Sex,Scotch and Scholarship

by Khushwant Singh

  This cuckolding of crows requires a lot of cunning and a fine sense of timing. Koels have to first locate a crow’s nest which has some eggs already laid, otherwise the crows would become suspicious. The eggs must resemble those of crows and must hatch earlier. While the crow’s eggs take over a fortnight to incubate, koel chicks are ready to emerge a couple of days earlier. They also have the capacity to edge crow chicks out of the nest and hog all the food their foster parents bring. By late August and early September you can often see koel chicks being fed by crows and hear them cawing like their foster parents.

  Pied mynahs rebuild their homes. For many years I have seen a pair remake theirs in the same cleft of the siris which stands at one end of the tennis court. And while playing I catch the honeyed notes of golden orioles from sheesham trees, the trumpet calls of peacocks from a neighbouring park and papeehas calling in the distance.

  I generally see more of nature at dawn on my way to the club, in the hour I play tennis and on my way back home, than I do during the rest of the day which I spend closeted in my study. I did not realize for years, being too absorbed in the game, that the source of the fragrance that pervaded the courts was the siris. By the middle of May its pale yellow powder-puff blossoms fall and mingle with the dust to look like bedraggled fluffs of wool. It was the same with the gulmohar under which chairs are laid out for people awaiting their turn to play. I had taken its presence for granted and rarely did my gaze rest on it till one summer the elements compelled me to open my eyes and take notice of its flamboyant beauty.

  For three days and nights dust had hung in the air like a pestilent cloud. Not a leaf stirred, not a bird sang. The once-green lawn in front of the apartment had turned a sere yellow: flowers had withered in their beds. I said to myself: ‘Only cacti thrive in this cactus land!’ When the days were at their hottest, the fan stopped churning hot air, leaving me to sweat it out and nurse the prickly heat that had erupted round my neck. In the evening when I stood under the shower to wash the day’s dust and sweat off my body, the turn of the tap only produced a few apologetic coughs but not a drop of water. Why do I have to live in this godforsaken land? I asked myself.

  The next afternoon a duststorm swept across the city with demonic fury. An ancient banyan on Parliament Street which I had regarded as the emblem of eternity was pulled out by its roots and hurled across the road, bringing traffic to a halt for several hours. Its limbs had to be hacked off before the stream of traffic could resume its flow. The storm raged for almost an hour until twilight. Sounds of thunder and flashes of lightning pierced the dust-laden air. Then came the rain. It lasted only fifteen minutes but in that short burst it filled the gutters to overflowing, flooded the roads, knocked out the electric supply and slew most of Delhi’s telephones stone dead. Why do I suffer these humiliations? I swore. Why don’t I live somewhere else where things are better managed?

  Early next morning I set out for my game of tennis. Every leaf had been washed clean. The soft fragrance of siris floated in the air. Golden orioles called. The gulmohar trees along the tennis court were ablaze with scarlet and yellow. A magpie robin (shama) alighted on the topmost branch of one and burst into song:

  Amon deshti kothao khoje

  Paabey no ko toomee,

  Shokol desher rani shejey,

  Amaar jonmo bhoomee.

  Search where you may, you will not find a land as beautiful as this, she is the queen, this land of my birth.

  How could I have ever thought of living elsewhere?

  Fiction

  My earliest foray into the world of fiction was bragging, when I came home for vacations from England, of my exploits with English girls.

  Karma

  Sir Mohan Lal looked at himself in the mirror of a first-class waiting room at the railway station. The mirror was obviously made in India. The red oxide at its back had come off at several places and long lines of translucent glass cut across its surface. Sir Mohan smiled at the mirror with an air of pity and patronage.

  ‘You are so very much like everything else in this country - inefficient, dirty, indifferent,’ he murmured.

  The mirror smiled back at Sir Mohan.

  ‘You are a bit of all right, old chap,’ it said. ‘Distinguished, efficient - even handsome. That neatly trimmed moustache, the suit from Saville Row with the carnation in the buttonhole, the aroma of eau-de-cologne, talcum powder and scented soap all about you! Yes, old fellow, you are a bit of all right.’

  Sir Mohan threw out his chest, smoothed his Balliol tie for the umpteenth time and waved a goodbye to the mirror.

  He glanced at his watch. There was still time for a quick one.

  ‘Koi hai?’

  A bearer in white livery appeared through a wire gauze door.

  ‘Ek chota,’ ordered Sir Mohan, and sank into a large cane chair to drink and ruminate.

  Outside the waiting room, Sir Mohan Lai’s luggage lay piled along the wall. On a small grey steel trunk Lachmi - Lady Mohan Lai - sat chewing a betel leaf and fanning herself with a newspaper. She was short and fat and in her mid-forties. She wore a dirty white sari with a red border. On one side of her nose glistened a diamond nose-ring, and she had several gold bangles on her arms. She had been talking to the bearer until Sir Mohan summoned him inside. As soon as he had gone, she hailed a passing railway coolie.

  ‘Where does the zenana stop?’

  ‘Right at the end of the platform.’

  The coolie flattened his turban to make a cushion, hoisted the steel trunk on his head, and moved down the platform. Lady Lai picked up her brass tiffin carrier and ambled along behind him. On the way she stopped by a hawker’s stall to replenish her silver betel-leaf case, and then joined the coolie. She sat down on her steel trunk (which the coolie had put down) and started talking to him.

  ‘Are the trains very crowded on these lines?’

  ‘These days all trains are crowded, but you’ll find room in the zenana.’

  ‘Then I might as well get over the bother of eating.’

  Lady Lal opened the brass carrier and took out a bundle of cramped chapatis and some mango pickle. While she ate, the coolie sat opposite her on his haunches, drawing lines in the gravel with his finger.

  ‘Are you travelling alone, sister?’

  ‘No, I am with my master, brother. He is in the waiting room. He travels first class. He is a vizier and a barrister, and meets so many officers and Englishmen in the trains - I am only a native woman. I can’t understand English and don’t know their ways, so I keep to my zenana inter-class.’

  Lachmi chatted away merrily. She was fond of a little gossip and had no one to talk to at home. Her husband never had any time to spare for her. She lived on the upper storey of the house and he on the ground floor. He did not like her poor illiterate relatives hanging about his bungalow, so they never came. He came up to her once in a while at night and stayed for a few minutes. He just ordered her about in Anglicized Hindustani, and she obeyed passively. These nocturnal visits had, however, borne no fruit.

  The signal came down and the clanging of the bell announced the approaching train. Lady Lai hurriedly finished off her meal. She got up, still licking the stone of the pickled mango. She emitted a long, loud belch as she went to the public tap to rinse her mouth and wash her hands. After washing she dried her mouth and hands with the pallu of her sari, and walked back to her steel trunk, belching and thanking the gods for the favour of a filling meal.

  The train steamed in. Lachmi found herself facing an almost empty inter-class zenana compartment next to the guards van, at the tail end of the train. The rest of the train was packed. She heaved her squat, bulky frame through the door and found a seat by the window. She produced a two-anna bit from a knot in her sari and dismissed the coolie. She then opened her betel case and made herself two betel leaves charged with a red and white paste, minced betelnuts and cardamoms. These she thrust into her mouth till her cheeks bulged on both sides. Then she rested her chin on her hands and
sat gazing idly at the jostling crowd on the platform.

  The arrival of the train did not disturb Sir Mohan Lai’s sang-froid. He continued to sip his Scotch and ordered the bearer to tell him when he had moved the luggage to a first-class compartment. Excitement, bustle and hurry were exhibitions of bad breeding, and Sir Mohan was eminently well bred. He wanted everything ‘tickety-boo’ and orderly. In his five years abroad, Sir Mohan had acquired the manners and attitudes of the upper classes. He rarely spoke Hindustani. When he did, it was like an Englishman’s -only the very necessary words and properly Anglicized. But he fancied his English, finished and refined at no less a place than the University of Oxford. He was fond of conversation, and like a cultured Englishman he could talk on almost any subject - books, politics, people. How frequently had he heard English people say that he spoke like an Englishman!

  Sir Mohan wondered if he would be travelling alone. It was a cantonment and some English officers might be on the train. His heart warmed at the prospect of an impressive conversation. He never showed any sign of eagerness to talk to the English as most Indians did. Nor was he loud, aggressive and opinionated like them. He went about his business with an expressionless matter-of-factness. He would retire to his corner by the window and get out a copy of The Times. He would fold it in a way in which the name of the paper was visible to others while he did the crossword puzzle. The Times always attracted attention. Someone would like to borrow it when he put it aside with a gesture signifying ‘I’ ve finished with it’. Perhaps someone would recognize his Balliol tie which he always wore while travelling. That would open a vista leading to a fairyland of Oxford colleges, masters, dons, tutors, boat-races and rugger matches. If both The Times and the tie failed, Sir Mohan would ‘Koi hai’ his bearer to get the Scotch out. Whisky never failed with Englishmen. Then followed Sir Mohan’s handsome gold cigarette case filled with English cigarettes. English cigarettes in India? How on earth did he get them? Sure he didn’t mind? And Sir Mohan’s understanding smile - of course he didn’t. But could he use the Englishman as a medium to commune with his dear old England? Those five years of grey bags and gowns, of sports blazers and mixed doubles, of dinners at the Inns of Court and nights with Piccadilly prostitutes. Five years of a crowded glorious life. Worth far more than the forty-five in India with his dirty, vulgar countrymen, with sordid details of the road to success, of nocturnal visits to the upper storey and all-too-brief sexual acts with obese old Lachmi, smelling of sweat and raw onions.

  Sir Mohan’s thoughts were disturbed by the bearer announcing the installation of the Sahib’s luggage in a first-class coupe next to the engine. Sir Mohan walked to his coupe with a studied gait. He was dismayed. The compartment was empty. With a sigh he sat down in a corner and opened the copy of The Times he had read several times before.

  Sir Mohan looked out of the window down the crowded platform. His face lit up as he saw two English soldiers trudging along, looking in all the compartments for room. They had their haversacks slung across their backs and walked unsteadily. Sir Mohan decided to welcome them, even though they were entitled to travel only second class. He would speak to the guard.

  One of the soldiers came up to the last compartment and stuck his face through the window. He surveyed the compartment and noticed the unoccupied berth.

  ‘Ere, Bill,’ he shouted, ‘one ere.’

  His companion came up, also looked in, and looked at Sir Mohan.

  ‘Get the nigger out,’ he muttered to his companion.

  They opened the door, and turned to the half-smiling, half-protesting Sir Mohan.

  ‘Reserved!’ yelled Bill.

  ‘Janta - reserved. Army - fauj,’ exclaimed Jim, pointing to his khaki shirt.

  ‘Ek dum jao - get out!’

  ‘I say, I say, surely,’ protested Sir Mohan in his Oxford accent. The soldiers paused. It almost sounded like English, but they knew better than to trust their inebriated ears. The engine whistled and the guard waved his green flag.

  They picked up Sir Mohan’s suitcase and flung it on to the platform. Then followed his thermos flask, briefcase, bedding and The Times. Sir Mohan was livid with rage.

  ‘Preposterous, preposterous,’ he shouted, hoarse with anger. ‘I’ll have you arrested - guard, guard!’

  Bill and Jim paused again. It did sound like English, but it was too much of the King’s for them.

  ‘Keep yer ruddy mouth shut!’ And Jim struck Sir Mohan flat on the face.

  The engine gave another short whistle and the train began to move. The soldiers caught Sir Mohan by the arms and flung him out of the train. He reeled backwards, tripped on his bedding, and landed on the suitcase.

  ‘Toodle-oo!’

  Sir Mohan’s feet were glued to the earth and he lost his speech. He stared at the lighted windows of the train going past him in quickening tempo. The tail-end of the train appeared with a red light and the guard standing in the open doorway with the flags in his hands.

  In the inter-class zenana compartment was Lachmi, fair and fat, on whose nose the diamond nose-ring glistened against the station lights. Her mouth was bloated with betel saliva which she had been storing up to spit as soon as the train had cleared the station. As the train sped past the lighted part of the platform, Lady Lal spat and sent a jet of red dribble flying across like a dart.

  The Riot

  The town lay etherized under the fresh spring twilight. The shops were closed and house-doors barred from the inside. Street lamps dimly lit the deserted roads. Only a few policemen walked about with steel helmets on their heads and rifles slung across their backs. The sound of their hobnailed boots was all that broke the stillness of the town.

  The twilight sank into darkness. A crescent moon lit the quiet streets. A soft breeze blew bits of newspaper from the pavements on to the road and back again. It was cool and smelled of the freshness of spring. Some dogs emerged from a dark lane and gathered round a lamppost. A couple of policemen strolled past them smiling. One of them mumbled something vulgar. The other pretended to pick up a stone and hurl it at the dogs. The dogs ran down the street in the opposite direction and resumed their courtship at a safer distance. Rani was a pariah bitch whose litter populated the lanes and bylanes of the town. She was a thin, scraggy specimen, typical of the pariahs of the town. Her white coat was mangy, showing patches of raw flesh. Her dried-up udders hung loosely from her ribs. Her tail was always tucked between her hind legs as she slunk about in fear and abject servility.

  Rani would have died of starvation with her first litter of eight had it not been for the generosity of the Hindu shopkeeper, Ram Jawaya, in the corner of whose courtyard she had unloaded her womb. The shopkeeper’s family fed her and played with her pups till they were old enough to run about the streets and steal food for themselves. The shopkeeper’s generosity had put Rani in the habit of sponging. Every year when spring came she would find an excuse to loiter around the stall of Ramzan, the Muslim greengrocer. Beneath the wooden platform on which groceries were displayed lived the big, burly Moti. Early autumn, she presented the shopkeeper’s household with half a dozen or more of Moti’s offspring. Moti was a cross between a Newfoundland and a Spaniel. His shaggy coat and sullen look was Ramzan’s pride. Ramzan had lopped off Moti’s tail and ears. He fed him till Moti grew big and strong and became the master of the town’s canine population. Rani had many rivals. But year after year, with the advent of spring, Rani’s fancy lightly turned to thoughts of Moti and she sauntered across to Ramzan’s stall.

  This time spring had come but the town was paralysed with fear of communal riots and curfews. In the daytime people hung about the street corners in groups of tens and twenties, talking in whispers. No shops opened and long before curfew hours the streets were deserted, with only pariah dogs and policemen about.

  Tonight even Moti was missing. In fact, ever since the curfew, Ramzan had kept him indoors tied to a cot. He was far more useful guarding Ramzan’s house than loitering about the streets. Ra
ni came to Ramzan’s stall and sniffed around. Moti could not have been there for some days. She was disappointed. But spring came only once a year - and hardly ever did it come at a time when one could have the city to oneself with no curious children looking on - and no scandalized parents hurling stones at her. So Rani gave up Moti and ambled down the road towards Ram Jawaya’s house. A train of suitors followed her.

  Rani faced her many suitors in front of Ram Jawaya’s doorstep. They snarled and snapped and fought with each other. Rani stood impassively, waiting for the decision. In a few minutes a lanky black dog, one of Rani’s own progeny, won the honours. The others slunk away.

  In Ramzan’s house, Moti sat pensively eyeing his master from underneath his charpai. For some days the spring air had made him restive. He heard the snarling in the street and smelled Rani in the air. But Ramzan would not let him go. Moti tugged at the rope, then gave up and began to whine. Ramzan’s heavy hand struck him. A little later he began to whine again. Ramzan had had several sleepless nights watching and was heavy with sleep. He began to snore. Moti whined louder and then sent up a pitiful howl to his unfaithful mistress. He tugged and strained at the leash and began to bark. Ramzan got up angrily from his charpai to beat him. Moti made a dash towards the door dragging the lightened string cot behind him. He nosed open the door and rushed out. The charpai stuck in the doorway and the rope tightened round his neck. He made a savage wrench, the rope gave way, and he leapt across the road. Ramzan ran back to his room, slipped a knife under his shirt, and went after Moti.

  Outside Ram Jawaya’s house, the illicit liaison of Rani and the black pariah was being consummated. Suddenly the burly form of Moti came into view. With an angry growl Moti leapt at Rani’s lover. Other dogs joined the melee, tearing and snapping wildly.