by BS Murthy
"It's the proclivity of bigotry to be insensitive to others' sensibilities."
"But with her, it was not the falsity of the person as it was of perception," he said having asked for one more drink, "nevertheless, much before she had a change of heart, her stilted attitude had induced a false sense of superiority in her daughter, who didn't deem it fit to introduce me to her husband though I took the trouble of attending their wedding as I was a small fry then with no promise either."
When I handed over his drink to him, as if still rankled by her slight, he raised his glass and said in pique, "Cheers to her falsity."
Chapter 20
An Emotional Affair
"If that cousin of mine exemplified the falsity of perception, the one who used to ingratiate himself with her spouse was the personification of falsity itself," he began the remarkable recap of his life. "But as the world reckons, he was an eligible bachelor as far as eligibility could take a middleclass guy; well he was an l.l.Tan with a MNC
career and a four-wheeler to convey his corporate eminence-in-the-making. As my position, rather lack of it, failed to impress him, he was won't not to reciprocate my greetings, and soon to avoid being slighted by him I was not taking cognizance of his presence, in other words I used to ignore the would-be ignorer. Surely, it is stupid to expect hosannas from any, leave alone all, and so I would've still respected him had he remained indifferent to me as ever for all have their own likes and dislikes. But when he sensed that his own mentor, husband of my indifferent cousin, held me dear, he tried to warm up to me, but by then I had learned how to judge people and so I wasn't moved by his attempts to befriend me. Another relative though, impressed by his status and all made up her mind to marry her daughter to him and that put paid to our voicing the objections we all have had about him. It's another matter that I had a crush on the girl."
"Well I too see the big picture of man's character in his small gestures; but you and your crushes, don't they seem unceasing?"
"Didn't Stendhal opine that for a woman to love a man at first sight, he should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face," he continued. "Maybe in my youth, my visage had that dual character, which, as I told you, endeared me to many a woman, and that was why without the fear of rejection, I could make a pass at every woman I had ever fancied; well, my weakness had always been the lightly darkish women with a tinge of sadness on their faces, and I was all too brotherly to those who failed to connect with my roving eye. Once, such a one told me that she was enamored of me for my romanticism and as her persona didn't trigger my passion, I realized that its woman's sex appeal that brings man's innate romanticism into play to provide the cutting edge for lovemaking, and unless combined by male passion and female amorousness, coition is mere sexual motion."
He had yet another sip of Laphroaicfrom his glass before he continued.
"Coming back to the ill-fated girl, the cousin who rescued me from the embarrassment of my life I told you about, abhorred the eligible bachelor in equal measure for his conceited ways, was not prepared to voice her apprehension lest her dissent should be construed as an envy for the girl's glorious fortune-in-the-making; well I too kept mum for I knew that I wouldn't have been deemed as a viable alternative by the mother of the bride and so, sadly for others' decency of silence and her mother's blinkers of falsity, the daughter had to suffer him as her man to her lifelong dismay. But when it came to my relationship with Raju, my faculty of judgment deserted me; it was like the accursed Kama losing his fighting prowess in the combat with Arjuna that had cost his life; but though I lost my soul, my fate had to wait to undo me as my destiny had other ideas for my life. At that time, I lived in a rented portion of a house owned by an eminent family that fell afoul of fate; while the girl was reduced as a makeup woman of a B - grade film heroine; her brothers were compelled to run odd errands to sustain the joint family. As love would have it, she had taken to a man who was not of her ilk and as his parents were not so helpless or as progressive as these days, their inter-caste affair was a non-starter in every way; the social space too was constricted for them to find a place for indulging in premarital sex; if only Cupid had reckoned with that when he kindled love in their hearts; whatever, they remained lovelorn till she prevailed upon him to marry a girl from his caste. But the rumor of her liaison that never was, put paid to her parental quest to find a suitable boy for her from their own caste and it was at that juncture that I entered into her life."
"If only Cupid were not blind, love may have a better vision."
"Well, I was sure at the very first sight that she was not my kind of girl," he said seemingly contemplating what I had said before he continued his story. "So with no romantic leanings on her, I was free in my manner, and she too was open with me without being flirty. Slowly but steadily, we had struck a beautiful relationship, and, so to say, she took charge of my life; by the time I returned from work, she used to wash and press my clothes besides setting my bed right; how her brothers used to protest in jest that she washed my undergarments even as she refused to touch theirs; well she was wont to aver that I was her very special one, and once, when I was down with typhoid, my benevolent cousin came to take me along with her, but as my caretaker would have none of that, I had no heart to go against her wish; oh, how she rolled the roles of a mother, sister and wife into that womanly care! But later, when I decided to leave the place in search of better pastures, how upset she was; she seemed as if she were bereaved but she was reconciled to the dictates of fate as she put it. You may know that she didn't let me carry much of my meager possessions as she wanted to have them as keepsakes! When her promised memento was not forthcoming even as I was all set to go, I went on reminding her about it and she kept on telling me that I hadn't gone still; and as I was about to board the city-bus at their gate to reach the railway station, she took my hand and planted a kiss on it; as our moist eyes blurred our vision, I waved at her as much in sorrow as in joy but she was seemingly immobilized for any reciprocation."
"I know how uplifting affection could be, won't that kiss last a lifetime?"
"And possibly into the eternity for platonic love, unlike its sexual cousin, could never wane," he said as his eyes turned moist. "Maybe, that's the character of motherly love and sisterly affection; yet it would seem that it's in the lovemaking that the divinity of love manifests itself in its truest mode. But then sexual liking, with or without love, too could hold on its own; I used to see a ravishing woman in the bus stop, and once we chanced to stand together in a jam-packed city bus; as I tentatively pressed myself against her back, she deliberately pushed herself closer to me; and seemingly unconcerned of each other, we let our declivities rub against each other until male biology brought our delight to a close. Maybe, attractive women tend to celebrate their femininity in the small pleasures that male eagerness ensures, but what a scene the plain things create from a shake-hand distance in crowded places; why, it's as if they want to attract attention to themselves by insinuating that man's forced proximity to her was but his indecent approach. Whatever, if not for the love of that girl and the warmth of my cousin, there was no way I could've continued with the drudgery of my job, and years later, when all were critical of my brother for having given up a job that didn't suit his aptitude, I wanted to know how many had had to endure the like hardships at the start of their careers; the problem with us is that we tend to judge others without an iota of an idea of their compelling circumstances; well, my brother made the grade in a job that went well with his genius. But given the changeability of man, my once inimical cousin's spouse, who had professed his support for me, failed to further my career when he was in a position to do so. But as I see it now, his relevance to my life was his support for me when I was laid low by fate but not in his disregard for me when I learned to be on my own; that's why; I made it a point to pay my last respects to him, though by then I was out of his mind for long."
"How contrasting it is compared to you
r reaction to Raju's death?"
"Don't you see that it symbolizes the contrasting phases of my life?" he said in remorse. "Maybe, adoration is borne out one's perception of his being the object of appreciation, which the sense of deprivation of the same results in a state of disaffection, but censure is an inimical product of one's sense of superiority over the
other that is afflicting, oh how these things come to shape the fates of men; though I let censure steel my nerve, I let applause weaken my will, but that was much later."
He paused as if to pick up the reins of his scattered thoughts.
Chapter 21
The Harlot Zone
"As if to show me the darker side of the flesh-trade, life took me into a harlot zone of the city I had reached," he said as I refilled our glasses with the drink. "It was so unlike the pleasure streets of our town dotted with decent joints that I frequented; the crowded lanes of that red-light district, lined with girls in garish make-up and the dungeon of a brothel that I landed in were clear put-offs; so when the madam wanted to know about my kind of maal, I was all set to take to my heels, but as the girls trooped into the parade hall, as if on cue, I was tempted to opt for one. When she had led me into in a dungeon of a cubicle to my dismay, a brawl in the corridor made it worse for my mood but she insisted that I should have her for it was seldom that a decent man came her way; even as my empathy for her threw me into a dilemma, she had oralled my passion for her ready possession."
"Who said they are all suckers, in the negative sense."
"Your interjections do inspire," he said. "It's the paradox of prostitution that man lets some women have a free reign on sex so as to rein in the promiscuity in the rest of them. So, won't the least sought-after of the whores outscore all the Casanovas of the world put together; well, that's in the lighter vein, but it was that experience which made me realize that it was stupid to generalize the sex-workers; the harlots in the hell-holes of cities' red-light districts are a pitiable lot of gullible girls and hapless women forced to cater to the ever growing demand for paid sex there. But thanks to the limited clientele in towns, the whores there can stave off the debilitating sexual burden their ilk in the cities have to bear, yet it's the so-called call-girls that call the shots, more so, in metros; so all of them, being in the same calling are not on the same footing. If the vicissitudes of life push women into the vice-like grip of madampimp-police nexus of the flesh trade, then it's the outcries of the moralists against legalizing prostitution that ensure their sexual slavery in abominable conditions; maybe, if only paid sex were to have a legal tag, then surely it would entail as fair deal as possible for these hapless women."
"I hear it's much worse in the U.S, where the pimps treat the prostitutes as vassals and abuse them in unimaginable ways."
"Won't that prove the more materialistic a society is, the less sensitive it is to the plight of the deprived?" he said, "What does one say about the out-dated ideas of the so-called idealists; it seems in matters moral, insensitivity is well ingrained in its sensitivity. Save a Gandhi, even the best of the rest of yore were not averse to their fellow-beings scavenging their latrines; now I wonder why I never thought of it before, maybe, we put up with what we come to grow up with; if not, why don't the Sikh males find the turban burdensome and the Muslim dames put up with the inhibiting burka? Whatever, the world seems to care two hoots for the plight of the sex-workers as it had been to that of the scavengers, and God knows when it would be wiser to the ills of the unlicensed prostitution, if not AIDS, it's the VD that's the return on investment for these pleasure-givers; why, the malady of the flesh-trade is the bane of those who bring in the wares. How sad it is!"
"What an irony that they are undone being the sexual scavengers of the male world?"
"Isn't it a novel lament," he said. "But, let the willing sell sex on their own, and see how it works for the sellers and the buyers alike, why it's bound to benefit all, like in the rythubazars sans middlemen. But the farmers' suicides make another story; it's the marginal guys, who gamble on the cash crops that come a cropper; why not, lurking behind the probable windfall is the possible failure to devour; have you heard of a paddy farmer or a wheat grower committing suicide as the cash crop losers do? Yet with their eye on the rural vote-bank, how the parties in opposition tirade against the government of the day over these avoidable calamities; maybe the political power changes hands over their dead bodies but the destitute continue to consume pesticides as a way out of their debt traps. Won't the callous politicians know that it's in chasing the quick buck that these greedy guys bungle with their lives; why don't they exhort farmers to part-opt for the cash crops to meet both ends? Moreover, it's not as if the bankrupt traders and the insolvent others are not known to commit suicide but then, there is no political axe to grind over their deaths; it all boils down to lobbying, in the open as in the U.S or behind the closed doors in our country; but can sex workers ever muster the sort of clout that the farmers' lobby has?"
"Are they not making the right noises these days?"
"God bless them," he continued. "What a good turn one of them gave to my life; I was so put off with that metro jaunt that it was quite a while before I ventured into a brothel, where I chanced upon an angelic whore, who later became my Good Samaritan. Since she struck my romantic chord straight away, I stuck to her for it's not the sexual variety that I sought even in the paid sex. After a hiatus, when I returned into her ardent arms, she told me that in the meantime she had conceived my child but was constrained to get it aborted. While I felt that something in me snapped, she said it was time that I got married and became a father, when she told me to court a suitable dame, I said that I was unlucky in love; she said that she knew a girl, who would be an ideal wife for me, and as if to goad me to her candidate, she said the dame had a rare sex appeal to eroticize the romantic in me; she said that the girl was not privy to her double life and even if she came to know about it, she was sure she would be sympathetic towards her. It was all too tempting not to follow the lead, more so as I was just then shunned by Devi, who opted to marry Raju, a bank clerk then; now I realize in hindsight that if only his father was half as resourceful as my dad had been, he might've been no less an engineer than me."
"Isn't it interesting that one woman should lead you to another woman?"
"Didn't I tell you that my life is rather unusually unusual," he said joyously. "Her lead led me to Rathi and I fell for her, so to say, head-over-heels, and her parents too were for hastening our wedding. With the wedding a week away, I went to thank her, you can guess who, and she offered herself as her wedding present; well I couldn't say no to her and she dragged me into her bed, as she put it, to refresh my memory of an amorous woman's lovemaking. Oh, what a time she gave me for one last time, but the day before the marriage party was to board the Circar Express to reach Rathi's place, it occurred to me to take a VDRL test, just in case; and to my dismay, I tested positive. Nonplussed though, I rushed to a specialist, who said the tests could go awry at times, and how I wished that was the case in my case; anyway, putting my fears at rest, he said that even otherwise, he would treat me in time to make it harmless for my bride. What a nervous time it was waiting for the fresh report, oh, it was the anxiety of a lifetime; but how relieved I was as the second test negated the first result is beyond words."
"It's as if your life never ceases to surprise."
"It looks like that as I review it," he said. "How my Rathi gloated over me for being better than the he-man of her dreams; as she lived by her devotion for me, I was lost in my adoration for her. How I used to savor every nuance of her enchanting persona to her heart's content; as she made me feel wanted like never before, what a wondrous feeling it was, but still, in those fulfilling moments of our life, I opened the book of my unrequited love that she read with empathetic feeling. Yet, I know not why, I wanted to check up whether or not I would feel guilty being unfaithful to her, and seized by an urge to experiment, I took the test through paid sex, t
he result of which was neither 'positive' on the VDRL count nor 'negative' on my love count. So shorn of its moral shackles to confine it, my love soared to new highs, taking Rathi's soul along to the zenith of our emotional union; oh what a life it was and how we both wished it lasted a lifetime; well, it had ended all too soon, but it was a lived life as long as it lasted."
"Won't it remind one of Gandhi's experiments with truth?"
"I have no quarrel with Gandhi the man but I have problem with the Mahatma of his," he said and as if to remonstrate his apathy for the Gandhian values, he had an extended sip of that Laphroaic.
Chapter 22
A Lingering Longing
"I'm no Gandhian and I don't intend to be one," he continued from where he had left. "But as is being done, I see it's a disservice to his legacy to deify him; it's when I approach him as man that I value him as a human being, but in his picture of mahatma, I see many a wart in his atma. Credit him for cleaning up the public toilets but why not condemn him for having forced his spouse to do the same; why laud him for his quixotic abstinence unmindful of his wife's conjugal plight; was he not an inveterate autocrat in the democratic garb; what about his falling afoul of Prakasam, and how he played favorites with Nehru. Why bother about him as he'd been reduced for long as a political mascot of the slavish-minded of the self-serving Nehru family that hijacked his name to grind its dynastic axe! What an irony it is that his party that sundered the British yoke should have rendered the political reins into Italian hands? Bemoan the congress party."