I took the terrified girl to the examination room and probed her gently. There was an angry red fissure in the hymnal region. The brute! He had forced himself upon her without finesse and was now adding insult to injury.
‘The marriage has been consummated alright,’ I informed the mother-in-law. ‘The area is still raw. I think it would be a good idea to send her to her parents’ place till the wound heals.’
A month later, the situation had not improved. Though Rupali had healed physically, the wounds on her psyche were raw as ever. She was a classic case of vaginismus wherein a woman actively resists sexual intercourse. I spent a patient hour with her. As she lay on the examination table with her knees bent and legs spread out, I smeared her genital area liberally with a local anaesthetic jelly and gently inserted a gloved finger into her vagina. She tightened up instantaneously and raised her buttocks with my finger still inside! Nothing I said would make her relax.
‘I am willing to stand between your legs the whole day with my finger cramped inside if that’s the way you want it,’ I said calmly.
‘I’m sorry, doctor. I’m so sorry but I can’t help myself,’ she whimpered.
‘That’s all right,’ I sympathized. ‘You have nothing to fear. I have numbed the local area and I’m sure you don’t feel a thing.’
It gradually dawned upon her that she wasn’t really hurting. It was purely a reflex action that led to this ludicrous stance. My perseverance paid off and she began to relax. Now that I had gained her confidence, I inserted my second finger alongside the first. I got the same response, but for a shorter period. A thorough internal check-up revealed no abnormality.
She was genuinely concerned for her husband who she said was patient and considerate. She felt miserable rejecting his advances night after night. I could see that the sleepless nights had taken their toll and she was losing her freshness.
‘ Will blue films get me excited?’ she asked in desperation.
‘I suggest that you read an authentic book on the subject. Forget about getting excited at this point. Let’s first focus on ridding you of your dread. Aim for lack of sensation. Apply xylocaine jelly liberally and insert your own finger inside till you can tolerate it without tightening up.’
‘But his organ is so thick!’ she said innocently.
I inserted a speculum inside her vagina to show her that there was space enough.
‘But what should I insert to make the opening larger?’ asked the hapless girl.
Vaginal moulds are available at hospitals to keep an artificially constructed vagina open in women born without a vagina. What was the harm in trying it for vaginismus? But they were not available in the open market. I wracked my brains and came up with an idea – the sleek, elongated variety of brinjal would serve our purpose very well.
A week later, a beaming Rupali returned with her handsome husband. It was the first time I was seeing the person whose intimate life had been revealed to me on a regular basis. There was a glow about them, a shy happiness that told me all. It was gratifying to learn that one’s treatment had succeeded. They thanked me with a box of sweets. I had received sweets a lot of times for delivering babies, but never for the consummation of a marriage! Even as I was pondering over this, Rupali took me aside and whispered in my ear. ‘Doctor, the brinjal did not seem thick enough. So I used a cucumber instead. I hope it’s all right.’
I could barely contain my laughter till they left.
Amrinder Bajaj
A fortnight later, I rang up Khushwant Singh to find out what he thought of the story. He had enjoyed it immensely and added, ‘Tune tey kheere baigan de bha vadate! (You’ve made the price of cucumbers and brinjals sky rocket!)’ which had us in splits for a while.
‘If the rest of your stories are as good, compile them and send them to Penguin.’
I did just that and waited on tenterhooks for their response. When it came, my heart broke, for they had no use for it. I sent a weepy letter to Khushwant Singh, informing him of the rejection, to which he replied:
20.11.96
Dear Amrinder
How vulnerable you are. One rejection slip from a nondescript subeditor and you go into the depths of despair. There are dozens of publishers who may be happy to take your MSS. Try Ashok Chopra of UBPSD. In any event, go ahead and finish your diary and we will find a publisher.
Ring up to drop in for a chat.
Yours
Khushwant
It is human nature to take for granted what one has got and hanker after the unattainable instead. Though my contact with Mr Vishwanath – publisher and editor of Woman’s Era – was impersonal, it was cordial. Once I had considered writing for Woman’s Era an achievement, but now it seemed like a minor triumph. On an impulse, I rang up Mr Vishwanath and told him that though the revelations in ‘Diary of a Gynaecologist’ were interesting, they did not go with his magazine, which had a ‘feel-good’ approach and catered to the middle class. I wondered if he knew someone who might be interested. His curiosity aroused, Mr Vishwanath asked me to send them over. Of the eighteen pieces I had written, he chose fourteen.
When he sent me the contract for serialization, I hesitated, for the material was good and there was still a chance that I may get a publisher who would want to publish it as a book. I would lose that chance if I gave it to Woman’s Era.
Then I asked myself: what does a writer want? Readership? Woman’s Era claimed to be the most widely read women’s magazine in English. Remuneration? I would receive Rs 5,000 upfront for those already sent and Rs 400 per piece later. I decided to consult Khushwant Singh before signing on the dotted line; so I met him after getting the mandatory prior appointment.
‘Go ahead,’ he advised.
‘Once I do that, it can never be published in a book form.’
‘Do they have the copyright?’
‘No.’
‘What’s the problem then? In fact, Delhi Press publishes books as well. They can convert it into a book later if they wish. I will mention it in my column to boost sales.’
I was cautious about voicing my exhilaration. What if he backed out again? Nevertheless, it was sweet of him to make that offer and I thanked him profusely.
‘Are the cases real?’ he asked, intrigued.
‘Yes, but under fictitious names for obvious reasons.’
‘Okay, could you tell me some?’
‘During the investigations of an infertile couple, the husband was found to be azospermic.’
‘What’s azospermic?’
‘There is an absence of sperms in the semen. Men with azospermia are potent but cannot impregnate a woman.’
‘Carry on.’
‘They went to a male gynaecologist for treatment. When artificial insemination with a donor semen sample failed in one cycle, the unscrupulous doctor tried to impregnate the patient himself without her consent! Imagine lying in the lithotomy position with the legs hung up on stirrups, the genital area wide open; and instead of the cold steel speculum she felt him trying to push his own penis inside! Freeing a foot, she kicked him hard and ran for dear life. The horrific incident gave birth to an idea. If another man had to father her child, why not choose him herself. She was enamoured by a particularly handsome swamiji who considered it his moral duty to ‘donate’ his semen directly to the needy (veerya daan). I came into the picture because she wanted to know the exact date of ovulation through sonographic follicular studies. The swami was a busy man and could not oblige one devotee all the time!’
‘Interesting. Did the swami give her a child?
‘No, as she was thirty-five and plain-looking, she had to make way for younger, prettier, richer women who were ready to surrender their wealth along with their bodies.’
‘A young foreigner came to me a few days ago and wanted to know if she could sue a particular god-man who advocated free sex for rape.’
‘He is known for his liberal views. Why the necessity for rape, then?’
‘I asked her t
o go over the events for me. She said that she had been at his ashram for over a month and he paid little attention to her. Piqued, she imposed her presence upon him. He was sitting on a chair, his legs extended on a stool in front of him. She sat astride him, inched forward and performed the act. “Why, young lady,” I told her, “you seduced him, he did not rape you. You have no case against him whatsoever!”’
***
The ‘Diary of a Gynaecologist’ was a resounding success. Letters to the editor extolled the wonders of the series. One went so far as to write that he bought Woman’s Era solely for the diary series.
Once, while travelling by Shatabdi Express, I saw the gentleman sitting next to me riveted to my article. Finishing it, he said, ‘This is the first thing I read in Woman’s Era, the moment I buy it.’
I flushed with pleasure.
‘You are a doctor. Do you by any chance know her?’
‘I do.’
‘What does she look like? How old is she?’
‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’
‘I don’t understand …’ Realization dawned then. ‘Can you be … are you Dr Bajaj?’
It was the high point of my literary career.
9
Istarted stringing together the events of my life in words. In recounting the events, I relived every bitter-sweet moment. One part of me secretly lived in the past while the other went through the motions of day-to-day living. Around the same time, I came across a piece in Khushwant Singh’s column that was sceptical about people publishing their life stories at the drop of a hat. Doubts began to obscure my clarity of purpose and my pen began to waver. To allay the disquiet, I wrote to him:
Dear Khushwant Singhji
Your Saturday column this week has made me ponder. You wrote that any person, who sits down to write an autobiography, should ask himself three questions:
• Have I done something worthwhile in life?
• Is it of interest to people outside my immediate circle?
• Will it be of any benefit to the world?
And I had the audacity to write an autobiography that does not satisfy any of the above criteria! I am ashamed to admit that mine was a rather embarrassing exposure of secrets that would make my relatives cringe in shame. I’d rather that everyone else but those known to me read it though paradoxically it will be of little interest to them. Yet I write because I am compelled to by forces beyond my control. I think writers are exhibitionists of the worst order. While actors bare but their bodies we bare our souls, revealing secrets that right-thinking people would carry to their graves with them.
Love
Amrinder
***
25.11.96
Dear Amrinder
Go ahead – ‘To thine own self be true and it must follow as night follows day that thou wilt not be false to any man.’ Fuck society, fuck convention, fuck respectability, fuck religion. All are based on falsehood. Get on with the auto and let me see it when it is finished.
I too am working on a novel: ‘You have only one life to live: sexual fantasies of an octogenarian’. I have to submit it by the end of December. I am only halfway through it.
Love
Khushwant
The swear words shocked me, but with such advice, I was willing to take on the world. I wrote with a vengeance and every single word I wrote was for him. I also decided to dedicate my book to him.
Towards New Year, I saw a greeting card with half a sun on the edge of the earth. A common enough picture, but it set me thinking:
Can you tell?
By a picture whether,
The red-round sun
On the horizon
Would rise or dip?
Or the sky streaked
With riotous colours
Would brighten or darken?
And creatures on earth
Would awaken or sleep?
I wrote this poem on the back of the card, adding that the difference in the helplessness of infancy and senility is the interval of a lifetime – lived or begun – and sent it to Khushwant Singh. He replied:
Dear Amrinder
Sunsets are beautiful but ageing is not. I miss my youth in more ways than one.
Love
Khushwant
The year 1997 was the fiftieth of our independence. Golden jubilee celebrations would last the entire year. Newspapers, magazines, TV and the radio were full of it and politicians were having a field day putting the public to sleep with their speeches. Not to be outdone, I penned a poem as well.
Like a supplicant who knows no better than to ask favours of a god who never bestows any, I sent the poem (and a few others for good measure) to Khushwant Singh and asked him to help me add my mite to the patriotic wave that swept over the country. Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Khushwant Singhji
I bore you time and again with various poems I’ve penned for different situations. ‘Freedom’ is what I feel about independent India. Do you think it can find a place in your Saturday column – where you do occasionally publish poems written by the hoi polloi? If that is not possible, the fact that you have read it will suffice.
Let me know what you think of the others. They tell the story of my love life – the beginning, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. I vividly remember your comment on a phrase of mine, ‘the love of my life’. ‘There is no such thing as love,’ you had remarked. ‘It is but a veneer for lust.’ How right you were. After 14 years of marriage and two sons I was practically a virgin. As a result I fell for the charms of an individual who had nothing to recommend him but his overwhelming sexuality. Though he still takes me to the heights of ecstasy, the price I have to pay is no longer acceptable. Imprisoned within the walls of an unhappy marriage, attached to my offspring by an umbilical cord that I cannot bring myself to sever, shackled to an attachment that has become an addiction, my very soul is fettered and I long to breathe freely in open spaces.
Now that I have realized that the grass is not greener on the other side, I sit on the fence, desultorily picking handfuls from both sides. Neither am I bohemian enough to do as I please nor the traditional bharatiya naari who worships her pati parmeshwar. I belong nowhere. In fact, a pativrata stree is a myth perpetuated by patis, for they stand to gain from it. Most wives despise their husbands but stay with them for the sake of the children and/or fulfilment of social/financial/sexual needs.
Time and again I trouble you with my outpourings. Please bear with me for only in your presence can I lift the veil of respectability and be my real self.
Love
Amrinder
10
Raj Villa
Kasauli (Simla Hills)
22 Sept. ’97
Dear Amrinder
Your poems read well – particularly the one on getting orgasms. But I do not use unpublished poems in my column, except when doing a personal profile. I’ll be happy to write one on you and quote your (or my) favourite poem. I’ll need a detailed biodata and 4/5 black-and-white pictures. Ring me up after 1st October and come over. I will go abroad on the 8th.
Love
Khushwant
It was a windfall! I had never dared dream that I would figure in his column one day – biodata, poem, photograph and all. I was overwhelmed. For days I debated whether to take a little present for him as a token of thanks. It could not be construed as a bribe because it wasn’t I who had requested for the honour; secondly, I was giving it to him after he decided to write the profile.
Once my conscience got over this hurdle, the next question arose: what does a woman give a man who is thirty-five years her senior and with whom she shares an indeterminate relationship? I knew that he was fond of his tipple and a bottle of wine would be appreciated; but my well-wishers vetoed the idea.
So I did the next best thing and gift-wrapped a set of long-stemmed, imported wine glasses for him.
‘What’s in this?’ he asked.
‘Crystal wine glasses. Because w
omen are not supposed to give men hard drinks,’ I blurted without thinking.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Everyone around me. Would you like to unwrap—’
‘No. I’d like to give my wife the honour,’ he said, which was quite sweet. She usually came into the living room around four and sat on the sofa in front of me – a frail old lady with a mind of her own and the poise that comes naturally to beautiful women.
I handed him a sheaf of papers.
‘This much of biodata?’ he asked, dismayed.
‘Goodness gracious, no!’ I said quickly to allay his alarm. ‘I am not that conceited – just a page or two, the rest are poems for you to choose from.’
He appeared relieved.
‘Don’t expect the piece to appear in the next couple of weeks. These things take time,’ he said, going over the photographs and choosing the one he thought best.
‘I am prepared to wait as long as I am assured that it will come,’ I smiled.
On Saturday, 1 November 1997, in the centre page of the Hindustan Times, I stared back at me in a flattering black-and-white picture in ‘With Malice towards One and All’. Besides elaborating on my achievements – medical and literary (in fact the heading was ‘Literary Medico’) – he chose this poem of mine to go with his text:
THE GUAVA TREE
I grew a guava tree
In my courtyard
And nurtured it
With selfish zeal.
And waited patiently
For years
To reap the harvest
Of my labour.
But the ungrateful one
Spread its branches,
Beyond my garden wall.
And with open arms
Welcomed bird and beast
And passers-by
To partake
The Afternoon Girl Page 4