The Afternoon Girl

by Amrinder Bajaj

  Love

  Khushwant

  With intra-departmental politics heating up at my workplace, I was too busy to pursue Khushwant Singh or literary interests. So it was almost after a month that I found time to talk with him, give him the bottle of premium whisky and take him up on his offer. If only we were celebrating the publication of my novel. Wishful thinking indeed! On the other hand, would I be able to forgive myself if he conked-out before I presented it to him? His getting the Padma Vibhushan a was very good reason for gifting it to him. He graciously invited me to come at 7 p.m. on 1 March as he had invited Vikram Seth over for a drink. I would have loved to do so but the mess in my hospital had just been sorted out and I dared not miss an OPD even for a reason so tempting. Reluctantly, I settled for 4 p.m. (it is not for nothing that the book is called Afternoon Girl). Also, at that time I would have him to myself and sort out the Serengeti and SM business in peace.

  The day I met him, spring was in the air and winter was making a reluctant exit. Delhi had been washed clean by a light shower the previous day and nature had generously sprinkled the colours of Holi everywhere, a little before the day of the festival, which fell on 4 March. The roundabouts were a riot of colours. Huge heads of multi-hued dahlias bobbed in the breeze. The delicate mauve of the kachnar gently brushed the skies while the blatant red of the silk cotton trees set it aflame. The song of birds filled my heart and made me unaccountably happy as I drove on the smooth, wide roads to Khushwant Singh’s house. The undercurrents of sexuality had been extinguished effectively by his advanced age, but it was a treat to interact with him nevertheless. The very fact that portals that opened to the likes of Abdul Kalam and Vikram Seth could open for me was exhilarating.

  He was seated on his usual chair, a frailer and more shrivelled version of his former self. Barely had I straightened up after receiving his kiss when he handed me a book, saying, ‘Here’s another one for you; but this one I am not going to sign.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I do not want your husband to murder me.’

  It was an explicitly illustrated version of the Kama Sutra modernized by Pawan K. Verma.

  I took out the 1-litre Chivas Regal from my bag and put it on the table. I could see that he was mighty pleased but he admonished me mildly: ‘I told you I will take it only on the condition that you have a drop with me.’

  ‘You know I don’t drink. And you enjoy it.’

  ‘Immensely. I wish you could have met Vikram Seth.’

  ‘I would have loved to, but I have prior appointments that I could not cancel. Also, I would not have known what to say, except for fawning over his books, taking his autograph and generally making a fool of myself. The conversation would have been stilted and all of us would have been uneasy. He lives in NewYork, doesn’t he?’

  ‘No, London. Whenever he strolls around bookshops in this area, he drops in. Have you read his books?’

  ‘Yes, A Suitable Boy.’

  ‘And The Golden Gate?’

  ‘No, but I heard that it is in poetry format.’

  ‘The entire novel is written in the form of sonnets.’

  ‘He is homosexual.’

  ‘Yes. I suspected it when he wrote about a homosexual relationship with more sensitivity in The Golden Gate than a heterosexual relationship. I even discussed it with his mother. She agreed, but did not say it in so many words.’

  ‘She is a judge?’

  ‘Was. She is retired now.’

  ‘She had also written an autobiographical novel.’

  ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing to the book on his side table. ‘I have kept it out for her to sign as she is coming along with him.’

  ‘Does Vikram Seth have a permanent live-in partner or …’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but he should not have broadcasted it on TV. It is his private business.’

  ‘It is an open secret and people hound you till nothing remains private. It seems easier to shut them up once and for all by doing what he has done.’

  ‘The other day, when the president came calling, traffic at Khan Market was stopped. All the vehicles, including your uncle’s car and my granddaughter Naina’s car were towed away. Everyone thought that I had died and the president had come to offer condolences!’

  ‘A lady I knew said that her only wish was to be able to see how many people had come to attend her funeral.’

  ‘I had written an article on the same, anticipating a huge gathering after my death and there was no one!’

  ‘Well, people would have to take prior appointment and arrive on time even if they are mourners at your funeral.’ I joked. ‘As far as mine is concerned, I don’t care either way. What difference will it make to me then?’

  Khushwant Singh then began to tick me off roundly for not writing the Serengeti piece as desired by Outlook.

  ‘I had spoken to Nandini. She is the second-in-command and I know she would have taken the article had you written it in the format they require – an introduction, a middle and a humorous tailpiece. Throwing in a bit of sexual innuendo helps.’

  ‘I have gone through a few copies of Outlook and know what they want. Sexual innuendoes and humour are all very well – they are in every letter that I send you; but though I found Serengeti an exalted, unforgettable experience, for the life of me I could not find any humour there.’

  ‘You have seen copulating animals on Discovery channel?’

  ‘I have seen them in real life too, but …’

  ‘Then make it up. Write about a black man making a pass at you. My son had gone to Peshawar recently. He had been sent there by the UN. He wanted to loiter about to see the city as he hadn’t been there before but the host forbade him. So all he did was to stay in the hotel and give lectures. After that, he was accosted by a bunch of girls covered from head to toe in burqas who spoke the Queen’s English and told him how difficult it was for them to get condoms in Pakistan. He did not know where to look.’

  ‘The very fact that the girls wore burqa would have given him the freedom to look anywhere.’ I chuckled and continued, ‘Is the paucity of condoms because of the fact that contraception is forbidden in Islam? Why, exporting condoms to Pakistan can be a lucrative business and a sort of sexual warfare. Instead of killing them at our borders, we could decrease their numbers in this way.’

  This had Khushwant Singh in splits and, as always, I felt a vague sense of achievement.

  ‘I told Rahul to write an article on this and he did.’

  ‘This is the article on Serengeti that has been accepted for publication by Woman’s Era,’ I said, pulling it out of my bag and handing it to him.

  ‘But Outlook pays more and is more prestigious. What is it with SM?’

  ‘There is a mention of twenty-four months in the contract and Anuj Bahri said that, for all practical purposes, it was over. I rang up SM to ask him where I stand so that I could move on. He said that the contract was definitely on, but did nothing about it.’

  ‘Ring him up for me now.’

  My coffee turned cold trying to contact his cellphone, his office and his brother KM (Khushwant Singh dealt with him), but I could not get through to any of them. So I wrote his number down for Khushwant Singh to try later.

  ‘What about your solitaire collection?’

  ‘It definitely isn’t increasing. I have gracefully accepted the fact that with advancing age my stock has dwindled considerably. Now I am reduced to receiving video cameras, silk saris and pashmina shawls, which is good enough.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I did not know that there were doctors called andrologists who deal with the male.’

  ‘Oh yes. Men too have a sort of sexual pause called andropause.’

  ‘And I thought that men had affairs with younger women when their wives became old.’

  ‘That is only to reiterate their belief in their youth. At this point, they are rich and powerful – exactly what attracts vulnerable young girls. It is a salve to their saggin
g egos and manhood. A cousin of mine fell into this trap when his wife had gone abroad. He kept a beautiful girl as his assistant and gallivanted with her all about town. On learning about the affair, the wife returned and had a showdown with her husband. He tried placating her by saying he never had much staying power in bed: “Taino pata hai tera khasam kinki lambi race da ghoda hega.” But she rightly insisted that it was possible to perform indifferently with a wife and much better with a mistress and added that even if she gave him the benefit of the doubt, “akhaan te sekhda ravega”. So out went the girl and the wife took over their sex life (after two years of abstinence) with such vengeance that he complained that “she literally rapes me every night!”’

  Khushwant Singh was mighty amused.

  I told him that in July, I would be going on an Alaskan cruise and take a ride on the mountain rail in the Canadian Rockies and my stock went up immediately. He said that though he had never been on a cruise, he had been on the mountain rail in the Rockies. The train was made of glass so that one could see the elks, the polar bears and moors on the snow as one moved across the mountain range. The prospect of beholding such natural splendour delighted me.

  ‘Can I have a look at your Padma Vibhushan?’

  ‘I haven’t received it yet. They will set a date and hold a ceremony.’

  ‘I thought the ceremony is over and that it is held after the Beating Retreat.’

  ‘I am not up to attending the prolonged function and asked if my son could receive it on my behalf. They refused. So a senior officer will deliver it at my place. I will give him a drink and call my friends over.’

  ‘It is the high point of your life; do make an effort to go.’

  ‘At my age, with my enlarged prostate, I might end up peeing in the middle of the national anthem.’

  Coming to think of it, there was a faint smell of urine about him.

  ‘Why don’t you get it operated?’

  ‘It is too late. Moreover, a lot of my friends have had the operation and it did not make much difference.’

  The talk of medical problems led my thoughts towards my uncle. ‘Mamaji isn’t at home today, so I don’t have to visit him.’

  ‘Your uncle has seen every member of my family exit this world.’

  ‘The angel of mercy has turned into the angel of death,’ I said, but did not add the other thought that had entered my head: what could one expect of a clientele that had aged to the point of death?

  It was forty-five minutes since I had arrived and, as was his way of doing things, he said, ‘I am tired and need to rest a while.’ I took my leave as Khushwant Singh had an interesting evening ahead for which he needed to be fresh.

  75

  6.3.07

  DearKhushwant Singhji

  It was a pleasure seeing you the other day. I felt unaccountably happy in your presence. Spring was in my heart, in the air and I went berserk taking pictures of the flowering silk cotton tree, the bobbing heads of dahlias, the multitudes of multi-hued flowers and butterflies with my camera.

  I would have loved to meet Vikram Seth but my appointments with patients had already been scheduled and I could not cancel them at the last moment. Now you know why I have called the memoirs of our interaction ‘Afternoon Girl’.

  I have written a 1,000-word travelogue on Zanzibar which I think is more in league with the requirements of Outlook. I hope it meets your approval and theirs. If it does, can you please forward it to Outlook or give me the name and address of the person I should contact.

  Did you manage to contact SM or his brother?

  For want of something better, I am sending you this tame joke.

  Beauty of the English language: ever noticed how deleting one word after the other in a sentence can lead to a nice story? For example:

  Oh John, please don’t touch me at all … !

  Oh John, please don’t touch me at … !

  Oh John, please don’t touch … !

  Oh John, please don’t . !

  Oh John, please … !

  Oh John …

  !Ohhhh … !

  Love

  Amrinder

  On 15 March, I received a letter dated 9 March ’07.

  Dear Amrinder

  You don’t look at Outlook’s last page. The whole is divided in 3–4 parts. Do that – then send it to Nandini. She is no 2.

  I tried SM a few times and then gave up. I’ll try once more.

  Love

  Khushwant

  So that was that. Impulsively, I rang up SM and vented my frustration, adding that Khushwant Singh had also tried contacting him several times in this regard.

  ‘I was out of India. The book is with the editorial board and the proof will reachyou in ten days,’ he replied, trying to calm me.

  So I was finally getting to hear something concrete. But I still took it with a pinch of salt. All I could do was to wait.

  7.4.07

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  From your column in the HT today I gleaned that your mood, your outlook, in fact almost everything about you depends upon your bowel movements, which means that a person has to inquire about that aspect of your day before fixing an appointment with you! Yet you could be right for, if the excretory organs of a human being are functioning right, one can reasonably assume that he is in the pink of health.

  I finally did get SM on the phone on the 15th of last month; he was abroad and therefore did not answer our phones earlier. He said that the proofs would reach me within 10 days. Though this statement gladdened my heart, going by his past record I cannot bring myself to believe him. True to his nature he keeps me waiting. I am sending you his number again in case you would like to speak with him – *******834.

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  25th April 2007

  DearAmrinder

  If you don’t get proofs of your book in the coming week, let me know. I hate ringing up people. I am almost deaf and I only sit by the phone during drinks and dinner. Trying to hold a conversation when I am unable to hear properly kills my appetite for Scotch and food.

  That reminds me to invite you and your hubby to my last book launch – Meridien, 1st May, 7 p.m. You will hear Zohra Sehgal recite Hafeez Jalandhari after the main function there. She is 96 and my current heart-throb. She is launching my book.

  I am very tired of human beings and life generally. My attempts at sanyas have failed. I hope to get away to Kasauli a day after the book launch and hope that by the time I return people will have forgotten my existence.

  I trust you are in good shape.

  Love

  Khushwant

  76

  On 1 May 2007, I took my sister along to the launch of Khushwant Singh’s translation of the best of Urdu poetry into English which he had done along with Kamna Prasad. She was in a sequined pink sari. The ‘charming’ editor Diya Hazra was present as well. I found myself stealing glances at the two women, sizing them up. The vanity of women! Here I was, comparing myself with competitors for the attention of a doddering old man! Yet he was a man who at this age professed to be in love with the ninety-six-year-old Zohra Sehgal, a woman three years his senior! He said she was his last love and devoted a couple of romantic couplets to her. She would have released his book but could not make it on account of a sprained ankle. Khushwant Singh was heartbroken and couldn’t stop eulogizing her – how the room lit up with her presence, how he vied with 3–4 others for her affections and how perforce he had to relegate his attachment to a platonic level.

  I remembered Zohra Sehgal from the last launch when the PM released his book. She appeared larger than life in the movies but in reality was a frail, wrinkled, old woman with uncommonly large nostrils.

  Khushwant Singh said that his work was superior to previous translations, but hastily added that this was his opinion and it was for the readers to judge. He talked about his inability to translate certain words into English, especially ‘jigar’ as opposed to ‘dil’, whic
h confounded him. ‘Jigarwala’ could mean someone with gumption, while ‘nazar ka teer jigar ke paar hua’ couldn’t possibly mean liver. He ended up using it as synonym for passion or desire. ‘Angdai’ was another word that had no parallel in English. It did not connote a mere stretching of the arms but a seductive sticking out of the chest and a come-hither wantonness. It meant that the woman was willing, but did only Urdu-speaking women use this as a means to communicate their desire and not the English?

  Another thing that puzzled him was that despite there being no pubs in Delhi, poetry about meena and saki flourished. Then he went on to the most famous Urdu poet who was also known for his fondness for the cup. Ghalib drank only Scotch. He’d buy a bottle for Re1, have a bath, change into crisp clothes and dab ittar on himself. Then he’d keep the bottle (meena) and surahi containing water by his side and write poetry while drinking it.

  Urdu, he said, was a dying written language but lived on in other scripts. A poem written by a famous Urdu poet stated that his last wish was that if he wrote his will in Urdu, his son should be able to read it! Alas, his desire was destined to remain unrealized. According to Khushwant Singh, the language that was born in Delhi was also dying here, and even the young Muslims in Pakistan had no use for it.

  Then he went on to the editing process that the book had gone through and said that Diya was a hard taskmaster who would throw the manuscript to him and he would throw it right back till, after a dozen times, he raised his hands and said nomore. As for Bubbles (Mrs Charanjit Singh), every time there was a launch, he would tell her that it was his last and then come up with another to impose upon her hospitality.

  Diya and Kamna made pithy speeches and people were finally free to do what they had really come for – to wine and dine.

  When I met Khushwant Singh, he put his arm around me, held my sister’s hand and asked why my husband hadn’t come. It was the first time that he was not wearing a pagri for a launch. Mala hovered solicitously over him, clucking like amother hen. Age was catching up with him. Even as I hugged him, a middle-aged lady walked up and, asking if she could kiss him, did so without waiting for an answer. He hadn’t lost his charm with the ladies yet.