by Manju Kapur
I stare at the sunset as though I had never seen one before. I felt every second of its sinking in my bones. I am scared. No one can be so happy and have it last. When am I going to pay?
*
Early morning, December 10th
We stayed awake the whole night. I kept telling Pipee she had to go to sleep, for me it was a holiday but she was here on work. She looked at me and said when will you learn anything, the whole thing was a way to be with you. She closed her hands over me, and I could scarcely breathe with the pleasure. I often find it hard to accept that she could desire someone like me, but when I am with her the doubts fade, and I feel strong and loved.
Muslim and Sikh relatives of martyrs who have died for the country are gathered here to hand the Leader the flag that will be hoisted in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, 47 days, 14 states and 15,000 kilometres later.
*
December 10th, night
The mood of last night completely gone. Five hours in the hot sun. P. was a wreck. If she arranged this trip to be with me, if I need this kind of plan to leave home, then we pay for our sins in sweat and irritation.
But we are together – no denying – would I have had the imagination to think of something like this? Why am I so passive, why can’t I bristle with initiative, maybe this is what she hates about me.
Her Ph.D. rears its ugly head whenever I see her talk to someone or take out her notebook. She has already made contact with several journalists while I watch her.
The Leader was late, the auspicious moment came and went, and still we waited, sweat pouring down, 10,000 of us boiling away. Then finally the Leader spoke for one hour, then all the martyr’s relatives spoke, then every Tom, Dick and Harry took his turn.
At 1.47 we started. The coconut was broken, lemons put under the wheels of the two vehicles made to look like a temple and a houseboat. South and north. Inside there are two rooms, storage, water tanks, etc. The Leader refused air-conditioning, he was taking this journey not for his comfort, but for the unity of India. We could have done with some air-conditioning, but then we are not leaders.
*
December 15th, night
We cross at least five villages or towns a day. Whenever I can I phone home from an STD booth. At appointed stops, the Leader emerges to the front of the houseboat he is riding in and addresses the people over loudspeakers. He indicates the flag in the Bharat Mata Temple perched on the bonnet of each vehicle. He tells them about the pride every Indian must have in his nation, the pride that has been trampled upon in the past. He announces that India is one, and that is the meaning of his journey. He declares that India will not tolerate terrorism in Punjab or Kashmir. He reiterates that no Indian can accept the separate status given to Kashmir, that Article 370 of the Constitution is now irrelevant. He describes the water he is carrying with him, the water of all of India’s sacred rivers; the soil he is carrying belonging to the birthplaces of India’s noble sons. He allows them to have darshan of the vessels in which the water and the soil is kept. Amazingly they want to. They rush to touch them, to put tikka on them, to garland them. They also want to touch the Leader’s feet, but this the security men do not allow.
At night we eat what has been arranged for us at the circuit house or dak bungalow, and fall into bed, weary as hell. Perhaps it is just as well we are so tired for we do not have a room to ourselves. All intimacy is confined to the bathroom. In the bus our hands enjoy a limited freedom, no one can see what we do, but still, was there an easier way to be together?
600 kilometres in 4 days.
*
December 18th
Who would have thought one state was so large? We are still in Tamil Nadu. We are visiting, glimpsing rather, all the temple towns in a cavalcade, flanked by two security jeeps, rifle butts poking out through the windows. The Leader has to be protected. The heat of the air is sharp, this is their winter, so strange to never be cold. From the bus window, the landscape flashes by, the greens and the browns brighter than the ones I am used to, with an occasional rock or hill. I think of the flat plains of the north, and I think Ah, the diversity of India. Soon I will talk like the Leader, of Unity in Diversity, of The Oneness underlying The Difference.
I fantasise about food constantly. The food provided for us is too hot, and I am forced to eat dry rice. Whenever I can I buy fruit for both of us. P. doesn’t care what she eats, but if I go on with this stuff, I shall be sick.
Today she gave a banana I had kept for her to a journalist. I wanted to kill that woman. In the bus P. said, I didn’t want it, and her stomach is upset. What could I say? I kept my jealousy to myself.
*
December 20th
We are now in Karnataka. Phoned children from an STD booth near the tea stall where we had halted, while P. finishes her cold drink. We then walk down the road bordered by red earth. The cacti on the edge come up to my shoulders. There are fields and fields of tomatoes, light green against the leaves, supported by trellises, or simply sticks. I can see women picking them. Green tomatoes wait in piles next to the road, for buyers. They are obviously reddened somewhere else. I remember my father used to like green tomato chutney, a recipe he taught my mother. My own children will never be able to think of my cooking, only Bahadur’s. I don’t care, I am too happy to worry about anything.
The Deccan Plateau. Hills popping out of the landscape. The bus weaves to and fro and I feel sick. I take Avomine, and drowse against P.’s shoulder. I love her smell.
Days merge one into another, the landscape changes, I too have fallen into the rhythm of the journey. My mind is stilled. At night we roll into beds that are provided for us at the circuit house or dak bungalow. How many more days before we can share a bed???
*
December 22nd
There are two buses following the Leader. One is security, aides and party workers. The other is publicity and journalists.
The woman who had a stomach upset continually hounds us. She is a correspondent for a paper based in Madras. Periodically, when the convoy stops, Pip and she disappear for their interviews. At these times I take out my pad and sketch. It will be a record of our journey when I return, and maybe a base for a canvas. I want to feel productive, that I did something besides stare besottedly at one woman all day. It’s not easy being in love every single minute. Resentment creeps in, especially when the other person is talking to someone else.
Meanwhile we pass through Mother India, who impassively stares at this cavalcade of temple, houseboat, and gun-toting security men. Nothing is new for India. Doesn’t the Leader say that again and again, India is our mother. Her qualities are patience, tolerance, love and resignation. Her rewards are that she is forced to suffer over Kashmir the recalcitrant child, Punjab the rebellious one. The father – i.e. the Leader – will not stand for this any longer. Time to take a firm hand.
How can we listen to this rubbish day after day? I complained to P. when she was looking at my drawing pad that night.
Only three more days before we take the bus for Bangalore. Then it will just be you and me, she replied, carefully examining each sketch. I am continually flattered by her attention and comments:
Are these scenes for your Ekta Yatra canvas, I like the houseboat and temple and the way you have captured these crowds, but isn’t this a lot for one painting, and so on.
Living with someone interested in the details of your work is companionship at the deepest level. I long to create the canvas I have in my head so she can see it too.
*
December 24th
Bangalore at last! In the guest house of the Y. Our room, our bed, on which we spend hours. Maybe this is what good marriages are like. To be able to express what comes into your head, and know it will be understood as you meant it. To be more yourself because all of you is able to love in a way the other responds to.
She goes to sleep, and I pass my hand over her breasts. At first it had seemed odd, after years of being made love to by a man, to ha
ve one’s breasts met by a similar pair, though larger. No wonder men like them so much. You can do much with a pair of breasts. These loose, hanging, swinging items, breasts, penis – objects of passion and anxiety. Stuff you can hold in your hands, squeeze, maul, make yours, like playing with clay – taking you back to your childhood.
The rubber trees are enormous and green outside, the bougainvillaea is blooming, it is warm, fragrant, pleasant, far from the cold of Delhi. Why can’t I live here for ever with her, forget I have a life outside this room, this bed, these arms, this mind that sees me the way I am and loves me still.
She looks at my face, puts her arms around me, don’t look so sad, we have each other, we are the lucky ones.
*
December 25th
Christmas.
She pointed out her grandparents’ house as we passed by in a scooter.
‘Can’t we visit?’
‘No.’
‘Why? I want to see them. I want to see where you spent your childhood.’
‘Well, you can’t. They’ll pester me to stay, and ask a lot of questions.’
I could make out a small house, a little garden and a huge tree, studded with white champa blossoms. Pretty, but I couldn’t imagine Pipee in it, the antithesis of suburban.
‘What was it like, growing up here?’
‘All right‚’ she said non-committally. Getting into her past is sometimes a problem. Especially the death of her husband. She never talks about that.
Spent the day roaming Bangalore. Talking, talking to fill the time our lives were separate – oh this happened when I was here, didn’t I tell you, and she said and he said, tell me, tell me how it was?
We laugh because we are together, doesn’t matter where, or how, cemented by our nights and words together.
*
January 2nd, 1992
Back from a week at Pip’s school. Idyllic place, with all the usual about idylls. Trees, millions of butterflies, thousands of birds, lap of nature, the works. The most miraculous thing about the place, I had no headaches. Pip, no headache, I said every evening, and she smiled, the corners deepening, dimple appearing, eyes warming. My painlessness I offered as a gift, she accepted it as her due.
She showed me her butterfly tree, the walks her mother and she used to take, her classrooms, her library, she was even nostalgic about the din in the dining hall.
I had no idea P. was so involved in her school. The usual pangs with every teacher she threw herself on, with every old friend she talked about. This kind of jealousy, however slight, makes no sense. I think I need my head examined.
We stayed with P.’s mother. I slept on the divan in the big room, she with her mother in the bedroom. Her mother didn’t say much to me, she is a house parent, besides being a middle-school class teacher and quite busy. Does she know we are lovers??? I ask P.
‘I think so.’
‘You told her?’
‘She has eyes.’
So does my mother but even if I told her, I bet a thousand to one she would not believe it. I said as much.
‘She has always known how I am feeling, that is the important thing.’
It seems Pip has the ideal mother-daughter relationship, just as she had the ideal marriage. I wonder how these things operate?
Pip organised a street play around interpretations of history. Among other things she used my pamphlet, The Testimony of the Black Pillars.
Last night we went to P.’s favourite restaurant in Bangalore, a great relief after school food, though to listen to P. it was manna from heaven.
(n.b. If I am jealous of every thing about P. that doesn’t include me, perhaps I should not mind so much her attitude to my family.)
*
January 4th
We are leaving on the Karnataka Express. The Yatra has reached Gujarat, then it is going to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh.
In the evening P. said, I don’t want you to go home.
What is she saying, it is almost a month, is this another test? Did I not pass the first one?
Stay with me a few days in Delhi, please. You can always go back to them a bit later.
I agreed, but for the first time, the thought crossed that perhaps P. was not always wholly reasonable. Maybe I should assert myself. (How?)
*
January 7th
We came yesterday. Took a scooter to her flat, stopping at the market on the way to buy provisions: milk, bread, eggs, fruit and vegetables. It seems strange to come to an empty place, no one waiting, nothing done. You have to do everything yourself the minute you come, clean, organise, buy, cook. If it is so tiring in winter, what will it be like in summer? But this is Pip’s life, and she doesn’t complain.
Pip has gone to Ujjala, I make the bed, dust, clean the cobwebs, cook lunch, and then haul out this diary to write.
I wonder how Anu and Himu are managing. I can’t tell on the phone. Their school is opening today. Did they finish their holiday homework? Does my mother manage to get them up and off in time? Are they all right? They say yes to everything. P. says I worry to feel needed.
I feel disturbed here. Why isn’t Pip coming? She promised to come quickly, she might have gotten caught up with meeting her colleagues, Neeraj probably, while I am here waiting. It was much better in Bangalore.
*
January 8th
Awful, awful. Couldn’t sleep. Last night we fought. She left this morning without telling me where she was going. What did I do, it was nothing.
‘In a few days you will be gone‚’ she started over the dinner we had cooked together.
Oh no. ‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
‘Then?’
‘Back to the way it was?’
She was spoiling for a fight. I was determined to say nothing, but she went on, ‘You don’t really want to be here.’
‘I do‚’ I said quickly.
She started withdrawing. Leaving a trail that I followed. ‘Would I be staying if I didn’t?’
She glared at me, pointedly left the table and began clearing away the dishes. Doesn’t she realise what I go through because I want to be with her? I am in the same city as my children and I cannot meet them. Still she broods. Is this how she wants to spend our time in Delhi? To fight, sulk and turn away from me?
Why is she like this? I wish Aijaz were still alive, but then she would never have been interested in me. They had the perfect marriage, she hankers after that wholeness. What can I do? I live my life in fragments, she is the one fragment that makes the rest bearable. But a fragment, however potent, is still a fragment.
This morning I got up, made her breakfast, but she would not relent, continued cold. If she wants to punish me she certainly doesn’t have to try very hard. I am in such misery, I don’t care what I do. To be with her, yet distant, anything is better than that. She has left me alone here, God knows for how long. I might as well go home.
I wish I had the energy to hate her, but I don’t. I feel sick.
*
January 9th
Home. They all exclaimed how thin I was.
I left without saying goodbye, or leaving a note. What will she think when she comes back and finds me not there?
*
January 13th
Jaundice. I vomit all the time.
P. is all right, then how come me? We drank the same things, but some germ from some water drop has lain inside me, waiting for me to be safe at home before moving in for the kill.
*
February 15th
What was the point? I can still barely eat. I look yellow and horrible. I smell.
I have travelled from P.’s house to my own via the tip of the continent, a long detour.
This is what happens when you leave your home. The in-laws, the mother, the husband, the servants all unite on this.
I feel exhausted.
My mother is still here because I am ill.
H. grates on my nerves. It’s all my fault, does
he never get tired of finding different ways to say this. He likes me to be ill and dependent.
P. comes to visit in spite of their hostile attitude.
I am sorry, she said, I’m sorry I left you like that.
I am sorry, I replied, that I didn’t wait for you.
We talk of other things.
She told me there was a bomb blast attacking the Yatra in the Punjab, two people were killed.
Suppose it had been us?
Have I been struck by this dreadful illness because I left my home to be with the one I love? I feel so weak I can’t get out of bed. When Hemant comes home and puts his heavy arm around me, I want to tell him everything just to see the look on his face. But then I’ll have to cope with the rest of it.
My children draw pictures with huge Get well soon Mamas on them. I keep them by my bed and look at them often. Pip calls, concern in her voice.
I can’t deal with my life. I want a safe place, a warm place, a loved place.
(n.b. Who doesn’t?)
IX
Gradually Astha’s bilirubin count came back to normal, as did her diet. Her mother departed for Rishikesh, yet she remained tired. When Pipee dropped by on her way to work, she did her best to be amusing and interesting. Pipee should not feel she was in love with an invalid, but it was so much effort, she almost wished she wouldn’t come. Yet the days she didn’t, she felt unloved and anxious.
Every morning she gazed piercingly and objectively in the mirror. She looked haggard, yellow, ugly and undesirable, she would perfectly understand if Pipee never wanted to see her again. When her lover left, she again checked the mirror, despite her better judgement. Maybe in the interim she had grown more beautiful, maybe Pipee had spotted something attractive that had missed her eye in the morning.
‘I wish I didn’t feel so exhausted‚’ she permitted herself to moan occasionally.
‘It’s only natural.’
‘Yes, but it’s so boring for you.’
‘Let me decide that.’