Kama

by Gurcharan Das

  Avanti had confessed to Kamini Masi a few weeks earlier that she was drawn to Anand. ‘She still visits the ashram but not as often as she used to.’ Listening to them, I couldn’t suppress the intense emotion of jealousy. Kamini Masi came and sat beside me and held my hand.

  ‘She hasn’t decided yet,’ she said reassuringly. ‘She still doesn’t trust him fully. Be patient.’

  ‘But they are off to Darjeeling for a holiday next week!’ I wailed. ‘I’m going to lose her, I’m sure.’

  ‘I know in my heart that Avanti will be yours one day,’ Kamini Masi reiterated. Her reassuring words reinforced the hope in my heart that Avanti had not reached a QED.

  ‘I wish I could believe you.’

  I asked Ramu Mama what I should do with 23 Prithviraj Road. Avanti had specifically asked me to check with him.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘I was thinking that it should become a public space, something that would reflect her family’s legacy?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is there anything that Isha or her mother cared about passionately?’ asked Kamini Masi.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I can’t think of anything.’ There was silence and after the pause, I said, ‘But wait, I think both mother and daughter were very attached to the art collection that Isha’s grandfather had built up.’

  ‘There you have it,’ said Ramu Mama. ‘Turn the house into a museum of modern art. Invest the dividends from the businesses to update and upgrade the collection.’

  Although the collection had a number of European masters, which Isha’s grandfather had acquired on his trips to Europe, there were a lot of gaps in the collection. The principal opportunity lay in diversifying into modern and contemporary Indian art, especially the period after Independence. While it had some Husains, Razas and a Souza, many members of the Bombay Progressive Group were absent—it needed Ara, Gade, Bakre, plus, of course, stars like Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta and Ram Kumar.

  ‘You could also buy younger contemporary Indian artists like Atul Dodiya and Sudhir Patwardhan,’ said Ramu Mama, all excited. ‘In fact, institute an annual prize. When do you have to make a decision?’

  I said that I was hoping to restore the building to its original glory when it was first built in the 1930s. But it would take several years before our cash flows would allow us to begin the restoration.

  ‘That will give you plenty of time to decide. You must hire a proper firm of architects who have the expertise in designing a museum. You must create an advisory board of eminent artists and collectors and a professional acquisitions committee.’

  ‘So, there is time. It would be a great monument to Isha’s family and their love for art,’ echoed Kamini Masi.

  ~

  What Ramu Mama said made a great deal of sense. 23 Prithviraj Road is where my education in the visual arts began. I recall vividly when I first noticed the incomprehensible paintings on the walls. Isha had explained how her grandfather had created a modernist collection of art around the time that he built the house in the 1930s. Her father had bought some Indian works too. Isha had introduced me to the paintings nonchalantly, but their house became defined in my mind by the paintings. My education in aesthetics continued when I came to live in Bombay under the guidance of Ramu Mama and Raj Desai. I began to visit galleries and in this way the artists of the post-Independence Bombay Progressive Group became familiar names to me. I genuinely loved their works but, of course, never had the money to buy any of them.

  The aesthetic pleasure derived from beholding an object of beauty is one of the meanings of kama, and it is fitting that it should find a place in my memoir. But I wonder if there is a connection between aesthetic and sexual pleasure. On the face of it, they seem almost opposites. Aesthetic beauty requires dispassionate observation of an object from a distance, whereas sexual love is passionate and abhors distance. This is also one of the riddles of kama and it has divided philosophers and poets in the West.

  Kant believed that rational, contemplative disinterestedness was necessary for appreciating aesthetic beauty, whereas sexual desire was irrational, sensual and related to the appetites. Schopenhauer, similarly, felt that sexual experience appealed to the instinct of the ‘will to live’, while aesthetic experience was related to perception and knowledge. Nietzsche followed this line of thought and wrote:

  Every artist is familiar with the adverse effect which sexual intercourse has during times of great intellectual tension and preparation. The strongest and instinctually strongest among them do not need to learn this by experience, since their ‘maternal’ instinct has from the start made its strict dispositions, putting all animal instincts at the service of that one great end, so that the lesser energy is absorbed by the greater dangers of such activity.

  The Kama Shastra tradition in India proposes a contrary thesis. In contrast to western philosophers and other kama pessimists, it insists that sexual experience requires knowledge, training and proficiency. The Kamasutra says that whereas animals are driven by seasonal instincts when they are in heat, human beings require the mastering of the senses, the erotic arts, as well as acquaintance with the sixty-four fine arts (such as music, painting, dancing and floral arrangement). The staging of the sexual performance is not merely limited to the act of coitus, but requires an artfully organized space and time; the different forms of foreplay depend on the time of the day and of the lunar month; the post-coital embraces and conversation, including her lying ‘in his lap facing the moon’, and even the display of arousal are aestheticized.

  The aesthetic enactment of the erotic life also had a practical purpose and I regretted I had not employed it in my relationship with Avanti. It was to sustain sexual attraction between a married couple. A medieval text of the sixteenth century in the kamashastra tradition, Ananda Ranga, says, ‘The chief reason for the separation between the married couple and the cause, which drives the husband to the embraces of strange women, and the wife to the arms of strange men, is the want of varied pleasures and the monotony which follows possession.’ The monotony of the sexual act between husband and wife leads to temptation for an affair, which, in turn, results in discord, jealousy and other problems. Hence, the Ananda Ranga declares that one of its intentions is to show a husband that by ‘varying the enjoyment of his wife, he may live with her as with thirty-two different women, ever varying the enjoyment of her’, while also teaching the wife ‘all manner of useful arts and mysteries, by which she may render herself pure, beautiful, and pleasing in his eyes’.

  ~

  The next two weeks passed quickly tying up all the loose ends of my life in Bombay. There was a fair amount of nostalgia at my farewell lunch at the company. I returned the temporary accommodation in the suburbs back to the landlord and since I was no longer in the company’s employment, I found a comfortable, affordable flat where Avanti and the girls could move. I shifted to Ramu Mama’s flat for the remaining few days. Kamini Masi persuaded Avanti to come to lunch with the girls on the weekend. Avanti was delighted at Ramu Mama’s idea of turning 23 Prithviraj Road into a museum. Kamini Masi begged her to reconsider and come back to me. I could tell that Avanti was torn. In the end, she confirmed that she had decided to go on the planned holiday to Darjeeling with Anand.

  ‘Why can’t Daddy come with us to Darjeeling?’ asked little Arushi.

  ‘Because he has to go back to Delhi, my love.’

  ‘Why can’t we go with him to Delhi then?’

  Avanti couldn’t think of a reply, and the girl repeated her question, to which Avanti answered lamely, ‘Because we cannot.’ It was a mournful farewell.

  As I neared the end of my stay in Bombay, I had a feeling of utter hopelessness. I could feel Avanti slipping away. I loved this woman in a way I can’t describe, a feeling of belonging that reaches across all the pain. I looked back on all the years that I had known her, hunting desperately for something that I could hold on to. I felt incomplete knowing that the only true life w
as inside me and nothing outside would ever compensate for the unceasing yearnings. Yes, I could count on other friendships, such as those with Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi, but close as we were, civility requires a certain amount of concealment—a civilized form of cover-up among friends. It could never match the disruptive, spontaneous emotions that Avanti and I had shared—feelings of hostility, vanity, boredom and even contempt. It is this spontaneity that my mother had never enjoyed with my father and which she had always envied in my relationship with Avanti.

  ~

  I decided to take the longer route by train to Delhi via the Punjab Mail because it would give me a chance to say a final goodbye to Avanti and the girls. The Punjab Mail left from Victoria Terminus (instead of Bombay Central), the same station from which Avanti and the girls would be travelling with Anand on the Howrah Mail to Calcutta, en route to Darjeeling. I found out that Avanti’s train would be leaving half an hour before mine and so I could bid them farewell for the last time from the platform. Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi drove me to the station, and we headed for platform number five, from where the train to Calcutta was getting ready to depart. My train, fortuitously, was leaving from the adjoining platform number four.

  I looked out for them but didn’t see them immediately. However, the girls spotted us from a distance and they screamed with delight. Avanti turned around and saw the three of us walking in a single file—Ramu Mamu leading the way with Kamini Masi and I following him with the luggage. We couldn’t see Anand. I then saw the astonishing sight of Akhila and Arushi running towards us. When Avanti saw the girls scampering our way, she made a dash to catch them. The girls got to us first and threw themselves into my arms. Avanti arrived out of breath a few moments later. She greeted Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi, and tried to extricate the girls from my arms. She was in a fluster, worried they might miss their train. Since her train was leaving from the adjoining platform, I explained, I had decided to surprise her and the girls and bid them a final goodbye at the station. Akhila and Arushi began to howl, insisting that they wanted to go with their father rather than with ‘Anand Uncle’.

  Avanti stood bewildered. In a panic, she reminded the girls that their luggage was already on the train. She turned to look back, trying to spot Anand. She didn’t see him as he was inside the compartment helping to unload their luggage. The girls were holding on to me tightly. Not knowing what to do, she appealed to me to let them go.

  ‘The girls have the right idea,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you come with me to Delhi instead?’

  ‘Yes, yes, let’s go on this train!’ the girls chorused.

  ‘But we can’t, we don’t have tickets for his train.’

  ‘That’s easily fixed,’ said Ramu Mama, spotting the ticket collector of my train. He quickly went across and came back to say that my train had a lot of empty seats. ‘I could get you a four-berth private compartment.’

  Avanti was genuinely torn.

  ‘Come, come, Avanti,’ Kamini Masi said. ‘This is where you really belong!’

  Ramu Mama decided the matter. He walked with determination towards the ticket collector and got busy buying three seats and negotiating for a compartment. Kamini Masi took charge of Avanti. Putting her arm around her, they rushed back towards the Howrah Mail to reclaim their luggage. Just as they reached their compartment, the whistle of the Howrah Mail went off. Anand came out looking perplexed. He saw Avanti and he held out his hand to help her up.

  ‘Where are the girls?’ he asked.

  ‘Anand, we can’t go with you.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘We’re going to Delhi with Amar.’

  His face fell.

  ‘I’m sorry!’

  The train began to move. Kamini Masi shouted anxiously, ‘Anand, hurry, fetch their bags.’ Anand was in a daze and he turned around, and with the help of another passenger, he pulled out two bags. The women began to walk beside the moving train. He passed the bigger one to Avanti, who practically fell from the impact, and handed the smaller one to Kamini.

  ‘Wait, there is another smaller one, belonging to the little one,’ shouted Avanti. Anand charged back. The train began to gather speed. Anand found it and threw it out of the window, where it was caught by a puzzled stranger. Kamini Masi retrieved it gratefully. Anand stood at the door and Avanti waved to him with a sad look. The two women rushed towards the Punjab Mail which was now getting ready to depart. Ramu Mama, ever efficient, had bought the tickets and with a generous tip to the ticket collector, had got him to allot a compartment, and we were all set to travel as a family.

  Ramu Mama had taken the girls and seated them in the compartment of my train. He directed our porter to bring the luggage inside. Just as Avanti and I hopped on to the train, Ramu Mama jumped off. Before closing the door, I looked out and saw Kamini Masi, whose smiling face seemed to say, ‘I knew she would be yours!’ I followed Avanti to our compartment unable to believe my good fortune.

  ‘Avanti is now mine forever!’ I thought to myself.

  As we seated ourselves, both of us experienced a feeling of awkwardness which usually follows a momentous turn of events. To talk of trifles is awkward and it is impossible to converse seriously after such trials. And yet, the desire to speak is there. But in these moments, it is best to remain silent, and so we did.

  ~

  When Avanti hopped on to my train, she was expressing an act of forgiveness and commitment. For many years she had held me blameworthy, guilty of having wronged her, but now, for some reason, she was able to view my actions with empathy. Compassion had replaced revenge. It couldn’t have been easy. No one is more murderous than a woman injured in love. Think again of Medea, the Greek heroine who killed her children to avenge her husband’s infidelity. I didn’t waste any time trying to figure out why and how Avanti changed her mind. I was just grateful that an enormous treasure had been restored to me. Years later, Avanti confessed that she came away with me because despite all my flaws, I tried to live life truthfully. My marriage had survived infidelity and my honour came to be born out of dishonour.

  Proust was right when he wrote that adultery too has its uses:

  . . . do we not find every day that adultery, when it is based upon genuine love, does not upset the family sentiment, the duties of kinship, but rather revivifies them. Adultery brings the spirit into what marriage would often have left a dead letter.

  Although I have described a union that was superficially a failure because of betrayal, this period of my life, oddly enough, is a panegyric to marriage. After a struggle, Avanti and I achieved another kind of love in companionship. Once accomplished, it became unalterable, lifelong, and made for a stronger, more successful marriage. Avanti has been my friend, my love, my companion. She is perennial and the best; there has never been anything but absolute goodness in my love for her, just as there has never been anything but complete and bright innocence in her nature. Our relationship has remained fresh and vibrant throughout, even though it became over time mostly unphysical. Although she is physically attractive, I have stopped thinking of her in sexual terms. Our marriage became stronger and finer because we gave freedom to the other without inquiry or reproach, and it succeeded because we found permanent and undiluted happiness in the company of each other.

  Fidelity does not come naturally to human beings. The modern young mind values spontaneity, ‘being alive’ and ‘living to the full’. Fidelity is a conventional, old-fashioned virtue like prudence; it is too sober, unromantic and sensible. But in fact, there is an active quality of love in fidelity. It constantly demands the good of the beloved, and it acts against our natural egotism. It says, ‘I want to live with you just as you are.’ And this really means: ‘It is you I choose to share my life with me, and that is the only evidence there can be that I love you.’

  I have sometimes wondered about Freud’s remark that a woman loses her lover when she makes him a husband. I expect he was referring to the tedious routine and habit of married life when the glow of rom
antic excitement has been left far behind. Even today, when young couples live together before marriage, there is still some uncertainty and an implicit freedom to stray compared to the commitment of legal matrimony. After marriage, the excitement of courtship cannot continue in the same vein, what with the day-to-day business of earning a living, raising a family and coping with domestic problems. The exotic becomes commonplace. Romantic passion becomes ‘marital passion’, and one needs a different vocabulary to describe the lasting, continuous bond between married adults. The psychologists Elaine and William Walster offer the unglamorous, lacklustre expression ‘companionate love’, which suggests a relationship closer to what companions and friends share but also has the mutual comfort of lives that are ‘deeply intertwined’. It is a far more honest appraisal than the passionate utopia that some marriage counsellors offer glibly and dishonestly; yet, it is a deeper relationship than the one close colleagues or neighbours experience, for it includes moments of intense ‘physiological arousal, tenderness, anxiety, relief, altruism and jealousy’. Avanti, I think, would be comfortable with the idea that friendship and companionship are the foundations of a good marriage.

  Are there any secrets to a long-lasting relationship? One of them is, oddly enough, infidelity. It is not the illicit affair itself but the threat of it. I agree with Proust’s view. Habit does have a way of dulling relationships. Amaya came into my life and rescued me from habit. Time and again, I have learnt that an injection of jealousy also helps. My jealous feelings towards Anand made me value Isha in my younger days and Avanti later in life when we were separated. When you live together, you tend to forget to see the qualities that made you love her. The threat of losing her makes you appreciate her and puts an end to the boredom that has set in.

  One of the wisest tales about marital fidelity is Tolstoy’s short novel, Family Happiness. In it, a young woman, Masha, falls in love with Sergey, her neighbour in the country. She is young and sprightly; he is older and a loyal friend of her deceased father. They get married; she leaves home to live with her husband and his old mother. They are happy with their idyllic life consisting of laughter-filled breakfasts, evenings of music and intimate midnight suppers.