The Afternoon Girl

by Amrinder Bajaj

  ***

  18 Jan. 2006

  Dear Amrinder

  I looked round the packed hall and tried to spot you. I did not succeed. I assumed that you had decided to stay away. I had a heavy cold and fever – it still persists in the form of a racking cough and phlegm. Mala is down with fever and a backache. It is not a cheerful household.

  Don’t worry about the poems. They read well. Once you make your mark as a writer of fiction you will have many takers. I have no doubts about that. Drop in any afternoon to get a dose of self-assurance.

  Love

  Khushwant

  ***

  23.1.06

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  An interview of Amitav Ghosh published in the Hindustan Times yesterday has made me take heart again. When asked what his first experience as a writer was, he replied, ‘When I wrote Circle of Reason I went from publisher to publisher with my manuscript. It was hard but very memorable. Finally, Roli published it. Luck has a big role to play. Often a very good manuscript does not get published.’

  I can only continue writing, bid my time and hope that luck comes my way before death comes my way.

  13.1.06 was a memorable day in my personal life. After all how often does a woman of 55 get to be wooed by 3 different men in a single day? The romantic in me responded to one, the second quenched my physical desires and from the third I got cosy companionship. I do not know quite how to feel – blessed or whorish!

  It is difficult to imagine an emotional relationship enduring for 33 years and yet surprisingly it has. Contact with the doctor I would have liked to marry, had circumstances permitted, has been renewed quite by accident. I felt unaccountably happy in his company though we did little else but talk. Every glance, gesture and word reiterated the unconsummated love that has survived the distance of time and space and I have no desire to take the relationship further. I had garnered enough memories in that much time to last me for another 33 years. The romantic in me was fulfilled, suffusing the cold, dark emptiness of my soul with radiant warmth. Soon after, I obtained immense satisfaction of a physical kind and a gift of diamond trinkets by you know who and, finally, late that night, I sat with my husband, shelling peanuts and watching the leaping flames of Lohri in asexual camaraderie.

  If I had met you at the book release the day before, my cup of happiness would have brimmed over for, if my heart belongs to one, my body to another and socially I am attached to the third, you control my mind. Yesterday, however, I was awed by the eminence of your public persona, the exalted company you keep and did not deem it fit to impose my presence upon you. Moreover, I enjoy our private meeting more than the public ones. Hope to meet you soon for I have to get my copy of the Illustrated History of the Sikhs signed.

  Now for the jokes:

  Life is like a penis. Sometimes hard, sometimes soft, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes in, sometimes out. So enjoy penis … oops enjoy life with …

  Sex is like a restaurant. Sometimes you get satisfactory service, sometimes you have to be satisfied with self-service.

  Hoping to meet you soon.

  Love

  Amrinder

  P.S.: Could you please find out the progress of my medical joke book from KM? It is with his brother SM.

  ***

  27 Jan. 2006

  Dear Amrinder

  SM’s father threatens to drop in to give me his collection of Hindi poems – I can’t read Hindi. I will remember to push him about your book. You sound as eager as an expectant mother.

  I am just about halfway through Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Weight Loss. All about adolescent sexual fantasies – bisexual – with marked preference for older, fast women with large bums. Very well written but to what purpose I have yet to discover. Most end up in masturbation. On the other hand Neel Kamal Puri’s Patiala Quartet is witty and great fun to read. It is a Penguin publication.

  I liked your jokes. Most of them are new to me. Your letters would not be the same without them.

  I will look forward to your visit.

  Love

  Khushwant

  68

  14.3.06

  Dear Khushwant Singhji

  I have been trying your number for the last one week but am unable to get to you. It is all right with me if you don’t want to be disturbed but as you had invited me over to get my copy of The Illustrated History of the Sikhs signed, I thought … never mind, we can always maintain contact through letters.

  You were right; pure romantic love a woman craves is of no use to any hot-blooded man. I had written to you about someone I loved ever since college but was never sure of his feelings. Our paths crossed by chance and he discovered virtues in me that he had hitherto been blind to. When matters were getting too uncomfortable to remain platonic, thankfully he got posted outside Delhi. He would send me text messages on my cellphone and though his attention did boost my ego, there was regret at this renewal of interest rather late in the day. I wrote a couplet in this regard and sent it to him.

  Mausam baharon ka beeta chaahat me teri/ Ab jaake patjhad mein kiya tumne izhaar. To which he replied, ‘What do you mean by patjhad? You are sadabahar!’

  As he is alone there (his family is in Delhi) we have taken to corresponding by SMS (usually in the evening when he is free from work) and say things we could never say face-to-face. This became such an addiction that I wrote: ‘Shaam hote hote, uthti hai talab kuch is tarah tumhari/Jo sharabiyon ko uthe maikhane ki.’

  It must be a pain to have a poetess in love with you but my heavy dialogues would be interspersed by my trademark jokes. This one became the turning point of our relationship: ‘A bhapa asked his friend’s wife: “Bhabi bhra kite hai?” Bhabi sharmake boli: “Ik paiyee hui hai tey ik taar te tangi hai.”’

  ‘Thuwadi kithe?’ came the SMS in return! Instead of being outraged, I replied without thinking: ‘Jithe honi chaihidi.’

  ‘Lah daihye?’

  ‘How can you manage that from 2,000 km away,’ I wrote back.

  This turned an exalted emotional attachment into a cheap jerk-off one in very bad taste. I know that I am partly to blame but that does not make it any easier.

  I do not know whether to feel flattered at being the object of sexual fantasies at this age or to be horrified. Either way I am saddened at the turn of events. It is as if the momentary pleasure obtained by dirty messages we exchanged sullied the purity of the exalted feeling I had for him. When I could bear it no longer, I rang him up and had a showdown.

  ‘You disregard the emotional baggage I have been carrying all these years. I don’t want cheap long-distance titillation. So ‘chalo ek baar phir se ajnabi ban jayen hum dono’. He does not have the honesty to call a spade a spade and wants to continue with these cheap thrills cloaked in the garb of ‘friendship’. I do not have the strength to extricate myself from an attachment with a man I’ve loved all these years, though he did not live up to my expectations. They never do. So this is the mess I have made of my life. I would like your advice on this matter for I value your opinion; it never tallies with prevalent social norms.

  How are things at your end? As I am unable to contact you, I am jotting down my cell number 9810******on which you can call me at your convenience.

  Here are 2 jokes exclusively for you.

  Sign outside a prostitute’s den: Married men not allowed. We serve the needy, not the greedy!

  Naughty boy draws a penis on the blackboard. Lady teacher rubs it off. The next day he draws a bigger one and writes under it: ‘The more you rub it, the bigger it gets!’

  Love

  Amrinder

  69

  Would Khushwant Singh ring me up? A week passed. No letter, no phone. The disappointment was mild, like waves gently gliding over sand for I was preoccupied with other matters. I was married to one, in love with another, bedded a third and confided all in a fourth – Khushwant Singh. Khushwant Singh’s call, when it came on the twentieth of March sent my spirits soaring. An appointment wa
s fixed for Wednesday. It was gratifying to be called over by a person no less than Khushwant Singh, especially when he had turned a recluse and suffered nobody’s company. Despite the indulgence in dirty talk and dirtier jokes, I remained ever in awe of him.

  On the twenty-second, though I had hardly slept the night before on account of a hectic obstetric workload, I reached his place in time. He opened the door himself, planted a wet kiss on my cheek, laughingly called me ‘Sadabahar’ and, latching onto my arm, walked the short distance to our usual chairs.

  ‘So how are you?’ I asked.

  ‘As good as I can be at this age. And you?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Do you have a set routine?’

  ‘Being a gynaecologist, I can’t possibly have a set routine. I slept at 4.30 last night.’

  ‘Doesn’t it upset your schedule? When I deviate even slightly from my routine, it becomes very difficult for me.’

  ‘Yes, everything goes haywire.’

  ‘Also, on account of my prostrate I have to get up often at night.’

  ‘So you don’t feel rested when you get up in the morning.’

  ‘By now I have got used to it. What are vadiyas made of?’

  I had got used to his asking questions at a tangent. The reason would become clear soon enough. So I just said, ‘Dal, either moong or urd dhuli. They are soaked overnight, coarsely ground, seasoned with spices and blobs are put out to dry on plastic or cotton sheets.’

  ‘So basically they are pulses.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They certainly did not agree with me. Most Indian food does not. Someone got vadiyas for me from Amritsar.’

  ‘But they are so spicy, especially for one who subsists on bland English food!’

  ‘I ate vadiya chawal especially for the spices last night and had a bad time afterwards,’ he said.

  He did look haggard. Noticing me observe him he said that he had returned from a tiring trip to Jaipur. I did not catch what he had gone there for but I did glean that the roads that used to be excellent once upon a time were bad and he was absolutely exhausted.

  ‘Never was luxury more uncomfortable. You have to endure the traditional welcome that is basically aimed at the foreign tourists before you are allowed to enter your room. It can be outright tiring for Indians. There was a cottage for me, which I asked Mala to occupy. I settled for a room. It was so full of buttons for different things that grappling with them got one confused and irritated. As for the bed, it was far too comfortable to allow sleep.’

  ‘My son was a chef at Raj Vilas,’ I interjected.

  ‘Maharani Gayatri Devi had put me up there the last time I had gone to Jaipur. She is very stingy. Though she partakes freely of my liquor, she invites me over for tea!’

  I did not tell him that he had told me this earlier, for repetition, the bane of advancing age, was one concession I allowed the lovable old man.

  As his bathroom door was ajar, I told him a joke: ‘A sardarni was having a bath with the bathroom door open, much to the embarrassment of the other occupants of the house. One of them finally gathered courage to ask why she was doing so and got the reply that she hated it when people peeped.’

  Khushwant Singh laughed out aloud.

  ‘Have you stopped answering your phone completely?’ I asked.

  ‘I barely sit by the phone and when I am not there, I take it off the hook. I do not like being pestered by people night and day. I usually do not lose my temper but a senior IPS officer, now an ambassador, insisted that I intervene on his behalf and ask Manmohan Singh to get a particular job of his done. I refused politely. A few days later, he rings up again and says, “Aap ka kya jaata hai, aapne to bas ek telephone ghumana hai PM ke daftar aur hamara kaam ho jayega.” I told him that I had lost touch with Manmohan Singh after he became PM and it was not that easy to contact PM’s office. One had togo through at least ten secretaries before one could reach him, but that fellow refused to take no for an answer and I banged the phone down.’

  ‘Why should you beg favours for others when you have never done so for yourself!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Moreover, Manmohan Singh is not that sort of a person.’

  ‘He has great regard for me. I had given a lump sum for his elections.’

  ‘Which he lost,’ both of us said together.

  ‘In fact I had given it to his son-in-law, without his knowledge. When he got to know about it, he personally came to return the amount. I have great regard for him,’ he said. ‘Some people would drop my name to him in the hope of favours and he would instantly grant them,’ he continued.

  ‘How people misuse their connections.’

  ‘Yes. Have you read Amrita Shergill’s biography?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is lying on the shelf, a black hardback. I have taken off the jacket since I had to write a review of the book for Outlook. It will appear in the next issue. I knew Amrita in Lahore.’

  ‘Where she wanted to seduce you to take revenge on your wife who called Amrita a bitch because she thought your son was the ugliest baby she had ever seen,’ I said in one breath.

  ‘Yes. It is said that she would give her lovers appointments at two-hour intervals.’

  ‘How would you know that?’ I asked, smiling.

  ‘Because I know some of them personally. One of them has written the details of his affair with her in his memoirs. He called her over to his hotel and set about wooing her with the works – champagne on ice, roses and soft music. Also, hedid nothing but talk, for he thought that he ought to proceed slowly. The next time he called her, she simply took off her clothes and lay down on the rug by the fire, without uttering a word!’

  ‘Such people, I think, are to be pitied rather than ridiculed. What a life! She burned her candle both ways, and so it flared briefly but brightly,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This doctor I wrote to you about. I have loved him ever since I have known him – more than thirty years. But it was a simmering, nostalgic, distant sort of love, for he was inaccessible. It has been rightly said that the love that lasts the longest is the one that is not returned. A positive response now after so many years has caught me unawares. I don’t know what to make of it.’

  ‘You want to get laid by him?’ he said, shocking the living daylights out of me. Men did have a way of putting things crudely.

  ‘No. It is romantic love that I crave – soft and warm; acknowledgement and reciprocation of the feelings I have for him. But perhaps men and women are made differently. They think that the best compliment a man can pay a woman is to desire her.’

  ‘How can there be romantic involvement without a desire to touch the loved one?’

  ‘What you say is true, but I’d prefer that romance build up slowly into desire.’

  ‘So go ahead.’

  ‘I can’t. For one, I am not ready for physical involvement. What do I do with the present relationship? He would turn homicidal if I betrayed him … I am the black sheep of my family. All the rest – my parents, sister, brothers, their wives – seem adjusted well enough.’

  ‘Superficially perhaps. Maybe they are frustrated or resort to subterfuge.’

  I knew that wasn’t true, but let it pass.

  ‘Have you ever had a white man?’ he asked.

  ‘After all this you ask! In fact, I’m not too enamoured by them. They are either freckled or red as lobsters or white as half-baked dough.’

  Though now I know better. During a cruise years later, our Western dance teacher – an Englishman – and I developed an attraction strong enough to make his wife, also British, jealous. If either of us had gone but a step further, which thankfully we didn’t, it would have turned into a full-fledged shipboard affair!

  ‘My experiences have mostly been abroad. White women, the British especially, are not as frigid as they are made out to be. Indian women out there, for all their bindis and khadi, are the easiest to seduce. I have a cousin who hasn’t
done well in life and drives a taxi. As he knows a smattering of English, he is very popular with foreigners. The single ladies he takes around the golden triangle …’

  ‘Which one? Theirs or India’s?’ I interjected.

  This amused him mightily.

  ‘After going around Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, they invariably want to get laid and he obliges readily enough. I once met him leaving a five-star hotel all flushed and happy. He hugged me tight and said, “Veerji, tussi ki khatiya vilayat jaake. Mere kol they passport, visa kuj vi nahin pher vi main aish kar rehan han.” The white women would also put pens, watches and transistors in his pocket. Sometimes even foreign currency.’

  After I had digested this bit of information, I asked, ‘What novel are you writing now?’

  ‘None. I have had enough. The only deadlines I have to meet now are my columns. Penguin thinks I won’t last long and is trying to extract what it can out of me. I have a habit of jotting down my favourite Hindi, Urdu and English quotes.They want to publish my collection and I told them to go ahead. They have also commissioned Mala to compile my columns of the last three years – the ones before this have already been published. The compilation will begin with the poem you wrote on me.’

  ‘Whichone?’

  ‘You have already forgotten!’ He gave a brittle little laugh.

  ‘No. I have written quite a few. I think you are speaking of the “The Trilogy He Worships”.’

  ‘Yes, that one. I had preserved it.’

  I was mighty glad about that and proud that he thought it good enough to start a book of his.

  ‘Why don’t you get the naughty jokes you have collected over the years published posthumously?’ I could have bitten off my tongue. ‘That is, if you do not want to tarnish your image now.’

  I hastened to make amends.

  ‘Firstly, no publisher would publish them. Secondly, those in Hindi and Punjabi lose their flavour in translation. They are good only for parties and gatherings of close friends.’