The Green Rose

by Sharmila Mukherjee

  Though from her balcony, Charu saw Shalini almost every day, the affair at first had the look and feel of being a long-distance one. Shalini was a rich visual treat that Charu wouldn’t miss for the world. At a particular hour of the afternoon, when the intense heat would lull all things animate and inanimate in the city of New Delhi to sleep, out would step—like a watery oasis in a parched desert—a freshly bathed Shalini on to her rooftop terrace. Her hair, dark, thick and lustrous with water droplets, reached her waist, with the lower ends tapering into intricate designs.

  For Charu, seeing Shalini was like seeing a goddess that had gloriously emerged from her sanctum sanctorum into the light of public view. Charu wanted to reach out and decorate her from top to bottom with sandalwood paste, because Shalini, despite her beauty, looked like she needed a lot of tender loving care, some worshipping even.

  Charu had seen many goddesses in the city of New Delhi, but none looked as abandoned and forlorn as Shalini.

  Having married her and brought her to his luxurious government quarters, equipped with all the modern amenities that an Indian wife can ever dream of, Dr Mahapatra had installed Shalini as the goddess of his home and hearth. No sooner than she had been installed, he had deemed his duty to have been fulfilled. Had Shalini been an average woman, he would have stayed home and played with her hair day and night, would have dug his face into the fragranced thicket and inhaled the smell of imported green apple extraction shampoo that Shalini washed her hair with. But Shalini was too beautiful. She was more than beautiful; she was supremely feminine—a higher rarefaction of the female to the point of becoming a spirit. He was afraid to touch her with his grubby, hairy fingers.

  So Shalini Mahapatra spent most of her days in the house alone, served by government-paid domestic servants and a government-paid driver who drove her to malls and to parties and now and then to the airport because Shalini liked to take vacations—alone. Dr Mahapatra busied himself with his work, and soon became a much sought-after medical administrator who was always out of town attending conferences and meeting other powerful officials to discuss the latest and the trendiest national health issues.

  Mrs Mahapatra attended parties by herself or in the company of Mrs Vaikundeshwari. While Mrs Mahapatra accounted for her husband’s absence by her side by saying, ‘He’s on tour’, (at which Mrs Vaikundeshwari invariably couldn’t help let loose a volley of snigges), Dr Mahapatra rattled off the more American-style excuse of ‘She’s a little under the weather.’

  Truth be told, Shalini was never under the weather. She possessed the quality of transcending the weather, for come rain or sun or the various assortments of climactic permutations and combinations in between, Shalini always looked weather-proof: composed to the hilt, with not a strand of hair out of place ever, no lipstick smudges around her lip, not even a small glob of mascara hanging like a stalactite from her finely honed eyelashes. In the midst of the sweltering heat of New Delhi, Shalini appeared miraculously cool and unperspiring as though she had a built-in air-conditioning unit inside of her.

  If Shalini’s elegant and incomparably sexy figure was a cynosure, Dr Mahapatra’s stature, puny, except at the midriff, which protruded with shocking abruptness like an overripe jackfruit, was an eyesore. Worse still, the doctor had a reputation for sweating. Be it winter or summer, in air-conditioned rooms or outside, in the full blast of the heat and the humidity, he sweated profusely, smelling always, like a pig. Not even the priciest of colognes in the world could battle the odour that seemed to fester organically in Dr Mahapatra. Fellow IAS officers joked about this fact and called him the ‘old sewer pipe of New Delhi’ behind his back. The days—and thank heavens there weren’t that many of them—when Mr Guha had to sit in meetings with Dr Mahapatra being present in the same room, he would come home to tell his wife and daughter of how he was torn between being polite and fending off the smell that the doctor exuded.

  While everybody wanted to run away in the direction opposite to the one in which they saw Dr Mahapatra coming, nobody quite understood what caused the doctor to perspire perennially with such intensity. Only Charu had the perspicacity to believe the cause was Shalini. Charu was in the doctor’s shoes herself. If Shalini could induce so much monsoon-wetness in the pretty Charu from a distance, imagine what kind of furnace she could send her husband spiralling into! No wonder the poor man was seen to mop his forehead non-stop with a handkerchief.

  Charu thus commiserated with Dr Mahapatra’s situation. Yet she was jealous of him as well. After all, technically, he was her rival. The thought of Shalini and Dr Mahapatra as husband and wife tormented Charu; he had her despite being an awful-looking man with no bed-skills whatsoever (about Dr Mahapatra’s lack in the department of romance and sex, Charu was convinced. For how could a man who poured forth so much sweat just like Niobe poured forth tears, and whose arms and legs were like dandelion stems, and who looked as though he was simply sleep-walking through time, make love to such a sexy being as Shalini?). While here she was—Charu, Shalini’s beautiful next-door neighbour, and her perfect conjugal match—forced to be content with dreams and imaginary love-making scenarios that would never materialize into reality.

  What irony of fate for women doomed to be in love with other women! The acute unfairness of god’s design depressed Charu: in the matter of love and sex the universe was so lopsidedly tilted in favour of even ogres like Biju Mahapatra. What was normal to the world appeared to the perceptive Charu to be an inversion of the natural order of things. In the natural order of things were a swayamvara to be held for the hand of Shalini, Charu would beat Biju Mahapatra hands down; in the natural order of things to even think of the doctor as a ‘competition’ was laughable to Charu.

  Atop her terrace Shalini had built a nursery. It was rumoured that Shalini’s ‘garden’ was lush with flora and fauna of amazing colour and fragrance. Poor Mrs Mahapatra, the Greater Kailash women thought, forced by her husband’s neglect to deflecting the nurturing spirit that is in every woman her age on to the plants! By and by the neighbours came to refer to Shalini’s plants as her ‘children’.

  To Charu the flowers were not Shalini’s ‘children’, but Shalini’s gift to Charu. She imagined the flowers that bloomed in Shalini’s nursery to be reserved solely for her hair and for a vase in her bedroom. If the idea of Shalini’s raising flowers for Charu exploded like an erotic bomb inside her, the amazing smell that filled her bedroom and kept her awake at night made her feel bed-sheet-ripping horny.

  Everybody talked about the smell which emanated from the sovereign of the flora that Shalini reared with her own hands—the queen-of-the-night. In the darkness of the night, the night-queen bush would get thickly clustered with flowers, and invade the surrounding area like some raging-with-lust monster steaming up Greater Kailash with its strong nocturnal fragrance.

  The smell infiltrated Charu’s bedroom. At night, Charu writhed in its grip of a magic serpent-binding spell. All day, the smells that came from Shalini’s terrace, as if for Charu’s nose only, were gentle and tranquil; but when it grew dark, the night-queen reigned over the entire colony of Greater Kailash. The women must have all gone mad with the allure of the fragrance. Charu was sure that many of the women who bitched about Shalini also wanted to make love to her, to lick off the thin film of dew with which Shalini’s body always seemed to be laden over like delicate trellis work, even in the heat and dust of New Delhi.

  As time rolled by, the love-affair with Shalini ripened into an advanced stage in Charu’s mental world. Now all that remained was a real meeting between the two. Charu blushed at the thought of a real meeting. What would she say to Shalini? She was afraid that upon seeing Shalini she would become tongue-tied. How would she introduce herself? How would she express the near-devotional love that she bore in her heart for Shalini for months? Perhaps Shalini had some inkling of it, and on seeing Charu for the first time in person she would dive blindly into the thick of things by saying, ‘It’s about time, darling, let�
��s just do it.’

  Charu shivered at the thought. How would Charu perform as a lover when the time of trial arrived? What if she failed to please the goddess? Charu perceived Shalini as an expert in the area of love-making. A woman endowed with so perfect a beauty was bound to be a PhD in the art of love-making. Charu was driven crazy by anxiety, till one day she thought it would be best to stop willing a real-life encounter with Shalini. It would be safest to weave a tapestry of love in the landscape of her dreams. Why risk disappointment by venturing out into the world of workaday reality?

  But all happens as fate deems fit. So, one day, when Charu was by habit looking at Shalini and getting aroused, Shalini looked back at Charu, almost by the magic of telepathy. A moment of optical consummation ensued! The possibilities once again rushed through Charu’s mind.

  That day, Shalini appeared especially forlorn. Charu’s throat felt dry. She badly wanted to tell Shalini—across the nominal space that separated her balcony from Shalini’s rooftop terrace—‘I’m here, you’re not alone, you have me, and I think you’re just too beautiful.’ She badly wanted to stretch out her hands such that her fingertips could graze Shalini’s moist body.

  ‘Come over tomorrow!’ a shout wafted across the space that separated Charu’s home from Shalini’s. Charu was startled upon hearing Shalini speak. How sexy and authoritative her voice was! So congruous it was with her gorgeous physique! Shalini was more than perfect; she was especially hand-crafted by god to be marvelled at and be seduced by. Charu felt a tremor in her legs. Was this for real? Was Shalini, flouting all unspoken rules of propriety about shouting across spaces in the colony of Greater Kailash, really sending her an invite?

  ‘Come over tomorrow afternoon if you’re not doing anything,’ Shalini shouted again, and if Charu weren’t suspicious that the glare of the sun—so strong and blinding it was at that hour of the afternoon—was playing tricks on Charu’s line of vision, she would swear with a hand on her heart that Shalini also winked. An invite gift-wrapped in a suggestive wink was thus sent over to Charu from the object of her adulation, the sex goddess herself. Charu couldn’t believe her good fortune.

  Yet elation soon gave way to a feeling of deep anxiety. The weight of the promise was staggering; Charu felt like she would wilt under the pressure. She squeaked forth a weak affirmation. ‘Okay, I will come by tomorrow if I’m free,’ is all she managed to convey to Shalini. Did she receive my message, Charu wondered. But by the time she looked up to see if Shalini were in her terrace still, the goddess was gone. What Charu didn’t see was the half-moon smile of mischievousness that played across Shalini’s lips as, pushing open the sliding glass door, she retreated regally into her room.

  No sooner had she accepted Shalini’s invitation to come and visit her the next day than the reality of the situation sank into Charu. Oh who was she kidding? She didn’t have the independence that Shalini had, to come and go as she wanted. How would she manage to sneak out of her house tomorrow afternoon, or the afternoon after tomorrow and so on and so forth, with her mother keeping such a strict vigil on her comings and goings? Were she to go to Shalini next door, she would have to apply her make-up and look her sexiest best and her mother would be sure to ask where she was going in this maddeningly hot afternoon with all that make-up and the sexy dress. What answer would she give to her mother? Besides what destination could Charu possibly concoct to pull the wool over her mother’s sharp and wool-resistant eyes? Her mother would not believe her.

  If she were to tell the truth to Mrs Guha and say that she was going to pay a visit to their next-door neighbours, Mrs Guha would go ballistic. Charu knew how her mother detested Mrs Mahapatra, whom she called the ‘slutty’ home-alone, childless wife of that nice man Biju Mahapatra. No, the chances of Charu making it to Shalini’s the next day were slim to none. Charu felt an impotent kind of fury well up in her breast.

  Fate, however, is relentless. The next day a beaming Mrs Guha told Charu that Vaiku and she had decided to attend the ladies’ book club in Connaught Place on certain afternoons of the month. Vaiku had told her how she needed to get out more often to avoid getting a big belly by sleeping away the afternoon hours every day. Mrs Vaikundeshwari, the one Greater Kailash society woman for whom Mrs Guha had real affection, had persuaded Mrs Guha to leave Charu home alone during ‘certain afternoons’ every month.

  The gods must have heard Charu’s prayers and willed the impossible to fructify into reality! More sweet-as-manna sounding news was poured into Charu’s ears. ‘We’ll be starting our new routine today, so if you need anything ask Deepti,’ said Mrs Guha thus clearing the path for Charu’s rendezvous with Shalini. What perfect timing for Mrs Guha to have chosen to stay out of the house! Charu sensed a divine intervention at play.

  While one couldn’t be certain about the hand of divinity in the facilitation of a meeting (at last) between Shalini and Charu, one could definitely say that an auspicious entity was at work, or else what could explain Mrs Guha’s sudden abandonment of her weekday afternoon kumbkarna routine—a routine she had cherished since the time she was a little girl, like she cherished the trunk full of her grandmother’s dhakai saris—in favour of a wholly new ritual? When he was alive, Mr Guha had tried to persuade his wife to spend her afternoons more productively, and the Connaught Place ladies’ book club was on his agenda, but Mrs Guha had scoffed at the idea because she believed the book club was an occasion for frivolous and giggly women to gather together and behave like teenagers. But today it seemed that the skies under which Charu lived had veritably altered; her mother was all agog with excitement—like the giggly teenagers she scorned—about the book club and the book-clubbing adventure she was about to embark on in the company of Vaiku. She must have swilled down a magic potion concocted by the wily Mrs Vaikundeshwari!

  Who or what the magic that was taking Mrs Guha out of Charu’s way in order to let her fulfil her destiny, Charu didn’t care to know. She was simply grateful that she would be able to keep her appointment with Shalini that afternoon and wouldn‘t incur a loss of face.

  So many appointments, especially with sexy Punjabi girls, she had not been able to keep because of her mother’s nagging suspicion that ‘those Punjabis, always dolled up, day or night, are up to no good. Aren’t there any good Bengali Brahmin girls in New Delhi to mingle with’? Nagged by her mother, Charu had checked out some ‘good Bengali girls’, in the vicinity of New Delhi’s most famous Bengali ghetto, Chittaranjan Park, but she had balked at what she saw. They were hairy and wore clothes that didn’t quite match their personalities. Mostly, they were fat and dour, interested in talking about books and politics; fat and dour girls turned Charu off big time.

  Having sworn herself off fat and hairy bookworms, and prevented by her mother’s interference from getting in close and prolonged proximity of the sexy ones, Charu had retracted, like a virgin-child, into the prison house of her world of imaginary pleasures, dreaming about romancing beautiful women, longing for the Tanusrees, the Archanas, the Sonias and the Radhikas of this world from a distance, and getting wet through staging erotic foreplays in the auditorium of her mind.

  The tryst with Shalini thus held much meaning for her. This would be her first real, flesh-to-flesh, lesbionic encounter, a real, tangible experience about which she could then brag to her girlfriends.

  So on that one auspicious day both mother and daughter began the new phases in their old lives with a great deal of verve. While Mrs Guha was happy that her stomach protuberance would deflate as a result of her afternoon ventures, Charu was stirred by the infinite promise of what lay ahead. The mere thought of spending a whole afternoon with the one who had penetrated her so pervasively made her feel dizzy with anticipation.

  Were her mother to watch her prepare for the meeting, she would surely compare Charu’s preparation with the preparation that the sexy gopini Radha undertook before she went out of the house to meet her lover Krishna. Radha, as everybody knew, would transform herself radically from a d
emure housewife to a vivacious lover. She would wear clothes that could unravel easily, and she would put on a large full-moon shaped bindi precisely in the middle of her forehead, colouring it burgundy with the intensity of a passionate painter, and she would highlight the longing in her eyes with thick daubs of pitch-black kohl.

  A radical transformation was what Charu was also aiming for; she would shed her rugged, manly clothing, the one she wore to keep men off her, and put on something that would accentuate her femininity to the hilt.

  Charu would offer herself to Shalini unambiguously as a woman, matching Shalini’s exquisiteness with her own.

  As Charu waited impatiently for her mother to leave, she created, in her head, scheme after scheme of what she should wear and how she should present herself to the magnificent Shalini. Plans were raised and scuttled like a house of cards till, exhausted by the many choices that floated in her mind, Charu settled for a classical Indian image of feminine beauty. She would dress Indian; she would be the classic Indian beauty in her maiden meeting with Shalini Mahapatra, for in her eyes Shalini had revealed herself as a classic Indian beauty as well.

  It is said that it was on their maiden meeting that Krishna made love to the milky white disrobed body of Radha; they didn’t discourse verbally; bit by luscious bit she had unravelled sartorially while he played his flute. Then they made love wordlessly, the serenity punctured now and then by the rustling of the leaves in the wind. No glaring light shone on them; only the lambent moon went in and out of the clouds. They made love as though they had gathered together for the sole purpose of making love and their entire lives had journeyed centripetally towards that instance. This wasn’t the love of sexual gratification or lust. This was an expression of deeper longings. After the act, Radha went back to rearranging her sari, her make-up and her jewellery so as not to give her husband any inkling of what had transpired. As Radha dressed, Krishna resumed playing his flute. Neither reproached the other for violating any code of conduct or demanded anything more of the other.