by Shobhaa De
“By the way,” I said, “I hate to remind you, but this lunch was supposed to be for me. I wanted to talk about what’s happening to my life. I wanted to unwind. But I guess I should have known better. It’s always you, you, you, you and your men.You and your tits. I’m pretty sick of the whole thing. But let me tell you, if I’d suspected that I’d be sharing canapés with a cradle-snatcher, I wouldn’t have come.”
I thought that was quite a speech. But Anjali just looked moonily at me. I might as well have spared the effort. “Do you want to meet him? Let’s call him up. I’ll go bring him—or wait. I’ll call downstairs for him. I’m too drunk to walk.”
And that’s how young Karan and I met. I hated him on sight. Callow youth, I thought, as he walked up with a cocky John Travolta swing. He looked like one of those typical Punjabi teddy boys from Delhi’s Karol Bagh.The kind who whirl round and round in the skating rink at Simla during the summer, hoping to pick up a girl. His second disqualification was the scruffy beard and sleeveless T-shirt with masses of underarm hair hanging from the armpit. He was wearing an expensive watch and gold chain. I wondered whether Anjali or some other Anjali had given him that out of eternal gratitude. She intercepted my thoughts. “Isn’t Karan’s watch and chain gorgeous? His mummy gave them to him on his twenty-first birthday. Oh Karan, remember I told you about my old friend? Well, this is her.” Then turning to me, “And this is Karan, my young friend.” OK. She’d made sure we got that right. It was a pretty awkward afternoon once Karan joined us. I noticed she couldn’t keep her hands off him and he seemed visibly embarrassed by her attention. He had a good voice, but his speech was all wrong. Obviously, he hadn’t been to the right school. And I doubted whether he’d been to college. His body? It was a good enough body but not a great one. But then, I was never much of a body person, so I wasn’t surprised that left me cold. He seemed polite enough—he rushed to light her cigarettes and stood up to hold her chair when she lurched off to the loo, but I got the impression he was playing some game—acting dumber than he really was.
My hunch proved right.Three months later Anjali came over unannounced. The first thing I noticed was that she hadn’t done her nails. Not only were they yellowish and discolored, they looked like she’d been chewing them! She had a desperate air about her—but worse than that, she had a great big black eye.
“What happened?” I asked alarmed.
“Nothing. I walked into a doorknob!”
“Listen, don’t be stupid. Tell me. Did Karan do that?”
“I told you the doorknob did it.”
God! It was going to be one of those sessions. I wasn’t feeling patient enough. “OK. Have it your way. Now don’t tell me you were attempting to screw the doorknob and it jumped up and slugged you?” I shouldn’t have said that for Anjali collapsed. She just folded into a heap and lay sobbing on the bed. I felt awful. I tried to comfort her but she pushed me away. “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.” I asked the servant to get her some strong coffee in the hope that this would calm her down. Frankly, in addition to concern for her I was worried the husband would walk in and discover this strange scene. Maybe I was being selfish but I was in no mood to explain anything to him.
Fortunately, the coffee did it. She recovered sufficiently to tell me what had happened. The Delhi trip had been a disaster. She’d taken him around and introduced him to all her contacts as a senior sales executive (“I’d even bought him an expensive suit for his sales calls”). They’d discreetly booked two adjoining single rooms at the Taj Man Singh, but she’d hoped that he’d walk in through the connecting door at night. When that didn’t happen, she’d decided to walk into his room, except she found the door locked. She’d called the room and there was no reply. She’d decided to wait up for him. Around three a.m. she’d heard the sound of the toilet flushing and had immediately called the room. When he answered, she’d demanded angrily, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Just cool it, lady,” he’d replied calmly. “You don’t own me, remember. I went down to the coffee shop because I couldn’t sleep. I ran into some Bombay friends and we decided to go to the disco. OK. And will you please lay off now. I need to catch up on my sleep before all those appointments tomorrow!”
“You’re fired! Do you hear me? Fired. You bastard. How could you do this to me?You are here at my expense.You’d better do what I tell you to.”
“Good night,” he’d said and put the phone down.
The next morning she’d woken up seething. He’d come to her room with a cheery “Good morning! Wakey, wakey!” but she wasn’t about to be mollified that easily.
“I told you, you are fired. Get out!” she’d screamed.
“Hey, easy does it. That was last night. This is today—a new day. We’ve got work to do. Come on. Get your ass off the bed—let’s go.”
As she said it, she couldn’t believe his gall. “There he was, so cool and controlled, while I was ready to die. I don’t know what got into me, I hurled an ashtray at him. He ducked and it missed him. Then he came at me like an animal and gave me a left hook that sent me flying across the room. And that’s the last I saw of him. I should have seen it coming.”
I wish that’s the last I’d seen of Karan. But that was not to be. He popped up again with the last person I’d have expected, but by then I was beginning to be less and less shocked by life’s twists.
Anjali took the breakup very badly. Suddenly she was forced to confront an ugly truth—she was getting old. This was particularly evident in the way she looked at men now. I had noticed this at our long lunch when her eyes kept darting all over the Apollo bar. But even as I sympathized with her I was angry in a strange sort of way. Why, I would ask myself, did I allow Anjali to upstage me even in our low moments? But I could never sustain my indignation for long and would invariably forgive her. The husband commented on this once during one of his rare perceptive moments. “Why are you so generous and loving with that friend of yours? I don’t see this side of you with any of my friends. With them you are harsh and judgmental. But Anjali—oh, she’s treated like a visiting maharani. Let me tell you something. You may think she’s fantastic, but her reputation is awful.You should hear what the guys at the bar say about her.” I cut him short, “Listen, I haven’t as yet descended to the level of listening to cheap bar gossip. I happen to like Anjali—that’s all.” He beat a hasty retreat, as he usually did on the infrequent occasions when I stood my ground, and switched on Handel. I always knew when he was crushed. Phut! went the stereo switch and on came Handel full blast.What he’d said was perfectly true of course. Anjali was teetering dangerously on the brink and her actions had begun to match her emotions. She’d lost her father recently, and from what she said, she hadn’t been very welcome at the funeral and other associated functions. Her mother had made it very clear that the presence of a divorced, and therefore debauched, daughter was nothing but an embarrassment to her. Almost viciously, she had instructed her to stay away from the besana—the wake two days after the funeral when the women of the family received mourners. “We have suffered enough because of you,” she was told. “First you marry a mussulman. That was when dadaji got his initial attack. Then you go and divorce him. That is what killed your father. It is our misfortune to have such a daughter. But that is fate. Now, do us one last favor—stay away. We don’t want relatives and members of our community to ask us awkward questions at a time like this.”
That just about put the seal on Anjali’s misfortune. Hounded out of her own home, she had nowhere to go, no one, with the possible exception of me, to turn to. Even her tenuous links with her ex-husband were almost sundered since Abe had taken on a full-time mistress: an anglo-Indian woman who must have been attractive at some point, but now looked blowsy with bags under her eyes and enormous boobs that nearly reached her toes. “The Udder Woman” Anjali would joke when in a savage mood. Abe had sold off his interests in the family business and was perfectly content to spend his days gambling or in bed. H
is woman Gigi slopped around the place stoned witless, her dressing gown forever open with those unbelievable breasts swaying in and out.
With her world arrayed against her, Anjali plumbed the lowest depths she would ever reach. For a start she began running with a cheapie film crowd. I did what I could but a nympho starlet was Anjali’s main woman now and she’d shrug me off. Once I made an uncharacteristically long speech on the phone. “These people aren’t your type.” I ended, “Why are you wasting time with them. And that new fancy piece of yours—Nisha—come on, what’s going on? She’s a foul-mouthed slut.”
Anjali didn’t seem to want to discuss her new “friends.” “You’re being a snob. They’re people too. I enjoy them. They are uncomplicated and fun. Why don’t you stick to playing Ms. High-and-Mighty and leave me alone. Anyway—Nisha is great company. I get all the gossip firsthand and I find her most relaxing.”
“If you don’t watch it, you might end up getting more than just gossip from her. Heard of herpes? VD?”
“You’re so full of shit, you know. I can’t bear your prejudices. Besides, you haven’t even met her.Why do you believe what the film magazines say?”
“OK. So, introduce us.”
“Why? Just to give you the pleasure of tearing her to pieces?”
“No. Maybe I’m feeling protective about you. I don’t want you to die a painful death. I want to save you from AIDS.”
“I hate you,” Anjali spat and slammed down the phone.
I did meet Nisha eventually. This was months later.
Anjali called one afternoon, all breathless and excited. “Listen—is that bore at home?” referring to the husband.
“No, sweetheart. He isn’t Abe, you know. He works for a living.”
Ignoring that, she continued, “Guess what? Nisha is with me right now and she wants to show you her body.”
“WHAT?” I nearly screamed. “What makes you think I’m interested in seeing that whore’s diseased body. Please—stop—I’ll bring up my lunch.”
“Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. I tell you, this woman has the most fantastic figure—it’s perfect. She just wants to show it to you—that’s all.You don’t have to sleep with it or anything.”
“It!” Imagine that. Grudgingly I had to admit I was curious. I had heard and read so much about this body. Of course, I’d also seen most of it in all the cheesecake shots Nisha so obligingly posed for. But that wasn’t the same as seeing the Indian Marilyn Monroe in flesh and blood—and what’s more, in my own bedroom. I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice. I pretended I was doing them both a big favor. “OK,” I said. “But come quickly, I want you out of the house before he gets home.”
Twenty minutes later, they were there. Nisha looked very demure in a white sari, with an enormous red bindi on her forehead. I asked Anjali about this. “Oh, she’s just been to bed with DK,” she said in a low voice. “You know—that old sod? He has the hots for her and hires a suite at the Sea Rock for their fortnightly fucks. And, you know about his white sari hang-up. He tells her,‘I like to see you in white and with a big tikka on your forehead. Then I imagine I’m screwing a devi and not the “pros” you are.’”
“And she doesn’t mind being talked to like that?”
“Well, five thousand bucks is five thousand bucks. Plus, he recommends her to his producer buddies and she gets the odd role.”
“Oh, great! She sounds real classy,” I said with calculated irony. It went completely over Anjali’s head.
“Yes, yes, yes. She isn’t like the other film girls. She’s studied in a Bandra convent. She speaks English with a good accent. She has even heard of Barbara Streisand. You must ask her to sing ‘Woman in Love’ for you.”
“While she’s stripping—or later?” I asked.
Again, Anjali gushed, “Oh, anytime. She does a beautiful slow strip to it. We have it on video—she did it at the Khan party recently. Everybody just loved it.”
“I’m sure they did. All right, then—let’s get on with it.”
All this while, Nisha had been walking around the place taking an inventory. I could almost hear her counting. I half expected her to pull out a tiny calculator and tot it all up. She’d kept her distance with me, but had obviously sized me up with a glance and had concluded “harmless.” I could almost hear her telling Anjali on their way home, “Your friend is harmless, yaar. Very sweet and all that. But what do you do with her? Discuss how to make papads and achaar?”
The show began after Nisha and Anjali had both fortified themselves with a stiff shot of vodka from the husband’s bar. As Nisha swigged her drink, I took Anjali into the bedroom and asked her, “Why does she want me to see her body? Or is that a stupid question?”
“Oh—I don’t know—let’s ask her,” she said and we went back to the bar. “Hey Nisha, babykins, why do you want her to see your body?”
“Because it’s perfect,” said Nisha and took a large sip of her drink. She seemed to remember something suddenly. “Girls. Is it OK if I keep my panties on?”
Anjali groaned and then yelled, “No! How can she see that lovely mole on your bum then?”
“I should have told you this earlier—but I’m having my period. And I don’t wear tampons.”
“Listen,” I whispered fiercely to Anjali. “Why don’t we keep this for another day? Really, let’s forget the whole thing.”
“No way. She’s here, you’re here, and the show must go on.” She turned to Nisha and instructed her firmly, “Why don’t you be a good girl and just take yourself off to the loo. Do whatever it is that needs to be done and come back.”
“Look, Anjali,” I intervened still whispering, though it appeared that Nisha wouldn’t have minded if I’d been shouting, “my loo happens to be across the corridor. I don’t want this crazy nympho running around naked for all the servants to see.”
“Give her one of your kimonos, darling. Don’t be difficult.” Like an obedient fool, off I went to fish out a kimono. I was racked with visions of contracting some unmentionable disease and had already decided to throw it away when she was through.
Nisha emerged from the bathroom with what she thought was a sexy pout. I thought, “How utterly vulgar this woman looks even fully clothed! And that mouth—it’s vile and obscene. An overused fellatio mouth.” She swayed into the bedroom and struck a pose against the door frame. Anjali whistled.
“Ready?” asked Nisha.
“You’re ON!!” shouted Anjali.
“I am a woman in love and I’ll do anything . . . to get you into my world . . . and hold you within . . .” She dropped one shoulder and stuck out a leg. “Note, girls, I’m keeping my heels on. They give a better shape to the legs.” Then with one great swirl, the kimono was at her feet. “Voila!” she exclaimed with her arms raised, her hands in her hair. I didn’t know where to look. While I certainly was pretty curious, I felt embarrassed to stare.
“Go ahead! Have a good look,” urged Anjali. “Look at that mole—isn’t it too much . . . Nisha, turn around so that she can see how narrow your waist looks at that angle.”
Nisha was moving in slow motion, softly humming under her breath. “You seem eternally mine . . . in love there is no measure of time.”
Anjali nudged me. “Look, look she bleaches and shapes down there. Doesn’t it look cute?”
“Doesn’t it burn?” I asked despite myself.
“Of course not.You’ve got to know how to do it. Nisha was saying it drives DK wild.”
At this point Nisha interrupted. “I give my men the works, girls. The absolute works!” There was one question I’d always been dying to ask experienced women. This seemed an appropriate enough time. “What do you mean by ‘the works’? I often read about woman being ‘good in bed.’ What exactly do they do to qualify?”
“Well, darling. Are you asking me to reveal all my trade secrets?” Nisha asked archly.
“No—just asking you to educate an illiterate woman.”
“I can on
ly tell you about myself. And I’m the best. But I don’t think you’re old enough to hear it—ha! ha!”
Anjali whispered, “Nisha does stuff with crushed ice, oil, spirits you know, that sort of thing.” I was still clueless but thought I’d be wasting my time trying to push it. Oh, yes, and Nisha’s “perfect” body—I must admit it looked pretty grotesque to me, with bulbous breasts and a small ass. If there was one feature that was indeed Perfect—it was her navel. But, as she sardonically pointed out to me, “It is cute, yaar. But what use is it to me?” She had a point.
CHAPTER 9
AT THIS TIME MY ELDEST SISTER, THE ONE WHO’D MARRIED THE ENGINEER and moved to London, dropped a bombshell. She was divorcing her husband, she wrote, but would be staying on in England. Mother told me all this in a tired voice over the phone and almost before she had stopped speaking I had the driver take me to the house in the suburbs they’d retired to. I’d seen my family but infrequently after I’d married, primarily because Father as usual had laid down the law. “Parents do not go and sit around in their daughters’ homes,” he’d said. So their visits were reserved for ceremonial occasions—like Diwali. And these were very formal affairs. Everybody was stiff and it was a relief when they left.The husband wasn’t one of those men who marry the whole family along with the daughter. Being reserved (and boring) he didn’t have much to say to anyone, and even less to my parents. But he maintained what he called “cordial relations.” Anyway, as I sat talking to Mother I realized the conversation was veering around to children. “It’s a good thing she didn’t have children,” I said. “The children always come off the worst in a divorce.”
She raised her head. “Well I hope you’ll have one soon.”