Notes On the Great Indian Circus
Page 17
Bharat and Shiela, though they had four sons, had very little else in common with each other. He was generous and reckless in spending money on his friends. She was tight-fisted and resented his recklessness. She was gifted and under the tutelage of Pandit Ravi Shankar, had learnt to play the sitar like a professional. Her eldest son Vinay turned out to be a noted singer of classical Hindustani music. Bharat, though he admired these talents in his wife and son, did little to project them. Bharat was outgoing, liked being among friends and beautiful women. Shiela was withdrawn and resented her husband paying attention to other women. Bharat also became addicted to golf and spent long hours on fairways and greens. He became a first-class golf player and patron-chief of the Delhi Golf Club. He liked his drink, and became a chain-smoker, burning away more than eighty cigarettes a day. They began to drift apart. Shiela became a Radha Soami and began to spend many months of the year at the ashram in Beas. The arrangement ended the bickerings at home and both were at peace with themselves.
Once Shiela and Bharat came to stay with us in Paris where I was working with UNESCO. I had a small house in a suburb called Bourg La Reine. We had one spare bedroom and a live-in English maid. Shiela was coming from Moscow where she had gone with an Indian women’s delegation. Bharat was in England playing some golf tournament. They were to meet in Paris before returning home to Delhi. I did my best to dissuade them from staying with us and suggested they would be far more comfortable in a hotel. But Shiela would not hear of it. ‘I have had enough of hotels. I will stay with you. I can help in washing dishes and sweeping the floors,’ she wrote. I picked her up at the airport and brought her home. Bharat was to arrive the same evening. But instead of him there arrived a telegram from him saying he had been delayed on business and would come a couple of days later. Sheila was very upset. She asked me if she could make a call to England. Instead of ringing up the hotel where Bharat was staying, she rang up the country home of a couple Bharat was friendly with. It was Bharat’s misfortune that he picked up the phone. Sheila gave him a tongue-lashing. It went on and on. My nerves were frayed. My wife and I decided to stroll outside and let Sheila get rid of her anger.
We returned after half an hour. Sheila was still on the phone. At the time, calls from France to England were double the rate of calls from England to France. When she had finished, Sheila said to me, ‘I would like to pay for the call but I know you won’t let your sister pay for it.’ The brother-sister business cost me dearly. She saw some old Mughal miniatures in our sitting room. She picked up the best and said, ‘Agar tu mera bhai hai to yeh mujhey de dey. (If you are my brother, then give this to me.)’ She had a much larger and better collection of rare paintings in her home in Delhi and I hoped she would let me take one of them in return. In Delhi I told her, ‘Shiela, this can’t be a one-way traffic. You took the best I had. Now you let me pick the one I like in your collection.’ Shiela replied blandly, ‘Kabhi kisee bhai ne apni bhain se kucchh manga hai? (Has a brother ever asked anything of his sister?)’ Bharat stayed on with us a couple of days after Shiela had left. One day he asked me if he could take my wife out for lunch and what would be a good place for them to eat. I scribbled the name of the restaurant, Tour d’Argent, the most expensive eatery in Paris. ‘Every taxi driver knows where it is,’ I assured him, and told my wife, ‘This is your only chance to eat at Tour d’Argent.’
The taxi driver took them to the restaurant. Bharat examined the menu and the prices at the entrance. ‘This is far too expensive and there is nothing on the menu for a vegetarian,’ he exclaimed. They ate at a cheap bistro.
Bharat’s generosity saved the break-up of the vast industrial empire built by Sir Shri Ram and doubled by Bharat and his brother Charat. There were many claimants. There was Savitri, the only child of Shri Ram’s brother, Sir Shankar Lal. And there was Bansidhar, the son of Bharat’s elder brother Murlidhar who had been killed in a plane crash at Karachi. Bharat gave them their legitimate shares and his brother Charat what he thought was due to him. Unlike other large business houses, the Shri Rams did not go into litigation. Bharat himself passed on his share of the business to his four sons and decided to lead a retired life with as much golf and a good time as he could manage.
Before he could indulge himself in sport and good living, he developed heart trouble. His doctors told him to give up smoking. He did so without hesitation. Then his close friend, Amarjeet Singh, whom he had helped to study in Cambridge University, died suddenly. Bharat was terribly shaken. ‘Ab kitney din rah gayen hain hamaarey? (How many days are left for us now?)’, he asked when we dropped in for a drink the last time. My wife replied, ‘Bharat, we’ll go together hand in hand?’ That cheered him up. ‘Pukkee baat? (Is that a promise?)’, he replied, putting out his hand.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank C. Gopinathan Nair of Thiruvananthapuram who sent me copies of most of the pieces included in this collection. It was his idea that these be put together and published as a book.
For granting permission to include articles that appeared in the columns ‘Gossip Sweet and Sour’, ‘With Malice Towards One And All . . .’ and ‘. . . This Above All’, my thanks to ABP Limited, The Hindustan Times and The Tribune respectively.
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To Bir and Trilochan Sabni
for extending the hand of friendship
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