There was an uproar. One of the workers stood up and shouted at the union leader: ‘Stop this bakwas and get out of our mill compound at once! Or we will give you such a thrashing you will spend the rest of your life as an invalid.’ He raised both his hands and shouted, ‘Bharati Behn’, and the crowd yelled back, ‘Zindabad!’ The union leader made a hasty exit, making obscene gestures with his hands. A group of workers, among them some women with chappals in their hands, chased after him. Bharati had won the first round hands down and gave her father a detailed account of what had transpired. He patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘Shabaash. You’ve made me proud.’
Three days later the weekly tabloidThunder, published in English, Marathi and Hindi, devoted most of its pages to the confrontation between Bharati and the union leader. The banner headline read, ‘Tycoon’s Daughter Insults Respected Trade Union Leader.’ There was a detailed account of how he had not been allowed to present the workers’ case, had been threatened, abused and forced to leave the meeting. It also had pictures of Jai Bhagwan’s home in Delhi, Jai Bhagwan Towers and his yacht, alongside pictures of workers’ quarters. The caption read: ‘How the boss lives. And how his slaves live.’ There was a boxed item showing salaries, benefits and board meeting fees drawn by the directors. Nair’s name was not on the list. The editor ofThunder who lived in considerable style on Malabar Hill was a close friend of Nair’s. The significance of this wasn’t lost on Victor and Bharati.
Swamiji read the Hindi version of the issue. While breakfasting with Victor, Ma Durgeshwari and Bharati, he remarked blandly, ‘Kisi namak haraam ke kaam lagta hai (It looks like the work of someone untrue to his salt).’ No name was mentioned.
Soon afterwards, Swami Dhananjay left to spend three months at the ashram in Rishikesh. Ma Durgeshwari followed, promising Victor that she would be back soon. Victor waited impatiently and this time on her return extracted a promise that she wouldn’t stay away for longer than a month at a stretch. And so it came to be that the tantric god-woman, the tiger and the yoga teacher spent several months a year in Bombay. There were times when all five of them happened to be staying in the upper floors of Jai Bhagwan Towers. Ma Durgeshwari and Sheroo occupied the guest rooms in Victor’s penthouse apartment overlooking the city and the bay whereJal Bharati was often anchored. The floor below was occupied by Bharati. The one below hers was divided into two flats—one was alloted to Swamiji, the other permanently reserved for Nair who used it whenever Parliament was not in session and he came down to Bombay. By now he knew that he had become an unwanted outsider. He saw Victor only when he had to and barely nodded in reply to Ma Durgeshwari’s greetings, always adding in English, ‘Please keep that animal away from me.’ He completely ignored Bharati and refused to as much as look at her when she came in to see her father at the office. His resentment was focused on Swamiji. He had no doubt the athletic clown had replaced him as Bharati’s lover: he was younger and handsomer than he and evidently adept at other exercises besides yoga. Swamiji treated Nair with the generous condescension usually reserved for a defeated rival. One day he walked into Nair shouting at the security guard at the building gate and said, ‘Nair sahib,aap mein krodh bahut hai(You have a lot of anger stored up inside you). It’s like constipation; yoga can help you overcome both.’ Although Nair could not speak Hindi he understood the word krodh and snapped back in English, ‘Mister yogi man, I can deal with my krodha and my constipation. I don’t have to stand on my head to get the better of them. Thank you.’ Swamiji didn’t quite understand what had been said, but Nair gave him a look of such contempt that thereafter the swami avoided talking to him.
The strain took a toll on Nair’s nerves. He decided to bring matters to a head by having a heart-to-heart talk with Victor. He assumed he had a major role in making Victor the pioneer that he was and Jai Bhagwan Enterprises the most prosperous in the country. In his own eyes he was indispensable. He ran into Victor in the lift which serviced only the top three floors. ‘I want to have a serious talk with you, Victor—but with no one else around. You know who I mean.’
‘I too want to have a talk with you,’ replied Victor. ‘I’ve been wanting to do so for quite some time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s 9.30 now, make it 10. I promise there’ll be no one else around.’
Nair went up to Victor’s penthouse. He could smell the tiger; clearly that barbarian and her beast had been in the room a few minutes earlier. Clearly they’d been fucking each other senseless. Quite likely the tiger had joined in and humped them both. Nair did not bother to sit down.
‘Look Victor, I don’t like the way things are going,’ he said bluntly. ‘I don’t understand your new friends. It is for you to decide whether you want me around as advisor as I have been now for almost thirty years or this grotesque lot you and Bharati have picked up. I’m saying this for your own good.’
Victor was equally blunt in his reply, though he sounded weary, as if being forced to say something unpleasant. ‘I agree we’ve worked together for many years without there being any misunderstanding between us. But I have a feeling you’d rather be on your own. Your political career is more important to you. I understand that. Let there be no ill feelings between us. We can part as friends.’
This was not what Nair had expected to hear. For some time he sat back in his chair holding his head in his hands as the truth sank in: he was being fired. He felt wronged, betrayed and humiliated. A violent rage built up in him and soured his gut. He would teach this pampered upstart and his bitch of a daughter what it was to trifle with a man like him. He got up abruptly and said, ‘Right. I will send in my resignation today. Best of luck to you and your menagerie.’
Much as Victor tried not to think of Nair, the manner of their parting bothered him deeply. He brooded over it all morning; it disturbed his afternoon nap. While having tea he told Durgeshwari and Bharati who in her turn told Swamiji. Durgeshwari’s only response was, ‘He did not like me or my Sheroo. I don’t think he likes anyone except himself.’ Then she lit a bundle of incense sticks, put them in a vase facing the idol of Durga astride her lion and said a short prayer invoking her protection for her benefactor. Swamiji was more forthright. ‘Bura aadmi hai (He’s a bad man). His tongue is coated with venom. He has a big ego, bad temper and desire for revenge. Please be careful of him.’ Bharati bit her lip without making any comment.
~
Till Nair’s departure Bharati’s relations with Swamiji were those of a disciple and teacher. She was attracted to him but wasn’t about to make the first move till she could be sure about Swamiji’s feelings towards her. Perhaps he really was sworn to celibacy as all the yogis and Matas were supposed to be. So she chose discretion over adventure and quietly looked forward to her yoga lessons and enjoyed the silken touch of his large, gentle hands as he corrected her posture. She wished he would take more liberties with her but he remained covert in his behaviour. One day he came in for her private lessons looking a little uncertain. Bharati noticed instantly that he wasn’t wearing anything underneath his lungi. The shadow of his penis swayed like a heavy pendulum behind the thin muslin as he walked towards her. Bharati smiled to herself. ‘You have learnt almost everything I could teach you,’ he said. ‘All you need to do now is to continue doing the yoga asanas I have taught you.’
Bharati was dismayed. ‘No, no Swamiji, I need your guidance every day or I will give up these exercises. I am like that, no discipline. Besides, my father tells me I am short-tempered. I am sure you can do something about that.’
Swamiji thought over the matter for a while, brushed his beard with both his hands and ordered, ‘Lie on your back.’ Bharati did as she was ordered. ‘I’ll see what is wrong.’ He took out his tape measure and proceeded to measure the distance between her navel and each of her big toes.
‘My father told me you measure him from his nipples to his toes. Why this gender difference?’
Swamiji brushed his beard again and replied, ‘Because Indian women do not like strange men touching the
ir breasts. Also, women’s breasts are of different sizes: some are very small, others very big; some are taut and erect, others droop down to their naabhees. I can never be sure.’
‘Well, mine don’t droop to my navel so your measurements should be possible. And I don’t mind you touching my breasts. After all, you are my guru. Besides, you are not allowed toknow a woman, are you?’ Without waiting for his response she sat up, took off her blouse, undid the strap of her bra, pulled it off and lay down again. Swamiji touched her nipples, still holding the rope in his fingers. Her nipples became hard. They were like rivets. ‘You have very beautiful breasts,’ he said. ‘Beautifully rounded and taut.’ He stroked them gently with his hands. ‘Like an apsara’s.’
‘Kiss them,’ she ordered.
Swamiji kissed them in turn—once, twice, twenty times. He could not believe his luck.
‘Put that thing hiding in your lungi inside me,’ she ordered again, as she pulled up her sari and spread out her thighs to him. He came over, flicked the flap of his lungi aside to reveal his engorged penis and entered her. She uttered a loud ‘Ha!’, clutched his long hair and put her lips to his. His beard brushed her breasts as he gently heaved in and out of her body. ‘This is heaven,’ she murmured in his ears. ‘So it is said in our holy books. A maithun between lovers is the closest you can get to the divine in human life,’ he replied and speeded up, his breath building up to match precisely the rhythm of his thrusts.
Bharati came once, then a second time, shuddering and gurgling thickly, and lay back utterly exhausted and fulfilled. Swamiji did not spill his semen in her and took out his member still erect and put it behind his lungi.
Bharati put the memory of her brief pathetic encounter with Nair out of her mind as if it had never happened.
12
* * *
Over the next six months, Victor involved Bharati, now twenty-one, in most aspects of his several businesses. Nair was busy in Delhi trying to salvage his reputation: in a rare instance of misjudgement, he and a senior minister had vociferously championed the case of communist China even as several other politicians and the chiefs of the armed forces were warning about possible aggression. After the brief but devastating Chinese invasion caught the country unawares, Nair became a laughing stock. He was now working overtime to get back into the good books of the Congress leadership. At Jai Bhagwan Enterprises this meant peace. Victor and Bharati and their senior staff worked well together and efficiency improved. The company’s generous contributions to the war efforts had also won it considerable goodwill. Things couldn’t have been better.
It was around this time that the head of the public relations department which was under Bharati’s charge came to see her about a peculiar problem. ‘Madamji,’ he said, ‘there’s a man fromThunderwho wants us to place ads in his tabloid. I told him it is our policy to place ads only in national newspapers, not in local tabloids. But he is very insistent and says he will make it worth our while to do so or we may have to regret our decision. He wants to see you.’
‘Send him in, I will talk to him alone,’ replied Bharati. The man was ushered in: small, dark, holding his hat against his chest. He bowed several times before Bharati.
‘Yes,’ said Bharati in as matter-of-fact a voice as she could, ‘what is it you want to say?’ She did not ask him to sit down.
‘Madam-sir, we have information about the backgrounds of Ma Durgeshwari and Swami Dhananjay Brahmachari which will damage your company’s reputation. My editor is willing to withhold its publication if madam-sir will agree to place ads in our paper on a permanent basis.’
Bharati gave him a long, cold stare and hissed, ‘Blackmail. How dare you. Get out at once!’ She rang the bell. As her chaprasi came in she ordered, ‘Take a good look at this man. Remember his face. Throw him out of the office and never let him in again.’
The next issue ofThunder had pictures of Victor with Ma Durgeshwari and Bharati with Swami Dhananjay Maharaj on its front page and a lurid account of the background of the tantric and the yoga teacher. According to the tabloid’s special correspondent and his research team, Ma Durgeshwari’s real name was Shanti Devi; she had been thrown out by her husband in Jhansi who suspected adultery, and had lived with three other men who all ditched her before she became a sadhvi. She had now found a patron in India’s richest man. Swamiji also had an earlier incarnation as Durga Das, one of the many sons of an impoverished farmer, a school dropout who had twice been up before a juvenile court on charges of thieving and buggery. He had picked up yoga in a borstal and was now teaching yoga asanas to workers of Jai Bhagwan industries including Kumari Bharati Devi, the only heir to her father’s vast fortune.
Victor did not tell Durgeshwari about the scandalous report; she never read any papers. Nor did Bharati tell Swamiji about it. He read only Hindi; they had not received the Hindi edition of the tabloid. But Bharati spoke to her father. ‘This is plain and simple libel. We could take that bastard of an editor to court for heavy damages.’
Victor smiled and replied, ‘Don’t be childish. There is nothing in the paper against either of us except that the two are our friends. Just throw the rag in the dustbin and forget about it.’
‘Who do you think is behind it? I can’t think of anyone except Nair.’
‘I don’t think he’d sink so low. It was just an attempt at blackmail which flopped.’
Many journalists wanted to pick up the story and asked for appointments with Victor and Bharati. Both refused to see them. However,Thunder paid a heavy price for launching the smear campaign against Jai Bhagwan Enterprises. Many companies which supplied Jai Bhagwan raw materials or had outlets for sales of his products withdrew advertisements fromThunder. So did many state governments and ministries of the central government. Its circulation went down steeply. Jai Bhagwan was too big a person to be trifled with; he had become a national icon and a role model for future generations. The Times of Indiacarried a front page editorial in his defence. Without namingThunder it alluded to the growth of yellow journalism, rampant trade unionism which was killing many industries and irresponsible politicians who misled workers to go on wildcat strikes. It wrote about what the country owed to Jai Bhagwan in making it self-sufficient in textiles, sugar, steel, cement, pharmaceuticals and much else. For good measure, it reminded people of how much he had done for the nation during the recent war. The editorial concluded with the words ‘those who spit at the sky have the same spit fall on their face.’
The smear campaign died out. Only to be replaced by an alarming increase in anonymous letters, hate mail and demands for money. Sending unsigned letters about the private lives of men and women working in the same establishment was a national pastime. Every time someone was appointed or promoted there would be a few letters insinuating that the appointee or the appointee’s spouse had obliged some member or the other of the governing body to secure the post. Victor had grown used to them by now. He enjoyed reading them but never took any of them seriously. There were others in different languages full of abuse for him and members of his family. Victor read them as well, smiled to himself and tore them up and threw them in the waste-paper basket. There were a third lot ordering him to deliver a packet of currency notes at a particular time and place to someone who would be waiting there for him. If it was not done one of his mills would be set on fire, or worse, his daughter would be abducted. The mill part did not bother Victor too much, but Bharati was all he had of his own flesh and blood and he was not willing to take any chances with her safety. She often went out shopping on her own and sometimes took a brisk walk along Marine Drive from Chowpatty to Nariman Point. Many people recognized her. He did not think reporting the matter to the police would help; the Bombay police was known to be in cahoots with the underworld. Without telling Bharati he deputed his most senior security guard to follow her wherever she went and inform him when she returned home. Her safety began to weigh on his mind, especially since she was too proud and too much of a daredevil to take an
y precautions herself.
~
Victor and Bharati were in Delhi when his mother, close to eighty, heavily diabetic and almost blind, had a fall. She went into a coma and never recovered. Victor was sitting by her pillow holding her hand when she breathed her last. She was cremated the same evening. And as had happened after his father’s death, the entire family took the ashes to Haridwar to be immersed in the Ganga. This time, on Bharati’s insistence, Victor had his head shaved. Instead of returning to Delhi he persuaded the family to spend a few days at the holiday home. In the evening he sent his car to fetch Ma Durgeshwari from the ashram.
Durgeshwari did not take Sheroo with her as she had other things on her mind for the evening. She saw Victor’s shaven head and understood what had happened. ‘Om Namo Shivaya, Om Namo Shivaya,’ she intoned loudly. ‘So Mataji has attained swargvaas. She will find a special place beside Lord Shiva’s lotus feet.’ They sat in silence for some time. She saw tears well up in Victor’s eyes and run down his cheeks, and Bharati and her aunts sniffle and blow their noses in their dupattas. ‘It is not proper to cry over the death of a person who has lived a full life and attained nirvana. It should be a cause for celebration,’ she admonished them. Her words were soothing. She stayed till it was time for the evening prayers. Before leaving she said, ‘Tomorrow morning we will have a special pooja in the ashram for the peace of her soul. You must all come on your way back to Delhi.’
They stopped by at the ashram for the pooja. Victor saw that the guru dakshina he had offered had been put to good use. In addition to the temple and the meditation hall, all rooms meant to house the bhaktas were pukka structures as well. They had employed a gardener: the vegetable patch had been doubled, there were flowers on either side of the path from the gate, and bougainvillea creepers covered many walls with deep mauve, pink and white. The number of bhaktas seemed to have increased.
Burial at Sea Page 11