Train to Delhi

by Shiv Kumar Kumar

‘So two peaches, sir—one for you and one for your friend?’ the pimp asked. He was eager to clinch the deal.

  ‘But could you fix two virgins straightaway?’ Berry asked, smiling. ‘Why don’t you let my friend have the first fling? I can wait.’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  Then turning to Gautam, Berry said: ‘Your need is greater than mine.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gautam. ‘But I am not interested in all this. Blatant prostitution doesn’t excite me.’

  ‘Don’t turn on that holy stuff again, my dear. It’s an honest deal. You enjoy a woman and she gets paid for it. Don’t be a milksop.’

  ‘What are the rates?’ Berry now turned to the pimp.

  ‘Twenty-five rupees for an hour plus the room charge—that’s if you prefer it at the Bridge Hotel,’ the man replied, announcing the rates as though he were running a grocery store. ‘I guess, you know the place, sir.’

  ‘I do,’ said Berry. ‘But what about the Kotla ruins?’

  ‘No, sir. She’s too respectable for that. No love in the open for her.’

  ‘Sounds like she’s something real special.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Then let’s say two hours.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Where do we meet?’ Berry asked the pimp.

  ‘At the Bridge Hotel,’ the man replied, ‘and I’ll do the room reservation too.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As Berry was talking to the pimp, Gautam suddenly realized that he’d been trapped. He stared at the pimp who looked menacing—bushy eyebrows, powerful hands and massive shoulders.

  9

  Since the Bridge Hotel is run in close partnership with Neel Kamal, most of its patrons comprise those who first visit Neel Kamal for food, drinks or cabaret, and then come here for a quick fling before returning home.

  The hotel offers its clients exclusive privacy in its elegantly furnished rooms—spring mattresses, downy pillows, foam-leathered sofas and close proximity to the Kotla ruins. You may walk down the passageway on the second floor straight onto the terrace, from where you may climb up the tower to have a bird’s-eye view of the southern part of the capital, stretching across a vast landscape, with the Delhi Gate on one side, the Red Fort on the other, and far beyond, the metropolitan railway station, a sooty, nondescript building with neon lights flashing the words: ‘Delhi—Northern Railway.’

  The Kotla ruins fascinate all visitors because of their legendary, romantic associations. They are the remnants of the royal guest house, the mehman khana, built by the medieval ruler, Feroze Shah, to accommodate his civil and military officers whom he summoned to Delhi, from time to time, on state missions, from other parts of the country. Although he was himself an orthodox Muslim, a believer in total abstinence from sex and liquor, his officers often used this place for their orgies—eating and drinking—all through the night. Some of them would even take their women for a nocturnal boat ride on the Jumna, which then flowed only a mile and a half away. According to the legend, Feroze Shah never came to know how his mehman khana was misused for such revelry, so brazenly contrary to the Islamic principles of rigorous austerity.

  Though the mehman khana survives today only as battered, roofless rooms, it still performs the same function as it did five centuries ago. Its tottering walls, just shoulder-high, guarantee transient privacy to any person who may bring his woman here for a brief hour or so, if he has no other place to use.

  There is a tacit understanding between all visitors to the ruins not to encroach upon each other’s territory in the midst of their individual operations. Of course, each couple has to announce its presence with a pair of shoes or something left at the open entrance of ‘your room for the hour’.

  The policemen prowl about at a discreet distance, outwardly ensuring law and order, but not without expecting a standard tip from each visitor. It is openly believed that most of them are on the payroll of Neel Kamal and the Bridge Hotel.

  The hotel management has tried to recreate for its patrons the romantic atmosphere of medieval India. But the call-girls supplied by the Bridge Hotel are poor substitutes for the medieval nautch women who once entertained Feroze Shah’s civil and military officers.

  More out of curiosity to see the ‘virgin’ from the UP than to escort Gautam to the Bridge Hotel, Berry accompanied him to the hotel. When they arrived, precisely at eight, there was no sign anywhere of the pimp, or the girl. Only after some anxious waiting did they see a tonga pull up at the gate, and then alighted from this rickety vehicle the pimp and a woman in a black burkha. Muslim she presumably was, but Berry still wondered about this concealed creature. In any case, he decided to see the face before returning to Neel Kamal where he was supposed to wait for Gautam.

  The pimp ushered both Gautam and Berry into the lounge, beckoned them to wait there for a while, and walked up to the Reception. Then he returned, with a smile on his face.

  ‘Room number 204 on the second floor.’ He addressed only Gautam. ‘And now, please, fifty rupees plus thirty for the room.’

  Diffident and embarrassed, Gautam pulled out his wallet and handed over the money.

  ‘Will you walk up with this gentleman?’ the pimp asked the girl, in a somewhat proprietary tone.

  ‘But you haven’t introduced me to her,’ intervened Berry. ‘Maybe I’ll follow up too.’

  ‘Sure, sir,’ the pimp said, flashing his betel-stained smile. He whispered something into the girl’s ears.

  As though someone had touched a push-button, a delicate hand at once moved out of the burkha to uncover the face.

  Indeed, the girl was astonishingly beautiful. Light wheatish complexion, a silver jhumka gleaming between the crescent-shaped eyebrows and dainty lips, like the petals of a buttercup. Since the head was still partially covered, only the lower part of her raven-black curls came tumbling down her shoulders. A luscious peach, Berry said to himself—and even if not a virgin, she was redolent of the fragrance and glow of a newly budded rose.

  But, as the girl shot a glance at the two men, her eyes, deep and brown, looked wrathful.

  ‘Oh God!’ exclaimed Berry, hardly able to muzzle his yearning. ‘I can now see,’ he then whispered to Gautam, ‘what I’ve lost to you. If the face is only a prelude to …’

  ‘Calm down, will you?’ Gautam said, himself fascinated by the beauty of the girl. ‘We’ll fix you something else, equally good. Now, will you go back to Neel Kamal and wait for me there?’ He smiled.

  ‘Oh, you lucky devil!’

  As Gautam was about to take the girl away, the pimp, who felt pleased to have bagged two customers, said: ‘Just two hours, sir. It’ll be double for each additional hour, or for any part thereof.’

  ‘All right,’ Gautam said, dampened by the man’s cold, mercenary tone.

  ‘I’ll wait in the foyer,’ the pimp said.

  It was a corner room on the second floor, which opened into the eastern wing of the passageway, leading to the terrace. As soon as they were alone in the room, Gautam said, pointing to the sofa: ‘Won’t you sit down there, please?’

  ‘Thank you,’ came the words, her voice just a murmur.

  He himself began to pace up and down the room, fidgety and perplexed. Then he stopped near a window and looked back.

  On the walls hung paintings of women, mostly nude, and coloured photographs of the erotic sculptures of Konarak and Khajuraho. In India, Gautam thought, there was no risk of violating any law of pornography, because Hindus worshipped the genitals, particularly the lingam, as fervently as they aspired to nirvana.

  He’d hardly taken in the room when he saw to his great amazement, the girl already stripped and stretched out on the bed. As he looked at her entire body and not merely the face he’d glimpsed in the foyer, he felt entranced. Such a luxuriant, frank exposure of the body’s harmony—the firm breasts, the slender waistline ebbing and flowing like a sandy dune, the shapely thighs, each like the creaseless trunk of a young poplar. It was a vision, almost mys
tical and ineffable.

  ‘Would you like to come over, sir?’ her feeble voice muttered. ‘There isn’t much time left, you know.’

  The words came loaded with a frigid, disquieting ring. Her face, now sombre and tense, almost froze him. As he paced across the room, somewhat awkwardly, he stumbled against a coffee table and hurt his shin slightly. Then, sitting demurely on the bed, near her feet, he murmured: ‘What’s the hurry?’

  Gautam couldn’t bring himself to call her ‘honey’ or ‘darling’. That would have rung out false, he knew. But, then, had he come here to make love or polite conversation?

  The girl saw a flicker of bewilderment on his face. There was something unusual about this man. Otherwise, would he be sitting so bashfully on the bed’s edge?

  As for Gautam, his mind was in a whirl. What kind of girl was she? She couldn’t be a virgin, for hadn’t she unfolded herself with a sort of professional readiness?’

  Suddenly, he became conscious of some incongruity in the situation—a beautiful girl stretched out nude in bed, and a sprucely dressed man sitting miles away from her. He’d never slept with any woman other than his wife, but having now been hustled into this, he might as well do something, he told himself.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked.

  It was only after the words had slipped out that he realized he’d blundered into asking such a question. Surely, he wasn’t such a moron as not to see that he was with a call-girl.

  ‘Twice.’

  It was an impassive answer, devoid of any sense of shame. But the words sizzled with anger.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he mumbled. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The call-girl almost snapped back.

  With a jerk, she gathered herself up in bed, clasping her arms round her knees. For a moment, the image of that other woman, standing nude on the pavement near St. John’s, flashed through Gautam’s mind.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re up to,’ she now almost glowered at him. ‘Why don’t you be done with it, instead of humiliating me …’ she trailed off.

  ‘Oh, I do apologize if I’ve hurt you in any manner,’ Gautam replied, rising from the bed, and again walking away towards the window.

  ‘Isn’t time running out, sir?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he answered. ‘You may dress up, please. Maybe we could meet again, another time … It’s just that I haven’t been able to bring myself to it … I’m sorry.’

  Gautam looked out of the window at the open fields that sprawled all around like a chessboard—large squares of vegetable beds and here and there a tree, or a cluster of bushes. Far beyond, shimmered the waters of the Jumna.

  ‘You seem to be so different from the others,’ she said, this time in a tender voice; then reaching out for her sari which lay on the bedside table, she added: ‘May I also ask you something, sir?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Have you been here before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘And your friend?’

  ‘Several times perhaps, though I’ve never asked him.’

  Gautam walked back from the window and sat on the sofa chair beside the bed. The girl had already dressed herself and was reclining against the pillows.

  ‘Are you from the UP?’ Gautam asked.

  ‘Yes … But how do you know?’

  ‘The pimp told me.’

  ‘Oh, Pannalal?’

  ‘Is that his name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m very scared of him.’

  ‘So am I …’ she paused, suddenly realizing that she’d slipped up.

  ‘Are you from Agra?’

  In his mind’s eye, he somehow associated her beautiful face with the Taj Mahal.

  ‘No, Allahabad.’

  The mention of the place startled him. He leaned forward from the sofa to probe her face. There was her unmistable resemblance with the bearded old Muslim killed near St. John’s—the same arched eyebrows, the same chiselled chin …

  ‘Haseena!’

  The girl was taken aback. How did he know her real name when all the call-girls had been given new names? For secrecy’s sake, to placate those customers who insisted on being intimate. She was, for instance, called Kaleema.

  As her right hand brushed against her forehead, in utter confusion, the kumkum got partly defaced; it now diffused itself into a dull trail of mauve.

  ‘Who gave you my name, sir?’ she asked, dumbfounded.

  ‘Isn’t your father’s name Abdul Rahim?’ Gautam resumed, looking directly at her face. ‘And isn’t your sister’s name Salma?’ He paused. ‘And don’t you live in Mohalla Kashana?’

  She was stunned. She took a few minutes to come to.

  ‘How do you know all this, please?’ she pleaded. ‘Is my father in Delhi? He must have come after me. Tell me everything, sir—everything. You seem to know it all.’

  Gautam’s brow now darkened.

  ‘Well, this is hardly the place or the time to tell you everything … I’ve only sad news for you—about your father.’

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘A few days ago. I feel terribly sorry …’

  Haseena felt aghast, her pallid face twitched as she flinched under the blow. Then she turned over, buried her face in the pillows and started to sob. Gautam felt deeply pained to see her writhing in agony.

  ‘Oh, my Abba!’ she cried out.

  ‘Please listen, Haseena,’ said Gautam, tenderly. ‘You’ll have to take it bravely.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ A ghostly voice muttered.

  ‘A Hindu mob got him. I happened to be there.’

  ‘Oh, Allah!’ she let out a muffled cry. Then she started sobbing again. ‘How did you pick up my father’s name?’ she asked, a lump in her throad. ‘And all about my family?’

  ‘From an unmailed letter in his pocket,’ Gautam answered, ‘after the mob had abandoned his body … In fact, I’ve already written to your mother.’

  ‘Oh God! How will she take it? … It may kill her.’

  She sat up in bed, gazing at Gautam’s face.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you, sir,’ she said, in a tremulous voice. ‘You took the trouble of writing to my mother. That was very gracious of you. The news would shatter her, I know, but still … And here I am in Delhi—abused, humiliated—and now so brazened to any sense of shame.’

  Gautam now understood the reason behind her prompt undressing; it was obviously a gesture of defiance against the world.

  ‘Are you a Muslim, sir?’

  ‘I’m now a Christian. A few days ago I was a Hindu,’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t mind becoming a Muslim. I don’t believe in these religions—they all condone violence, instigate their followers to kill …’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t sir me, please. Call me Gautam. That’s my name.’

  But she couldn’t bring herself to calling him by name as there was something very dignified about the man.

  ‘Are you a civil servant?’ Haseena asked. Her eyes had partly dried up. She was now anxious to know something about this man.

  ‘No, a journalist. I write for The Challenge. Do you read it?’

  ‘Only casually,’ she replied. ‘At home we get The Statesman.’

  ‘A much better paper,’ Gautam said. ‘Are you a graduate?’

  ‘I was studying for my BA when I was whisked away from the college gate by some masked men. Pannalal’s accomplices, surely.’

  ‘What college?’

  ‘Islamia.’

  ‘I see,’ said Gautam.

  Now he understood everything. But there was no more time to talk. He looked at his watch and exclaimed: ‘Just fifteen minutes more. Please get yourself ready. Our jailer must be out there waiting for us,’ he said. Then, quite impulsively he asked: ‘Is there anything I could do for you?’

  ‘Can you rescue me from my captors, take me back to Allahabad?’ There was a ring of humble supplication in her voice. ‘It’s very risky, I know. They coul
d kill us both. I’ve been threatened with death if I ever tried to escape.’

  ‘So you’re living in a sort of concentration camp.’

  Instantly, something flashed through his mind.

  ‘Do you know the topography of this place?’ he asked.

  ‘Fairly well,’ she whispered. ‘I wish we had the time to go up the tower and have a look all around.’

  ‘There’s no time now, I’m afraid.’

  They both looked at each other, their minds on the same wavelength.

  ‘How about meeting here again,’ said Gautam, ‘say, next Saturday?’

  A faint smile rippled across her face; for a moment she’d forgotten her pain.

  ‘But what have you got for your money, Gautam?’ The name now slipped through. ‘Tears and words—and now a hazardous undertaking? An utterly losing bargain!’

  As Gautam opened the door, there stood Pannalal in the passageway, beaming. Surely, his customer had had his money’s worth, the pimp thought. But, when he noticed that Haseena looked happy, he felt somewhat disturbed. No, he didn’t like his girls to get involved with strangers. That wasn’t professional. This fledgling would have to be broken properly, he told himself.

  ‘How did it go, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Marvellous! I didn’t have enough time, though.’

  ‘You could have carried on, sir,’ the man said, in his customary tone, ‘no extra charge, of course.’

  ‘Oh, well …’ Gautam mumbled. ‘Maybe you could fix me another round.’ Gautam hated himself for using such vulgar language. But he knew that it was the only way to keep the man off the scent.

  ‘Most certainly,’ he said. ‘The same girl or someone else? Why not try out another peach—equally exciting?’

  Had the man become suspicious? Maybe that was the reason why he wanted him unstuck from Haseena.

  ‘No, I might as well round it off with this girl, if you don’t mind … Next Saturday then—same time?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Pannalal asked Haseena to take cover under the burkha, and instantly she was whisked away.

  A few minutes later, Gautam arrived at Neel Kamal. Berry was sitting with a foreigner, boozing.

  ‘Meet Bob Cunningham,’ Berry said, pointing towards his companion. ‘An Englishman from Surrey. Works for Philips.’ Then, turning to the foreigner, he said: ‘This is Gautam. And haven’t I told you everything about him already?’