The Heat and Dust Project

by Saurav Jha

  Three:

  How (Not) to Be Blue

  Parvati said: ‘O you of a good vow, tell me about the holy places that exist on this island. This island is fashioned by the lord as the king of all islands. O lord, favouring me, tell me about them…’

  Mahadeva said: ‘The Omnipresent (lord) should be seen in all beings on the earth. Whatever primary substance, with the mobile and the immobile, is seen in the seven worlds, is not seen or heard by me to be without Him … I shall certainly tell you about all the holy places. First is the holy place called Pushkara, auspicious and best among holy places.’

  — Padma Purana, Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Three,

  ‘The Holy Places in Jambudvipa’

  11

  Dinner is served in the verandah, which is wide and high, almost like a stage, opposite the main doorway. In traditional fashion, S and I have been served in one plate. Under the tube light which casts a dim blue-white glow on the plinth, we sit cross-legged. The huge steel plate and the many tiny bowls surrounding it are arranged on a low table in front. Perhaps it is a water-conserving device, this thing about husbands and wives (even other relatives) eating from one plate. I don’t know if in the past the husbands ate before the wives did. In our case, we eat simultaneously, hungrily. The Pushkar cold whets the appetite; in any case, lunch was a lifetime ago.

  The food is hot and delicious. There is rice and dal, and a dry subzi and a spicy vegetable curry. Bajra rotis. Curd set in a bowl. The Parashars have eaten already – dinners are early affairs for them. The women send us second helpings from the kitchen, fresh hot rotis, through the beautifully behaved daughter, Badi Bhabhi’s eldest. Old Mrs Parashar has carried her chair into the courtyard and urges more food onto our plates. Polly talks. His brother lurks in the shadows behind.

  Polly’s brother looks rather like him – the same haircut, the same cast of features – but he’s taller and thinner. A man who seems capable of fingering discontents within himself, used to holding things inside. Polly is chatty, quite the extrovert. Years of interacting with foreigners has rubbed onto his vocabulary, made it expansive, rich in experience. Through his hospitality, Polly has felt the world. It has accorded him a confidence through which he can easily negotiate the modernity that is above and beyond Pushkar; Jaipur, after all, is not far away. Delhi too. Polly talks about trade.

  Pushkar has 5,000 tailors; it exports top-quality garments. During the camel fair, room rents sky-rocket. Our room might well go for eight hundred or even a thousand rupees a night. There is no water in the Jyeshtha Pushkar now because the government is having it cleaned, but thousands of fish were left to rot. It was a disaster!

  They have three sisters, all of whom are happily married. But the marriages, expensive as they were, have come in the way of renovating the old house. Polly’s brother is shy and slightly remote. He smiles politely but maintains a respectful younger-brotherly distance. In that silence one feels that perhaps if we had been his guests, he would have told us other stories, shown us other Pushkars; then, we would have talked about other things, big things perhaps. Globalization. The state of the nation. The Delhi sarkar.

  After dinner, we wash our hands at a tap in the corner of the courtyard and S goes through with Polly to the TV room. The bhabhis roll out a mat on the verandah. Old Mrs Parashar rises from her folding chair but lingers in the courtyard for a few minutes. She asks me how many years we’ve been married – and upon hearing the answer, advises me to have a baby now. I murmur something vague about the inopportuneness of our travels and make a mental note to lie the next time the number of years comes up. Three months, I should say. This is our honeymoon. (Hah! I remind myself to put that on the list too. A honeymoon. But S is likely to rubbish it as too bourgeois.) Mrs Parashar then goes off to join the men, leaving us to relax and stretch our feet, and the bhabhis turn to me, full of questions: Where are we going? Did we have a love marriage? Who all are at home?

  I chew my lips and rearrange my hair and wrap the fuchsia shawl closer and tell them about the book we hope to write; the books we have written, one each, which should be published sometime; about the anxieties of it all. I tell them about how we met in college. About our families in Calcutta, my nephew, the apple of my eye.

  They tell me in turn about the rhythms of their day. They wake up at five and begin the chores; the kids go to school. They tell me the summer afternoons are long and so hot. They tell me about the gifts that must come from the families of the women every time a baby is born. They are brides of the house – ‘bahuen’ is the word Renuka Sahane uses – they can’t go out whenever fancy strikes, to shop or wander whimsically, though last year they had gone as a large party to a pilgrim town somewhere. Planning is important in their excursions; it’s almost bureaucratic.

  I am utterly taken with the bhabhis. Ever since I read Ismat Chughtai’s memoirs – where she writes with great warmth and compassion about her cantankerous aunt who went through life believing, below her bluster, that she was an incomplete woman, and railing against Ismat’s mother, the complete woman, who bore her kids, did her politics, wove her web and managed her household with both art and craft, with both guile and generosity – I have learnt to name, and therefore analyse, this crush I develop on women I think are complete. It is a version of the same thing. Instead of Bachchu Phupi’s angst, I just have my nice timid longings. Whether it is women who have children and roll rotis effortlessly or my peers in the Delhi circuit who have their apps, investments, stilettos and feminist theory pat, I hero-worship complete women.

  One of Renuka Sahane’s older sisters is married in the neighbourhood – she comes to visit often. Impressed by the success of Mayur Guest House, they have also converted their old haveli into a homestay. But of course, Badi Bhabhi adds mildly, Lonely Planet or Rough Guide have not featured it. But yes, they are trying hard. That is good. Business is not the usual profession for Brahmins, of course, but then, what to do in these times? Also, hospitality is not business exactly. Badi Bhabhi’s brother is in Jaipur, with his family. They are in service. She is inordinately proud of them.

  Suddenly she asks, about my nephew, ‘He must be going to a playschool, no?’

  Playschool.

  The English word sounds strange and foreign to my ears. Playschool.

  Badi Bhabhi is saying, ‘My brother’s son in Jaipur is only two-and-a-half. But he goes to a playschool. Very modern playschool.’ Then she adds wistfully, ‘Jaipur has many facilities.’ She is ambitious for the baby. And perhaps, sensing the burden of ambition he must bear, the little creature cries out from one of the many rooms opening onto the verandah. Badi Bhabhi leaps to her feet and with a happy-apologetic smile rushes in that direction. The children are in the TV room.

  Renuka Sahane and I are alone. We smile at each other.

  Our silence fills up quickly with the quiet interest that can suddenly flower between women. In trains or hospitals or even wide verandahs, as now. Though we don’t say anything, the stories spill out like unruly vines. I don’t talk about the day we loaded our stuff onto the truck in Delhi and sent it off to Calcutta. I had stood in the large terrace above our tiny home, trying to memorize the twilight. The idea of leaving Delhi with its long spectacular dusks had crushed me. At the other end of the terrace, under the still-blue sky, S might have felt the same. But we were too proud to admit this to ourselves. We had left our jobs for freedom; the price had to be paid.

  Renuka Sahane does not tell me how the bluish-white walls of the beautiful house can sometimes fail to absorb the everyday sorrows that creep up like walls between women who are married to kinsmen; she does not tell me about all the beautiful bluish-white walls that can become prisons in these parts.

  And then, finally, after a quarter of an hour, because it is late and time for us to leave, and Renuka Sahane must respond now to her husband calling her upstairs from the shadowy end of the verandah, we both know that something mu
st be said. She tells me. ‘The next time you must visit in monsoon. The hills are green and so lush then. All the rituals of saawan are performed. I’ll take you to my peehar. It is more beautiful than Pushkar.’ And then, Badi Bhabhi comes out from her room, holding the baby. Renuka Sahane cuts across the courtyard, her payals tinkling faintly, and takes the stairs. I can hear S beginning to take his leave, though I cannot see him.

  Badi Bhabhi settles down next to me, our feet dangling from the edge of the plinth, and I admire the baby. The children return and begin to play noisily on the verandah, clapping their hands and reciting something. The little girl, Badi Bhabhi’s second daughter, only around three-and-a-half, is waddling around happily, holding a doll. I observe for the first time that her gait is slightly awkward. Badi Bhabhi leans in. ‘You know, this little one was born with a congenital disorder, her feet were turned inward. We had to get several operations done to have it fixed. But by God’s grace all the operations were successful. Now there are scars but the doctors have promised that those will heal. Only after everything was done did I take a chance again.’ She smiles beatifically at the baby in her lap. Turning to me conspiratorially she says, ‘We don’t believe in sonography and all that. Many people in Rajasthan do, of course. But I just took a chance. And we were lucky. Turned out to be a boy.’

  12

  Later at night, in my pyjamas, I sit shivering under the quilt in our room. Damn, I forgot. I had meant to ask Polly for another quilt. Next to me, S is busy: sucking Internet. His face is craggy in the blue hum of the laptop. I can see the familiar grey and white horizontal stripes of his favourite forum page. How I hate that forum for defence geeks. I reopen the notebook where I have been sanctimoniously making notes on the day. It’s been a long day.

  ‘What is going on in the world?’ I finally ask.

  ‘Usual,’ he mutters.

  ‘Can we please go to bed now?’ I say, laying my head on the pillow and stretching my legs. ‘I thought we were supposed to correct our cycle. Go to bed early and wake up at dawn. And you haven’t even made any notes,’ I point out primly.

  ‘You’ve made notes,’ he replies, ‘should be enough.’

  ‘Oof!’ I sit up again. ‘What about the times you were alone with Polly and his parents? What about the stuff you talked about with them?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ sighs S. ‘The India–South Korea FTA will be signed by the end of this week. I think the Japanese will have to move quicker on the trade front with us now.’ He switches off the laptop, rolls up the charger and packs it away in his bag. He turns the light off and dives under the quilt.

  He says, ‘I heard some pretty interesting things.’

  ‘What?’ I ask, though I had been planning to ignore him.

  ‘For one, Polly told me about Neki Mohammad. He is a wood merchant by profession, but is actually a famous tantrik. His relatives Salim and Nizam run the Honeydew Cafe. Remember the one opposite the restaurant where we lunched?’ I nod. Lonely Planet recommended its pancakes. ‘Neki can cure diseases and solve problems and fix matters. But apparently he does not accept a single paisa in payment. Not even a stick of incense. Once, one of Polly’s uncles was possessed by a spirit. Neki managed to cure him.’

  ‘Wow!’ I turn towards him. ‘And?’

  ‘And that’s all I know. But when Polly first set up the homestay, it seems he was quite the ladies’ man. There were several angrez mems who were eager to marry him. He could have emigrated. One girl was particularly keen; she was even quite pally with old Mrs Parashar. Had managed to mollify her and get her consent. But finally he didn’t. He married Badi Bhabhi. He told me, quietly, just as we were coming out for dinner, “A white woman is like a cat. You can never fully domesticate her.”’

  I burst out laughing.

  ‘Doesn’t seem like you are having much luck with your brown woman either,’ I say.

  For a while, there is silence. Then we hear the familiar sounds outside: a cow lowing softly; the scooter with a faulty silencer; far away, the strains of a TV channel.

  I have almost surrendered to sleep, my back to S, when he taps my shoulder and speaks softly. Through the skin of dreams I hear his words. ‘The most interesting thing Polly said was this. Every Kartik purnima, it is said the Gaya kund visits Pushkar. So for those who cannot go to Gaya to pray for the solace of ancestral spirits, Gaya travels to Pushkar once a year. On that day, if you go to Gaya, the pandits will tell you, “Aaj puja nahin hogi; aaj toh Gayaji gayi hain Pushkar!”’

  Sometime afterwards, I fall into a deep sleep.

  Saurav

  Six months before my mother died, I had the dream. I was twelve. By then, the cancer had metastasized to her pancreas, after spending a decade in different lymph nodes in her body. On good days, she sat up in bed reading Mills & Boon romances and made me chicken sandwiches at midnight when I awoke and wandered hungrily to the fridge. On bad days, she would fling her medicines away and thrash on the bed, crying bitterly. My father would make us noodles in sauce for dinner, look for the medicines crouching on the floor, and hold her hand. Very bad days were a blur of doctors and hospitals.

  Six months before she died, I had the dream. There was a room in a house. It looked like my room but was not. I was outside the room in that half-familiar house, standing at the edge of sleep. I knew instantly my mother had died. Even in the dream I was not surprised. My brother and I, though we never talked about it, had lived with the certitude of her impending absence for years. An abiding presence in the dark corners of the verandahs, under the awning of the kitchen, in the guest bedroom, gathering dust. I must have tossed in the still airlessness of the room that was not my room, must have tried to shake off the dream I did not want to see. But the dream had not ended. I saw further that my father had died. Even then the dream would not go away. I saw I had become the boy with a stone for his heart.

  It was a Russian story. In left-ruled Calcutta, beautiful children’s books by Raduga Publishers were readily available in independent bookstores on College Street, and during the book fair every winter, long before book chains had mushroomed in the city with their coffee shops. I would pore over these books. Olegs and Vasillys and Annas were my friends. The mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky, my hero. In one of these books was the outcast boy, the boy with a stone for his heart. I can’t remember now what happened to him.

  Around six months later, her stomach filled with water for the third time and the doctors suggested, in accordance with her wishes, that we bring her home from the hospital.

  Afterwards, people came to visit and sat on the sofa and sipped tea. With voices heavy with concern, they said they feared most for my father. In all such cases they had seen, and in their time they had seen a few, the spouse did not last beyond a year. They then wiped their faces with big square handkerchiefs and went home.

  Stiff white cards were printed. They listed my brother and me as bhagya-heen. Luckless. The words curled like black ants on the card above our names. The luckless brothers invited everyone for lunch on the eleventh day of their mother’s passing to pray for the peace of her soul.

  I remember reading one of the cards when the batch was delivered home and saying to my brother in some surprise, ‘Look, Dada, they have called us bhagya-heen.’ How can anyone be bhagya-heen? Without destiny? ‘But that is what we are,’ my brother had replied. His Bengali was always better than mine. In any case, he was nineteen and very tall. He went to college; he even topped. He had friends to rally around him. He had a knack of dealing with things; fighting stupid luckless things with a maniacal pursuit of success. For example, he had dealt so much better with the Bengali/non-Bengali minefield that was the lot of our family: what sort of strange creatures were we anyway? We had a Bihari surname but we had been speaking Bengali for generations, and my aunts were known to look down upon ‘Hindustanis’: Biharis and UPwallahs. Exactly like the Bengalis, who always complimented us on the fluency of
our Bengali and with their compliments fenced us outside Bengalihood.

  I waited for the rest of the dream to come true. Every single night, for months, I would wake up in panic. The memory of the dream would enter my head and stand with its feet firmly planted. But I never saw that other room again. Fearfully, I would look for my father. Invariably, he would be pacing in the hall. I would return to bed, satisfied that he was alive. It was enough. It was even plenty. Sometimes, if he saw me, he would follow me to bed. Other days, I would look out of the window. The walls of the next house were unpainted, shabbied by the polluted air. The street-lamp cast a yellow beam on the road. The trees would catch a sliver of light from some angle and project furry shadows on the brown walls. Sometimes dogs would bark all night.

  When I went back to school the next session, summer had returned to the city. I glittered in the gaze of the students; an anthropological specimen. Everyone knew why I had missed the finals. The teachers looked at me with sorrow. But I had no use for their sympathies. I was finally settling down into rage and outsiderhood, both of which fought all night with the shadows against the brown walls.

  I also became wiser in the ways of the world. Mother tongue and father tongue were all irrelevant nonsense. In a classroom full of boys who came from two-parent homes, from families, who is a greater outsider than the thirteen-year-old boy who has lost his mother?

  13

  The days in Pushkar are blue and airy. Their memory rings still like a sharp sweet bell announcing the end of school day.