by Ruskin Bond
‘Yes, I should be living in Kerala or Bengal or Goa, where the fish is wonderful!’
‘Maybe I can take you to those places some day, when I’m making some money. We can lie on a beach and live off lobsters and prawns.’
‘Wonderful!’ She clapped her hands, then let out a sigh. ‘And meanwhile I must live on methi and dhania—it’s growing all over the compound!’
‘And mushrooms,’ I added. ‘You mustn’t forget the mushrooms.’
When Dr Gupta learnt that Susanna had gone out with a young man, and indulged in a meal of ‘fish, flesh and fowl’, he flew into a rage and his blood pressure went up—so high, that he had to drink three bowls of ginger tea to bring it down again. He had quite a row with Susanna, who took it all very calmly, as she knew he wanted some money for a fruit-canning project. When she brought it up, he calmed down. Also, he remembered that he’d invited some very important citizens over for dinner the following evening, and he wanted to give them an impression of peace and harmony in the household.
The important guests included the chairman of the municipality, a sitting MLA, the district magistrate, Susanna’s bank manager, and the local correspondent of a Delhi newspaper. Dr Gupta was hoping for some official backing, financial support and, of course, as much publicity as possible. I was there too, as a special invitee of Susanna’s.
Serving at the table were Maggie and a younger girl, a relative of hers, who came over to help on such occasions. The meal had been prepared by Dr Gupta’s personal cook, who did not allow any contaminating meat, milk or fish into the kitchen. But in preparing the dishes he took some help from Susanna, Maggie and the girl. The vegetables had been presented by members of the Health Club.
The meal began with mushroom soup, and all who partook of it said it was delicious; but no one asked for a second helping. Only Dr Gupta asked for more, putting it away in noisy gulps and proudly proclaiming that he had grown and nurtured the mushrooms with his own hands.
Rice and various salads and vegetable curries followed, the main item being a mushroom curry decorated with sprigs of dhania, mint and some stuff that looked like seaweed. I refused the mushroom curry.
It had a greenish tinge, and reminded me of the colourful mushrooms and toadstools shown to me by Shah Rukh. Susanna also declined the mushroom curry. So did the district magistrate, saying he’d had his fair share of mushrooms in the soup. The journalist tucked into all the dishes—he was a great believer in free meals. The others took modest helpings of the mushroom curry, concentrating on the other dishes.
We were well into the fruit salad when things started happening.
The journalist suddenly clutched his stomach and said he had to go to the toilet. He rushed down the steps and into the bushes.
Dr Gupta then said he was feeling uneasy too. He got up and went indoors.
The others looked at each other in some bewilderment. None of them looked too happy.
‘I must get back to my office,’ said the bank manager, and began to get up.
‘I, too,’ said the municipal councillor; but neither could move from their chairs. Both of them looked rather pale. The MLA said nothing. Suddenly he got up, went behind a potted palm and got sick.
I was feeling perfectly well; but then, I hadn’t eaten any mushrooms. Nor had Susanna.
Presently Dr Gupta returned, staggering a little.
‘I’m all right now,’ he said. ‘Must be the blood pressure.’ He took his seat; and then, without warning, he slumped forward and lay still, his head supported by a fruit bowl.
The MLA was sitting on the steps, looking very green. The journalist was still in the bushes. I went to see if he needed any help. I found him lying on the grass, moaning and only half-conscious.
I ran back to the house, and found the bank manager trying to take Dr Gupta’s pulse. He shook his head, saying, ‘I can’t feel anything.’
Susanna went to the phone.
‘I’ll call the city ambulance,’ she said.
The councillor took the phone from her. ‘They’ll be here quicker if I talk to them,’ he said, and barked out his orders.
When the ambulance arrived, Dr Gupta and the journalist were carried into it and rushed to the hospital.
Dr Gupta was declared dead on arrival. The journalist was in danger for a couple of days but made a slow recovery. The others swore they wouldn’t touch mushrooms again.
Later that week, I took a stroll through the grounds and looked for that little patch of colourful wild mushrooms. But the ground around the tree was bare. Not one mushroom remained.
Episode Seven
Love Me, Love My Mobile
It isn’t time that’s passing by
It is you and I …
And in Susanna’s case, it was her husbands who were passing by—and passing out!
Is time the great healer? Nobody missed Dr Gupta except perhaps some of his more devoted Health Club members. Without its leader, the club broke up and dispersed. Nobody missed his predecessors either. But Susanna still missed her father.
I realized this when she showed me around the house and opened up the secret room which was always kept locked.
‘People think I have some great treasure in this room,’ she said. ‘I have always kept it closed because it is very private. In a way, it is a treasure room. It was my father’s room, and I have kept it as it was since the day he died. Since I was a little girl, in fact. You’re a sensitive young man, and that’s why I’m showing it to you. None of my husbands have been into this room. None of my servants, either. That’s why there are so many rumours about it. The unseen, the hidden, is always mysterious.’
The room had not been disturbed since the old man had died in it. Of course, Susanna dusted it every week, and changed the counterpane on the bed which had been his last resting place.
An old-fashioned armchair, upholstered in leather, took up one corner of the room, and beside it stood a bookshelf taken up by volumes on horses, racing, hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities. On the walls hung three or four prints of English hunting scenes—horses, hounds and colourfully dressed riders in pursuit of the elusive fox. There was also the head of a long-dead leopard, similar to the mounted trophies on the veranda wall.
In another corner of the room, standing upright in a rack, were a double-barrelled gun and a light rook-rifle.
‘You can see he was fond of hunting,’ said Susanna.
‘And fishing too,’ I observed, noting the fishing rod and tackle on the same shelf. ‘And was he a swordsman?’
Mounted on the wall were two swords, well polished and well preserved. I examined the blades. They were very sharp, and the steel was free of rust, heavy, capable of inflicting severe wounds.
‘They were his father’s swords,’ said Susanna. ‘One is a Maratha sword—it was given to him by one of Shivaji’s descendants. The other is an English sword. It was presented to him by the Begum Samru. Or so I was told.’
‘Your grandfather knew the begum?’
‘He supplied her with the best Deccani horses. That was how my parents met. Mother was a distant relation of the begum’s.’
‘I have seen the begum’s portrait. You do resemble her a bit.’ In more ways than one, I might have added.
‘Well, these are treasures enough,’ I said, as we left the room. ‘And that sword—it could slice a man’s head off with one clean stroke.’
I could see why Susanna needed a father-figure (not a young stripling like me), and it was obvious that she had been mismatched in her chequered married life. Apparently she had inherited at least one quality of the begum’s—a weakness for handsome but somewhat empty-headed men, of whom she had tired rather quickly.
So it did not surprise me when she took up with Mr Sammy Das, a much older man, who owned a couple of cinemas and a printing press in the city. He must have been some twenty years older than Susanna. He was in his mid-sixties, but very spry, very active, and an attentive and satisfying marital partner. Finally, Susanna
had found a husband who was also a father-figure.
As for Sammy, he was very much in love with Susanna, and whenever they were in each other’s arms he would say, ‘There is nothing I would like better than to die in your arms.’
Prophetic words!
Sammy had seen Susanna for years, admiring her from a distance without making much effort to get to know her better. He had seen her husbands come and go, and did not give any credence to the rumours that she had sped them on their way. Nor did he believe that she was a witch, as some simple souls believed. And when a local newspaper tried to come out with a scandalous piece on Susanna, he refused to print it. The newspaper belonged to someone else, but the press was his, and he told them to take their libellous tale elsewhere.
Sammy Das had only one vice, if you could call it that. He was deeply attached to his cellphone.
A great many people are attached to their cellphones and don’t move about without them. But in Sammy’s case it was an obsession. It was more than a toy, more than a necessity—it had become a part of him, like an arm or a leg—and he was quite helpless without it.
So, if he was in love with his cellphone, why did he need a wife?
He was a widower with grown-up, married children, and he felt the need of a companion. Also, he was head-over-heels in love with Susanna. He couldn’t take his eyes off her (even when talking on his cellphone) and he was at his happiest when she accompanied him on a business trip or attended a premiere at one of his cinemas. She came to the opening night of Maqbool and stole the limelight from most of the stars. He was proud to have her on his arm, and his face lit up whenever he heard someone remark, ‘Now where did Sammy get that beautiful young wife?’
And Sammy was so attentive and so loving that Susanna became quite fond of him. Only that cellphone was a bit of a nuisance, ringing during meals, ringing when they were out for a walk, ringing while they were watching a film, ringing while he was sitting in the toilet, ringing while they were making love!
Susanna had put up with much worse, but at times she felt like taking the cellphone and throwing it into the snake tank. Except that Sammy would probably jump into the tank to rescue it!
‘I do wish you wouldn’t keep it under your pillow,’ she remonstrated. ‘Do you really enjoy being woken up in the middle of the night?’
‘It’s from the ticket-office, my dear, we had a house-full at the Roxy tonight.’
‘But they could have told you that in the morning.’
‘They know I’ll sleep better when I know the day’s receipts.’
And a few minutes later there would be a similar call from the Odeon, informing him of the day’s receipts.
‘Now that the suspense is over, shall we sleep?’
‘Not until I’ve shown you how much I love you.’ And Sammy would proceed to make passionate love to Susanna, reaching a climax just as the phone began to ring again!
‘One minute, dear. After this call I’ll switch it off.’
But it seemed one of the presses had broken down, and the newspaper’s proprietor was threatening to take his business to another press. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ said Sammy. And to Susanna: ‘I’ll have to go, my dear, the press has broken down.’
‘And so will you, if you carry on like this.’
Sammy was a perfectionist. He was a fervent lover, and Susanna had no complaint (other than the cellphone) but he wanted to show her that he was as good a lover as any young man, and possibly even better. So he visited the local chemist and came back with a strip of Viagra tablets.
It was some time before Susanna came to know about the Viagra, and in the meantime Sammy become even more amorous and demanding both in and out of bed. This did not prevent him from attending to his cellphone, even at the most inconvenient times.
He would bury his face between her breasts and utter the most passionate endearments, only to have them broken off by the insistent ringing of the cellphone.
‘Darling, who do you love more, me or your mobile?’ asked Susanna one day.
‘You, of course, my dear. But we can’t neglect the business, can we?’
‘I don’t think your business will suffer if you could switch off that phone for five minutes.’
Dutifully he’d switch it off, but two minutes later he would quietly switch it on again.
‘I just can’t do without it,’ he confessed. ‘It has become a part of me—an extra sense, a fourth dimension!’
‘And I’m still in the third dimension,’ said Susanna. ‘One day that phone will give you all the pleasure you want, and even a wife will be superfluous.’
When Susanna found the Viagra tablets on the bathroom shelf, she laughed and said, ‘What do you need these for? You’re perfectly normal without them.’
‘They help me a little,’ said Sammy, feeling embarrassed. ‘It means that while I’m talking on the phone I can continue making love to you.’
‘How insulting!’ said Susanna, and she took his cellphone and threw it down the well in the garden.
Of course he got another. And another. Soon the house was full of them.
Susanna hid them whenever she could, but Sammy was like an alcoholic who succeeds in hiding his bottle in the most unlikely places. He hid his cellphones in flowerpots, empty dishes, dressing-gown pockets, even waste-paper baskets. Guests who sat down in easy chairs were sometimes startled by a cellphone ringing beneath the cushion.
‘It’s a new type of mobile,’ joked Sammy. ‘You get the message through your bottom.’
Late one evening, after making a round of his cinemas, and press, Sammy came home very tired. Still, he was in an amorous mood, and after dinner he took three Viagra pills instead of just one. ‘Bet I can’t have just one,’ he said, taking a line from an ad for potato chips. He was so amorous and passionate that night, he ignored the ringing of his cellphone.
Susanna thought he had fallen asleep in her arms.
‘Your cellphone is ringing,’ she said. ‘Shall I answer it for you?’
There was no response from Sammy. Susanna put her hand under his pillow and switched off the phone.
‘Poor dear,’ she said, ‘you really are exhausted.’
After a few minutes Susanna noticed that Sammy wasn’t breathing. She felt for his pulse. There was no pulse-beat. She switched on the bedside lamp. Sammy’s eyes were open but there was no life in them. His wish had come true—he had died in Susanna’s arms.
I came over next morning to help Susanna with the funeral arrangements. She had come to depend on me for help in such practical matters. Sammy, like Jimmy Rogers before him, was a Christian, albeit not a very devout one. Nevertheless, he was entitled to a place beside Jimmy in the cemetery.
The coffin was brought to the house, and with some help from Shah Rukh and the Goonga, Sammy was placed in it, now wearing his best suit, for Maggie and her assistant had dressed him up for the occasion.
As we were about to close the coffin, one of Sammy’s cellphones began to ring. It was the one he had placed in a flowerpot. Susanna located it and took the call. It was simply a commercial for an after-shave lotion.
‘I don’t think he’ll be needing any,’ said Susanna. And then as an afterthought she said, ‘He was so fond of his cellphone, why don’t we bury one with him?’ And she placed the phone in his coat pocket, saying, ‘At least he’ll have some company for a few hours.’
Quite a crowd had gathered at the cemetery, for Sammy Das was a respected and popular citizen. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, the cellphone began to ring. All present looked startled; then there were a few smiles. The ringing subsided, and the old priest read out the burial service. Flowers were thrown into the grave. As the mourners began to drift away, the phone began to ring again.
I was standing beside Susanna. ‘He’s trying to call you,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Susanna. ‘He wants to know if the paper has come out on time.’
Episode Eight
Farewel
l, Susanna
Life on Susanna’s estate continued quite placidly. But Susanna decided to sell her horses. Horse racing as a sport was no longer very popular in northern India, and she could not afford to move her stables to Bombay or Calcutta. The syces and the Goonga were pensioned off, and reluctantly the Goonga retired to his village.
By now Susanna had stopped looking for a suitable husband—or so it seemed. I think she had decided that the ideal husband did not—could not—exist.
I, on the other hand, was beginning to think in terms of a suitable wife for myself. My parents had always disapproved of my friendship with a woman who was ten years my senior and who had gone through so many husbands. And whenever I said ‘But we are just good friends,’ my mother had looked rather doubtful.
‘An older woman draws the sap out of a young man,’ she had said more than once. ‘She takes away his manhood.’
I had protested that my relationship with Susanna was not a physical one—that it was purely platonic. But my mother had said, ‘Ah, but you can be affected mentally as well. You will lose your power to think clearly. She is, after all, a Black Widow spider—she preys on men. She would like a young one for a change! Someone like you …’
My parents were, therefore, relieved and happy when I told them about Shashibala, who had just done her History Honours under my tutelage, and with whom I had struck up a friendship in recent months.
Shashi was dark and lovely—a southern belle, and a champion swimmer too. That was where we met—at the University swimming pool, where I took her on in a 100-metre freestyle race—and she beat me by a couple of lengths! It was love at first sight.
Her father was an eminent History professor, with liberal views. My parents were only too happy to approve of the union. We were married at a quiet ceremony in Delhi and went to Goa for our honeymoon. More swimming—and lots of loving!
I hadn’t forgotten Susanna. Indeed, I was looking forward to presenting my new bride to her. Shashi had, of course, heard about my fascinating neighbour, and was curious to meet her. All the stories she had heard about the ‘Merry Widow’ had led her to expect a wicked-looking old lady all dressed in black—a veritable witch!