by Shobhaa De
After dinner and elaborate goodbyes, Anjali and I returned to the bedroom we were sharing. I went into the old-fashioned bathroom to change. When I came out, Anjali was gone. I thought she might have forgotten something in the living room. I picked up a magazine and waited for her. Two hours went by—no trace of Anjali. I drifted into an uneasy sleep. Sometime at dawn, I thought I heard a shuffling movement in the room but was too groggy to switch on the light and investigate.When I did awake, I found a note propped up on the small bedside table. It looked like a child of five had scribbled it, the handwriting was so unformed and immature. The message had been hastily and crudely written with an eyebrow pencil. “Forgive me, dearest,” it said. “Don’t hate me for this. I will explane everything.” Though I guessed what she was referring to, it was more with curiosity than anger that I looked forward to meeting her.
I saw her at breakfast. She looked sheepish and greeted me awkwardly. “Hi! Angry?” she asked with a weak smile. “Whatever for?” I said cheerfully and saw instant relief on her face. I knew she wanted to confess though this would be the first lime she’d told me anything personal, aside from the matter of Abe and his dirty pictures. As it turned out I was utterly embarrassed by the sordid little confidence and after that for several years there was an unspoken compact between us: I didn’t ask or display any curiosity and she didn’t tell. I would hear wild stories about her escapades, but whenever the two of us met, she played the vestal virgin—all wronged woman and injured innocence. Sometimes—and this was really much later on when she was getting low on self-esteem—she’d talk about someone she’d met—always someone respectable—like a doctor or a professor and hint about an affair. No, not even an affair—she’d transform it into an antiseptic “relationship” and explain limply, “We have a lot to say to each other. We spend hours and hours just chatting.” “I bet,” I’d say to myself. But not harshly. It was easy to forgive Anjali. Behind that woman-of-the-world, blasé facade was just an unsure Gujarati girl, trying hard to fit into a world in which she would always be regarded as an alien and an intruder.Which feeling I identified with quite naturally.
What really piqued my curiosity, initially at any rate, was why she stayed with her husband. I could see, anyone could, that she was unhappy in the marriage and chafed at being under his thumb. “Maybe I handled him all wrong,” she’d say reflectively. “Maybe I should have asserted myself . . . put my foot down . . . I don’t know, done something . . . right at the beginning. Now, it’s too late.” She never specified “too late” for what. In their circle, nearly everyone was thrice married and divorce was commonplace. In the beginning I was too much in awe of her to ask directly. But every now and then I’d take a swipe at him, like calling him “Ape.” At first, she pretended to take offense. Later, we would both laugh over it. But an ape he truly was—brutal and boorish. In some ways, he reminded me of Aristotle Onassis, the same crude arrogance that money breeds. Even the same sort appearance including enormous, tortoiseshell glasses. “Maybe I married him because he treated me like a baby,” she once said. “It was a lovely feeling to be indulged. My father never did it. He was too strict and cold. I don’t remember him kissing me or any of us. Or even lightly embracing the children. It was not done to express any emotion, other than anger or disapproval.” This was something else I understand perfectly. My own father was an autocrat and disciplinarian. He believed it wasn’t “manly” to show his feelings. “You are far too soft with the children,” he’d admonish Mother. “If you aren’t strict with them, they’ll take full advantage of you.” We never sat in Father’s lap. Not did we dare to even tap him to attract his attention. In fact, we rarely addressed him directly—it was always through Mother. Perhaps this was why I also had a thing about older men, particularly those with kind eyes and soft hands. But I would never have married an ape like Abe, for all his money and sweet words. “He wasn’t always like this,” Anjali would say ineffectually trying to defend him. “He used to be so generous and considerate. He still is. It’s just that mussulman part of his nature that ruins everything.” I liked the way she’d neatly slotted the most vital area of their differences. The mussulman part. Here was Anjali, a middle-class half-Jain (from her mother’s side) half-Hindu girl, who had shunned nonvegetarian food and alcohol till she married a man whose day began with a Scotch gargle and who considered veggie food “fit for milk-producing animals only.” His was a large joint family consisting of other boorish brothers, their wives and countless sisters with their husbands. Presiding over them was the widowed mother, a handsome, strong woman with an imposing personality—the only person in whose presence Abe looked sufficiently cowed. It must have been very hard for Anjali to conform—at least in the first few years. But unlike a movie star friend and rival of hers (another of my schoolgirl role models) who had also married a mussulman, Anjali didn’t revel in her Begum status. And in her single major revolt against her husband she continued to be Hindu outwardly and inwardly: she wore a bindi when she wore saris, she visited the family temple on festival days and on major occasions, such as Diwali, she celebrated at home. Abe probably put up with it because religion wasn’t important to him, but at least Anjali had something.
CHAPTER 3
EVEN THOUGH BY NOW I WAS ALMOST A PERMANENT APPENDAGE to Anjali’s sari hem, she still hadn’t invited me to a single party she threw (the friend’s house in Bhavnagar excepted, but then she was always looser outside Bombay). I suspected this was because she was sure I’d be very critical about her friends, clothes, food and behavior. Maybe she was right. But I always knew when she was having a party because she’d describe everything to me in advance—from the personal idiosyncracies of those on the guest list to her outfits and table decorations. And, of course, we’d have a detailed postmortem the morning after. There was probably one more reason why I was so deliberately excluded. She was afraid Abe would make a pass at me. And succeed. She said once, half jokingly, “I have lost all my girlfriends to Abe. The minute he meets them, he starts his seduction plans. It doesn’t take very long. One lunch, two drinks—and boom—they’re in bed. I don’t want to lose you.” I tried to reassure her that I found Abe revolting.
“But do you find him sexually attractive?” she asked anxiously.
“No!” I almost yelled back.
“I know Abe finds you attractive. He has told me so. He even asked me, ‘Would you mind very much if I went to bed with her?’ I didn’t say anything. But he could tell from my expression that I was upset.” After this I was even more careful around Abe and tried my best not even to run into him at the house. I succeeded as a rule, but sometimes I’d find him lounging around in a ghastly purple silk dressing gown (purple was his favorite color). At such times I’d be studiedly polite. There were other occasions when he’d hang his bleary-eyed head out of the mirrored bedroom door and demand ice and soda at five in the evening while we were sipping tea in the living room. It was cheap and decadent and offensive. I used to wonder how Anjali could lie next to this beast, how she could bear to make love to him. She shrugged carelessly when I asked her once. “After so many years and so many times—who cares! If he feels like it, he just climbs on. It’s easier to just lie there and let him rather than fight him off. Quicker too. I just switch off and think of other things. Sometimes I pick the blackheads on his back or concentrate on my schedule for the next day.”
“How awful!” I said.
“That’s not all,” she said. “Often, my diamond stud hurts as his face presses down hard on my ear, and I can feel the sharp rod of the earring piercing into my neck. I hate it when my hair gets caught in his watchstrap, or when his unshaven chin makes furrows across my face. I hate having to reapply my night cream because it’s got rubbed off. And I hate it the most when he drips all over me and there’s no Kleenex around to wipe it off. I don’t even know what he gets out of it. I’ve stopped bothering to move under him or even to wrap my legs dutifully around his waist as I once used to. I just lie there, starin
g at the ceiling, waiting for him to finish off and leave me alone.”
“Doesn’t he notice your lack of enthusiasm and mind your coldness?” I asked, though heaven knows why I wanted to carry on the conversation.
“Well, if he does, he pretends he hasn’t. Sometimes we even joke about it. He says, ‘Shall I get you one of those hot films? Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s all about. You need a refresher course, baby! What about your library of Swedish books? Where are they? Or are you reserving your energy for someone else?’ He’s quite sweet that way. Once, he got me a funny present from Frankfurt, it was all very fancily gift-wrapped with a huge golden bow. ‘What is it?’ I asked him. ‘Something you’ll absolutely love, baby,’ he said laughing. ‘You won’t need me after this.’ I tore open the package and what do you think—it was a battery-operated vibrator!”
“Did you need him after that?” I couldn’t resist the question.
“No,” she replied quickly.
After months of evading him successfully, I finally found myself at the receiving end of Abe’s infamous technique. That was the last surprise on a day of surprises (most of which I could have done without) though it did set me on the path to what kitsch writers would call romance. Anjali phoned me on the morning of Holi and asked me to come with them to a beach party they’d been invited to. I was surprised. “Why do you want me to come?” I asked.
“Because there is someone I want you to meet.”
I said OK reluctantly. I knew Father would fume and Mother would sulk. I quickly made up some story about running out to collect journals. Neither of them believed me. But by now these daily lies and games had become something of a joke between us. I’d tell myself—“too bad, they don’t want to hear the truth.” This was so. I was perfectly willing to be frank. But the responsibility of my candor was too much for them. And for my boyfriend. He bought my fibs too. I didn’t quite know what Anjali meant by wanting me to meet someone but I hoped she wasn’t trying to matchmake. I was perfectly happy with Bunty. But I brushed aside any apprehension I had because deep down I suppose I wanted to see what Anjali’s friends were like. Then it struck me that I didn’t have anything to wear. I didn’t know what people wore at such dos as I hadn’t ever been invited to one. It must have struck Anjali too, for she called back ten minutes later and said, “Hey kid—what are you planning to wear? Why don’t you borrow one of my thingies? Do you have a swimsuit? Shall I get one for you?” I protested and declined, too embarrassed by the offer. (In our family, we never wore borrowed feathers. It was one of the family rules.) Besides, I didn’t know how to swim. I hoped to God I wouldn’t need to go into the water. I grew panicky. The simplest thing would have been to wriggle out of the whole thing but then I wasn’t thinking rationally. Memories of compulsory swimming classes at the NSCI—during my school days—the water smelling of chlorine and the anonymous urine which stung my eyes, the glare of the sun reflecting from the surface which made me screw up my face, and the subsequent rash on my sensitive skin—floated through my head as Anjali babbled on. Besides my dislike of the water, there was no way Father was going to accept my waltzing around in a swimsuit; he still didn’t allow me to wear sleeveless blouses to college or shorts to play basketball. I thanked Anjali for her concern, rang off and began looking through my clothes for something I could wear: all I could find was a maroon handloom shirtlike thing and a pair of pants. Anjali phoned again. “What about jewelry? Do you have any?”
“Jewelry? On the beach?” I asked in amazement.
“Don’t be silly, darling, EVERYBODY will be wearing loads of it. It’s Holi and our crowd always dresses up . . . even for the beach.”
“I’m not coming,” I said finally, saying what I should have done all along. “I don’t have any clothes and I don’t have jewelry.” But by then it was too late. “Wear my chains,” she instructed and rang off.
We drove to Marve in her red open-top MG. Their “beach car.” The Impala was the “office car” and there was a “hill-station car” (a sturdy station-wagon) in addition to the “children’s car” which the ayahs used more than Mimi. I was all doubled up at the back. She seemed very tense. Maybe because Abe was driving and he seemed in one of his especially reckless moods. She kept looking back and saying, “Are you all right?” I wasn’t. I was still feeling very silly about my clothes, and even sillier with the long strand of pearls she’d flung around my neck. She was wearing a floaty kaftan—very Pucci—with a black swimsuit underneath. And Abe was in shorts, with his hairy, thick calves flexing into knots each time he stepped on the brakes or the accelerator. Revolting like everything else about him.
We arrived around noon. The party was at a sprawling “shack.” We could hear the music and laughter as we looked for a parking spot. I wanted to disappear but Anjali gripped my arm tightly and dragged me through the sand. I recognized a few people. I’d seen them in various magazines—movie stars, businessmen, models, diplomats. The host, in fact, was a German married to an Indian girl—an ex-model.There must have been over a hundred people all over the place. “Have some bhang, baby,” said Anjali to me. “Grow up. Enjoy yourself.You’re a big girl now.”This was a very new Anjali, the Anjali I’d only glimpsed at my first meetings and at Jinx’s place. I reverted to my early role of a dependent. “Don’t leave me alone,” I pleaded. “I don’t know a soul. I’m feeling so stupid.” But Anjali was off—she’d spotted someone. I spotted him too at exactly the same moment. I knew him. He had used me for an ad film once. I’d liked him, even though he’d made me feel ill at ease and clumsy. He had a reputation around town. People said he was crazy. Rich and crazy. Nobody knew how many marriages he’d run through. But he always managed to get young and flashy wives for himself.Yet he wasn’t a flamboyant man at all. Anything but. He was quiet and scholarly. An intense person who made pictures when he wasn’t traveling or fooling around with his garage full of racing cars. I don’t know how old he was then—perhaps in his forties. But I liked him. I liked the way he spoke. And I liked his arrogance. He was the most temperamental ad man in town. Agencies quaked when he walked in and he terrorized art directors and copy writers into changing all their carefully worked out concepts. But they also respected the high quality of his work. And they respected his moneyed status.
My session with him came back to me. He’d taken one look at me when I walked in for the assignment and said, “Go and wash all that muck off your face. And take down that crappy hairdo.” It had taken me two hours and sixty rupees to fix my face and hair. I thought I looked terrific. I was about to say something when the look on his face made me rush out to do his bidding. After that he didn’t say a word to me all through the shooting apart from barking a few instructions. But at the end of it all I’d enjoyed myself: enjoyed his professionalism—and loved the results when they came.
And now, there he was, standing motionless under a palm tree, with a soft drink in his hand. I noticed Anjali rushing up to him and talking animatedly. I tried to duck out of sight but he spotted me and waved. Anjali turned around to see who he was waving at and seeing me, her expression relaxed. “Come here. Have you met this divine man?”
We looked at each other. I smiled self-consciously. Then he said, “I’m glad you aren’t wearing all that shit on your face.You look so much better minus makeup. And your hair—don’t you dare go to the hairdressers. Leave the fucking thing alone.” I was stunned. And flattered. Anjali stared and said, “Oh—so you know each other?” I blurted out hastily, “Only professionally.”
The man looked amused. He lit a bidi and said, “Would you like to swim?” The question was directed at me.
“I don’t swim,” I said and reflexively took hold of Anjali’s arm.
“That’s OK. I don’t either,” he laughed. “Come on girls, the sea looks irresistible today.”
Anjali quickly doffed her kaftan and urged me to come into the water.
“Like this?” I protested.
“Why not—just knock off those sill
y pants,” said the man coolly. What the hell, why ever not, thought the middle-class maiden and took the plunge.
Months after this incident, the man revealed a few interesting details about our morning’s adventure. This was after we had become friends—oh hell, why am I being so coy—and the season for true confessions was on. “Your friend Anjali came on very strong that morning,” said the man. “She walked up to me and made a crude pass. I was embarrassed and, I confess, a little shocked too. How does one tell a woman to piss off? Besides, I was so taken aback seeing you there, maybe it was at that precise moment that I fell in love. Later, of course, the sight of your bright red panties suddenly swimming into view, when your shirt floated up to your neck, was what did it. It was quite a sight. I bet you didn’t think your shirt would balloon up that way . . . I loved the expression on your face. And I noticed Anjali noticing.”
It was quite a disaster, that party. Particularly the point when Abe staggered off with an attractive woman who was equally sloshed. The bhang was working its dangerous magic on everyone. Abe and the woman started to lurch drunkenly across a narrow retaining wall along the edge of the property. He was yelling, “Why don’t you remove your top and I take off my bottom and we become one?” She was game. Her husband wasn’t. Plus, there was one very jealous young boyfriend in the picture. By this time Anjali had switched off totally and drifted away in a hash haze. She looked old and weary with her mascara smeared untidily under her eyes. The ad filmmaker had climbed into his jeep and driven off quite abruptly after our little swim, leaving me feeling awkward and alone. But I was still enthralled enough by the scene not to want to leave. The two drunken acrobats on the wall were the cynosure of all eyes now. Abe kept threatening to pull down his trunks and the woman was pouring out of her bikini top as it was. To add to the tamasha, a section of the crowd was egging on the husband to slug Abe. Meanwhile, a spoilsport woman rushed into the shack and emerged with a large beach towel. She walked up to the other woman and very dramatically flung the towel over her.There was a loud round of applause at this and the two were persuaded to abandon their caper and cool off with a tumbler full of bhang. The party lost its fizz after that and people started to leave. As we climbed into the car, I noticed the young boyfriend tracing sand patterns on the woman’s belly, while her husband puffed moodily at a joint near the retaining wall.The high life, I remember thinking, here I come. But the day wasn’t over yet.