‘I admit that Bakunin always fought with Marx and couldn’t come to accept certain points, and that despite his sincerity he couldn’t develop a logical and organized philosophy of his own. But he said this, and it wasn’t a lie, that even democracy is a euphemism for a government in which a larger group oppresses a smaller one. I’m all for any political system that frees society from all rules and oppression.’
Izzat smiled again. ‘So you want anarchism, which is impractical? Your Bakunin and Kropotkin can’t make it work.’
I interrupted her, ‘Communism was impractical, and people thought it was a crazy dream. But Marx presented it in the form of a practical social system. It’s possible that anarchism, too, will get its Marx.’
Izzat Jahan looked at the closed door, and then as if she hadn’t heard what I had just said, she asked, ‘Why hasn’t your friend returned?’
I decided to tell her the truth. ‘Earlier he was just being polite. He didn’t plan on coming back.’
‘Why?’ Izzat Jahan asked innocently.
I looked at Nasir and smiled. He was beginning to find our conversation interesting.
‘He has two girls with him. Why would he leave them for our boring company?’
‘Are they actresses?’
‘No.’
‘Friends?’
‘He just met them today.’
Little by little I told her everything, including my friend’s views on sex. She listened carefully and then pronounced her verdict, ‘This is the worst kind of anarchism. If everyone thought like your friend, then the world would be depressing. Men and women would see each other only as sexual partners, right? I don’t care who your friend is, what does he think women are? Sliced bread, cake, or biscuits? A warm cup of coffee or tea, so he can drink as much as he likes and toss the rest? Damn those women who put up with this disgraceful behaviour! I can’t understand why some people think sex is so important, or why your friend can’t live without women. Why does he need to sleep with a woman every night?’
I said what I thought, ‘Men have a special need for women. Some feel it more, and some feel it less. My friend is the type that wants to sleep with a woman every night. If food, drink, and sleep are important to him, then a woman is just as important. Maybe he’s wrong to think like this, but at least he doesn’t pretend.’
Izzat Jahan’s tone became even more bitter. ‘Just because he doesn’t hide it, doesn’t make it right. If prostitutes consent to selling their bodies, it doesn’t mean it’s natural. It’s because our way of doing things is wrong and it’s unnatural that there are prostitutes. Your friend’s nervous system isn’t sound. That’s why he can’t tell the difference between women and food. You can’t live without food, but surely you can live without sex!’
‘Sure, you can live,’ I said. ‘But when did it become a matter of life and death? You know, not every man can get a woman, but all those who can, do.’
Nasir wasn’t at all interested in our conversation. ‘Okay, enough of this. It’s late, and we have nineteen miles to go. Let’s go, Izzat, shall we?’
Izzat didn’t listen to Nasir, but said to me, ‘Whatever you say, but, really, your friend is very rude. I can’t believe the three of us were sitting here chatting and in the next room he—lahaul wala quwat!’
Nasir was sleepy. ‘All right, for God’s sake, stop talking about it! Let’s go!’
Izzat got mad. ‘Look … look … now you’re finally starting to act like a real husband.’
I couldn’t help but laugh, and Nasir laughed too. When Izzat Jahan saw us laughing, a smile stole across her lips.
‘How else can I put it?’ she asked. ‘This is exactly what husbands are like—I mean he’s trying to bully me.’
Nasir and Izzat stayed for a bit and then left. Our first meeting was very interesting. Although I wasn’t able to talk to her in any detail about the Communist Movement, she still impressed me, and I imagined that future meetings would provide a lot of food for thought.
Then I found an apartment, and my wife joined me. One day Izzat came by, and the two of them took to each other immediately. From then on Izzat Jahan would often come by our apartment in the evening on her way home. I wanted to discuss with her every aspect of Communism from Hegel, Marx and Engels to Bakunin, Kropotkin and Trotsky, but she and my wife would go off to the other room and lie down on the bed and talk about who knows what. If I happened to mention the effects of Stalin’s current war policy on Communist theory, she would ask my wife the price of white wool. If I said anything about the hypocrisy of M.N. Roy, she would praise some song from the movie Family. And if I got her to sit down next to me and was able to begin a conversation, she would get up after several minutes to go into the kitchen to peel onions for my wife.
Izzat Jahan worked all day at the Party office. She lived twenty or twenty-five miles from there, and her commute was an hour by train each way, so she would return home tired every evening. Nasir worked in a factory, and every month he had to work fifteen nights as an overseer. But Izzat was happy. She repeated to my wife, ‘The meaning of marriage is not just a bed, and the meaning of a husband is not just someone to sleep with at night. People were not made just for this.’
My wife liked these words very much.
Izzat Jahan put a lot of herself into her work, and so I didn’t mind that she was too tired to talk to me. Nor did I mind that she spent more time with my wife, as it was clear she enjoyed her company more than mine. Nonetheless I was curious to see if Izzat would change my wife’s thinking—which was an average middle-class capitalist perspective—into her own.
One day I came back from work early, probably around two. I knocked on the door, but instead of my wife opening it, it was Nasir. Straightaway I went to put my bag on my desk as I usually did. Nasir lay down on my bed, pulling a blanket over him. Izzat Jahan was lying on the sofa on the other side of the room.
‘I think I’m coming down with a fever,’ Nasir said.
I looked in Izzat Jahan’s direction and asked, ‘And you?’
‘No, I’m just lying down.’
‘Where’s Ruqaiya?’ I asked.
‘She’s sleeping in the other room,’ Izzat said.
‘What’s this? Everyone’s sleeping?’ Then I called out for my wife, ‘Ruqaiya! Ruqaiya!’
‘Yes!’ her sleepy voice answered.
‘Come here. How long are you going to sleep?’
Ruqaiya came into the room, rubbing her eyes, and sat down next to Izzat. Nasir was still lying with the blanket pulled over him. I sat in a chair next to my wife, and we talked for a while about deep sleep because Ruqaiya always slept like a baby. Then Izzat and my wife began talking about needlework. In the meantime tea was made. Nasir drank a cup in bed, and I gave him two aspirins for his fever.
Izzat Jahan and Nasir stayed for a little less than two hours and then left.
When I lay down on my bed that night, I folded the top pillow in half as I always do, and what did I see but the bottom pillow did not have a pillowcase. Ruqaiya was standing next to me changing her clothes. ‘Why isn’t there a pillowcase on this pillow?’ I asked.
Ruqaiya stared at the pillow, and in a tone of surprise said, ‘Well, where did that pillowcase go? Oh, yes—it was your friend.’
Smiling, I asked, ‘Nasir took it?’
‘How should I know?’ Ruqaiya said defensively. Then she relented. ‘Oh, it’s so embarrassing! I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I was sleeping in the other room and they were—your friend and his wife—damn them! They turned out to be very rude.’
The next day we found the pillowcase underneath the bed, and rats and cockroaches had soiled it. In addition to that, we also found the aspirin tablets I’d given to Nasir to relieve his fever.
HAMID’S BABY
WHEN Babu Har Gopal came from Lahore, Hamid found himself without anywhere to turn. As soon as Babu Har Gopal got there, he ordered Hamid, ‘Hey, get a taxi, quick.’
‘Why don’t you take
it easy for a while?’ Hamid suggested. ‘You must be tired after your long trip.’
But Babu Har Gopal was stubborn. ‘No, no, I’m not tired at all. I came here to have fun, not lie around. It was hard for me to get these ten days off. You’re all mine—you have to do whatever I say. This time I’m going to do everything I want. Now get me some soda water.’
‘Look, Babu Har Gopal, don’t start drinking so early in the morning.’
But his guest didn’t listen. He opened a cupboard, took out a bottle of Johnny Walker and unscrewed the cap. ‘If you’re not going to get any soda, then at least get some water,’ Babu Har Gopal said. ‘Or don’t I get any water, either?’
At forty, Babu Har Gopal was ten years older than Hamid. Hamid obeyed his guest because he was a friend of his deceased father. Hamid immediately ordered some soda water, and then implored, ‘Look, please don’t force me to drink. You know my wife is very strict.’ But nothing he said had any effect on Babu Har Gopal, so Hamid had to drink too. As expected, after Babu Har Gopal downed four shots, he said, ‘Okay, then, let’s go see what we can see. But look, let’s get a nice taxi, a private one, I like those a lot. I hate the meter ones.’
Hamid arranged for a private taxi. It was a new Ford, and the driver was also very good. Babu Har Gopal was very happy. He sat down in the taxi, took out his big wallet, and looked to see how much he had. He had a bunch of hundred-rupee notes. He sighed in relief and muttered to himself, ‘That’s enough.’ Then he turned to the driver. ‘Okay, then. Driver, let’s go.’
The driver turned his hat on sideways and asked, ‘Where to, sir?’ Babu Har Gopal motioned to Hamid. ‘You tell him.’
Hamid thought for a moment and then mentioned a destination, and the taxi headed in that direction. Minutes later, Bombay’s most famous pimp was sitting next to them. They went around to a number of places to see the girls, but Hamid didn’t like any of them. He liked things neat and tidy; he loved cleanliness. Hamid thought the girls looked dirty and vulgar in their make-up and wore the expression that all prostitutes share. This disgusted him. He wanted all women, even prostitutes, to maintain their dignity, and he didn’t want whores to lose their feminine modesty just because of their job. On the other hand, Babu Har Gopal had dirty habits. He was very rich, and if he’d wanted, he could have ordered all of Bombay washed clean with soap and water. But he didn’t care about personal cleanliness. When he took a bath, he used hardly any water, and he wouldn’t shave for days on end. He would pour expensive whisky even into a dirty glass. And he didn’t care whom he held deep in his nightly clasps. He would sleep with even a dirty beggar woman and then the next morning exclaim, ‘That was great! She was wonderful!’
Hamid couldn’t get over his surprise about the kind of person Babu Har Gopal was. He wore an extremely expensive shervani and yet his undershirt made Hamid want to vomit. He carried a hanky but used the hem of his kurta to wipe mucus from his runny nose. He ate off dirty plates and was unfazed. His pillowcase was soiled and stank, but he never thought of changing it. Hamid thought long and hard, but he couldn’t understand him. He often asked, ‘Babuji, why aren’t you revolted by dirtiness?’
Babu Har Gopal would smile. ‘I am revolted. But when you’re obsessed by it, you see it everywhere. How can you cure yourself of that?’
Hamid had no answer, but his disgust didn’t abate.
They drove through the streets for hours. When the pimp realized how picky Hamid was, he said to the driver, ‘Go to Shivaji Park.’ Then he thought to himself, ‘If he doesn’t like her, I swear to God I’ll quit being a pimp.’
The taxi stopped near a bungalow by Shivaji Park. The pimp went upstairs. He came back after a little while to take up Babu Har Gopal and Hamid.
The room upstairs was spick and span, and the floor’s tiles were sparkling. There wasn’t even so much as a single mote of dust on any of the furniture. On one wall there was a picture of Swami Vivekanand. On the wall in front of them there was a picture of Gandhiji, as well as one of Subhas Chandra Bose. Marathi books lay on the table.
The pimp asked them to sit down, and they sat on the sofa. Hamid was impressed by the house’s cleanliness. There were few possessions but everything was in order. The atmosphere was very chaste and bore no traces of a prostitute’s shameless love for the gaudy.
Hamid waited impatiently for the girl to appear. A man came out from the next room, whispered something to the pimp, looked in Babu Har Gopal and Hamid’s direction and then said, ‘She’s coming. She was washing up. Now she’s putting on some clothes.’ Then he left.
Hamid began inspecting the room. In the corner by the table there was a pretty, brightly coloured floor mat. On the table, ten or fifteen magazines lay next to the Marathi books. Beneath the table there was a pair of finely made sandals, and it looked as though the wearer had just taken them off her feet. Rows of books looked out from the glass-fronted bookcase opposite them. When Babu Har Gopal used his sandals to squash his cigarette on the floor, Hamid got upset. He was just about to pick up the cigarette butt and throw it outside when he heard a sound like that of rustling silk coming from the next room. He turned to look and saw a fair-skinned girl coming in barefoot and wearing a new kashta sari, the edge of which slid from her head. Her hair was parted in the centre. She came up to them and pressed her hands together in a gesture of welcome. Hamid saw a white leaf pinned to her bun, thick and neatly put together, which nicely accentuated her beauty. Hamid got up and greeted her, and blushing, the girl sat in the chair near them.
Hamid guessed she was no older than seventeen. She was of average height and so fair-skinned that her complexion seemed to have a light pink hue. She looked as new and fresh as her sari. After she sat down in the chair, she lowered her big black eyes, and Hamid was captivated. The girl was clean and full of light.
Babu Har Gopal said something to Hamid, but Hamid didn’t hear him. It was as though someone had just shaken him awake. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.
Babu Har Gopal repeated his question, ‘Say something, will you?’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘I don’t like her that much.’
Hamid got angry. He looked at her again. Youth itself was sitting before him in its purest form—fresh, stainless youth wrapped in silk—and he could have her, not just for one night but for many, as once he paid for her, she would be his. And yet this thought saddened him. He didn’t know why such things happened—this girl should never be sold like merchandise. But then he realized if that were true then he could never have her.
‘So what about her?’ Babu Har Gopal asked crassly.
‘What do I think?’ Hamid was again startled. ‘You don’t like her, but I …’ He couldn’t make himself say what he wanted to.
Babu Har Gopal took good care of his friends. He got up and in a business-like voice asked the pimp, ‘So how much for her?’
‘Look at the girl,’ the pimp began. ‘She’s just started working.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Babu Har Gopal interrupted him. ‘Just answer my question.’
The pimp lit a bidi. ‘A hundred rupees for a day or a night. Nothing less.’
‘So what do you think?’ Babu Har Gopal addressed Hamid.
The transaction offended Hamid. He felt as though the girl was being disgraced—one hundred rupees for this alluring, radiant youth? It upset him to think this rare beauty was only one hundred rupees, but at the same time he was grateful she was available. She was the type of girl to give up everything for.
‘So what do you want to do?’ Babu Har Gopal asked him again.
Hamid didn’t want to admit what he felt. Babu Har Gopal smiled, took his wallet from his pocket, and gave the pimp a hundred-rupee note. ‘Not any less, not any more.’ Then he turned to Hamid. ‘Okay, let’s go. Everything’s settled.’
They went down and sat in the taxi while the pimp brought the girl down. Still blushing, she sat next to them. Then they drove to a hotel, booked a room, and Babu Har Gopal went out to look for a girl of his own.
The girl was sitting on the bed with downcast eyes. Hamid’s heart raced. Babu Har Gopal had left a half full bottle of whisky, and Hamid called for some soda water and then downed a large shot. The liquor gave him some courage. He sat down next to the girl and asked, ‘What’s your name?’
The girl raised her eyes. ‘Lata Mangalaonkar.’
She had a sweet voice. Hamid drained another big shot, and then pulling the end of the sari from her head, he stroked her shiny hair. Lata bashfully batted her eyes. Hamid unwrapped the sari from her shoulders and saw how Lata’s plump breasts were trembling beneath her tight bra. Hamid’s entire body quivered. He wanted to be the bra fastened against Lata’s body, and he wanted to feel her soft warmth and fall asleep!
Lata didn’t know Hindi. She had come from Mangaon two months before, and she spoke only Marathi, which though a choppy language became tender in her mouth. She tried to answer Hamid in broken Hindi, but he told her, ‘No, Lata, speak Marathi. It’s really good, really changli.’
When Lata heard him say ‘changli’, she burst out laughing and corrected his pronunciation, but Hamid couldn’t make the sound between ‘s’ and ‘ch’, and so they laughed again. Hamid didn’t understand her Marathi but enjoyed listening, and from time to time he would kiss her lips and say, ‘These sweet, sweet words you’re saying, drop them into my mouth—I want to drink them.’
She didn’t understand any of this and would laugh. Hamid would hug her. Lata’s arms were svelte and fair, and her bra’s tiny sleeves hugged her arms, which Hamid kissed over and over. He loved everything about her body.
When Hamid dropped Lata off at her house at nine that night, he felt hollow. The touch of her soft body was sheared from him like bark from a tree, and he spent the entire night tossing and turning. In the morning Babu Har Gopal came back, and when they were alone, he asked Hamid, ‘So how was it?’
‘Fine.’
‘You want to go back then?’
‘No, I have something to do.’
‘Don’t talk crap. I told you, you’re mine for these ten days.’
Bombay Stories Page 12