—and his wife hosted a reception for them in the Academy’s dining hall. He also helped them to get their postings as Assistant Superintendents of Police under training in Chandigarh.
The Devi Lals were shattered when they read Raj Kumar’s letter. ‘Without even consulting his
parents! What’s the world coming to?’ said Devi Lal in anger and grief. ‘She’s not even a Hindu. How will a Sikh Jatni adjust into our family? Their ways and ours are not the same.’
Janaki, though equally disappointed, consoled her husband. ‘What’s the difference between Hindus and Sikhs? They are much the same. There are so many Hindu-Sikh marriages. At least she is not a Muslim or a Christian. And she is a Punjabi, not some kaali-kalooti Madrasan from the South who cannot even speak our language.’
Devi Lal pondered over her words. Yes, things could have been much worse. If God was testing them again, He wasn’t being as cruel as He could get. Devi Lal summed up the argument with one of his favourite proverbs: ‘What cannot be cured must be endured.’ He wrote back to his son sending their blessings, but with a proviso: ‘A civil marriage is not good enough for us. We must have a proper Hindu wedding with a reception to follow. What will our relatives and friends say if we don’t?’
A few months later Raj Kumar and Baljit Kaur arrived in Chandigarh by the Shatabadi Express from New Delhi. There was quite a crowd of relations, friends and police officials on the railway platform to receive them. Among them, unknown to Devi Lal and his wife, were Baljit’s parents and two brothers who had come from their village to receive her. The two stepped out of the train to be smothered in garlands and embraces. Raj Kumar pushed through the crowd, almost dragging his wife to greet his parents, his sisters and their husbands. He touched their feet before embracing them. Baljit followed his example. Janaki waved her hand over Baljit’s head and blessed her, ‘Sat putri hoven.’ Baljit burst out laughing, ‘Mataji, one will be good enough for us. I don’t think I can handle seven sons. Come, meet my parents and brothers.’
Baljit’s father was a retired Colonel. He and his sons, tall and tough—as was Baljit herself—looked after their several farms in the village. They appeared to be much better off than the Devi Lals; they had driven from their village to Chandigarh in a Toyota. ‘Let us go to the Shivalik for coffee and get to know each other better,’ the Colonel suggested. At the hotel, they talked about the need for a wedding ceremony. ‘We must have a proper wedding in a temple,’ said Devi Lal. ‘We must have a Sikh Anand Karaj,’ asserted Baljit’s mother, ‘otherwise our relatives will never forgive us.’ Janaki suggested a compromise: ‘Why can’t we have both? One day pheras in a temple; the next day an Anand Karaj in a gurdwara.’
‘Why not?’ agreed Baljit. ‘It will be great fun, one couple getting married three times! Don’t you agree, Raju?’
Raj Kumar agreed readily. Dates were settled.
When the bearer presented the bill to Devi Lal, Colonel Siddhu snatched it out of his hand. ‘We never take anything from a daughter’s home. That is not our custom.’
Colonel Siddhu paid the bill and drove them back to Mohali. ‘This is my little ghareeb khana,’ said Devi Lal. ‘I could not afford anything better. Please put your blessed feet in my humble abode.’
The Siddhus were disappointed but did not show it. ‘It’s a charming little house,’ said Mrs Siddhu. ‘Big houses can be a headache. If you ask me, I’d rather live in a two-bedroom flat than a haveli with dozens of rooms. You are lucky to be living in a manageable home.’
Mrs Siddhu’s tone of condescension left no doubt in Devi Lal and Janaki’s mind that as far as Baljit’s parents were concerned, their daughter had married beneath their class. This was reinforced further in the styles of the two weddings that followed. The havan arranged by Devi Lal in the Arya Samaj Mandir was a modest affair attended by relatives and close friends of the family. The Anand Karaj which took place in the Siddhus’ haveli was a grand affair with the entire village, distant relations and friends, some from as far away as Canada and the UK, present. They decked up Raj Kumar in a pink achkan and churidar and slung a kirpan around his waist. He looked regal in his Sikh outfit. There were over a thousand guests at the lunch that followed. In the evening the haveli was lit up with coloured lights. Baljit and Raj Kumar were seated in a new flower-bedecked Maruti gifted by the Siddhus. The rest of the dowry followed in a truck: a colour-TV set, fridge, washing machine and steel trunks packed with clothes for her and Devi Lal’s family. When the caravan of cars drove out of the village towards Chandigarh, Janaki asked her husband, ‘Where will we put all this stuff in our little house?’ Devi Lal waved his hand dismissively and said, ‘Not to worry. They have been allotted a bungalow of their own. It has four bedrooms, a drawing-dining room, servants’ quarters and a garden with a maali to look after it. We are lucky in the match our son has made. We should be grateful to God for the way things have turned out.’
Raj Kumar and Baljit spent their first night after the Anand Karaj in Janaki Villa. Janaki had strewn rose petals on their bed and filled the room with flowers. She knew the couple must have consummated their marriage in Hyderabad but she wanted to believe that it was in his parents’ home that her son deflowered his bride. ‘Now all I want is a grandson in my lap,’ she told her husband as they retired to bed late that night.
The next morning Raj Kumar drove his parents in his new Maruti to his and Baljit’s official bungalow. Janaki was charmed by it and wished she was living there instead of Mohali, infested with parthenium, which gave her respiratory problems. But here Baljit was the boss. She ordered about the servants and constables assigned to them. She took Janaki on a conducted tour of the house while Raj Kumar sat in the verandah talking to his father. ‘What will you do with four bedrooms?’ asked Janaki timidly. ‘One is for us; one for my parents or brothers when they happen to stay overnight; one for guests and one for you and Pitaji whenever you wish to spend a few days with us away from the cares of your home,’ replied Baljit. Meanwhile, Devi Lal obliquely hinted to Raj Kumar at the problem of Janaki’s allergy to parthenium. ‘The doctor says she must stay elsewhere because there is no cure for the illnesses caused by this Congress Grass or parthenium or whatever. I am looking for a small one-bedroom flat somewhere near Sukhna lake or Chandi Mandir and will let out Janaki Villa.’ Raj Kumar did not say anything. It was evident he would discuss the matter with his wife before committing himself. Devi Lal wanted to tell his son a thing or two about being the man of the house but as Baljit’s imposing, Amazonian form appeared in the doorway, he knew instantly that his son didn’t stand a chance.
Some days later, it was Baljit who drove over to Janaki Villa. ‘Mataji, you never told me you were having breathing problems because of the Congress Grass growing all around you. I’m not going to let you stay here a day longer. I will send a truck with policemen to help you pick whatever you want to bring with you. You lock up Janaki Villa and come to our house. You can bring your servant with you; I’ll give him a room in the servants’ quarters. It will be a great favour, actually. We will be out on duty all day long. You can look after our house for us.’
It was clear to Janaki that she was required to be a glorified housekeeper. Every morning at breakfast she asked her son and daughter-in-law what they would like for lunch and dinner. She watched over them as they ate to make sure they had no complaints. When they returned from the office, often late in the evening, Devi Lal and Janaki sat with them for a while, then retired to their bedroom where they had their early evening meal. Both sensed that their son and daughter-in-law enjoyed a drink or two before dinner but that they would not drink in their presence. From the smell of tobacco that wafted into their bedroom they understood that Raj had taken to smoking. From the lipstick on the butts of cigarettes in the ashtray emptied in the morning it appeared that, though a Sikh, so did Baljit. Devi Lal and Janaki felt that what their son and daughter-in-law did was none of their business. They were in awe of the young couple. Every morning when Raj Kumar and Baljit appeared in their smart khaki uniforms, the sight made old Devi Lal and Janaki sigh with happiness; they looked as if God Himself had made them for each other.
One morning, as the pair left the house to get into the police car with a red light on its bonnet, Janaki noticed how shapely her daughter-in-law
was: big bosom, slim waist and large buttocks that appeared to be bursting out of her khaki trousers. ‘She is very risht-pusht,’ she remarked to her husband, who replied, ‘In English they call it sexy. She could bear many healthy children.’
‘One or two would be enough,’ replied Janaki. ‘First a son, then either a son or a daughter. And then full stop.’ She laughed and repeated the family-planning slogan that her husband had told her about years ago: ‘Chhota parivar sukhi parivar.’ She had regained her humour. She breathed more easily.
Raj Kumar and Baljit did not want to start a family right away. They wanted to familiarize themselves with their jobs before having to look after children. So, even after marriage, they continued to use condoms while having sex, as they had done when their liaison started in Hyderabad. After the first few times, it was usually Baljit who took the initiative. She wore knee-length nighties which bared her large, smooth buttocks whenever she bent down, which she did often; her large, firm breasts were always visible through her sheer attire. If that did not arouse Raj Kumar, she demanded a goodnight kiss which she prolonged till he got the message. She was more vigorous than he when they were in the act. He had to quickly fish out a condom from under his pillow and came within a minute or two, leaving her aching for more. She explained to him why she was so randy. ‘You see, I am a full-blooded Jatni of peasant stock,’ she said to a breathless Raj Kumar. ‘You are a city-bred Khatri, of the trading class. We are more lusty than you. In fact, you people cannot beat us at anything physical.’ Stung by the comment, Raj Kumar did his best to put more zest into the act. ‘I’ll fuck the hell out of you, you sexy Jat bitch!’ he would shout as he heaved in and out. ‘Okay, fuck the hell out of me if you can,’ she challenged. He was never able to fuck the hell out of her. She never had an orgasm.
Paradise and Other Stories Page 11