The Temple-goers

by Aatish Taseer

  But Sanyogita was in a spontaneous mood. She was often so guarded in her show of feelings that sometimes the need for release, working together with the effects of alcohol, would make her boisterous, impulsive, unaware of her own strength. She now wanted all her remaining guests to come downstairs and run with her in the rain. There was something inauspicious about the idea. It was a monsoon activity, a childhood activity; if resurrected, it needed its time; it couldn’t be forced. But that night everyone felt the desire to please. After some token resistance the five of us, Sanyogita, Mandira, Ra, Aakash and I, ran down the darkened marble stairs into the rain.

  It was warm rain, acidic and dusty. The earth was not parched enough to release the smells of the monsoon, the trees not thirsty enough to thrash about, blind worms not inconvenienced enough to appear from their holes on to Jorbagh’s wet streets, shimmering with street light. And yet we ran through them alone, jumping in puddles and singing film songs. We ran past the flower shop, the pan wallah, the arboured street holding the Chocolate Wheel, until we came to the gates of Jorbagh. Beyond was the main road and the border of Lutyens’s Delhi. A drenched guard in a canvas trench coat let us through before retreating to his green sentry box. The main road was empty but for the odd car hurtling home. We crossed it and walked along the periphery of Lodhi Gardens, its interior alive with white light and dark wet foliage.

  Mandira and Aakash ran ahead. A sudden closeness formed between them, but Aakash seemed only to use it as a counterpoint to Sanyogita and me. He kept looking back, and if he saw Sanyogita with her hands draped about me, kissing me in the rain, he would find some way to hijack my attention. He was like a possessive best friend from the early years of puberty. His red T-shirt was soaked, and raindrops, each swollen with light, hung from his sharp features and bristly hair. Mandira was much more taken with him than he was with her, and with her hand curled about his face, kept yelling, ‘So good to be promiscuous again,’ into the night. Sanyogita, who had known her through her days of sexual promiscuity and only seen her find some stability after marriage, looked nervously at her regression. Ra, straggling behind, yelled, ‘Shut up, you drunk bitch. Or I’ll tell your husband.’ His white designer shirt was soaked and his small hairy stomach showed through.

  It was Aakash who first saw the mouth of Amrita Shergill Marg. It gave him an excuse to run back, take me from Sanyogita, and resting his heavy arm on my shoulders, pull me ahead to see what he’d seen. ‘I want you to be with me when you first see this,’ he said overexcitedly, pinching my face. ‘I love you, man. I’m having so much fun.’ His drunkenness, his intensity, his affection, all coming after the distance of the past few weeks, were overpowering. In withdrawing, he’d made me aware daily of his absence, and now filling the empty space he’d created, he filled it completely.

  When we were just near the corner of the street, he pressed the palm of his hand over my eyes, and standing close behind me, marched me up the pavement. I felt us step down into the street, walk forward a few paces so that we would have been close to the middle. Then I was swivelled around and made to stand visionless, facing down the length of the street. Aakash held me there, and using my left arm, raised himself on to his tiptoes and asked in my ear if I was ready. Then he tore away his hand to reveal a tunnel of laburnum, its many millions of blossoms bleached in rain and street light. Under each little tree, distorting my sense of space, were spheres of petals, dropping like petticoats down the length of the crescent-shaped street. It was as if Aakash had broken open the trunk of an old tree to show me a sanctuary of moss and cool. ‘I love you,’ he said again, with that same desperation with which he’d once asked me to drink with him. ‘I’m going to miss you, man.’ I couldn’t understand his urgency, but somehow it brought to this ordinary evening, but for the rain, an aspect of finality.

  When the others caught up with us Aakash looked at me with such feeling that Mandira and Ra began teasing him. ‘And I thought you were in love with me, you bloody cheat. Here I am ditching my poor husband for you!’ Aakash was unaffected by their teasing; in fact, he was more fearless in showing his affection than before. But Sanyogita didn’t joke or laugh; she’d seen something, perhaps not so much in his eyes as in mine. She came close to me and whispered, ‘Baby…’ in the softest voice. Aakash’s eyes ran cold at the sight of her. He pulled me aside. I excused myself despite my embarrassment.

  ‘What is it, man?’ I asked when we were out of earshot of the others.

  ‘Are we going to take them both or what?’ Aakash said with fresh zeal.

  I laughed out loud, then saw he was serious. ‘Aakash, one of “them” is my girlfriend!’

  ‘So what, man? I’m not saying –’

  ‘No, Aakash. I know what you’re saying and we’re not doing it.’

  I walked back to the others, leaving Aakash with some words still on his lips. He looked incredulous, then his face showed a hurt, dazed expression.

  Ra pranced up to him. ‘Come on, lover boy, stop being such a kebab me haddi.’

  Aakash looked down at him, and his face clearing, he put one hand on Ra’s stomach and said, ‘I’m going to make you fit, man.’ They began to walk up the street. Aakash spoke to Ra with the same energy and interest with which he had spoken to me. Ra shed his cynicism and was slowly seduced. His eyes turned from playful and flirtatious to hungry; I heard him invite Aakash to a party while we were away. He kept prodding his chest and stomach with a single finger, and saying, ‘Hash-man, oh gawd, how disgusting, all veins and muscles.’ They spoke about Delhi being quiet and peaceful in the summer and how it was possible to do things one didn’t ordinarily do, like have breakfast in the old city. I heard all this and was jealous, miserably jealous. I knew now that Aakash wanted me to feel that way.

  The rain, not being genuine monsoon rain, was sucked up by the atmosphere. An uneasy peace held between dry and humid heat, and the air, with its varying temperature, felt like a lake in spring. The drains clogged, and puddles heavy with dust and petals formed on the sides of the street. The double line of laburnums, prematurely stripped of their petals, the remainder discoloured, were like a regiment that had suffered a terrible defeat.

  Ra’s chauffeur-driven car, which had followed us, making our run in the rain seem even more of a pretence, now nosed its way down Amrita Shergill Marg. Mandira who had grown tired of Aakash’s neglect jumped in.

  ‘Ra, come on, no? Drop me home. Back to hubbie.’

  He seemed reluctant to leave, offering to drop us all back.

  ‘No, don’t worry about it,’ Sanyogita said. ‘I want to walk back.’

  I would have liked the ride home, but something in Sanyogita’s mood made me feel it was better to stay. Aakash looked between the car and us, then specifically at me.

  Sanyogita, with strange bloody-mindedness, intervened. ‘Stay, Aakash. It’ll be so nice. We’ll walk back together.’

  Aakash, not to be outdone in this perverse show of strength, agreed. The car drove away, leaving us alone on Amrita Shergill Marg.

  Having been a different man to each of us that night, Aakash now became in those final moments a friend of the relationship. He walked between us, in his soaked red shirt, his heavy arms sprawling over both our shoulders. His smell, deodorant thinly holding back a damp stench from his armpits, lingered, now rising up when he rested his head on Sanyogita’s shoulder, now meeting me as he leaned in to kiss my neck and tell me how much he loved both of us.

  For those moments, he seemed to believe that even Sanyogita’s and my relationship was only possible because of him. He spoke of trips we would take together in the hills; he said he would make every effort to come and see us in Europe in the summer, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to get away this year. I knew he didn’t have a passport, but he spoke as if he travelled all the time. He insinuated himself into our lives and we didn’t stop him because it seemed harmless. But all the time, a mistaken idea of his importance was forming in his mind. When he slipped away a few moments la
ter to take a pee, he went with the knowledge that the world turned on his axis. He peed brazenly, standing on the pavement, facing the street. Looking to see where he’d gone, we caught sight of him under a lamp post. He laughed joyfully, leaning back on his heels and pushing his black uncircumcised penis forward into the light. A smooth yellow sheen struck it and from its wrinkled nozzle, urine spirals fell to a puddle of spinning petals. His blackish-pink lips whistled the shrill tune of a film song.

  His contentment was so deep and his exhibitionism so self-assured that the expression of fatigue it brought to Sanyogita’s face would have come as a shock. And before I turned away, before he masked it with playful rowdiness, I saw in his eyes the rage of an Indian man insulted by a woman. His next action came so suddenly that later I thought I had seen it before it happened, the way one feels one might have saved a falling glass. I had barely looked forward again when I felt solid muscle smash against the back of my neck and a hand wrench my shoulder down. The street zoomed up in front of me as I was pulled to the floor, managing to squat just before I fell; Sanyogita crumpled.

  The moment I saw her strong body thrown on to the tarmac, my mind flashed to the image of the skiing accident that had broken her thigh and given her the caterpillar scar. As she lifted herself from the street, I saw her pricked palms and a four-inch graze on her elbow. The long, colourful Rajasthani dress, with its mirrors and tinsel, was torn at the knees. Seeing her childlike face, mystified at the injury done to her, and Aakash retreating in horror, I did something for which Sanyogita never forgave me. Instead of attending to her, I jumped up and yelled at Aakash, telling him to apologize and help her up. I did it because I thought that if in that instant he begged her forgiveness, it might come; later it would be harder, much harder. But seeing her wounds and her eyes now full of tears, he hesitated; and in those seconds of hesitation, there was no one to help her up. By the time I gave up on him, it was too late. Sanyogita’s pain had turned to anger. She slapped my hand away as I tried to help her up. Then she stood rooted in one place, the hem of her skirt hanging into the street, the crook of her arm exposed and softly bent where hurt. She stood perfectly still, breathing heavily, staring at me through her glistening eyes, wanting me to see what Aakash had done to her. Her head was cocked to one side and her long wavy hair glued in places to her face. She wiped it away furiously, looking still harder at me. There was an expression almost of curiosity in her eyes; it was as if she was trying to understand how I could have betrayed her. Then pushing me back, she turned around and ran. Despite her injuries and her flimsy slippers, she ran fast in the direction of Jorbagh. In seconds, she was swallowed up by the darkness and the steam now rising from the street. Aakash had gone too.

  I left Delhi on a Virgin flight. The airport was in a state of great confusion. It had always had a makeshift quality: passages with tinted windows in peeling frames, grey stone floors coated in a fine layer of dust, idle men in olive-green uniforms. But now a private company, promising an airport of the future, had begun a renovation that left it barely standing. Cement and water dripped through the slats of a dented, white metal ceiling; a brown water stain crept across a wall hanging of a plump horseman; coloured wires grew out of their sockets. The warm, sweet Indian air infused here with government office damp, there with urine, now also smelt of chemicals.

  On the flight, blonde air hostesses with jarring accents went past in red suits. Sanyogita sat next to me in a maroon velvet and white lace skirt. It hid the scabs that were forming on her knees. The grazes on her elbows were raw and visible. She made no display of them as she went about the small tasks of settling down for a long flight. She took down her magazines, rummaged in her handbag for lip balm, then reopened the overhead compartment and brought out an old toosh. Wrapping herself in it, she curled into her seat and slipped her long arms into mine. She had spent a miserable night, but she wasn’t angry any more.

  I had returned to see her bathed and in her nightdress. Vatsala had woken up and was tending to her, cleaning her wounds with Dettol, making her tea. Sanyogita was quiet, and even smiled when she saw me, but Vatsala looked fearfully up at me, like a dog who had just been beaten. Whenever I looked back at her, she’d hurriedly lower her head. But as soon as I turned away, I felt her eyes follow me. She packed Sanyogita’s bag while I lay on the bed, making a point of taking down all her best suitcases, jewellery and shawls. She gave a short family history of each article, as if reminding me that Sanyogita was not alone, not without people. Just as we were about to go to bed, she tumbled in with her bedding, wanting to spend the night on the floor next to Sanyogita.

  ‘Vatsala,’ Sanyogita said, laughing, ‘it wasn’t him.’

  ‘Bebi,’ she said aghast, ‘then who?’

  ‘Just someone. But don’t worry about it. You don’t have to sleep here.’

  Vatsala folded up her bed, smiled apologetically and crept away.

  That night I received a number of text messages. At two a.m. in three instalments: ‘What I’ve done tonight can never be forgiven or forgotten. I think of you as my brother. I’ve had an amazing time with you in these past few months. I wanted us to be friends for life, but destiny had other plans. Please from now on, don’t call me, don’t text for a long, long time. I can’t be your trainer, but I will organize someone for you when you come back. I hope one day Sanyogita will find it in her heart to forgive me for what I have done. She will always be my bhabi. Ash-man.’ I replied, ‘Don’t be so filmy, just send her some flowers in the morning.’ At three a.m.: ‘Man, not giving film lines. If she forgives me, I’m happiest man in the world. What are her favourite flowers?’ ‘Lilies,’ I replied. At five a.m.: ‘My dear Megha, tonight I have lost my best friend in the world. Now, you are all that I have in the world. Your boyf, Aakash.’ ‘Huh?’ I replied. ‘Who’s Megha?’ No reply.

  And it was like this that I discovered what, if my mind had been clearer in those last days in Delhi, I would have seen anyway: Aakash had found a girl. The next morning, just as we were leaving, the chowkidar brought up a little cane basket containing a great deal of fern and foliage, six pink gladioli and a note of apology in neat, rounded writing.

  12

  Months went by though I don’t know how.

  The first two were spent in a village in the south of Spain. Sanyogita knew an English family who owned a hotel in the hills above Seville. They were of red earth, covered in orange, cork and olive trees. In the evenings, the long light and the silvery olive trees made the hills appear purple. The sky was cast in one pattern before evening fell. Then no matter how strong the wind in the hills became, it could never put the arrangement of clouds and clear sky out of true. Against the filters of this hung sky, the light distilled into darkness. From the semicircular window of the one-bedroom annexe we rented for 750 euros a month, we could see the white village of Cazalla. The red-tiled roofs on some of its houses were flat, smooth and new; and on others, rounded, mildewed, with browning stalks growing out of them. On all the bell towers and spires, great stork’s nests had appeared. The chattering from them at night, mixed with the croaking of frogs in a field below, and that most Mediterranean of Mediterranean noises, the whirr of a Vespa, kept me awake for hours.

  It seemed at first that we had salvaged our relationship. The quality of life and produce in the village was deceptive. It briefly made the small, borrowed idea of our stay in a European village ring true. In the mornings, we’d have breakfast in a shaded bar with high stools. A stern, leather-faced man brought us long pieces of bread with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt and fresh orange juice. We posed as regulars, watching two inches of black coffee drip into clear glasses. The bartender assembled a saucer, a spoon and a large sachet of sugar as the milk heated. His self-assuredness stood out against our pretence; to him it was just another morning, café con leche just coffee with milk. And when the milk had heated, the saucers slid across the bar with a brief clatter. At lunch, in another place with tiles and a high wooden bar, there was
fresh fish, salad and giant tomatoes with flakes of salt; all things that we hadn’t tasted during the summer in India. They created the illusion of happiness, of the good life.

  But it was also these things, and the settled world they spoke of, that made India recede. For as long as sensual pleasures lasted, it didn’t matter. But when those satisfactions ran out, I realized I had no way into this kind of life. There was no context for Indians in Spain as there was for the English or Americans. The falsity of my situation overwhelmed me. Sometimes, late in the afternoon, I would look out of the semicircular window in disbelief at the cobbled streets and red-tiled roofs. The heat in the village dwarfed the heat of the subcontinent and this also added to my sense of futility. The streets were empty all day but for the occasional figure of an old veiled woman in black. The image might have been emblematic of the little village, perfect down to the late-afternoon blaze on the white houses and the bronze-faced lion spitting spring water into a mossy basin, but I wouldn’t have known; I was on the outside, with too little knowledge, knowledge I took for granted in India, to enter that picture of village life.

  I joined the village gym. It was a single room, with modern frosted-glass windows embedded in an old façade. A beefy, middle-aged man who taught spin cycling classes to the women in the village charged me thirty euros for the month. One half of the gym was taken up by old weights machines; the other by the spinners, spinning on through a haze of coloured disco lights and techno music. Teenage Spanish boys, with bad skin and short-sleeved T-shirts, worked out around me, eyeing me with suspicion. A metal wall fan circulated the warm, stale air in the room.

  It was after one of these sessions, almost six weeks into my time in the village, that my mobile, now carrying Movistar, beeped with a voice message. I stepped out of the gym. It was seven p.m., but the blaze had not subsided. It was late at night in India; I could hear the beeping of scooters and the tinkle of bicycle bells in the background. ‘How’s you doing, man?’ the voice began in English. ‘I hopes you feeling good, man.’ Then in Hindi, ‘Yaar, I miss you a lot. What’s this going and leaving your friend? Please, man, come back soon. There’s so much fun still to be had. OK, well, call when you get a chance. Your friend, Ash-man. Oh, and please say my sorry one more time to Sanyogita bhabi.’