by M G Vassanji
The moth, madly in love with the flame,
plunges in —
And so do I, my love.
“Your not-so-secret admirer”
A somewhat juvenile tack for a man of his age, and married for twelve years, but he was stricken. And she, the seventeen-year-old, was impressed, but didn’t quite know who the admirer was.
He heard, saw, nothing from her in response. He went into her parents’ shop once and, in her presence, talked with her mother, joked, and recited a verse. Later he accosted her on the sidewalk, and, as she turned away shyly, he recited a sequel to the poem. He followed her to the seashore on Azania Front one Sunday, where she strolled with her friends, and in full view of them he walked along, on the other side of the road, keeping pace. In a few weeks a current of rumour, a little weak and perhaps outrageous-sounding, stirred in pockets of the community, especially among the youth.
His own marriage remained childless; there had never been much love in it. But he had acquired by it a status and a livelihood; he provided in exchange a stable marriage, and, though attractive, he had never strayed from the marriage bed. What he was risking now, in middle age, was much.
The whole of the Shamsi community was on a picnic at the ancient port town of Bagamoyo, having arrived in open lorries with cauldrons of pilau and channa and a gang of servants, the young people singing, “ai-yai yuppie yuppie yai yai,” all the way there, as usual. On the beach: games of hutu-tutu and pita-piti, soccer and cricket with coconut branches for bats; boys teasing girls with film songs; tea and Coca-Cola, more tea and snacks. A batch of new teachers from England and India had arrived, and some of them were on hand.
Rita had walked away after lunch, away from the youthful games and elderly card-playing and tea-guzzling. Her dress fluttered in the breeze and she was barefoot. She picked her way among protruding tree roots and shrubs until she reached the sandy portion of the beach. The tide was in, and there were a few swimmers struggling with the waves, fishermen beside nets spread out on the ground, vendors of coconut. She sat modestly on a tree stump, legs tucked in, looking far away to the horizon. They say, when you first see a ship, she thought, you see only the funnel.
She could not say why she had walked away so. Only that she felt miserable, depressed, in the way of youth. To her right was an old cemetery. Souls lying exposed to the sea, she thought, and began to feel nervous, recalling stories of possessed women. At the head of the graveyard was an ancient mission house. Somewhere nearby, she knew, was a slave market, even more ancient. Soon the picnic-goers, before the final long tea and after the games, would venture out for the mandatory stroll and a look at the sights. There was a remnant of the community here, one or two old homes left over from times of slavery and ivory and the explorer safaris. They would go to the old mosque and visit the church, point out the haunted sites for which the town was notorious.
A rustle behind her, from the shrubbery on the right, and she started, her heart racing. He emerged, large and splendid, pushing back branches from his face. He wore a knitted jersey, his grey cashmere trouser legs were rolled up part way, and he, too, was barefoot.
This was a scene reminiscent of many films of that period. Hollywood and Bollywood; this was Dollywood, Dar and derivative.
He entreated, begged, went down on his knees. He would divorce his wife, he said. He was going to London. “What for?” she asked. “What’s here?” he answered. Indeed, she thought. What is here? The prospect of London, of going away, of escaping to the bigger, more sophisticated world … she had never thought of that before. She eyed him without a word. During the “happiness” they had exchanged friendly antagonistic barbs. Now words seemed difficult, awkward between them, demanded too much meaning and nuance. He was glamorous, so unlike anyone she knew — the family men of his age, shopkeepers mostly and government clerks at best, or the adolescent loud-talking and immature youths of her own age.
They walked back separately, without one more word. The friendly game of hutu-tutu between boys and girls was about to break up; now they would do a few skits. In one of them, a boy and girl would perform the nursery song “Where Are You Going to, My Pretty Maid?” It was the kind of thing they asked her to do, their Rita. And so she did, played the coy pretty milkmaid this time.
“Nobody asked you to marry me, sir, she said,
Sir, she said …”
Ali’s proposal was, of course, unthinkable. She was a girl in the prime of life; what family would give her away to a “oncemarried,” to scandal and shame? Rita became quieter in my class, and would have been inconspicuous had she not already made her impact on me. She was prone to blushing, an indication that among the girls much was said that escaped me.
My own relations with my Saturday girls became formal; the girls lost their sparkle, their laughter, were more respectful. It was depressing to be the object of pity of those who looked up to me; more so as it was about something undeclared, out of reach. By their understanding, their respect, these beautiful pig-tailed, pony-tailed, and “boy-cutted” girls were telling me they understood my pain. Stop it, I wanted to shout. Be your normal selves — but that was impossible, they had grown up. Meanwhile, I went on with the Tudors, the Stuarts, and the Mughals.
Ali and Rita used an “interpinter,” an intermediary, someone who would pass messages between them. It was typical of his arrogance that he used the most public figure, the town crier, to carry his love notes to Rita.
Karim Langdo — Karim the Lame — went around the streets of Dar’s Indian quarter proclaiming funerals and other special events. Block to block he would go, dragging his lame foot. He would stop at a crossroads, spit, and then with a flourish bring out a chit and read his message: Come to the funeral! So-and-so Bhai, formerly of Panipat, India, has passed awaaay! Funeral time Thursday at four, location Kichweleee! Which cry the street idlers would carry on in a long derisive echo. Karim Bhai, who passed away? a woman might emerge from a shop to inquire. So-and-so Bhai of Panipat, he would say sharply as he limped off. He did not like to repeat, but was frequently called upon to do so.
Karim Langdo and Ali had grown up in the same streets. And Ali, regardless of his status in the community, never failed to acknowledge the lame man, to exchange pleasantries and news when they met. Karim, therefore, worshipped the prince. He willingly, gratefully, agreed to be the interpinter, to carry a note whenever he had an announcement to make. And so one afternoon, after Karim had announced a funeral, he limped up to Rita’s courtyard, asked for water, and told the mother: “A letter for Rita from a girlfriend.” Rita, unsuspecting, breezed in and took the letter, opened it right there, and put a hand to her mouth in shock.
“What does she write, this friend — who is she?” her mother asked.
“Oh,” she said, recovering just enough to appear normal, “It’s Guli Sharif — the crazy girl!”
My lover’s walk teases me,
let our eyes meet,
let our waters unite.
“Your Prince”
Having answered her mother she walked away, beaming with happiness, heart beating wildly.
“Aré, no reply?” Karim called after her.
“No, not today.”
Another time, straight from a film song:
The alley which doesn’t have your home,
I can’t bear to tread upon.
“Prince”
Even Gregory’s Palgrave contributed to their brief epistolary exchange.
The messenger himself was unmarried, unmarriageable, and the sight of these modern girls as bright as sunshine must have tormented him. What better way to have one of them for himself than through his hero, Ali?
Rita would get impatient for the missives, not having replied to any. “Hasn’t anyone died, today?” she found herself asking, to which her mother said sharply, “Be thankful, girl, don’t tempt fate.”
It took a couple of funerals and a few special services in mosque before Rita could pick up courage and say, “Karim Bha
i, this — give it to —” And off went the happy messenger.
“Sir … I would like to borrow a book from you.” She had come up to the table to make this request when, just after class, I was ready to leave. The other girls crowded behind her, sniggering. They were almost their old selves, the pack — but she, Rita, had only a shy smile on her face. She was close and I felt angry.
“Yes? What book? I might not have it.”
“I mean, if you have it, sir.”
“So? What book?”
“Romeo and Juliet,” she said in a low voice.
“Romeo and Juliet?” I forgot discretion, my voice rose. Giggles rippled through the room in happy mockery and I looked up to show consternation.
“Laila and Majnun, sir!”
“Heer-Ranjha.”
“Nala-Damayanti.”
And so I got all of the many variations of Romeo and Juliet; the girls were unstoppable.
Thus Rita’s next message to Ali:
If that thy bent of love be honourable
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay,
And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.
Karim Langdo, after replying testily to the familiar query — Sunderbai Patel, Bagamoyo Road, funeral tomorrow at four, aré pay attention will you — cheerfully went hobbling along, when he heard a sound just behind him: “pssst,” and some sniggers. He looked around and saw a gang of boys following him, imitating his limp. Then the leader of the pack went further, spoke an obscenity, then touched his bottom. This time Karim Langdo lost control and raced after them, dragging his bad foot. He stumbled on it, fell, and the boys ran away. Several men came running to pick up the lame messenger, who was wheezing, moaning, swearing, his foot a gory mess of red and black, the bloody flesh stinging, pricked with pebbles and sand. A crowd gathered to look.
Karim sat, leg up, on a store bench, pitifully examining his tattered foot. Ramzani the dresser came racing on his bicycle, saying, “Tch, tch, Karim Bhai, now what did you do?” And Karim replying, “Those bhenchod with bitches for mothers —”
In the street were two pieces of paper the messenger had dropped — one the announcement of Sunderbai Patel’s death, the other a note from Romeo — which lay tenderly on the road like butterfly wings waiting for just the right breeze to lift them up. Two young men did so.
“Call me but love and I’ll be new baptized,” said the note from Romeo. What could it mean? Something illicit, no doubt. Sinful and secretive, so doubly sinful.
Youthful zealot minds got to work. The street where the note was found was not a clue to the sinners’ whereabouts; Karim the Lame had a large territory. He said yes to the resulting inquiries without supplying names (“I have sworn on my mother’s grave” was enough) and the scent grew stronger. Gregory was consulted, and he obliged by giving chapter and verse, more quotations, a literary evaluation, the story, and the meaning of the lines under scrutiny. (“Young love knows no barriers, no strictures.”) All that remained was to keep a close watch on the girls. Already all this boy-cut hair and lipstick-lali and sleeveless dresses; now one of them had overstepped the bounds.
And Karim, passing by Rita’s house, after saying “Today a special majlis — prayer time: six-thirty,” followed with a muttered sing-song warning: “Do be careful, you two.”
But the young zealots, a school failure, Habib Haji, and his cohorts, got their victims. The couple they caught in their net and demolished, however, was another one, and Ali and Rita took the warning.
There had come to town a young Hindu bookkeeper called Patani, who lived in a flat on Market Street in the vast G. R. Moolji Building, which had just risen up. He had a wife and a child in the suburbs of Ahmedabad, and was waiting for his immigration papers before he called them. His cause was in the able hands of the lawyers of the Hindu Association. In the eighteen months or so since his arrival in Dar, he had come to be well regarded and liked, as a clever and reliable bookkeeper and as a quiet and decent man, although somewhat lonely. Some of the older women in the building would tease him about his pining away in the absence of his pretty young wife. Patani, though, had in recent months found another source of comfort. He had fallen in love with a Shamsi girl who lived in the building, and was carrying on a secret liaison with her.
Her name was Parviz. She was a short girl, with two pigtails down to her waist, known for her piety, which she expressed with an earnestness and plaintiveness in the Mira Bai mode. Unfortunately for Patani and Parviz, their affair was going on at the same time as Haji and his agents were on the lookout for another pair of illicit lovers. Parviz aroused the suspicion of the zealots when she was seen once to leave the mosque in a hurry halfway through the service. She was soon exposed.
It was a night of festivities at the Shamsi mosque, another “happiness” — gaiety and food, sherbet and dancing. In the middle of the evening’s festivities — after prayers, when there was dancing and milling around — Parviz took off, hurrying away along Mosque Street. The youths followed — four of them, two on either side of the street, as they had seen in American films. When the girl went into her building, they noticed from the street that the lights in her flat did not go on. They took the stairs but could not find her. They knocked on a lot of doors, without success. Finally they dispersed, posting themselves on different floors, and waited. At eleven o’clock a door opened and Parviz emerged. She gave a gasp at seeing a youth she knew. He instantly called out to his friends.
“What are you doing here?” they demanded.
“What is it to you …” her voice petered out as Patani, shirttails untucked, emerged wearing bookish spectacles.
“I came to pick up …” she started again, but there was nothing to say.
“Come with us — or don’t you want to?”
She went.
One hears of larger terrors — yet how is one to compare? For this girl surely it was the end of the world. What must she have suffered on that walk along Mosque Street escorted by her captors? I still cannot make up my mind — the shame or the fury that awaited her, what weighed most on that beating heart? She was brought back with tears in her eyes, terrified, to be judged by a thousand people.
The “happiness” was at its zenith, the last rounds of the dandia stick-dance were being played in a crescendo towards their finale. At another end of the mandap — the tent — outside the mosque was the traditional procession of women. Older women supported brass pots of sweet milk on the heads of younger, unmarried women and girls. They walked in a long file through the crowds, to where the mukhi and other elders, in robes and turbans, would receive them and give each girl a shilling.
At the head of the procession, this remnant, surely, of an ancient goddess ritual, they brought her, the stained one, saying:
“Ask her where she was when we found her.”
“And what she was doing.”
“And with whom.”
Her crime was compound. There was no way, no need, to disentangle the multiple strands of guilt; they reinforced each other.
“I only let her talk to him because she wanted to ask about the mystic Narsinh Mehta,” her mother wailed. “How could I know he would make her into his gopi —”
The girl was shamed in public, from which she would never recover. But the matter did not end there. The next evening the zealots knocked on Patani’s door. They went in, roughed him up so he fled, then they trashed his flat. Chairs, sofa, went over the balcony to crash on the sidewalk, three floors below. Radio, ice box, coal stove, primus.
The Herald carried a story about the event the next day. “Shamsi thugs vandalize,” wrote the European reporter. “Storm troopers terrorize Hindu bookkeeper.” At this criticism the youth of the community were in an uproar, even the moderate ones. How dare he say “Shamsi thugs.” We had a lively debate in my boys’ class, a liberal bunch with only one or two leaning towards the fanatic fringe. Wasn’t the behaviour thuggish? I aske
d. Yes, but why “Shamsi thugs,” why not say “thugs”? The behaviour was surely connected with the community, I said; they went as representatives of the community, they had the sanction of the elders — or didn’t they? No! they said. They would have accosted the girl, some of them said, brought her back from that Hindu banya’s flat — nothing wrong with that — but they would not have gone back and vandalized the man’s flat. He surely deserved a beating, though. (“Sir, he was married! Surely he was only playing with her!”) Write an essay, I said.
They did more. They wrote a letter to the editor demanding an apology. The editor refused, went into a long tirade about freedom of speech. The boys responded by going from store to store asking people not to buy the Herald. The editor relented, regretted the unfortunate choice of words.
If only it had ended there.
The girl Parviz, who had apparently fallen while on a search for mysticism, regained her fervour many times over. Every day she went to mosque, early in the morning before dawn and in the evening. But this did not wash away her sin; not in the eyes of the people. Women and girls habitually made comments behind her back. She said hardly a word in mosque, and not much more at home. Her silence was her guilt, wrapped tightly around her. One day a woman said behind her, but quite audibly, “If I were she I would jump into the ocean and die.” The following morning Parviz went to mosque as usual. She drank the holy water. She stood before the takhat, the seat of God, and said a prayer. Then she went downstairs, put her shoes on, hugged her shawl around her, and left for the seashore. There she took her shoes off and threw down the shawl. Then she walked into the ocean and drowned herself.