Three Plays

by Gurcharan Das

  Chitra, his mother, is slightly younger than Amrita. She is attractive in a fleshy and flashy sort of way. Wears synthetic saris, too low to be tasteful. She is coarse, has no qualms about taking advantage of people and will go to any lengths to make sure her son succeeds in life. She speaks with Punjabi mannerisms (‘Helloji,’ ‘Thank youji’.)

  AMRITA: Ah, here they are, here they are.

  CHITRA: Didi!

  DEEPAK: Happy Diwali, everyone!

  CHITRA: Bhai Saheb, Namaste!

  AMRITA: (Genuinely happy.) Come here, my son, let me look at you.

  How handsome you’ve become! Why, half the girls in Bombay must be after you.

  (She puts her arm around him.)

  MAMU: And their mothers, too.

  (Deepak sneezes.)

  CHITRA: Watch it Deepak, you’ll catch a cold in this weather. Banian pai hain na?

  DEEPAK: (Glaring at his mother.) Ma …

  CHITRA: He’s still my baby.

  (Sniffing the air.) I smell a cat.

  (Deepak sneezes again).

  My God! Deepak has an allergy to cats.

  ANSUYA: Mamu’s cat!

  CHITRA: There is a cat!

  AMRITA: Karan, here, has a cat, instead of a wife.

  MAMU: When things go wrong in this house, it’s usual to blame the cat. Er … mind you, my cat has insomnia.

  CHITRA: Insomnia?

  DEEPAK: It means that it ‘can’t sleep,’ Ma.

  CHITRA: I knew cats got sick, but I never knew one which suffered from not being able to sleep … what was that word?

  DEEPAK: ‘Insomnia,’ Ma.

  CHITRA: Didi, how will Deepak sleep, with a non-sleeping cat in the house?

  MAMU: I’ll keep the non-sleeper in my room.

  CHITRA: Oh, thank you, Karanji.

  AMRITA: We’ll make sure he locks it away for your entire visit.

  DEEPAK: (Going to the window.) I say, what a view, yaar!

  ANSUYA: Even though I look at it every day, I don’t tire of the Himalayas.

  CHITRA: Arre Didi, yeh kamra kuchh badla-badla-sa nahin lag raha?

  (Looking around.)

  What’s happened? It’s so empty.

  DEEPAK: (Taking a deep breath.) But the smell is the same. I still remember the wonderful smell of this house.

  AMRITA: (Embarrassed.) You’ll want some tea.

  ANSUYA: I’ll get it, Amma.

  CHITRA: (Callously.) What happened to the big painting on this wall?

  (Sudden silence. They look at each other in embarrassment.)

  AMRITA: (Lying, not convincingly.) It’s gone for being restored.

  ANSUYA: Amma! Why don’t you tell her the truth?

  (Pause.)

  It was sold in an auction.

  CHITRA: Why?

  ANSUYA: (Glaring.) We needed the money.

  CHITRA: (Looking around.) Even the chandeliers are gone? You must have got a lot of money for those, ji. How much? (Another uncomfortable pause. Deepak is particularly uneasy.)

  ANSUYA: (Trying to control herself.) We did not. We didn’t even get a tenth of what they were worth.

  CHITRA: The painting—how much did it bring?

  DEEPAK: (Sternly.) Ma!

  (Chitra is quiet.)

  AMRITA: You must be feeling tired and dusty. You will both want to bathe after such a long journey. I’ll ask the cook to bring two baltis of hot water.

  CHITRA: Baltis, Didi? What happened to the boilers?

  ANSUYA: They too were sold—by mistake.

  DEEPAK: For heavens sake, Ma. Stop this crude talk.

  CHITRA: Lekin Didi, aap ko yeh sab karne ki kya zaroorat hai? Aapke pas to itni millen hain, itni zamin hai!

  ANSUYA: (Containing herself bravely.) The mills and the lands are sold.

  DEEPAK: (With finality.) Ma!

  (Turning around to the others with a smile.)

  I say, how are we going to celebrate Diwali with this war and the blackout and everything?

  (Enthusiastically, to Ansuya.)

  Let’s think of something, yaar. Tell you what, I’ll quickly have a bath and then we’ll go down to the Mall, all right?

  AMRITA: (To Chitra.) Chitra, how do you like living in Bombay?

  CHITRA: I like it very much, ji. There are so many parties. We’re invited out a lot because Deepak is doing so well. His boss says that he is the smartest boy they have had in years.

  AMRITA: (Genuinely proud.) Deepak was always so intelligent.

  CHITRA: He makes one thousand, two hundred and eighty-six rupees per month, Didi!

  DEEPAK: (Glaring.) Ma!

  CHITRA: Just look at him, getting embarrassed before his own family. And his name was in the papers the other day.

  MAMU: Yes, you sent us the cutting.

  DEEPAK: (Embarrassed.) Trust her, sending cuttings to the whole world.

  AMRITA: (Genuinely pleased.) She’s proud of you, son.

  CHITRA: (In a hushed voice.) We rushed here, Didi, because Deepak’s company is bidding for a licence, and the big Government uffsar is here, in Simla.

  AMRITA: Who?

  DEEPAK: P.N. Rai, Aunty. He is the Secretary in the Ministry. He hasn’t given us an appointment in Delhi for weeks.

  CHITRA: If Rai Saheb says ‘yes,’ Deepak’s company will get the licence. And he’s a friend of yours, Didi.

  AMRITA: Of course! Bunty is coming over this evening. Deepak will meet him.

  CHITRA: Bunty?

  DEEPAK: That’s what Mr Rai’s friends call him, Ma.

  CHITRA: Didi, will you also put in a word?

  AMRITA: Once he meets Deepak, it won’t be necessary. Such a charming boy.

  CHITRA: Oh, thank you, Didi!

  (Deepak smiles gratefully.)

  MAMU: (To Deepak, confidentially.) Tell us, Deepak, will your company have to bribe him for the licence?

  DEEPAK: (Taken aback.) I … I … I say, what sort of question is that?

  AMRITA: Oh, Karan, you’re impossible! (To Chitra.)

  Come dear, you should wash and get comfortable. And I shall send you tea upstairs.

  CHITRA: Thank you, Didi.

  (Chitra and Deepak leave. Ansuya, sensing that she has hurt her mother, goes up to her.)

  AMRITA: (In tears.) Why did you have to go and blabber about the auction? I would have slowly told her in my own way.

  MAMU: But Chitra knew the moment she stepped into the house.

  ANSUYA: What difference does it make, Amma, what she thinks? We have to learn to live without our mills and our lands.

  (Pause.)

  And now, even this house will be gone.

  AMRITA: (Hysterically.) No. It won’t.

  ANSUYA: (As if she is comforting a child.) We can’t afford it, Amma.

  AMRITA: (In a dream.) It’s the only beautiful thing we have.

  (Musing.)

  When your father brought me here for the first time, how everyone fussed over us. You were born here, and this is where you spent your happiest days. It is for your children and their children.

  (Uncomfortable pause, while Mamu watches Ansuya closely, looking her up and down)

  MAMU: And in whose honour are we all dressed up today?

  ANSUYA: (Blushing.) I thought it was Diwali, and we were having visitors—so I decided to wear a sari.

  MAMU: Achcha, I’m off to the Mall.

  AMRITA: Why don’t you pick up some whiskey for this evening?

  (Mamu and Ansuya exchange glances.)

  MAMU: Whiskey?

  AMRITA: Scotch.

  (Mamu and AnsuyA again look at each other.)

  ANSUYA: Amma, it’s expensive.

  MAMU: Why can’t he drink Indian whiskey?

  AMRITA: (With finality.) No. Scotch.

  (Exit Amrita. Mamu shrugs his shoulders, exchanges a glance with Ansuya and leaves. Pause. Deepak enters from the other side. He sneezes.)

  ANSUYA: You poor thing!

  DEEPAK: (Sneezing.) I swear, yaar, it’s a weird cat. I just ran
into the non-sleeper. There it stood, quiet, composed, with a disapproving look; it watched me with a cruel expression, as if it were watching a mouse.

  ANSUYA: I sometimes think it has more life and free spirit than any of us.

  (Pause. She moves away to the window.)

  You know, Deepak, I’m angry with you.

  DEEPAK: Arre … Why?

  ANSUYA: I thought you came to Simla to see me. What’s this about Rai Saheb and licences?

  DEEPAK: I have come to Simla to see you, Anu.

  (Goes up to her.)

  But then I discovered that Rai Saheb was also up here, and I told Ma, why not combine business with pleasure.

  ANSUYA: And I’m ‘pleasure,’ am I?

  DEEPAK: No, yaar. I didn’t mean it like that.

  ANSUYA: What did you mean?

  DEEPAK: I say, yaar, don’t be upset. Ma blabbered it out. I meant to slowly …

  ANSUYA: Stop blaming your mother for everything.

  DEEPAK: Ma’s too much, yaar. She is more ambitious for me than even I am for me. Sometimes I get tired of her going on and on about me, even before perfect strangers. Why, on the way up to Simla, we stopped for breakfast at … what’s that place called?

  ANSUYA: At Barog?

  DEEPAK: Yes.

  ANSUYA: (Laughing.) Everyone stops there!

  DEEPAK: There she was, mother dear, at Barog, whispering to the waiter, making sure her little boy’s puri-alu were nice and hot. Let the rest of the world eat it cold, but for her little boy, it has to be nice and hot!

  (He takes a deep breath.)

  Anu, sometimes she smothers me so that I can hardly breathe.

  (Pause.)

  ANSUYA: I am sorry. It is just that I’ve been so looking forward to your coming. I have been counting the days.

  DEEPAK: So, tell me?

  ANSUYA: I wait for your letters. You don’t know what it is like here. I’m tired of Amma and Mamu going on and on about the good old days. Honestly, sometimes I feel like going to bed at eight o’clock in the evening.

  DEEPAK: Oh, I say, there’s the old radio.

  (And he goes towards it.)

  Shall we put it on?

  (He examines the knobs.)

  ANSUYA: (Embarrassed.) We only have old things. Mamu and Amma still cling to them, and try to hold on to the past. (She laughs sadly. Deepak turns the radio on. Soft, romantic music is heard, from one of the films of the early 1960s. Deepak goes to the window and takes a deep breath.)

  DEEPAK: You know, Anu, I can still smell the one summer I spent in this house as a boy.

  ANSUYA: And you have grown up and become an important man …

  DEEPAK: Arre chhodo!

  ANSUYA: … and we’ve stayed the same. Even this house …

  (Realizing.)

  … oops!

  DEEPAK: What about the house?

  ANSUYA: I’m not supposed to say it.

  DEEPAK: Say what?

  ANSUYA: Well, everyone knows it anyway, and I can’t hide anything from you. Even this house is up for sale.

  (Trying to laugh.)

  ‘The End,’ as they say in the pictures.

  DEEPAK: Why?

  ANSUYA: (Irritated.) To pay our debts—what do you think, for our health?

  (Pause.)

  DEEPAK: But the house need not be sold, you know.

  ANSUYA: Don’t talk about it before Amma.

  DEEPAK: About what?

  ANSUYA: About the house.

  DEEPAK: You shouldn’t have to sell it. (Suddenly.)

  I’ll tell you what!

  ANSUYA: What?

  DEEPAK: (Speaking like a professional manager.) Why not convert it into an exclusive season hotel? It is the perfect spot—Jakhoo Hill, the highest point in Simla, isn’t it? ‘Jakhoo Hotel for the discerning.’ It would cost a bit to refurnish, but I’m sure we could get a loan from the bank. Give it to a professional company to manage it. ‘Jakhoo Hotel, managed by the Taj.’ The Oberois have the Cecil and the Clarks, but I’m sure there couldn’t be enough hotel rooms here during the season. And I’m sure the Taj people would love to get their hands on a property like this. In fact, I know some of their senior chaps. I can speak to them. It will be the perfect answer for you. Open it in April and close it in October, and you could use it for the rest of the year. And, I tell you, in two years, you could pay back all your debts and keep the house, too.

  ANSUYA: Amma would never agree.

  DEEPAK: You must speak to her, yaar.

  ANSUYA: She won’t.

  DEEPAK: All right, then I will.

  ANSUYA: (Softly.) Don’t! Don’t you see this house means all that is beautiful and happy in her life—the gaiety of her younger days.

  (Long, embarrassed pause.)

  Deepak?

  DEEPAK: Huh?

  ANSUYA: Tell me about Bombay?

  DEEPAK: What about Bombay?

  ANSUYA: Does Bombay have a big heart?

  DEEPAK: Eh?

  (Ansuya excitedly goes and picks up the guidebook from the shelf and reads.)

  ANSUYA: Tell me about Chowpatty and Malabar Hill and …

  (Deliberately.) …

  Cum-bal-la Hill! How nice the names sound. Ma-la-bar Hill, Cum-bal-la Hill!

  (She pronounces the names by elongating the ‘a’ vowel and she gets enormous pleasure in doing so.)

  DEEPAK: Bombay is like any other city, yaar.

  ANSUYA: Bombay is not mean?

  (Deepak is puzzled.)

  If you scold a servant here, the whole town gets to know by the evening. As we sit here, they are gossiping about our house.

  DEEPAK: But Anu, Bombay can be heartless and indifferent.

  ANSUYA: I’d rather have the indifference than our great hospitality, which suffocates you in the end. You don’t have Mrs Kumar … (and she mimicks.) … ‘I wonder what’s wrong with that girl,’ or Mrs Mehra … ‘Arre, what a fast girl!’ I dream of going to Bombay and those places that have such musical names!

  (She sings.)

  Cum-bal-la Hill, Ma-la-bar Hill, Cum-bal-la Hill …

  (And she’s lost.)

  DEEPAK: Wake up, Miss Malik, we’re on Jakhoo Hill, Simla, and not Cumballa Hill, Bombay. It is Diwali and what are we going to do?

  ANSUYA: Oh Deepak, what can we do? There’s a war on. There’s a total blackout.

  DEEPAK: Why don’t we light one candle and one phuljari and celebrate our own, secret Diwali on the verandah after dark—just the two of us?

  ANSUYA: Shall we?

  DEEPAK: Come on, Ansu, just one candle and a few phuljaris!

  ANSUYA: Oh, Deepak, you are going to bring Diwali into this house!

  (Deepak goes close to her.)

  I am so glad you are here.

  (He puts his arm around her. She puts her head on his shoulder.)

  DEEPAK: Oh, Ansu …

  (They embrace.)

  ANSUYA: I have missed you.

  (They kiss.)

  DEEPAK: Me too!

  (Long kiss.)

  ANSUYA: Oh Deepak!

  (Fade.)

  Act Three

  [Stage Centre. Spotlight on Karan, the narrator.]

  KARAN: A Moorish proverb says, ‘Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother.’ Deepak is not your ordinary beetle, and between you and me, neither is he a gazelle. But what matters is that to Chitra, he is a gazelle. Oh, what power is motherhood! If a son is not careful, he can easily grow pale under its weight. The father? The father is merely a banker provided by nature. Seriously, isn’t the mother-son bond a paradox? It needs the most intense love from the mother, yet this very love must help the son become free and grow away from the mother.

  (Pause. Picks up the Bombay guidebook left on the table by Ansuya.)

  Is it surprising that Ansu was attracted to Deepak? After all, he was handsome, he was doing well, and he lived in Bombay. She yearned for the voicelessness of the big city. A great city can be a great solitude. Ansu wanted to disappear in a crowd of str
angers. A big city may be squalid, even callous, but it is also more tolerant of our fellow men.

  (Pause.)

  In the scenes that follows, I regret that you will not see Mamu at his best. But then, jealousy humiliates us and exacts a heavy price.

  (As the lights come on slowly, Karan looks at his watch.)

  It is six-thirty in the evening. Dusk has set in, which is not unusual for Simla at this time of the year. It has been raining intermittently since the afternoon. There is no further news from the front, but the radio bulletin at 6.00 p.m. said that President Kennedy in America has offered to send equipment and supplies to India. This should lift the morale of our jawans in the Eastern sector.

  (Pause.)

  As you can see, the living room of 9 Jakhoo Hill looks visibly different. It is cheerful and bright and there is a festive feeling in the air. Something about that boy: he has infected everyone in the house with his bright good humour, even the Mali, who has just arranged those flowers over the fireplace. You can tell that Rai Saheb is expected from the bottle of Scotch whiskey which is conspicuous on the table there on my left, surrounded by glasses and some bottles of Indian whiskey. Everyone is in his room, dressing up. But wait, what is Mamu doing, pacing about frantically?

  (Mamu is pacing up and down. Lights change. He bumps into Ansuya.)

  MAMU: (Frantic.) Where have you been?

  ANSUYA: (Cool.) In and out.

  MAMU: With Deepak?

  (She nods.)

  MAMU: Why does everything have to change just because he has come?

  ANSUYA: I feel so happy!

  MAMU: We were happy before he came.

  ANSUYA: He is so alive.

  MAMU: (Defensively.) What about us, Ansu? We were alive together, weren’t we?

  ANSUYA: This is different, Mamu. Only my mind is alive when I’m with you. With Deepak, my whole being is awake. And I can’t control myself. It is as if I am being pulled.

  MAMU: Ansuya, you can’t …

  (Loudly.)

  Oh no!

  ANSUYA: (Concerned.) What is the matter?

  MAMU: I’ve got something in my eye.

  ANSUYA: What is it? Sit down, Mamu.

  (He sits down on the sofa.)

  Let me see.

  MAMU: It’s in my left eye.

  (She sits on the arm of the sofa and helps him.)

  ANSUYA: Don’t move … keep still … now. There, does that feel better?

  MAMU: (Nods.) My eyes are not the same as they used to be.

  (She begins to get up.)