Surjeet Shona slid into the driver’s seat and watched Neel dragging broken branches from the roadside and stacking them under the front wheels, getting more and more bedraggled in the rain and slush. He waved to her and stepped aside, “Go!” he called. “Second gear!”
The wheels spun crazily again, spraying Neel with mud, and pushing the jeep deeper down into the bog. Steam rose from the hood as Neel strained to wedge stones under the front wheels. Surjeet Shona tried again, and with an almighty jerk and the sound of snapping twigs, the jeep surged forward onto the firm concrete of a bridge.
“Well done,” said Neel. He took over the wheel but the road beyond was steeper and at a sharp hairpin bend the engine began an alarming knocking. Neel was forced to try the first gear, there was a grinding sound, and the engine stalled. Nothing would induce it to start again and they were stuck at a steep angle in the middle of the hairpin bend with the rain lashing relentlessly at them. The car rolled dangerously back to a flatter area. “Pass me the water,” he said. “The engine’s boiling.”
Surjeet Shona took out a half-empty bottle of drinking water. “That’s all there is,” she said. “We could let the rain cool the engine.” But perversely, just at that moment, the rain stopped.
Night had descended and Surjeet Shona stood by the hood with a torch in one hand balancing the water bottle with the other. Taking off his shirt and using it to protect his hand, Neel heaved at the burning radiator cap. It came unstuck after a mighty struggle, releasing a vicious jet of boiling water. Neel’s hand was in the way and the jet hit it, scalding him painfully. Surjeet Shona screamed and jumped to Neel’s help, letting go of the water bottle which spilled into the red slush. “Oh God! Now look what you’ve done!” groaned Neel.
Surjeet Shona ignored the jibe and helped him back into the jeep. “We have to wait for the engine to cool,” she said. “There’s nothing else to do.” They waited while Surjeet Shona ministered to Neel, cosseting him like a baby, anointing his hand with cold cream, and admiring his shining mud-streaked body.
Help finally came from a group of road workers on their way up to Neterhat. They had a canister of water with them and cautiously filled it into the half-empty radiator where it bubbled and cooled down. Their reward was a free drive up to their destination which was blessedly near.
The cowbell had been lost in the melée, but Surjeet Shona didn’t care. It had brought them nothing but ill luck and spoiled the sweetness of Topchanchi.
The next day at dusk, she and Neel drove out over the open fields of the Neterhat plateau, a vast landscape bathed in the light of a brilliant sunset. Oraon girls walked and sang arm in arm in small groups, their broad cheek-boned faces bronzed by the light, their short saris freeing their legs for graceful skips. Neel, whose hand was only lightly burned, pulled Surjeet Shona out of the jeep, and arm in arm, they danced with the adivasi girls. Surjeet Shona felt she could touch the painted sky if she stretched out her hand.
But that very night watching the full moon through the open window of their bedroom, she could see, among a ring of squatting villagers ranged in front of Neel, one beauty, heart-shaped face shining like all the others in the moonlight, looking directly at him. Laser rays streaked between their eyes. The girl’s sari had fallen aside from her shoulder and her naked breast was round and full, calling to Surjeet Shona’s husband.
A familiar pain manifested in the pit of her stomach. “Guru’s early death fooled me about the nature of marriage,” she thought. It was a pain based on a deep fear, a familiar circular fear which she recognized, and she knew she had to free herself from the ridiculous and recurring dilemmas, the enigmatic bonds which sprang up so frequently between Neel and these sumptuous women. She thought back with incredulity to the intimacy of the red, wet womb of the jeep when she had ministered with such love and hope to Neel’s wounded hand.
Surjeet Shona said nothing when Parasnvanath hill followed by the Barakar temples flashed by on their way back. Reminding Neel of his earlier assurance to stop and explore would only irritate him.
As remorseless friction attached itself to time, the pattern of their intimacy changed. Neel continued to gaze at Surjeet Shona sprawled asleep on the bed, but he stopped touching her so as not to arouse her. He rejoiced when she moved and fell into a newly perfect pose, but the feast was purely visual.
Later, Surjeet Shona was to come into bitter confrontation with Neel over her son’s elite education in a boarding school near Shimla.
“A brown sahib, is that what you want my son to be?!”
“I want a proper education for Gurdeep, he’s my son!
“Am I not his father now?”
“You may be . . . ”
“May be? When I married you for your beauty, I did not expect such betrayals . . . !”
“I’m not a pinup!” screamed Surjeet Shona. “And who are you to talk of betrayals?” she added.
“Why am I saying all this?” said a voice inside her. “It’s unforgivable, what I said is unforgivable! Can’t I hear him calling Gurdeep his son . . . ” Fear gripped her. She lost her balance whenever she came into conflict with Neel and he brought out the worst in her, she could see it.
“You think I have no say in Gurdeep’s future, in his upbringing, is that what you’re saying . . . ?”
Surjeet Shona could only make a painful apology. “Sorry, I’m sorry!”
This threw up currents and the ill-matched pair went through a short harmony. But deep inside, both knew the marriage was doomed.
Surjeet Shona gave up joining Neel on his field trips in the fifth year of their marriage. When he stayed away an unnecessarily long six months in the northeast, she was ready for a divorce. “He must have been a tribal in his last life,” she said cattily.
Gurdeep, buffered by the vastness of the Indian plains in his aerie of a boarding school, wouldn’t mind, she convinced herself. He didn’t ask about his stepfather’s whereabouts on his annual holiday and Surjeet Shona waited till he was about to leave before breaking the news to him.
“Really?” was his laconic response. And though Surjeet Shona tried to say more she cautiously stopped when she saw his lack of interest.
“He wasn’t even startled,” she thought. “It isn’t surprising though. He hardly saw Neel after he was seven.” Appearances were deceptive as she found out later.
The divorce was hard on Surjeet Shona. Neel had adopted a studied politeness toward her, and though her parents and other Rajmahalians stood by her as they would always as long as they lived, the loss and loneliness were hers uniquely. She retreated into the Guru Granth Sahib room again to nurse herself, sorely hurt.
5
Gurdeep Grows Up
SURJEET SHONA SHUNNED HER CONSTANT ARRAY OF SUITORS, convinced no spark could ignite her again. Any thought of going back to the Sharp’s job drained her of energy. She concentrated on Gurdeep, and examined the possibility of other occupations. She tried painting, went riding, avoided parties, and read voraciously. But there were terrible empty spaces when the book held in her hands would blur and thoughts of the failed marriage and loss of Neel would invade her like an attacking horde. When she slept her dreams were filled with the theme of Neel’s betrayals. Those were the times she took refuge in the Guru Granth Sahib room, or more and more frequently, at the Petrovs’ apartment. Here, she allowed herself the dubious diversion of meeting people again.
When Doctor Ranji Talwar, a Calcutta consultant based in London’s Harley Street, joined the queue of suitors, Surjeet Shona would eventually succumb. Much older and talked of, the doctor courted Surjeet Shona aggressively, causing a flutter in their circles. She automatically resisted at first, but the doctor clothed his aggression in such gentle, adult, and courteous attentions, that his persistence paid off. She toyed with the idea of moving to London with him, though she was still deeply wary of marriage. The house and ghosts were equally wary, but could do nothing when the doctor doubled his attentions as Surjeet Shona’s resistance waned.<
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After several seasons Surjeet Shona found herself waiting expectantly for his next visit. She was nearly convinced he could provide her with the uxoriousness she craved. Eventually, she followed the doctor to London and moved in with him. Gurdeep would join them for the holidays, the arrangement seemed near perfect, and Surjeet Shona settled tentatively into the business of housekeeping, taking pleasure in cooking for her attentive new lover. For a time she enjoyed the big city, the plays and concerts, the museums and parks, the bountiful shops. When she thought of it, she missed the rough exciting trips with Neel, dramatically at the other end of the scale, but she was determined not to allow herself any maudlin backslide over Neel himself, Neel the husband. She would take out her albums and look at the photographs, the tigress and her cubs, the young cowherd, the sunset over the Neterhat plateau. But when the photos of the Oraon women appeared she would feel an unpleasant heaviness. Then she would open up the albums with Gurdeep’s pictures, their wedding, the motorcycle, and she would feel the same heaviness. There were no pictures of Martin to test herself with. “That’s the trouble,” she thought. “There are parts of all of them I still feel for. At least. I think so. And I miss the Rajmahal.” She continued to avoid the idea of marrying Ranji even though she was at ease with him and enjoyed his mature, quiet company, even though he showed an unstrained affection for Gurdeep, and the two seemed to get on well. But Surjeet Shona’s mother’s instincts wouldn’t allow her a blind acceptance of Gurdeep’s docility and she couldn’t get over her uneasiness on this last score. And repeatedly, the heaviness would creep over her, mixed with a complete lack of anticipation. As if there were nothing left to be done. As if it were all over. There were no starbursts, no ecstasy. “How far did all that take me anyway?” she consoled herself.
But the Ranji Talwar phase was to end soon too. The doctor would have looked after Surjeet Shona like a queen, and indulged Gurdeep in every way, but he was work-conditioned long before the liaison. The demands of the taxing and specialized world of medicine with its frequent travel for conferences and seminars snatched away the advantages of eminence, and a heart attack killed him within two years of Surjeet Shona’s move. She wasn’t yet forty, and a twice-married woman, once widowed, once divorced, isolated yet again.
“There’s some accursed fate chasing me,” she wept at the funeral. Gurdeep was with her, and though she held on to him she worried at his stoical behavior. She was convinced the Rajmahal was her only faithful ally, her stability, and she went back, bereaved a second time, into its embrace. The house and the ghosts were overjoyed, but it was a dismal homecoming, and the charm of the Rajmahal failed to comfort Surjeet Shona this time around. Perversely, pictures of her life with the doctor kept interfering with her settling down and she was glad Gurdeep was out of this circle of gloom in his boarding school. But he was soon to become a difficult teenager and his visits home were filled with fractiousness and fights with his mother.
It was Ali Mallik who convinced Surjeet Shona she should think of a change in the pattern. He knew of the difficulties with Gurdeep and saw Surjeet Shona wilting under the pressure.
“He misses a father,” she confided to him and Saira. “I was sure I could deal with the problem, but it’s gone out of my hands.”
“We had the same kind of trouble with Mumtaz,” said Ali. “Although I was always here. Things normalized only when we sent him out to boarding school.”
“I didn’t agree with Ali at first,” said Saira. “I thought Mumtaz was going through the usual teenage problems. But it was the right thing, wasn’t it? The boy’s turned out a darling.”
“But Gurdeep’s already in boarding school, a good boarding school. I sent him there because he didn’t get on with Neel. Now he says he detests the place and can’t wait to get out. And he says he hates Calcutta and the Rajmahal too. Sometimes I think he hates me!”
“It’s the hormones,” said Saira.
“You have a brother in the US,” persisted Ali. “ W hy don’t you send him to school there. It might work. Try it out!” The ghosts could come to no conclusion about the wisest course of action, and in their usual manner kept arguing in circles, while the house watched with impatience.
Gurdeep accepted the new move well and the relief of his agreeing with her for once readily convinced Surjeet Shona. She hoped her sibling would play the missing father role, and her sister-in-law would have to make up for her absence. There was also a twosome of cousins.
The arrangement worked well and this compensated partly for Surjeet Shona’s loneliness and nagging feeling of guilt. She threw herself into activity and joined a group busy reviving traditional skills among silk weavers in the state. In time, the projects she started expanded successfully and she became fully absorbed in her work, drawn to other areas of the country. Some of the journeys would bring back the Neel period, and the contrast, without the old excitement, depressed her. But there was nothing to be done for it, and her work was her compensation. She joined into the countrywide movement to keep traditional handicrafts alive and met powerful people involved in it. She became prominent in the field and was called to organize exhibitions and festivals abroad. Gurdeep continued to flourish in the States, and graduated to university. Surjeet Shona visited him often. But she could sense the underlying instability on his India visits, especially when the old hostility flared up as the visits extended. She tried her best, mixing these visits with travels and gatherings of Gurdeep’s age group. But it was a losing battle. The ghosts, who were getting more and more disembodied and increasingly disinterested in the far away Gurdeep, were finding him a bit of a nuisance.
Surjeet Shona’s worst fears were realized some years later when the Punjab cataclysm loomed and she learned that Gurdeep, now in his late teens, was involving himself with a separatist-funding group in the US, in complete sympathy with the demand for a Sikh homeland.
“You don’t understand, Ma,” he said arrogantly. “ You have the taint of Bengali blood. You should hear the stories of discrimination against us poor Sikhs, then you may think again! I tell you, Khalistan’s the only answer!”
“What taint? You have my Bengali blood too!” Surjeet Shona shouted back, during stormy conversations on the phone. “What discrimination? What Khalistan?!”
“Have you heard the Sikh jokes?”
“The Sikh jokes? You take them seriously? They’re only jokes! I’m also Sikh and we tell the same jokes. We are proud of our sense of humor!”
“If I hear one more time that twelve o’clock has struck I will kill someone with my own hands!” stormed the boy. “I tell you, Khalistan’s the only answer!”
“Again Khalistan . . . !”
“I am what my Father was, Mother. I’m all Sikh! I’m ashamed of my Bengali blood! Have you forgotten the great Neel, your Bengali husband? Hindu bastard! And your other Hindu doctor!”
“Shut up! How dare you talk of them like that? Even if you didn’t like Neel, Ranji was always so kind to you! I thought you liked him! And what is all this about Hindus?”
“They’re all bastards I tell you!”
“How can you speak like that Gurdeep!” Surjeet Shona wept. “Think of me at least! I’m your mother! You are all I have! And have you forgotten your grandmother?” She could hardly believe what she was hearing.
After a short pause, Gurdeep banged down the phone. But Surjeet Shona couldn’t accept this without a fight, and immediately called back. She calmed down to an extent when her brother spoke to her instead of Gurdeep. “Leave him to me, SS. Remember we love him. The other kids are here too. We are doing our best.”
But she couldn’t help fretting. “Is that same fate chasing my son too?” she worried.
When the Golden Temple was stormed and the bloodbath between militant Sikhs and the army turned the pool of nectar crimson, the tearing inside her astonished her. The Sikh ghosts were too agitated to see sense, and the other ghosts and the house could do nothing to calm them.
“I didn’t
know my Sikhness was so much in my gut! W hat’s happening? What happened to Ma’s side of things?” thought Surjeet Shona.
She couldn’t stop the wrenching inside her, the feeling that the world was slipping away while the unperceived ghoul chortled and danced over a pool of blood. Visions flickered behind her eyelids when she slept and she woke up with starts, seeing Gurdeep sinking in that crimson pool with a kirpan in his raised hand. In a frenzy she booked a flight to New York, yet realized its futility even as she and Gurdeep continued their violent confrontation face to face. She came back after being assured by her brother that Gurdeep would get over it, but her crisis continued. She walked compulsively up and down the veranda with surges of revulsion going through her. Thoughts of the endless and ruthless militant killings preceding the excoriating attack in the Holy of Holies exploded inside her like her fists on the furniture and walls. Her mind went through reruns of her love life. “Doomed or disastrous,” she would moan. “Nothing in between!” Sometimes the inner violence would recede, and she would dwell on her Bengali family’s history, on its swadeshi activity a century ago. Raja Sheetanath’s involvement in setting up a National Bengali College, in organizing a mela for the sale of purely Indian goods, and the fiery speeches he made in the countryside to arouse the villagers of Bengal to their heritage. “How can I tear myself away from this fabulous history?” she would think. “How can I separate my Sikhness from my Hinduness or my Brahmo Bengaliness or my Indianness? How can Gurdeep lose all that to narrow himself down to only one of them?” She was split, like her name was split sometimes. “Split, reduced, downscaled,” she thought, to “Shona,” the Bengali component of her name by Neel, and “Surjeet,” the Punjabi component by Ranji Talwar, to “Shona-Baby” by the Bengali servants, and “Surjeet-ji” by the bhaiji. “What should I, as a hybrid, then do?” she had asked Petrov long ago. And he had answered, “Nothing, dear child, nothing. You are an important manifestation of what will inevitably happen after a hundred years, when every Indian is a hybrid like you and all the cultures fade out, and the not-this-not-that hybrid shines out like an arc lamp!”
Rajmahal Page 25