Socialite Evenings

by Shobhaa De

  “Stop feeling martyred,” she said sharply and then softened. “I’m not making fun of your feelings—please don’t think that but what you’re saying is not true at all.You aren’t an evil person.You haven’t harmed anybody—not really. Your little infidelity whatever it was and with whosoever is so trivial. Don’t blame yourself for it. Even your husband has forgiven you otherwise his attitude would have been different. He would have acted like a real swine and cut you off without a naya paisa. These things can happen to anyone. You aren’t suffering for any crime. Hysterectomies are very common these days. It’s not a major operation. It sounds cruel to say this, but maybe there was no pregnancy in the first place. Maybe, your irregular period cycle was because of the fibroids.”

  “What about the urine test?”

  “Path labs can and do make mistakes. Also, it was still far too early, and in your state, you must’ve imagined the other symptoms.”

  “I don’t want to think about all that. I’m worried about now—about next week. Imagine a part of you being sliced away. And, Anjali, I can’t stay with you forever.You’ve been so kind.”

  “Try and relax. And listen you silly woman, you are not a burden to me.You can stay here permanently. Seriously, I would love it.You are good for me—always have been.You are the conscience I didn’t have.Why do you want to move out? How can you slum somewhere as a PG?”

  “Anjali, you might find this hard to understand or accept, but I wouldn’t stay even in my parents’ house for free. I’m not a sponger. I feel very embarrassed living off you like this. Hospitality is one thing, charity quite another. I’d definitely like to move out till that flat is fixed up—if it ever is.”

  “Why don’t you pay me what you’d pay as a PG?Would that make you feel better?”

  “No, I couldn’t do that. It would make me feel worse. I’ve already made contact with a Parsee woman who had advertised. I’ll go take a look at the place and then decide.”

  “Can you imagine yourself living in someone else’s house? Confined to one little room, having to scrounge around for food? It’s too depressing.”

  “Maybe. But I’ll get used to it, I suppose.”

  “And how do you propose to pay for all this? Is he going to finance you forever?”

  “No. I’ll just have to pursue my theater contacts. Maybe try for a job in the ad agency we use. Whatever it is, it won’t be a grand job with perks. But I’ve got to start somewhere.”

  “You aren’t a spring chicken any longer. Have you thought of the sort of lifestyle you’ll be able to afford on some measly salary? It won’t pay for your tampons.”

  “I don’t use tampons.”

  “Why don’t you help me in my business instead? I could use one more person—someone I trust. In fact, I didn’t tell you this, but I’m thinking of going it alone. No Kuku and no Murty. I feel confident enough. I have made my contacts and things are going very well. Kuku and I worked fine initially, but I find her far too pushy and wasteful. She isn’t very cost-effective and in the long run clients don’t like to end up paying for the designer’s indulgences. She also inflates expenses and stuff like that. And she hogs all the credit. She is constantly lunching with journalists, inviting them to the sites, boasting about her originality, claiming she’s the first one to have done this, that and the other. I don’t mind her showing off—but it isn’t really fair, considering all the slog is left to me.”

  “That’s true, Anjali. But I don’t know a damn thing about this game. I wouldn’t know a Ming vase from a Ching one.”

  “That hardly matters. Do you think I know much more? All it needs is a certain eye, and lots of imported catalogues. You could become a buyer. I don’t have the time to travel all over India locating craftsmen and placing orders.You’ll enjoy the travel, meet interesting people and earn enough not to have to work a boring nine-to-five job in some crummy ad agency. I have big plans for the business.We can organize major exhibitions in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Madras and Bangalore. Book orders for future projects. Supply specialized fittings and decorative objects hand-picked by you. This is a huge market—lots of money to be made.”

  “Sounds great—but you know, I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything at all.”

  The operation took place on a dull Tuesday morning. The doctor looked ghoulish behind the mask. As I waited to go under I was half hoping there would be a complication and I would die peacefully on the operating table. But there are no shortcuts in life. No easy ways out.When I came around, I was surprised to see Mother’s face over me. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool. I couldn’t articulate any words. I thought I was slurring, and my eyelids refused to stay open. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t tell whom they belonged to. I saw the soft green paint on the walls, and a tiny spider in one corner. I tried to raise my hand and reach for some water. My throat was dry and thick. I felt Mother’s fingers in mine, her unnaturally warm hands, just as I remembered them from my childhood. I felt eight years old and very tearful. But I couldn’t cry. I thought I was at my own funeral or someone else’s. At one point I felt as if everybody I’d ever known or loved was lying dead around me. Corpses all over the room. And blood on my hands. I could feel blood oozing out of me and knew this was it, I was dying if I was not already dead. Suddenly I felt the urge to hear the sound of the bangles I always wore, I felt the mangalsutra around my neck. But my hands wouldn’t move. I must be dead, I concluded.

  It took me a week to feel strong enough to talk or even move from the bed to the bathroom. A week full of dulled thinking leading nowhere. Sometimes, I’d just drop off into deep sleep without a warning. Through dense, black fuzz I’d make a slow journey back to consciousness. I didn’t feel like eating anything. Waist down I felt all sewed up and stiff. I must have imagined it, but I felt lighter. How much does a uterus weigh, anyway? It felt like I’d shed fifty pounds in one go. Nothing really mattered very much. I’d nibble at the bland hospital food and sleep. I’d never slept so much in my life. In between, I’d flip through magazines and look at the pictures. But not read. I couldn’t read. I’d look at the pile of paperbacks on the bedside table and look away disinterestedly. I could barely make conversation with the few visitors who turned up to see me—some of the theater people, the husband with mother-in-law in tow (did I see a triumphant gleam in those mean eyes?), Anjali, of course, with Kumar and Murty, and Mother who’d come every day and sit there staring at me with her eyes full of sorrow. We seldom spoke. There was very little I could say to her, even if I didn’t feel so disconnected. But it was comforting to have her there. One evening, after Mother had gone home after her silent vigil, Anjali showed up latish. She seemed very excited about something. She had more blush-on over her cheekbones than usual, and her nails looked like they used to in the past—tapered and polished to a professional bronze sheen. She was waving her hands in the air, as she did when she was particularly enthused. “It’s a special day today, darling, and I bet you’ve forgotten what it is,” she said producing a small gift from her Gucci bag. “What is it?” I asked. “I knew you wouldn’t remember, but I was looking through my things today and I found an old diary. In it was the year and day I first met you—remember now—and I’d written a short remark—‘met a sweet kid today.’You were just growing out of your teens and I envied you, your youth and innocence.

  “Life was just beginning for you—and mine was already over. I wanted to protect you and keep you a virgin forever. Seal you off from the world of men.Warn you about them.Tell you never to get married and make the sort of mistakes I did. In a way, I’m glad I kept my trap shut.You had to do it your way.” I was only half listening. I could hear the sea outside my window. I preferred to listen to the sound of the waves as they crashed against the rocks. Again—it was an image straight out of a mediocre film. I’d begun to view my own life in cinematic terms—frame by frame. This evening it was a series of freeze shots. I stared at Anjali almost blankly, without really seeing her. I noticed the new gray
in her hair and was glad she wasn’t going to hide it under an ink-black dye. There were additional lines around her mouth and eyes. And furrows in her forehead. They made her look beautiful and dignified. Like an attractive school headmistress.

  Suddenly it came home to me. What I was thinking was this: Anjali had acquired a personality. Even the knotted choli didn’t look provocative anymore. Her white chiffon with pastel poppies sat like a soft cloud around her body. I sniffed, yes, there it was, a whiff of Nina Ricci which filtered through the hospital antiseptics and bathroom disinfectants. Eighteen years. Difficult to believe. I took her hands and looked at her rings—there was a new one on her middle finger, the size of a doorknob (“anniversary gift”). I wanted to luxuriate in her presence, her smell, her touch. She had on a new watch, the gold Panther series from Cartier. It was all so reassuring and comforting. Even the rudraksha mala around her neck, which she wore so easily along with her favorite Bulgari chain. Nothing seemed incompatible about her life.

  “Here,” she said, pushing the gift toward me. “Open it. Go on, take a look.” I felt shy as she thrust the packet into my hands. I took my time unwrapping it. “You like?” she asked. I just stared. It was a beautiful manicure set in silver and gold, neatly fitted into an embossed burgundy leather case. “What on earth am I going to do with this, Anjali? You know that I don’t manicure my nails.” “I know you don’t. But it’s about time you started. I can’t possibly have a partner with grubby fingers. Before I forget—here’s the varnish.You might as well start on a dramatic note—it’s a fire-engine-red. Red for danger. Go for it.”

  I accepted Anjali’s polish. But not her offer of a job. I couldn’t see myself running around the countryside picking up wooden masala boxes from Saurashtra and dowry chests from Kutch.

  For the next couple of months I recovered slowly in Anjali’s house (where I’d gone from the hospital), desultorily phoning contacts in the hope of landing a job, every day hoping my parents would call and with the constant thought that I couldn’t accept my friend’s hospitality much longer. Then one evening I had a surprise visitor: Ritu. She looked wonderful: the lard was nearly all gone and there was a glow about her. After her suicide attempt, she said, she had gone back to live with her husband. He had, to his credit, accepted her without any questions asked and they’d gone off to the hills for two months to get away from everything. She talked about Gul with her old spirit. “Did you hear about Gul-e-Gulzar’s latest move?”

  “Do we really have to discuss that worm?”

  “Don’t worry, darling. He doesn’t affect me anymore.”

  “Even so.”

  “He has gone off to London—taken that light-eyed actress with him. Not the one who was at Anjali’s party—no, not Ms. Bubble Dress. The other bitch who also sings.”

  “You mean Rehana?”

  “That’s the one. Must say she’s smarter than her dumb-dumb appearance, got him by the balls, I believe.”

  “Does he have any?”

  “Come on—that’s far too obvious a dig—you can do better than that. Anyway she’s doing well for herself. Mink bedspreads and a channel-sized solitaire for her nose.”

  “Is she a cow?”

  “She may look like one, but this fancy nose-stud actually illuminates the room when she walks in.”

  “What about one for her belly button?”

  “She hasn’t earned five carats as yet—but she’s getting there. Oh yes—he has also set up a recording company for her—and ordered a chartreuse-colored Rolls-Royce to match those glassy eyes.”

  “Ritu—he still matters, doesn’t he?”

  “No. But sometimes I feel murderous just thinking about that phase. I got had, and it makes me feel like such a fool.”

  “Forget it. Tell me what you’re planning to do now. How is the husband?”

  “As boring as ever—but at least it’s a familiar kind of boring-ness. And he was so sweet about everything. I don’t have to stretch myself—living with him isn’t a strain and that’s what I need right now. A tranqui—by the way—I have quit the real stuff, stopped popping pills, no booze either. The weight will take a while to melt off—but I’m working on that too. Nothing like a month or two in the hills to cleanse the system.”

  “You make your holiday sound like a laxative. Anyway what did you do there besides listening to the birdie-wirdies doing their thing in the morning?”

  “Well—to start with, I rested or tried to. There was this great withdrawal symptoms battle to struggle through. Oh God! That was the worst part. I would get pretty aggressive at times, and poor husband was the only one around. He and the mali. Between them, they’d physically wrestle me to the ground and keep me there. But that wasn’t half as bad as the depression which would follow. I’d weep for hours together and sweat worse than all those little pig gies outside my window. A couple of times I threw up in bed and messed up the rugs. I couldn’t keep any food down either. The mali would bring me fruit from the nearby orchards—I’d take one look at the apples and want to puke. Actually it was the mali who finally succeeded in getting me around. Can you believe it? This Garhwali unpadh did more to heal my wounds than all the pricey psychiatrists and doctors in Bombay.”

  “Sounds very impressive. How did he do it? Witchcraft? Black magic? Don’t tell me you believe in jaadu-tona?”

  “Don’t be crazy—he didn’t do anything of the sort.Yes—he got me hooked all right—but not on tantrik mumbo-jumbo—but on the real thing—nature. We’d spend hours in the garden planting seeds and saplings and watching them grow. The whole experience was so therapeutic. Initially, I hated getting mud under my fingernails, but gradually I couldn’t wait to get up at the crack of dawn to see whether anything had sprung up in the night. I really miss all that in this wretched city. It’s not the same thing fooling around with stunted plants in pots and giving them fancy Japanese names. Up there in that small village near Mussoorie, where the air is clean and sweet, you feel energetic and alive planting a bed of sweet peas or watching cherry tomatoes growing in the veggie patch. In fact, I’m seriously thinking of turning into a full-time farmer. I have to convert hubby first. I think he got a bit bored once his anxiety about my health was over. He’s not one of the back-to-nature types. I would sit contentedly by the fire in the evenings knitting a sweater I’d probably never wear. And he’d be obviously restless, flipping through three-month-old issues of India Today and asking about dinner. Anyway, I’ve convinced him to at least apply for a loan so that we can buy a small place of our own next year. I tried the oldest trick. ‘Do it for our sakes, darling,’ I said in my sweetest voice. I’m not sure but I think I threw in a hug and a kiss as well. It worked.”

  “I’ve heard all about the sweet peas and the hollyhocks, the pigs and goats and the call of the koel—but you haven’t mentioned the one thing that would convince me about your serious intentions to move to the hills eventually. Men. Or have they become a dirty word?”

  “Well, now that you’re asking—and I’ve always been honest with you—there is this divine gentleman farmer who lives down the road. Don’t know much about him. He’s a man-mountain, all of six-foot-four, not counting the turban.”

  “A sardar?”

  “Yes—one of those foreign-returned idealists with a string of degrees in agricultural research. He’s doing amazing things in the area. But all I’m doing for now is just looking. And I’m not too sure I ever want to go beyond that.”

  It was a reassuring encounter. Ritu was on the mend, that I could see. And I was pretty certain that it wouldn’t be long before Ritu took off for her newfound, sylvan paradise again—with or without the sardar. The original Earth Mother had finally come home to roost.

  CHAPTER 17

  EVENTUALLY I MOVED OUT OF ANJALI’S HOUSE INTO PG ACCOMMODATION. I hadn’t heard from my parents. My soon-to-be ex-husband was dragging his feet on the flat and I knew I had to do something de cisive about my life or go mad. Scarcely a week after I’d moved into my new d
igs I had my first visitor—and of all people it was Krish. Funnily I didn’t feel a damn thing (perhaps I should have kicked him) when I saw him standing on my doorstep with a foolish grin on his face and faded chamelis in his hands. Nothing. Not even nostalgia. Even his teeth went unnoticed. He looked smaller and shabbier and altogether uninteresting. And like a Woman and Home heroine I asked myself, “What did you see in this man?”

  “Is it OK to come in? I mean does your landlady allow you to entertain visitors—male visitors?”

  “This isn’t exactly a convent with a Mother Superior. And I’m a big girl now, Krish. Yes—you can come in.” He walked in with his typical swagger. I used to find it sexy in the old days. Mrs. Jeroo Mehta, my landlady, sitting in her favorite chair stared at him through her bifocals—the first man who had come a-calling for her brand-new PG. I had been told at the time of finalizing the deal that I could receive friends. (“But not too many. We like our privacy.”) There were certain house rules I’d have to follow. Girlfriends in my room (door to be shut), gentleman friends in the living room (no “hard drinks” to be served). Krish walked up to her and bowed.With great charm he extended his hand, said a musical “good evening” (using his theater techniques) and waited for her to ask him to sit down. The house dog came around for a friendly sniff. Mrs. Mehta carefully put her feet into red velvet slippers, got up with an arthritic creak and said, “Please be comfortable.” I felt very silly standing there with Krish. I knew I’d have to explain him to her later, even if she didn’t ask. And I felt ashamed of my bare feet. On the very first evening at the Mehta home, the old lady had stared pointedly at my toes. “We Parsees think it very rude to show our toes to strangers. We never leave the room without footwear. I suppose it’s different for you Hindus—your customs are not the same as ours. It’s all right, dear. You needn’t wear chappalls if you don’t want to. But please wash your feet before going to bed. The dhobi is a lazy bugger, he doesn’t take stains off the bedsheets.” I’d nodded obediently and rushed off to find my rubber chappalls, but the dog, an indeterminate Pom-mixture, had chewed them to pieces before I got to them.