Kama

by Gurcharan Das

  In the end, we invited only a few people—those who I thought Avanti would like to meet and who might become her friends. A week before the party, I proudly took her to dine with Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi. She had the same reaction to their stunning apartment as I had when I saw it for first time with its brilliant views of the Arabian Sea. She was taken up with their carpets, paintings and books. They were wonderfully welcoming and it turned into an emotional reunion. Their warmth moved her and at one point she had tears of joy in her eyes. It confirmed the impression she had during their first encounter at the Imperial in Delhi.

  As soon as we sat down to dinner, Ramu Mama broke the news. He had heard a rumour at the stock exchange that Vikram Suri was thinking of leaving Bombay.

  ‘Is Isha going with him?’ asked Kamini Masi.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Ramu Mama quickly retreated, however, saying that all this may be idle gossip. I tended to believe him. Isha hadn’t mentioned anything but then she never talked about her husband. So, I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Why is he leaving?’ asked Kamini Masi.

  ‘Well, he has made a fortune,’ said Ramu Mama. ‘So, he doesn’t need to work. I mean he is already a legend on the exchange—it takes a lifetime to make the kind of money he has in a few years.’

  ‘So, what will he do?’ she asked.

  ‘They say he wants to retire to an ashram near his village.’

  ‘It must be difficult—what with Isha and all . . .’

  ‘He’s merely following the stages of life, isn’t he?’ said Ramu Mama.

  ‘Still, isn’t it a little early to be entering the third stage?’ asked Kamini Masi.

  I felt sorry for Isha’s husband. My thoughts went back to the prince of Chandi many years ago as I recalled a similar conversation at Aditi Malik’s party. I had felt sorry for Chandi just as I did now for Vikram Suri.

  ~

  Just as I was coming out of the bath, Avanti arrived at ‘her’ party. ‘You said to come early,’ she said, feeling embarrassed. ‘So, here I am.’

  ‘Give me a minute. I am glad you came before the others.’ I got dressed and led her to the terrace, where I offered her a drink. I had never seen her in a sari and I thought that her full figure filled the folds of the pink Banaras silk nicely, creating an alluring impression.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said nervously. ‘No one has ever given a party for me. Tell me, how can I help?’

  ‘Just give me moral support—I need it to face Isha and Anand,’ I said.

  Soon, the others arrived and they arranged themselves spontaneously into two groups: one on the terrace around Avanti; the other inside around Kamini Masi, who was speaking to Madhu, an attractive journalist with deep, intelligent eyes and sharply outlined eyebrows. Kamini Masi was wearing an understated blue ikat sari from Orissa that underlined her preference for traditional Indian aesthetics. Conversation seemed to waver in both the groups, as it often does in the first few minutes at a party, broken by new arrivals, greetings, offers of tea and drinks, and as people hunt for an interesting subject of conversation.

  Raj Desai arrived soon after the others and gravitated towards the first group, accompanied not by his wife but by Doli Sihari. All heads turned to look at the balding eminence. He noticed my copy of the Kamasutra on the coffee table, and gave me an approving, conspiratorial look. Doli went to greet Madhu but Raj’s eyes caught the fresh and natural face of Avanti, who was listening to a conversation about a new exhibition of Ara, a lesser-known figure among a serious group of artists known as the Bombay Progressive Group.

  ‘His still-lifes are really quite good,’ a young critic with the Bombay Post was telling Avanti. ‘You must go and see the show.’ He was Madhu’s husband and I had invited him because I thought he was a kind man and would be helpful to Avanti at work.

  Turning to Raj, the critic added, ‘He deserves to be better known, don’t you think?’

  ‘No,’ said the greying eminence dismissively, and it brought the conversation to a halt. There was an uneasy silence and people looked at each other awkwardly. An older woman in a quiet, elegant print asked the great man. ‘Oh, don’t be malicious—tell us something amusing.’ She was an old friend of his and not a bit daunted by his status.

  ‘That’s difficult, my dear Sheila. Only scandals and gossip are amusing; unless, of course, you are a great storyteller, as the Kamasutra over there teaches us.’

  ‘And what does it say?’ Avanti asked.

  Raj looked admiringly at Avanti, dwelling a little too long on her firm, rounded breasts. ‘Well, it says, you must first learn to be playful, not self-important; second, speak to her not about yourself but about her; finally, don’t show off by talking too much Sanskrit.’ Turning to Avanti, Raj said, ‘Will you be a dear and hand me the Kamasutra, it’s just behind you? Opening it, he found the page he wanted. ‘Listen to this! It’s in the chapter called “Lifestyle of the Man about Town”.’

  The man who tells stories in society,

  neither too much in Sanskrit

  nor too much in the local dialect

  becomes highly regarded in the social world.

  ‘Ah, to be a playful, self-effacing raconteur!’ exclaimed Sheila. ‘Alas, all the men I know are just the opposite—they only want to hear their own voices—like you, Raj.’

  Ignoring Sheila, Raj informed us that Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, had offered the same sensible advice. ‘Would you like people to think well of you? Then don’t speak well of yourself,’ he quoted Pascal.

  ‘But what about seduction?’ Sheila asked. ‘Does this formula work for a seducer too?’

  ‘Yes indeed, the Kamasutra says seduction is the art of making others think that you are more appealing than you are.’ Raj’s eyes rested again on Avanti’s breasts.

  ‘I know such a person!’ said Indu Vakil hesitatingly. She was a bright activist lawyer at the Bombay High Court. ‘I met him only last night.’

  ‘Who, who?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘Anand Tyagi.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sheila. ‘He is Dev and Geeti’s son.’ Turning to Indu, she asked, ‘Tell me, what’s he like?’

  ‘You’ll soon find out—he’s coming this evening,’ I said.

  ‘Well, he is certainly the talk of the town,’ said Sheila. ‘All the women are falling over him, I hear—especially one, Isha Malik.’ I felt a stab of jealousy.

  ‘Stop it, you gossips!’ pronounced a grey-haired lady who had just arrived in a pink and grey French chiffon sari. Ruchi Saigal was the wife of a powerful executive in the Tata group of companies, and she was much in demand socially mainly because of her husband’s position.

  ‘Men always get away with it; society can be cruel to women,’ said Madhu with a sigh.

  ‘Isha is married and ought to know better!’ said Ruchi.

  ‘But the upper classes, my dear, you know, how . . .’

  ‘What upper classes!’ hissed Ruchi, cutting Madhu mid-sentence.

  ‘Well, Isha is old money, after all, what with the mills and all . . .’

  ‘Old wealth declining into poverty,’ said Ruchi smugly.

  ‘Even Nehru—he carried on with Lady M. The upper classes are different, Ruchi,’ said Sheila. ‘I don’t know how Isha’s husband copes with it, poor fellow.’

  ‘Vikram Suri is a brilliant man,’ said Madhu. ‘They call him the wizard of Dalal Street.’

  ‘My husband says the same thing but I think he is a fool . . . to let his wife slip out of his fingers. Men are so inept at these things,’ said Ruchi.

  ‘They say he is going away to an ashram,’ said Madhu.

  I noticed that Ramu Mama had remained silent throughout this exchange even though he probably knew far more about Vikram Suri than anyone else in the gathering.

  ‘Jealousy makes us do strange things,’ said Raj.

  ‘I have never felt jealous,’ said Mrs Saigal. ‘Only insecure and immature people do.’

  Ruchi Saigal tended to see the world in bl
ack and white. She didn’t get a reaction, however, as all heads turned to the door as Isha walked in holding herself very erect, followed by her husband a few paces behind. Looking straight ahead, she moved with a quick, firm yet light step and stopped directly before me. She apologized for being late and gave me a strange look. She turned to look around and I thought she was searching for Anand. Not finding him, she frowned. I hastened towards Avanti, and with an affectionate arm around her, I introduced her to Isha. Before they got a chance to say a word, Raj swooped upon us and swept Avanti away.

  I was pleased to be alone with Isha at last but she was not. She was fidgety and uncomfortable. I had been in a state of despair, anxious to have a word with her. Since I had told Isha so much about Avanti, I knew she would be curious and would come. This was my chance and I practically dragged her to a corner on the terrace where I thought we would not be heard.

  I miss you, Isha. Perhaps I am mistaken . . .’

  She looked coldly into my face. ‘No, you are not mistaken. I may be looking at you, listening to you, but I am thinking of him. I love him; I am his.’

  ‘But what has happened? I love you, Isha. I want to marry you.’

  ‘Then do this for me, never—never utter those words again.’

  ‘I am willing to wait. I ask only for the right to hope . . .’

  ‘And suffer?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll wait. I shall love you from afar. There’s only one happiness in life for me—your love!’

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘But you did love me once, didn’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t say if it was love. It might have been something else, something less personal.’

  ‘You mean you never loved me?’

  ‘Yes, if you want to put it that way. But I’m not sure. At any rate, I don’t feel the emotion of love for you. Whatever might have existed between us, it’s over.’ There was a long pause. I was hurting and didn’t know what to say. ‘Now, let’s forget all this and enjoy your party. I cannot stand you looking at me with that long, sad face.’ Then she disentangled her sari, turned around, and went inside.

  ~

  Unlike classical Indian poets, writers in the West have never felt shy about expressing heartbreak or male jealousy. Roman poets, around the same time, accomplished themselves in expressing this moral emotion. They wrote freely about their love affairs in Latin elegies, concealing the name of their beloved under a pseudonym. I was particularly drawn to Sextus Propertius from the Augustan age (50–15 BC). His bitter and torrid affair with Cynthia veered wildly between emotional extremes, somewhat similar to mine with Isha. I could easily identify with the debilitating effects of his affair:

  Has some wrong finally driven you out of the shut doors of

  another and brought you back to my bed?

  For where have you spent the long hours of the night that was

  supposed to be mine,

  you who return exhausted when the stars, alas, have run their

  course?

  I remembered Isha and the night she made me wait for hours, getting home intoxicated and promptly falling asleep in my bed. Like Isha’s sleep, Cynthia’s is also fretful and restless. Seeing her tossing and turning, the Roman lover grows suspicious that she herself might have been unfaithful.

  And as often as you sighed and gave an occasional shudder,

  I froze, trusting readily in an empty sign,

  lest some dream be bringing you unfamiliar fears,

  or someone be forcing you to be his against your will.

  Just as I expected exclusive attentions from Isha, so does the Roman lover, and he feels anxious at the thought that someone else might try to possess Cynthia. Although his jealousy is unjustified, he has invented a rival and fears Cynthia’s infidelity. I too had been guilty of invoking an imaginary rival before Anand came along. In fact, to make her infidelity more bearable, I had tried to imagine her as a passive victim of male desire. Although my fears might have been groundless, I can’t be sure, but they weren’t an obstacle to feeling jealous. What matters is that I believed in them. Jealousy needs a rival and if there isn’t one, it invents one.

  Much as Isha’s resistance this evening had served only to heighten my desire like the Roman lover’s, I found it imperative to re-establish my claim over what I had lost. My feelings of love were superseded by my desire to have what another possessed. I began to look upon myself as Isha’s suitor rather than an established lover. I wanted to test how she would respond to me if she thought I were someone else—to know how it felt to be in the position of a rival who steals what belongs to another. Cynthia’s lover wonders if his rival is someone like him, capable of edging him out. All this raises questions in my mind about whether Anand had a better claim to Isha’s attentions.

  I learnt from the elegies of Propertius and Ovid that it is often better not to show jealousy. Repression is a better strategy in an erotic relationship. It is tiresome to hear accusations and be the object of adultery charges.

  Continual accusations have made many unpopular.

  Often a woman is overcome by a man’s silence.

  If you have seen something, always deny you have seen it!

  Or if perhaps something has hurt you, deny you are hurt!

  A jealous outburst is counterproductive. Better to keep quiet to avoid becoming an object of derision. The advice of the Roman elegists is ironical—they could not help expressing their own jealousy—but it makes one also appreciate why Sanskrit poets were reluctant to express male jealousy.

  ~

  When Isha said ‘It’s over,’ she broke my heart. Heartbreak is the helpless side of love when you become aware that you must let go but cannot. It happens sometimes at the end of an affair and is often the result of unrequited love, which, according to some, is the only kind of love there is. I would normally have plunged into depression. Instead, I felt a burden lifting. To my surprise, I felt free from the doubts and agonies of jealousy that had been torturing me all these weeks. It was as though a painful tooth that had been aching for a long time had been removed. It was a relief to know that I could resume my life once more and think about other things. But this liberating thought quickly gave way to a baser one. I wanted to see Isha hurt, to pay for what she had inflicted on me. I now hated her and wanted her to suffer for taking away my peace of mind. It was another phase in my kama education.

  Meanwhile, the party for Avanti was in full swing. There were voices outside and I moved towards the door. I could tell it was Anand. I glanced at Isha and she was staring at the approaching figure. Avanti also turned to look at him.

  ‘Ah, here you are at last!’ I greeted Anand as he entered the flat. We were meeting after almost ten years and for some reason, he did not seem as tall as I remembered him. He had shaved his beard and sported a clean-cut look. But the rest of him was the same—a well-formed square frame, short-cropped black hair, a good-natured expression on his calm and resolute face, loosely fitting clothes. As he came in, his gentle eyes shone above his faint and modest smile. He embraced me warmly and turned first towards Isha and then Avanti. Turning his friendly eyes from one to the other, he said whatever came into his head.

  I watched Anand move effortlessly from one person to the next. People were attracted to him, to his sparkling eyes, black hair and eyebrows, and smiling face. He seemed to produce an effect of kindliness and good humour. The women were especially drawn to him—it didn’t matter if they were young or old—a smile lit up their faces after meeting him. Anand was a natural nagaraka and the skills of the Kamasutra came to him intuitively. When he saw a woman, he looked first at her clothes, and seemed to find a nice, original way to describe them. To one he told a little anecdote, to another he described an emotion. But he didn’t fail to leave an impression on everyone he met.

  After a round of meetings, he decided to speak to Avanti and I could tell that she was immediately captivated. They spent a fair amount of time together and I wondered n
ervously what they were talking about. What was going on in his mind? Was he undressing her in his imagination, trying to imagine how her naked body looked like? Or was he thinking how he would make love to her? When I looked at her face, I found a new expression in her eyes and I grew concerned. Their conversation came to an end finally. As he was walking away, I saw a quivering light flashing in Avanti’s eyes. She gave a smile of excitement that involuntarily curved her lips. She had always been a sensible person, hard-grounded, and now she seemed intoxicated with admiration. ‘Yes, there is something diabolical about him,’ I thought.

  Anand reached Isha ultimately. She was waiting eagerly and her face lit up. Her dark eyes shone under her thick lashes, resting with friendly attention on his face. There was an easy familiarity between them; their body language made it obvious that they were lovers. My heart continued to sink. I trudged to the far end of the room and dropped into a chair. I could not keep my eyes off them, however. They had moved quietly to a corner on the terrace where they stood talking, oblivious to the world. Leaning in a relaxed way against the wall, he was listening intently.

  Desperate to find out what they were saying, I got up and went towards them, pretending to collect empty glasses.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I overheard Anand say.

  But they were suddenly distracted. Isha’s husband had dropped a glass and everyone turned to look at him. Isha had once confessed to me that theirs was a humdrum, desireless marriage; she had ceased to feel anything physical for him a long time ago. He was standing alone next to the lamp on my desk and in that light, I thought his collar was sticking out—he looked like the man who delivered newspapers daily at my door. The light must be playing tricks. Still it was hard to imagine Vikram Suri as ‘the wizard of Dalal Street’. His plight had to be worse than mine; at least, I had the security of possessing nothing, and I could not lose what I did not possess. He still owned her presence on the dining table, the sound of her feet on the stairs, the opening and closing of doors, perhaps even a kiss on the cheek.