Paradise and Other Stories

by Khushwant Singh

  ‘What are you doing?’ she screamed.

  ‘Bindu is the life force of a man. It’s made of ingredients taken from all parts of his body, from his skull to his toes. To replenish it a man should do a sirsh-asana after he has had sex,’ he explained from the position he was in.

  ‘You call that having sex? You should have done it with your head, that might have been more satisfying,’ she said in a huff. She lay down on her end of the double bed and switched off the lights.

  Madan Mohan lowered his legs and sat up. He groped in the dark to get to the bathroom, washed himself and groped his way back to the bed. Sleep did not come to him for a long time. He pondered over where he had gone wrong. The Kamasutra had not prepared him for such crass behaviour on the part of a wife. Could she belong to a different category of women than he had presumed from her small size? He looked around the darkened room. Perhaps there was something wrong with their bedroom. He should consult Vaastu, which explained how houses should be built, rooms arranged, furniture placed. He had also not paid attention to the ancient science of gemology: gem stones were said to affect functions of the body. Some could rouse passions, others cool them down. His mind went forward and backward on the wisdom of the ancient texts and on his own failure to meet his newly married wife’s expectations. Gradually sleep overtook him.

  He did not see Mohini get up. He heard her splashing water in the bathroom and realized she had been up for some time. The bathroom door opened and she stepped out stark naked, rubbing her body with a towel. She was indeed a beautiful girl with hair hanging down to her waist and a perfect body, except for the indecent tuft of hair around her vagina. Couldn’t she do something about that, and about her crassness? She had laid out her sari, petticoat and blouse on the bed. By way of greeting she said, ‘Saara chippak-chippak—sticky all over—belly, thighs, all chippak-chippak. I had to soap myself three times to get it off.’ She changed into her clothes, touched his feet perfunctorily as he lay and went down to greet his parents.

  Madan Mohan got up and went into the bathroom. While bathing he noticed some chippak-chippak on his groin and thighs as well. What a waste of precious bindu, he thought. It should have gone inside Mohini to give birth to a new life. His ears burned with the memory of the night’s encounter. He changed into a fresh dhoti-kurta and joined the family waiting for him to have breakfast.

  While the servant was laying the breakfast table, Madan Mohan’s mother slipped upstairs to inspect her son’s bed. She noticed a few drops of dried semen but no blood. She was mystified. She came back looking thoughtful.

  The family was seated at the breakfast table. Madan Mohan and his father were having an animated dialogue. It started by Madan Mohan asking his father, ‘Pitaji, did you consult a Vaastu expert when you had this bungalow designed?’

  ‘An expert in what?’ asked the father.

  ‘Vaastu Shastra. You know, the ancient Hindu text on architecture and interior designing.’

  ‘Never heard of it. I got a good architect to design this house. Of course he consulted me on my requirements. I think he did a good job. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t say anything is wrong with our house. Only, Vaastu takes into account sun and wind movements. It is very particular about the direction in which a house faces, where the kitchen and lavatories should be located—that sort of thing.’

  ‘He designed it in a way we could get the most of the sun in winter and the least in summer. Which way a house faces makes not the slightest difference.’

  ‘It does. Vaastu says so. Our Sangathan office opened to the south. Our membership dropped. A Vaastu expert told us to change our entrance to the east and our membership picked up.’

  ‘Rubbish! What kind of nonsense is this? What happens to hundred-storeyed skyscrapers going up in big cities abroad—not all of them face east.’

  Madan Mohan had not worked that out but he was not the one to give up an argument easily. ‘We don’t know what happens to people living in houses facing south. But we can’t discount ancient learning in so off-hand a manner. Vaastu goes into great detail not only about kitchens and toilets but also bedrooms, reception rooms, puja rooms, verandahs. It also specifies which direction the entrance and exit should face. Our ancestors followed all those rules.’

  ‘Of course they had to,’ snapped his father. ‘They had chulhas which sent up smoke, so a kitchen had to be at the back. They shat in smelly pans which had to be cleaned by outcaste sweepers, so they had to be at some distance from their dwellings. We use electricity or gas for cooking, we have flush toilets which do not smell. We have air-conditioners to keep the house cool in summer and heaters to warm it in winter. Did your aastu-vaastu or whatever you call it know about these modern amenities?’

  The argument was getting hot. It was bad to argue when eating. Parvati cut it short. ‘Beta, will you be home for lunch?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Ma. I may be late at the Sangathan office. I have not been there for three days and there may be lots of work pending. Don’t wait for me.’

  ‘You’ve only been married three days. You should have taken some leave. Married couples take ten to fifteen days off for their honeymoon.’

  ‘Honeymoon! A Western notion,’ scoffed Madan Mohan. ‘Did our forefathers go on honeymoons with their brides? To them dharma came first. The Sangathan is my dharma.’

  The staff at the Sangathan office were surprised to see him. They too believed that he would be away for a week or ten days, in Kashmir or Shimla or some other hill resort, to get to know his bride better. They had not fixed any speaking schedule for him. Madan Mohan Pandey was as unpredictable as ever. He acknowledged his colleagues’ felicitations and then added, ‘Don’t fix any speaking engagements for me till I ask for them. I have some ancient books to consult, so don’t let anyone disturb me.’

  He gave his assistant a list of books on Vaastu and Feng shui and asked him to get them from the office library. He spent the day going over them, making sketches of his bedroom, putting crosses indicating directions as on a mariner’s map, and marking the way beds, sofas and chairs should be placed according to Vaastu shastra. Feng shui did not add much to his information. He was happy to be following instructions of a manual entirely conceived by India’s great forefathers.

  He got back home earlier than usual. The servants told him that his parents had taken their daughter-in-law to show her the sights of Delhi and would be back before sunset. Just as well, he thought, he wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. He took the chart he had made up to his bedroom and ordered the servants to change the furniture around according to his instructions. The double bed had its head towards the north: exactly the opposite of what was prescribed in Vaastu. He had it turned around. The sofa was put alongside the bay window, the armchairs placed facing it across the round glass table with the flower vase. The servants did not question their young master; they had implicit faith in his mother’s judgement that he was a mahavidwan, a man of great wisdom.

  It was dark by the time the rest of the family returned from their sightseeing tour. Madan Mohan’s father had planned the itinerary: to start with, the Qutab Minar, followed by Humayun’s tomb, ending at Nizamuddin’s dargah. Mohini was very excited with what she had seen. ‘They didn’t allow us to go up the Minar,’ she informed her husband. ‘A young couple had jumped off it and killed themselves only two days ago. But I’m sure one would get a great view of the city from so high up in the sky.’ Madan responded sourly, ‘Yes, ruins all around. The walls of Prithviraj Chauhan’s fort. And did you see the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque? Twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples were destroyed to make one mosque. Not one, not two, but twenty-seven temples,’ he repeated slowly. ‘It is enough to make the blood of any Hindu boil with rage.’

  His father bit his lip, took time to refill his pipe with tobacco, lit it and took a couple of puffs before he said in a tone of suppressed rage, ‘We went sightseeing, not to raise our blood pressures.’

  Mohini s
ensed a storm brewing between father and son and quickly changed the subject. ‘Surely you can’t say anything against Nizamuddin Auliya; he loved both Hindus and Muslims. We saw a lot of Hindu families at the dargah. They were asking for favours and tying mannat strings around the marble trellis of the tomb.’

  ‘Bewakoofs. They were a bunch of fools,’ said Madan Mohan.

  ‘I also tied a mannat string,’ confessed Mohini.

  ‘You are a bewakoof too!’

  ‘It’s no use arguing with him,’ the father intervened. ‘By his reckoning everyone except he is a bewakoof.’

  ‘You should read our true history and not the Muslim and Christian versions, Pitaji. You will continue to believe in the lies of the barbarians otherwise.’

  ‘Bas, bas, enough of this,’ said Parvati firmly, waving her hands to drive away clouds of ill will. ‘You make a mountain out of a mole hill. Mohini enjoyed her outing—didn’t you, beta? Next time we will take her to the Birla Mandir, the Hanuman Mandir and Bangla Sahib Gurdwara.’

  Madan Mohan’s exchange of words with his father cast a gloom over the rest of the evening. No one was in the mood to talk at dinner; they gobbled up the food laid on the table. Hari Mohan Pandey left for his study without bidding anyone goodnight. He was followed by his wife and then Mohini. Madan Mohan felt guilty for having spoilt the atmosphere. But how could he help it if just about anything he said or did irritated his father? And his new wife—she did not seem interested in anything he stood for. It would take him a long while to bring her around to his ideal of a good Hindu wife. With a heavy heart he went up to his bedroom. Worse awaited him.

  Mohini was reprimanding the servants for turning around the bed and furniture without consulting her. ‘Bahuji, Chhotey Sahib ordered us to do so.’ Just then the Chhotey Sahib entered the room. Mohini turned on him. ‘What is all this oot-pataang? Without asking me, without telling me.’ The servants waited nervously for further orders. ‘What do you mean?’ responded Madan Mohan sharply. ‘There is nothing nonsensical about it. This is how the interior of a bedroom should be according to Vaastu Shastra. Nothing goes right in a house or a room that is wrongly designed or laid out.’ Before the servants could leave, Mohini spat out the venom that had built up in her: ‘When you don’t know how to dance, you blame the dance floor,’ she shouted the Hindi proverb. Madan Mohan was crushed; his manhood had been questioned in front of his own servants. Mohini realized what she had blurted out and covered her face and broke into sobs. She rushed to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. The servants slipped out of the room.

  Madan Mohan lay down on his bed, utterly defeated and deflated. He did not change into his night clothes. He just kept staring at the ceiling. He heard Mohini come out of the bathroom and lie down on the bed. They did not speak to each other. Neither had any desire to get closer to the other. They slept fitfully. At some point shortly after midnight, Madan Mohan awoke in a panic; it was a dream he had had, but he could remember nothing of it. He lay awake for a while, looking at Mohini, asleep, facing the wall. If he could rouse his lust, he thought, he might break through the wall that separated them. He fixed his gaze on her buttocks, dimly visible in the moonlight streaming in through the open window. Nothing happened. He put a hand inside his pyjamas and fondled his penis, but it remained limp as a snail. His panic rose. This was a calamity he had not foreseen; the Kamasutra had said nothing about penises that failed to respond. What if Mohini found out? Uncouth woman that she was, she might shout this out to the whole world! He stiffened, afraid of making any movement that might wake her up, and prayed for sleep. An hour, the longest of his life, passed before his prayer was answered.

  Madan Mohan did not know when Mohini got up in the morning. He did not hear her bathing. By the time he opened his eyes, she was quietly shutting the door behind her to join his parents. He went to the bathroom to take a shower. He noticed what looked like a blob of cotton wool soaked in blood floating in the toilet. Did Mohini suffer from piles at this young age? He was puzzled. He went downstairs. His mother was in the puja room, saying her morning prayers. His father was in his study, reading the morning papers. Mohini was sitting alone. Madan asked her, ‘Aren’t you doing puja this morning?’ She shook her head and replied, ‘I can’t go to the puja room for a few days.’ He could not see why, but did not ask her. When his mother came out and went to the kitchen to organize breakfast, Mohini did not join her as she did every morning. ‘Aren’t you going to help Ma with the breakfast?’ he asked. Mohini again shook her head and replied, ‘Not for four or five days.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m not clean,’ she replied with exasperation.

  ‘Not clean? But you’ve just had a bath.’

  Mohini snarled, ‘Buddhoo!’

  Madan Mohan was taken aback. Yet another snub, and first thing in the morning. It was after breakfast during which his mother did most of the talking that Madan Mohan had a few moments alone with her. ‘Ma, what is wrong with Mohini? I only asked her why she did not do her puja or help in the kitchen and she abused me. She called me a fool. Is this the sort of language a Hindu wife should use for her husband?’

  His mother was overcome with emotion. She put her arm round her son’s shoulders. ‘How innocent you are, beta.’ Then she proceeded to quickly explain the workings of a woman’s body. How was it, wondered Madan Mohan, that the Hindu classics he had read had not informed him of these things?

  Instead of being cheered by the contribution his mother had made to his knowledge of the world, Madan Mohan went into deep depression. Despite the academic distinctions he had amassed, his father did not have much of an opinion of him. He had failed as a teacher in college, and he knew what he said at the shakha meetings was beyond the comprehension of bania shopkeepers. And there was Mohini, from a lower middle-class family, half-baked product of a convent and a Christian college, who had the audacity to call him a donkey and a fool. She had no refinement; she would never make the ideal wife. He was fairly sure her unscrupulous parents had given him a false horoscope for her. He did not want to have anything more to do with her. If she wanted to live with him, he would let her do so but he would never again let her touch him.

  Mohini’s thoughts were equally dark. She had looked forward to being married to the only son of a well-to-do family who was reputed to be a scholar. She also expected him to be an ardent lover. She had eagerly awaited the night when she would surprise him with her perfect body and rouse him to great passion. But this fellow had turned out to be a crackpot who did not know the first thing about making love. He assessed her as some zoologist did an animal—a deer, an elephant. Her beauty was wasted on the fool. A sixty-year old would be more youthful than him. She did not want to have anything more to do with him. Her only fear was her parents’ reaction. They believed that once a daughter was given away in marriage she only left her husband’s home on a bier, wrapped in a red shroud signifying death in matrimonial bliss. She resolved to confront them. And if she failed, she would look for a job as a teacher in some school or college. She had the requisite qualifications.

  The atmosphere in the Pandey household was tense. The one voice heard when the family was together for meals was that of the mother. Others rarely answered her questions. Mohini was anyhow due to return to her parents’ for a few days, as was customary, and await her husband’s first visit to his in-laws’ home to fetch her.

  A week later, Mohini’s brother came to Delhi to escort his sister to Mathura. Weeks passed, then months. Madan Mohan did not go to Mathura to bring her back. Gradually both the Pandeys and the Joshis resigned themselves to the fact that the marriage had ended without being consummated.

  ‘What wrong did we do to deserve this blot on our family’s reputation?’ Parvati asked her husband after he had lit his briar pipe one morning. He did not answer her question and continued to draw on his pipe and fill the air with fragrant smoke. She waved away the smoke with one hand and repeated her question. ‘Where did we go
wrong, I ask you. We had their horoscopes matched, they assured us of a happy marriage with lots of grandchildren. Madan himself examined them and approved of the girl. Tell me, what do you think went wrong?’ she said demanding an answer.

  Pandey Senior put down his pipe on the table and snapped, ‘That boy is a gadha. He is an impotent fool!’

  Parvati Pandey sank back in her chair, covered her face with her hands and sobbed, ‘How can you be so coarse about your only child? Shame on you!’ Then she regained her composure, sat up and said defiantly, ‘You wait and watch. My son is a mahavidwan. With his wisdom and learning he will become a great leader of our country!’

  ‘God save our country,’ said Hari Mohan Pandey and returned to his pipe.

  zora singh

  They knew him by different names. To his Sikh admirers he was Panth Rattan, Jewel of the Community; his Urdu-speaking friends named him Fakhr-e-millat, Pride of the Nation. He was also Nar Aadmee, He Man, and Doston ka Dost, The Greatest of Friends. Those who did not like him called him Khushaamdee Tattoo: Flattering Jackass. They often described him as a chamcha, a sycophantic hanger-on, and said he was chaalaak (cunning), a chaalbaaz (an intriguer) and a chaar sau bees (a cheat). Since he made no secret of enjoying his sundowner and the company of fair women, other titles were also bestowed on him. He was a sharaabee (drunkard), kabaabee (great eater) and randeebaaz (whoremonger).

  There was some truth in everything that was said about Zora Singh to his face and behind his back. He was all things to all men. The Sikhs praised him because he was a devout Sikh who said his daily prayers. He was seen at the gurdwara very early each morning when he went to drop his wife there, and could deliver sermons better than any preacher. Once he was persuaded to read the marriage vows at a Sikh wedding. He was lucid and convincing. He told the bridegroom, ‘Hereafter you will look upon every other woman as a mother, sister or daughter.’ And to the bride he said, ‘And you, my daughter, will look upon all men besides your husband as your brothers.’ In conclusion he said, ‘The Great Guru will bless your union as long as you remain faithful to each other.’ The congregation was impressed by his oration and many came forward to congratulate him. However, two nasty men with nasty minds took him aside. One said, ‘All that you said was beautifully said, Zora, but it did not behove you to say it.’ The other, who was nastier, asked him, ‘Yaar Zora, how many mothers and sisters have you fucked since you got married?’