To cheer him up, I reminded him of his legendary days on Dalal Street. He modestly brushed aside the compliment. He too had seen the recent flattering piece in Business Times that assessed his legacy. He told me that he spent his time mostly in his village in Punjab and occasionally came to Delhi to get a whiff of the city air. He was rightly proud to have transformed his village—he had set up a school, an engineering college and a hospital there. A significant act of philanthropy!
It wasn’t long before the subject of Isha came up. She had been in a bad way the past few years, he said. She might have been on drugs but he couldn’t be sure. She believed that she was extremely poor and he would give her small sums from time to time when he visited Delhi. ‘You know how rich families are—asset rich and income poor.’ He had offered to help sort out her affairs and put them in order but she never took him up on the offer. She seemed to be afraid of the old family accountant, Munshi-ji, who had managed the family’s financial affairs for generations and who was responsible for her monthly allowance.
Before I rejoined my parents, Vikram Suri invited me to his village. I suggested we meet sooner and he agreed to dine with me the following night. I had many unanswered questions. Just as we were finalizing our dinner date, I saw Anand coming in our direction. Three of Isha’s lovers were suddenly together—a grand testimonial to a person who had lived for the sake of a certain kind of love that none of us ever understood.
Anand had, meanwhile, returned to his firm and moved back to Bombay. He had quit politics after Rajiv Gandhi lost the elections in 1989 amidst allegations of corruption—the infamous Bofors Scandal. Rajiv was weak but his lasting legacy is that he jolted India out of the Fabian socialist era. He was assassinated in 1991, a few months before Prime Minister Narasimha Rao made the most momentous move in India’s economic history by scrapping the edifice of socialist institutions built over forty years, and liberalized the economy. This followed the collapse of communism around the world. In the upper-middle classes, the liberalization wave precipitated a sexual revolution as well.
Anand put his arm around me and we walked back to where my parents were seated. He embraced my parents warmly and found a seat near us. It was a full house by now, rows and rows of people dressed smartly in white—a tribute to one of Delhi’s grand, albeit decaying families. The programme itself was a simple, dignified performance of spiritual songs performed by one of the great classical singers of the time, Kishori Amonkar. She had been a friend of Isha’s mother and had volunteered to sing that morning. She sang exquisitely and touched many hearts. There were no speeches, mercifully, and the whole thing was over in forty-five minutes.
~
Kishori’s music spoke to my soul. It evoked in me a despair over the human condition and I found myself once again beginning a steady descent into kama pessimism. In contrast to my fascination with the tragic Wagnerian sentiment of liebestod, I began to veer towards the Indian ideal of shanta-rasa, ‘peace and stillness’. Although his operas are tragic, Wagner had reinforced my optimistic feelings about kama. As a quintessential kama optimist, he had shown to the world how Tristan and Isolde gained salvation through sin, which, of course, horrified the kama pessimists of the Christian Church. I had earlier thought of Isha’s ‘love-death’ as an exaltation, a dramatic source of ultimate beauty.
The mood that Kishori’s rasa evoked was shanta-rasa; it conjured in my mind a solid, living Isha who had turned into a dead corpse in the hospital and consisted today of ashes which were going to be scattered in the river shortly. So, which was the real Isha—the living body or the rotting corpse or the ashes? The Buddhist would have answered that there is no single permanent substance; everything is empty in every way. To my father, death was a dissolution of the self or a merging with the atman, ‘the cosmic soul’, and freedom from rebirth. There could be no love beyond samsara, ‘the worldly life of constant change’, linked inextricably to karma and rebirth. The final goal of life was moksha from the cycle of samsara and human love. The joy and fulfilment of love could exist only here and now, not beyond it.
The Buddhists are, of course, the ultimate kama pessimists. They believe that a person attached to kama is a slave of death, and even call the god of love ‘Mara’, the god of death. Mara was the famous antagonist of the Buddha in the final days of his struggle for enlightenment under the bodhi tree. In the Jataka stories, Mara poses constant obstacles for Shakyamuni Buddha in his quest for enlightenment. The Jains are not far behind, and in a collection of poems. Amitagati says:
It is better to throw oneself
into a blazing fire
or to jump into the sea
infested with sharks and crocodiles
or run into battle
where mighty soldiers hurl all kinds of weapons
—better to do this
than to indulge in sex with a woman,
for that would generate hundreds of rebirths
and endless suffering.
There is a remarkable story in a Jain literary collection called Brihatkatha, ‘The Grand Story’. It is about the adventures of a handsome prince, who acquires skills that make him irresistible to women. He is a pleasant enough fellow and seems to enjoy his good fortune. In each adventure, he ends up falling in love with a different girl and succeeds in winning her over. But as soon as he succeeds with one woman, he begins to desire another. Thus, he drifts from one woman to the next. Eventually, his conquests reach more than five hundred and he decides to settle down. He inherits a powerful kingdom and sends messengers throughout the realm to seek out all the women he has known in his life. They are found and brought to his palace where he marries them and makes them his wives. The story seems to be heading towards ‘and they lived happily ever after’ until at the height of his success, he encounters the possibility of death. As a result, he pulls out his hair and becomes a Jain ascetic.
The Grand Story illustrates the fickleness of human passion. There is no real fulfilment since each satisfied desire gives rise to a new, unsatisfied one. The drift from one girl to the next is a function of fate and destiny. Death teaches him that our emotions are capricious and ephemeral. It’s a universal tale of unfulfillable male passion. It appeared in the West as the story of Don Juan by a Spanish monk, Tirso de Molina, in the sixteenth century. Unlike the Jain story, Don Juan is punished in the end by the ghost of one of his mistress’s fathers.
~
As we rose from our seats, I looked around and recognized Neena. She was surrounded by some of Isha’s friends from the old days; three elegantly attired dowagers—the princesses of Chandi, Sunet and Samba—were getting up from the front row. My mother also spotted them and remarked that they had preserved themselves well over the years. I remembered them from Aditi Malik’s parties. Bharat Mirla, who had also been a fixture at these parties, was getting up from the second row, along with some other members of Delhi’s business houses. He must be pleased, I thought, by the elimination of socialist controls on business. I had heard something to the contrary, however. Many of the grand old houses were gripped by fear and uncertainty after the reforms, worried whether they would be able to compete in the brave new world. They had been joined by other protectionists in what came to be known as the Bombay Club, and were actively lobbying against allowing imports and foreign companies into India.
As my parents and I were leaving 23 Prithviraj Road, I heard a familiar voice. It was the young man who had phoned me in Bombay from the solicitor’s office. He reminded me that I was expected inside the house. I told my parents that there were some legal formalities that I had to attend to with regard to Isha’s estate. I asked them to go on home and I would soon join them. When I entered the book-lined study of Aditi Malik, a room I had entered only a few times when I was young, I found two partners from the solicitors’ firm seated next to a large Italian rosewood desk. There were others present but I didn’t recognize them, except for an unctuous, elderly man in a dhoti, seated prominently in the front. He must be t
he dreaded Munshi-ji. At the back were standing a few elderly family retainers. One of them was a greying maid in spectacles, who recognized me and gave me a big welcoming smile. I remembered her and smiled back. She was the kind soul, who, sensing my vulnerability, used to offer me hot cocoa when I would come to the house to play badminton. At the other end were seated a few distant relatives of Isha’s mother. It struck me that there wasn’t a single close family member present. But this was not surprising because there was no one . . . Isha was the last of the line.
The solicitor began sombrely with much legal mumbo-jumbo and after a few minutes, I discovered to my shock that I was not only the executor of the estate but also its main beneficiary. There were murmurs in the room. Each of the family members and the family accountant, Munshi-ji, were given titles either to properties or to small businesses of the family. The servants received handsome pensions. It was all over in fifteen minutes. As we were trooping out, the solicitors asked me, as the executor, to stay. Munshi-ji gave me an ugly look as he rose to leave and the distant family members were visibly unhappy.
‘Why me?’ I asked when we were alone.
The older solicitor told me in a hushed voice that Isha genuinely believed that she was poor and didn’t think she was leaving me anything of real value. ‘She worried, in fact, that she might have saddled you with a headache.’
‘Headache?’
‘Yes, mostly to do with unpaid taxes, debtors and bankrupt companies. She had, in fact, moved into a tiny room in the house before she died because she didn’t think she could afford to heat the large old bedroom which she had occupied earlier.’
‘What do you think? Am I going to be rich?’
‘The truth is that we don’t know. Your main challenge will be to extract information from Munshi-ji. He keeps things close to his chest. No one has challenged him for decades; so, be careful how you go about it. He will be hostile.’
The solicitor went on to explain that Munshi-ji did not like interference in the family’s financial affairs. Neither Isha nor her mother had paid any attention to the family’s businesses and he had had a completely free hand over the finances, and frankly, had got used to having his way.
‘Over the years we sent messages—first to Isha’s mother, then to Isha—to look into some of the more difficult issues. But they did nothing. Money did not interest them as long as they got enough to manage their lives. As a result,’ he added, ‘there has been no one to look after the companies.’ They had either been run to the ground or the money had been siphoned off by their managers. Some of the properties had been attached by the tax department for non-payment of taxes or hawked to creditors.
‘What about this house . . . 23 Prithviraj Road?’ I asked.
‘The main family homes in Delhi, Calcutta and the summer house in Simla are unattached and free of encumbrances.’
~
It was raining when I returned to 23 Prithviraj Road the following morning. As I stood outside the gate with an umbrella, I was seized by a sudden attack of shyness. For an instant, I seemed to become once more the awkward teenager, who had been filled with fear at the thought of penetrating this forbidding sandstone fortress.
‘This is mine now, all mine!’ I kept saying to myself. I repeated the words in order to give myself confidence. There was a strange thrill in uttering those words but they didn’t seem to give me either self-assurance or a sense of ownership. I felt profoundly awed at the formidable wrought-iron gate and the winding path, leading to the classic sandstone structure that I was now able to identify as ‘Victorian Oriental’, a style that had been popular at the time when Isha’s grandfather had built the house in the 1930s. I told myself dismissively, ‘It’s only a pile of stones,’ but it didn’t seem to help shake off my diffidence. The gatekeeper, however, arrived soon and put an end to my hesitation. He recognized me, opened the gate and led me in.
I walked somewhat more confidently along the driveway, past the vast lawns, and stopped at the entrance to the main house, where I turned around to survey the expanse of the grounds. The door opened and I was welcomed in with some deference by the same elderly maid in glasses. My heartbeat quickened at the sight of the dark mahogany closet in the mirrored vestibule. It was here that Isha had leaned dangerously close to my face and invited me to join her friends for badminton after school. Shaking off the rain, I shut the umbrella, opened the hall closet and placed it in the umbrella stand. As I was closing the closet, I spied a pink raincoat. Once again, I was seized by fear. Above the raincoat was a matching pink hat and beneath it black rain boots. My anxiety grew at the sight of the rain gear. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I shivered, as memories began to slowly invade my whole being. Suddenly, it is the first day after the winter break; I am imagining myself cycling home, trying helplessly to keep from falling in the lashing rain. My heart is heavy because Isha has cut me off; I have also done poorly in the exams and got yelled at by the deputy head. But what do I see?
Entrancing Isha is before me, waiting in the rain in a pink raincoat and hat and black gumboots. By her side is a very wet Cho Yo. Instead of mocking me, her brilliant eyes are smiling, beseeching me to stop. As I slow down, Cho Yo runs up to me. Isha takes my hand and leads me up the winding driveway, past the huge lawns to the kitchen, the dog yelping behind us. I dry myself with a towel, the maid gives me hot cocoa and biscuits.
The involuntary memory, triggered by the sight of the raincoat in the closet, had assumed a life of its own. I found myself being pulled upstairs into what had once been Isha’s exquisite bedroom. There was no log fire burning today in this large, bright room; it was cold, shabby and unkempt. But the Klimt painting was hanging from the same spot. It was here, in front of the painting, that Isha had given me my first lesson in love. My memory has again taken charge and there she stands, tall, slim and well made, smiling at me insolently. I can feel her breathing as she draws closer.
‘You may kiss me if you want to.’
I was confused.
‘Have you ever kissed a girl before?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Do you know how to kiss? I can show you if you want.’
I nodded nervously.
‘Close your eyes, Amar.’
I felt her draw closer. Her breathing was heavy. I felt her hands on my shoulders and I waited, but nothing happened.
‘Open your eyes—you look so odd with your eyes closed.’
I opened them and stepped back. Her long, brown lashes, and thick braids enveloped her big eyes.
‘Come near. Nearer,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
She grabbed my shirt and my face became flushed. I looked eager and apprehensive.
‘You may put your arms around me, Amar.’
Obediently, I bent over her and placed my arms clumsily around her neck. My heart beat violently. She raised herself, tossed her hair back with a quick motion of her head and kissed me on the lips. She stopped, and then kissed me again, this time for a very long time. She smiled faintly and slipped away to the other end of the room. My heart beat anxiously as I followed her.
‘You do like me!’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled hoarsely.
She put her arms around my neck again, and her braids fell on my shoulders. She pulled me towards her as though we were wrestling, locked together. I did not resist. Her cheeks were inflamed by the effort. She laughed and said that I was tickling her. She held me gripped between her legs like a pole that she was trying to climb. We rocked back and forth. She was soon out of breath with the strapping exercise and the heat of our bodies. I felt a few drops of sweat wrung from me by the effort. A feeling of great pleasure came over me that I did not understand then.
As the enchanting dream came to an end, I turned around to find the elderly maid in spectacles holding a cup of hot cocoa and smiling at me. She said that she had recognized me instantly yesterday. I told her that I too remembered her vividly. She must have been in her thirties
then and must be seventy now; she had aged well, I thought.
‘Sir, it is proper that the house belongs to you now. For you were the only one who truly and selflessly loved her.’ Isha had made this confession to her only a few days before she died. She explained to me that even in the old days I had stood out in my guileless innocence amongst Isha’s friends, who were all self-absorbed, artificial and calculating.
I took the cup of cocoa and smiled gratefully but I also knew that I could never live in this house.
~
Isha’s pink raincoat was my ‘madeleine moment’, setting off remembrances of a naive schoolboy on a bicycle who dared to set foot inside the magical 23 Prithviraj Road. These memories lay hidden, undisturbed until today, and now suddenly they had come to life in my consciousness. They were more real than the toast I had eaten at breakfast that morning. Time is neither linear nor clock-like; it’s not a measure of fixed and unchangeable moments. Instead, different moments of the present and the past flow together at the same time. The sight of the pink raincoat, prompted by the unseasonal rain this morning, had opened a reservoir of past memories. Human beings are essentially nostalgic, I find, and their dominant time seems to be the past. Hence, memories flowed in a rush, without being summoned—the raincoat was merely the spark, a symbol of the past that arose unintentionally.
In Proust’s novel, the narrator recounts how it was a family custom to visit his elderly great-aunt on Sunday afternoons. As refreshment, she would offer petite madeleines and cups of lime-flower tisane to her visitors. These were plump little cakes which looked ‘as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell’. Many years later, when Marcel is older, he is again offered the same two items in a different setting and the combined taste of the two sparks off in his mind long-lost memories of his visits to his dead great-aunt. What follows is one of the most famous acts of remembering in literature, as Proust describes his ‘madeleine moment’:
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