The Afternoon Girl

by Amrinder Bajaj

  Your letter (Kasauli UP) – I notice that the storyteller in you gets the better of you even while attending condolence meetings. That I think is good and healthy. There is a comic side to mourning over people’s departure. It makes you cry; it makes you laugh.

  Keep in touch.

  Love you

  Khushwant

  ***

  27.9.2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  The latest on my work is that though the time of our contract is drawing to a close my agents have not yet been able to place my book. One would think that I would have got used to rejections by now but it isn’t so. Each one lances through me with the velocity of wind. Tears prick my lids like crushed glass before they scald my cheeks. Pain squeezes my heart like an octopus. My belief in myself is thrashed like clothes being washed on a stone slab.

  If only I could share my anguish with someone. My husband would gloat, my children couldn’t care less and SP is merely indulgent of my passion as one is of a child, making a house of cards. Little does he know that each time the house falls, the child suffers as much as an adult would if his real house fell.

  If only I could exorcise myself of words that obsess. If only ‘creativity’ didn’t scurry like a rodent in my skull gnawing my brain, if only I could accept that I am a third-rate writer who deserves to have her pen confiscated and her diary torn. If only I could find contentment in my home and excitement in my exacting profession. Why don’t I give up?

  Could you tell me how you have dealt with failures? It is not as if I am a weak person. In fact I am in my element at times of crises at home and in the operation theatre. It was my husband who wept when my son had an accident while I attended to the practicalities. It was my assistant’s hand that trembled when the bleeding would not stop during a surgery. Emotional setbacks traumatize me perhaps because of my heightened sensitivity as a writer. I take care to mask my pain in company but I don’t know why I bare my soul to you.

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  30.9.2000

  Dear Amrinder

  I am sorry I don’t think you have any right to regard rejections of your MSS as setbacks. You simply did not sweat enough to bring it to the standard I know you are capable of achieving. Writing for Indian magazines is not good enough. You have to slog over every sentence; write, cross out, rewrite till you feel it is word perfect. You did not do that because you have too much on your hands. I am sure that if we worked on it together for a month it could be done. But neither of us have that kind of time. And our minds would stray to more pleasurable pursuits.

  I have had my share of setbacks – not so many in the writing world – but being sacked from jobs, humiliated by people whom I could not hit back. My escape was to bid my time and then make fun of them.

  Cheer up and whenever you want someone to hold your hand, ring me up and come over.

  Love

  Khushwant Singh

  21

  27.9.2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  I read your shockingly true story of the newly married couple copulating in the train in full view of their co-passengers. It reminded me of a naughty joke I recently heard. It is about a randy couple in a train.

  The husband occupied the uppermost berth while the wife was on the lower berth. A sardar snored on the middle one. The man whispered a signal to his wife, ‘When I say “Pepsi” take off your upper garments, and when I say “Fanta” take off your lower garments …’

  ‘You two do what you want, as long as the Limca does not fall on me,’ said the sardar in the middle berth!

  My little Lhasa Apso – Toffee – is craven with desire. There is a bitch in heat in the vicinity and her pheromones are driving him nuts. He is off food and water. He whimpers and whines night and day, pleading with those melting honey-coloured eyes of his for a mate. In desperation he tries to hump my knee. It would not do to have my baby die a brahmachari but the vets around are of no use. Either they don’t have a bitch of his breed and size (the stray on heat is twice his height) or, their owners are unwilling to get them mated. I know the fever will abate in due course but if only it could be satiated.

  Love

  Amrinder

  I attached a short story with the mail for Khushwant Singh’s opinion.

  10.10.2000

  Dear Amrinder

  I liked your story very much. The kind of wit and humour I appreciate. Try the Statesman (Calcutta). It publishes stories in its Sunday editions.

  A randy dog usually hugs the legs of people. It can be very embarrassing in a party. My neighbour’s dog Toby tried it on me many times till he fell in love with one of my cats – a tom at that. He would bugger it in my garden. Now he has got too old for sex.

  Love

  Khushwant

  22

  23.10. 2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  Yesterday evening I had come with my mother and sister to Sujan Singh Park to meet Mamaji. I had an irresistible urge to cross over and knock at your door but I dared not without a prior appointment.

  I wonder in how many women, your not-too-handsome face inspires poetry? Yesterday evening gave birth to this poem in Urdu!

  Guzre tumhare raahguzar se, magar tanha

  Saas li usee hawa may, magar tanha,

  Kehne ko kuch gazo ki doori thi fakat (which reminds me of a naughty word in English)

  Magar faasla tha meelon ka darmiyan.

  Tassavvur may mere tum baithe they vahin,

  Liye,

  Ek haath may pyala, ek haath me kitaab

  Ya mehfil may damak rahe they yun

  Jyu, taaro ke beech chamke mahtaab.

  Tarasti rahi aakhein ek jhalak ke liye

  Khidki ki roshni se jee bahla liya,

  Aur armaano ko, machalte bachchon ki tarha

  Thaapiyain de de kar sula diya.

  I understand how difficult it must be to cope with your wife’s illness. It must be agonizing to watch the woman you have shared your life with slide downhill but this is life. Please look after yourself for there are many like me who need you.

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  28 Oct. 2000

  Dear Amrinder

  I suspect you are trying to seduce me. I am most willing to be seduced, as you are seductive. But beware! Age difference and your commitment to your lover. I belong to that school of thought that considers commitments bondage; one is better off without fetters of any kind – to parents, spouses or lovers. What do you think?

  Yes, life is grim. To see one waste away before your eyes is v. painful. It has imposed some discipline on me. No dilly-dallying, just reading, some writing and fantasizing.

  Love

  Khushwant

  ***

  5.11.2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  I won’t act coy and pretend to be offended by your observation. There is no denying the fact that I am attracted to you; but despite the freedom of speech I exercise in your presence I am too much in awe of your persona to think of a physical relationship. Moreover, I am perfectly satisfied on that score at the moment though the mere physicality of that relationship irks me. As I have said in this couplet:

  Na humsafar, na humnasheen,

  Na humdard, na humnafas

  Phakat hambister banke

  Rahe gaye tum.

  Creative and intellectual gratification is what I crave from you. I did start off by trying to get you kick-start my literary career but even after I realized that it was not possible, I was reluctant to let go of your acquaintance. By this time I had developed a certain degree of fondness for the ‘dirty old man’ of the masses and the erudite gentleman of the classes. The age difference matters not a whit. I spend hours anticipating every visit, dress with care whenever I have to come to Sujan Singh Park, blabber non-stop out of nervous excitement in your presence and for days afterwards relive every moment of our meeting. These are the symptoms of love but pe
rhaps I am wary of acknowledging it even to myself.

  As for commitments, contrary to your views, I do value them. I’d rather get out of a relationship I have outgrown before entering into the next – a serial monogamist so to say.

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  8.12.2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  I am being sucked into the quagmire of petty domestic squabbles. The tree of survival stands at the edge of a deceptively serene swamp with reason, intelligence, literature and music branching out in all directions. I have just about managed to hold on to the branch of sanity and am trying desperately to haul myself out.

  What lighted this keg of gunpowder was the merciful demise of my mother-in-law. She had existed in a state of protracted agony far too long. As her broken mind and body was consigned to the flames, greed made insidious cracks in the relationship between the relatives she left behind. Squabbles broke out over her belongings and the baseness of human nature smote me anew. The endless nursing for two years, the fatigue of the death rituals had taken their toll. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The smell of shit would not go from my nostrils, her inhuman face with its deathly pallor, skin-over-bones body and abnormally twisted limbs haunted me. To this was added a superstition too macabre to ignore. The pundits (MIL was a Hindu) told us that she had died during ‘panjakas’ which meant that she would take five more people along with her! Even as we shuddered at the thought, he had a remedy for it. Five little wooden corpses were put over her real one and burnt along with it. Could such an awful superstition be true? If so, was it that easy to circumvent it?

  As I was handing over her pitifully small amount of jewellery to my 94-year-old father-in-law he called me a laalchi kuttia and accused me of retaining one gold bangle! This was the final straw.

  ‘This is what I get for looking after your terminally ill wife while you luxuriate in Mussoorie,’ I said.

  ‘Sewa, sewa, sewa! How you keep harping on it. Don’t you know that sewa is done free?’

  ‘And you think that I have appropriated one measly bangle in lieu of the sleepless nights and the money I spent over her? You stink!’ I retorted.

  ‘And you, what do you think you are, a devi? Kanjarkhana khol rakha hai.’

  ‘If that is what you think of me why didn’t you let me go when I wanted my freedom?’

  ‘Because my son is a ullu ka patha.’

  ‘No, because it suited you to use my services and money. Matlab layye gadhe nu baap banaya hai.’

  At this he spewed forth the choicest Punjabi epithets forcing me to bang the door on his face.

  You must be wondering why a self-respecting, financially independent woman like me does not walk out of such a hopeless situation. In the early years of disharmony my children were too young to live without a mother, I received no emotional support from my own family and my only source of income was the nursing home downstairs. Now with the children grown up, ennui has seeped into my very soul. Moreover, the grass no longer appears greener on the other side.

  However much I might pretend that I am an emancipated woman, in my heart of hearts I feel that I have done wrong in betraying my marriage vows, and taking care of my invalid mother-in-law afflicted with Alzheimer’s and hip fracture was a form of penance I had subconsciously imposed upon myself.

  How are you coping with the onslaughts of life? What is an average day in your life like?

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  20.12.2000

  Dear Amrinder

  I thought that your silence would last forever. I heard of your ma-in-law’s departure from your uncle. I had no idea you had married into a crude, low-down family. You don’t have my sympathies – you should have opted out of it a long time ago. Remember you have only one life to live – of which you have wasted the fun part. Before you realize, the zest for living will have gone.

  Not much change in my drab routine. I keep getting awards in my sunset years. I will go to Chandigarh to receive ‘Punjabi of the Millennium’ award. Then back to Delhi to get ‘Promoter of Communal Harmony’ award from the President. Someone will later put them in my biography.

  Wash the stink of shit from your hands and get back to writing and delivering babies.

  Love

  Khushwant

  ***

  26.12.2000

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  If you thought that ‘my silence would last forever’ – after receiving one letter for every two of mine I thought that you had lost interest. I almost decided to go into a sulk but what good would that do me. You would never know and even if you did it would matter not a whit to you. Then I thought that I would write to you only after I had proved myself but what if my grand dreams never materialized? Your letters meant too much to me to stake them on so uncertain an issue so here I am once again.

  Congratulations on your awards. May you get many more, though you don’t need tags to prove your worth – you are priceless!

  Love

  Amrinder

  23

  1.1.2001

  Dear Cry Baby

  You don’t do the work required on an MSS and conclude no one loves you. I am no great writer but even I rewrite my stuff at least 6–7 times before I submit it to a publisher. All you have to do is to take yourself off alone – no demanding husband, no cloying lover, no nasty relatives – only your MSS to make love to and nurture upon your large bosom. See the outcome. You are welcome to my villa in Kasauli. You have only to take a cook. Nothing else. Silence, solitude, pine-scented air outside, smell of old books inside. Think over it.

  Best of luck and love

  Khushwant

  I was jubilant. He had offered me his private haven again! This time, I was determined to go.

  ‘You won’t turn into Shakespeareni after a week in Kasauli. Do whatever you want here,’ said my husband when I informed him about the offer.

  ‘With the TV on full blast or you breathing down my neck when I am trying to write, instructing me to pay more attention to the kitchen?’

  ‘The airs you give yourself! As if you are some famous author.’

  ‘How can I get myself a name if you don’t allow me the space to evolve?’

  ‘Those who want to succeed do so despite the obstacles.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. Give me one valid reason for not going.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘What if I go against your wishes?’

  ‘Try it.’

  With a heavy heart, I wrote:

  22.1.2001

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  It would be heaven to go to Kasauli – to imbibe your presence in every nook and cranny of your villa, to enjoy the pristine beauty of this unspoiled hill station and to devote myself entirely to what I enjoy doing most – writing; but my husband has categorically refused ‘permission’. Please keep your offer open as I am wracking my brains to find a way out.

  For all my rebellious thinking you must be thinking I am pretty tame when it comes to practicality. Perhaps I am a middle-class woman shackled to middle-class conventions. Having defied him in matters that really matter, a guilty conscience tries to make up by compliance in other matters. Perhaps for this reason I nursed his ailing mother till her death, still look after my obnoxious father and share the household expenditure. More importantly, the fact that my source of income (my nursing home) is downstairs has clipped my wings.

  I was surprised that you called me a ‘cry baby’ (though I quite like the endearment) but I have grown a thicker hide and rejections do not hurt that much any more. Meanwhile I have gone over the MSS with a rake and will go over it with a fine-toothed comb at Kasauli. Even if Kasauli doesn’t materialize I have grit enough to do so in the prevailing circumstances. I remember that soon after my marriage, I wanted to pursue MD at AIIMS but the pack of strangers I had acquired as in-laws objected strongly. This was because my husband had not done postg
raduation. I wore them down, agreed to their terms of giving them a grandchild within the year and completed my postgraduation against overwhelming odds. I know in my heart of hearts that hard work and passion will sustain me in this field too, till I succeed.

  What news at your end? When can I come to meet you? Seeing you does me a lot of good.

  Love

  Amrinder

  ***

  25 Jan. 2001

  Dear Amrinder

  I may have to go to Jaipur 2–4th Feb. Any day after that, give me a ring on ****159 and we can fix a time convenient for both of us.

  I suggest that you spend Holi at my villa in Kasauli. It may still be chilly in the house but the garden will have sunshine and flowers and a grand view of snow-clad mountains. Why should anyone object to your taking a few days off from work all by yourself? You have a right to your own space and privacy. Fight for it.

  Looking forward to your dropping in.

  Love

  Khushwant

  I visited him in mid-February.

  ‘You look very nice,’ he said, kissing me on both cheeks.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I had draped a peach lace sari, wore jasmines in my hair and diamonds in my ears. He sat snug and warm with a rug around his legs and a blower at his feet.

  ‘You don’t feel cold?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s hot outside.’

  ‘You’re hot-blooded.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘Permission not granted.’

  ‘But why?’

  I told him what transpired and added, ‘I think he is afraid I will take SP along.’

  ‘I for one don’t mind.’

  ‘It will defeat the very purpose of going there.’

  ‘So that means no.’

  ‘More or less. How is your wife?’

  ‘Deteriorating. She has suffered four blackouts, which the doctor says are minor strokes. Rahul and Mala have come over to stay, as she needs constant vigil. I have to get their permission if I have to go out for even a day or two. She cannot be left alone.’