Kama

by Gurcharan Das

  Isha taught me that kama can be a curse as well as a blessing. It’s a fundamental force in human affairs, sometimes good, but often awful, cruel and dangerous. Isha, of all people, had seen through the perversity of passion. Once she mentioned in Bombay that there was a lesson that all smart women learnt early in life. It was that all men desire women and a woman must use this fact to her advantage. This was why all wives are doomed to be unhappy, and she wasn’t going to be one of them. She was going to play to win. She had few illusions, and thought of love as a cruel, fierce sport, to be played with no holds barred, and without ever calling on any goodness of soul or sincerity of purpose to mitigate it. I just happened to come along at the wrong time and became her unwitting and frightened victim. Her role was to sustain my enchantment during this vicious game, to keep alive my obsessive desire. She accepted me one day; rejected me the next. She stole a kiss one afternoon and claimed it didn’t mean anything the next; she took me away in her charmed carriage; and abandoned me thereafter.

  When I met her in Bombay and we began a proper affair, I thought it would be a love story. I was twenty-three, and I had expected she would divorce her husband and marry me. It was all about love, good and bad, wise and unwise. Yes, there was adultery but I had every reason to believe that there would be a happy ending—all of us want happy endings both in stories and in life. When this didn’t happen, I tried to find out why—where did the lovers go wrong? The sad truth is that our ‘love story’ was never a part of the script that Isha had imagined for her life. I tried unsuccessfully for years to make myself loved by her. I now realize that it would have only made me unhappy if she had loved me. Marrying her would have been a disaster.

  My affair with Isha was a cataclysm. I can’t begin to imagine what a cruel, unhappy existence awaited me if we had married. It would have been as disastrous as Swann marrying Odette in Proust’s novel. Like Odette, Isha played the game like the members of her mother’s salon. As I think back to Aditi Malik’s famous parties, I find that everyone who was there exuded falseness, much like the Verdurins in Proust’s book. They almost succeeded in making the noble Swann as false as they were, but in the end, Swann’s honesty got him expelled from the Verdurin salon. Falsity was woven equally into the fabric of Aditi Malik’s Delhi just as it was in Parisian high society at the turn of the nineteenth century.

  I have sometimes wondered why Swann married Odette. Did he do it as a favour after she became pregnant by some other man? Was it out of some peculiar sense of nobility? It is mystifying. Do we ever really know why people do the things they do? But this is not about Odette—this is about Isha. She was my first love and I still admire her for seeking the impossible and having the courage to defy society. In the 1960s and 1970s, divorces were rare in India, and you were quickly stigmatized. We divided women into ‘virtuous’ and ‘loose’; we defined ‘virtue’ only in terms of a woman’s refusal to succumb to sexual temptation; adultery by husbands was regrettable but understandable. Yet, Isha could get away with a lot; my mother explained it in class terms—Isha belonged to the ‘upper-upper’ class and they made their own rules; it was not uncommon for a woman in her position to have multiple lovers prior to marriage, whereas in our middle-class society a single act of indiscretion was unpardonable and brought quick punishment. To prove her point, my mother reminded me that despite Isha’s pitiable end, the elite of society showed up at her chautha. They may have felt sorry for her but they had also come to pay homage to one of Delhi’s ‘superior’ families.

  Isha’s life ended in sickness and tragedy. This is an unfortunate side of kama. In some ways, she bears resemblance to the heroine of Flaubert’s masterpiece of literary realism, Madame Bovary, in mid-nineteenth–century France. Both Isha and Emma Bovary were improvident, impulsive and self-dramatizing. Trapped in loveless marriages, both fell in love with a series of unsuitable men who left them unfulfilled emotionally. Neither knew how to reciprocate the genuine love of the one individual who offered it unconditionally and sincerely. Both had made an unconscious connection between love and suffering.

  Although their social and economic circumstances were different, Emma’s inner life was similar to Isha’s. Married to a country doctor in provincial Normandy, Emma yearns for glamour, romance and the big city, and begins a series of adulterous affairs with men who consider her nothing more than an amusing distraction. In the end, she neglects her distraught husband and her lovely child; she squanders the family’s money, and raging with unrequited desire, kills herself. Once again, passion seems to be linked to death, destroying its guileless victim. As she is dying, she hears the hoarse voice of a blind beggar singing outside:

  When the sun shines warm above,

  It turns a maiden’s thoughts to love.

  Emma begins to laugh, a ghastly desperate laugh as the beggar ends his song:

  The wind it blew so hard one day,

  Her little petticoat flew away!

  It is hard to imagine a happy ending either to Emma’s or Isha’s lives. Both sought the impossible; both took enormous risks; both suffered from excessive aspiration; both were headstrong, determined and self-destructive; but the universe would not bend to their will. There was too large a gap between illusion and reality. Instead of condemning them, however, I feel compassion. I try and imagine a different fate for Isha but I doubt if she could ever have become a well-adjusted, non-compulsive, responsible and caring person.

  I ask myself, why did life turn out so badly for Isha? Was it inevitable? The answer, I think, is that she saw herself mostly as a reflection of male desire. She perceived her role passively—not in loving but in ‘being loved’. Many women make narcissistic investments in their bodies but it doesn’t end quite so badly. Isha’s ended poorly because she lacked guile. Psychologists might blame it on an ‘absent father’ who was only a shadowy existence during her early years, but the question is: why do people fall in love with someone who makes them miserable?

  Avanti kept asking me this repeatedly during my unhappy affair with Isha in Bombay. Clearly, my attachment to Isha was irrational. Why was I acting against my own chances of happiness? I could never give Avanti a proper answer. But is there ever a proper answer? It seems to me that my relationship with Isha did not begin on that fateful day at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. It started in our respective childhoods; long before we met, the patterns of behaviour had been settled; both of us had learnt as children to love in a certain way; at least, in how we relate to the other, which went on to govern our later karmic lives.

  ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even the past,’ says William Faulkner. The memories of my past are insistent, leaving me wondering about the injustice and unknowability of it all. We are quick to stereotype people—‘wicked Isha’, ‘virtuous Avanti’. Kama teaches that we inevitably go through various stages of love under the direction of his five arrows: when we first glimpse another; how we fall in love; how we hesitate, struggle and suffer; and then, how we tire of love; and finally, how it dies. It is not what we might-have-been and should-have-done. It is simply the way things are. Be grateful that you are alive and for what you have.

  It had now grown dark and I turned to take a last look at the front lawn; a melancholic verse of Bhanu Datta crossed my mind:

  You stayed awake all night, and yet

  It’s my eyes that are throbbing;

  you were the one who drank the wine,

  and yet it’s my head that’s splitting;

  and in the bower buzzing with bees

  it was you who stole beauty’s fruit,

  yet I’m the one that Kama wounds

  with his arrows that burn like fire.

  ~

  It was now time to return. There were many reasons that drew me to Bombay. I missed Avanti and the girls; I had spoken to them off and on briefly on the phone but it wasn’t the same thing. I wanted to tell Avanti about a change in our fortunes and make one final plea to her to come back. I had decided to resign formally from my c
ompany. It was not because they had treated me shabbily but I had now tasted working for myself and realized how much more satisfying it could be. I had mostly sorted out the financial mess that I had inherited but I would have to come back to Delhi in order to turn around many of the sick businesses. It was a full-time job and I liked it.

  I arrived at Bombay Central on a bright Sunday morning. It was early and I knew that Avanti and the girls would be at home. I couldn’t wait to see them and hopped into a taxi and went directly to my old home across from the Oval. I was anxious to break the news about the latest developments in my life, hoping secretly to win her over to the idea of starting a new life at 23 Prithviraj Road. Although money never impressed Avanti, I hoped that she might see this as a chance to make a clean break with Bombay and the sadness of our life there.

  Feeling anxious and tense, I rang the doorbell. It was opened by my older girl, and as soon as she saw me, she jumped into my arms. The younger one followed suit. Avanti came rushing and welcomed me with a guarded smile. I sat down and narrated in detail the whole story of Isha’s sad end.

  ‘Anand told me that the chautha was packed. But you certainly took your time to come back.’

  I recounted at length the events of the past month—the reading of the will, the mess in the family’s business affairs and the frauds I had uncovered. It had taken time to sort things out, including the sacking of key managers and accountants. I then told her that I was thinking of resigning from my company since I would now have my hands full, fixing the businesses I had inherited.

  ‘Inherited? You mean, she left everything to you! Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. The lawyers said that she believed she was poor and was, in fact, saddling me with debts and other responsibilities.’

  ‘Why you? Have you been in touch with her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, you are a rich man!’

  ‘Yes, if I can turn the businesses around.’ There was a long silence. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. ‘Come back to me,’ I appealed to her. ‘Let’s put everything behind us and make a new life at 23 Prithviraj Road and leave the sadnesses of Bombay behind.’

  ‘So, you are moving to Delhi?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Surely, you are not thinking of living in Isha’s house?’

  I looked at her puzzled.

  ‘I couldn’t live in her house.’

  This was the first signal that Avanti might consider coming back to me. I was secretly elated even though I did not understand why she had strong feelings against the house.

  ‘Isha wanted you to be the executor of her estate, not the owner,’ she said.

  ‘But the will states clearly that I have inherited the bulk of the estate.’

  ‘That’s because she wasn’t in sound mind. You said so yourself—she thought she was poor.’

  ‘What should I do then?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I mean, it’s your life, Amar.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘I don’t know but I feel we can’t take her money.’

  She had used ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ and this was another hopeful sign.

  ‘But what will happen to the wealth?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think she meant for you to inherit a vast fortune.’

  ‘So, what will happen to it?’

  ‘You should go by the spirit of her wishes, not take the will literally.’

  I was confused.

  ‘Ask Ramu Mama—he knows about these things.’

  It took a few minutes for the idea to sink in that I might not become rich after all. It didn’t shock me and I didn’t protest because deep down, my intuition matched hers. I too was ambivalent about the idea of inheriting a vast empire.

  ‘Ah, you mean we should create a charity trust and all the profits of the businesses should go into the trust?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ She was now excited. ‘You should think of yourself as a trustee. I’m sure you’ll fix the businesses. You’re good at that sort of a thing. You’ll do a good job and enjoy doing it. But I would never be comfortable living in her house.’

  Was this the third time she was hinting that she might come back? Or was I reading too much into what she said? I felt hopeful.

  ‘What would the trust do with the money?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘Do what Isha’s husband has done. Vikram Suri can guide you. There’s so much to be done—build schools, hospitals, colleges!’

  ‘Can I say something, Avanti?’ I said nervously. ‘I cannot think of a life without you and the girls.’

  She rose and went towards the window. She suspected what was coming and was embarrassed to look me in the eye.

  ‘I shall say it only once,’ I continued. ‘I love you from my soul, and will give you all my life, as much of it as you will take. My old life is done. I have repaid my karma—Isha is dead and Amaya has gone forever. Our continued separation is not only absurd but it is a recurring nightmare. That past is dead.’

  She remained silent, looking out of the window. After a pause, she said, matter-of-factly, ‘The past is never dead but there is another problem.’

  I looked at her apprehensively.

  ‘I am involved with Anand.’

  I was crushed. I held on tightly to the sofa chair to remain steady.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I haven’t given him an answer yet.’

  She began to speak as though she were talking to herself. ‘I didn’t like him at first. I disagreed with his ideas on love and marriage. But over these years, I have discovered a new side to him. He is the one who helped convince your mother about our marriage, for example. He is complicated but a good person at heart.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Although she repeated the same words, her tone was different in my case, I thought. She was obviously torn and confused, but it seemed that she sounded more affectionate when it came to me, giving me something to hope for.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Anand has invited us, the children and me, for a holiday to a tea garden that his friend owns in the Darjeeling hills. I was thinking we might go there during the children’s school break next week.’

  ‘What do the girls want?’

  ‘They don’t like him.’

  ‘What do they think of me?’

  ‘Well, they adore you—you know that. Not a day goes by when they don’t miss you.’

  ‘So, you are going to Darjeeling?’

  ‘I’m confused—I honestly don’t know.’

  I was left with an impression that Avanti had not completed her analysis and not reached a QED, and I had reasons to be hopeful.

  ~

  After a tearful farewell to the girls, I left for my apartment in the suburbs. On the way, an infinite feeling of sadness came over me. By moving alone to Delhi, I realized that I might lose Avanti and the girls forever. I had watched Avanti closely this morning. She wasn’t physically as attractive as Isha or Amaya, but I could have chosen only her as my life partner. She had blossomed again in my eyes’ imagination—a bit like a muted sketch of Cézanne that a casual observer passes over in a museum but a lover of Cézanne, who has trained his eye to dwell on his subtle and subdued qualities, many of them in his imagination, will dwell on it.

  To take my mind off these unhappy thoughts, I jumped into action as soon as I arrived in Khar. While I was on the phone telling the landlord that I was leaving, I noticed a special delivery from my company awaiting me on the dining table. Opening it, I discovered that it was a flattering letter from the chairman conveying the board’s decision to reinstate me as managing director, effective from the first of the following month. He was deeply apologetic about the inordinate delay in restoring me to my rightful position, and he had called a special meeting of the board to announce the decision. He invited me to join them for lunch with th
e board and senior managers after the meeting on Friday.

  I phoned him and thanked him and explained, somewhat awkwardly, my changed circumstances. I expressed regret at my inability to accept the honour. A month ago, I thought to myself, I would have jumped at the chance and rushed to the office. He was obviously disappointed but appealed to me to attend the lunch, in any case, to bid farewell to the people I had worked with for so many years. In the afternoon, I visited Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi and filled them in with all the news. They were thrilled about everything except for the uncertainty with regard to Avanti. Ramu Mama called it ‘cosmic justice’ and suggested that after the house was restored, it would be fitting if I invited my parents to move into one of the wings of 23 Prithviraj Road.

  I told them that Avanti had convinced me that I ought not to live there. Moreover, I had agreed with her that the profits from the businesses did not belong to me and I would donate them to a philanthropic trust.

  ‘Your mother will be disappointed,’ he said.

  ‘So, how will you live if you quit your job?’ asked Kamini Masi

  ‘That’s simple enough,’ said Ramu Mama, who knew about these things. ‘You would pay yourself a generous salary as the person who will manage the businesses and the trust, and then can maintain a comfortable standard of living.’

  ‘And where would you live?’ she asked.

  ‘Apart from the salary, the trust would give you a comfortable but not palatial house, not far from 23 Prithviraj Road, which will be your office, and a car in order to live the lifestyle you, Avanti and the girls are accustomed to.’

  Kamini Masi said that she would be sad to see me leave Bombay. She hoped that Avanti would finally see the sense in starting a new life with me in Delhi. Although she had been seen increasingly in Anand’s company at public events, Kamini Masi repeated her prophecy that Avanti would be mine in the end. ‘She is clearly fascinated by Anand but I know in my bones that you are the one she really loves.’