He cursed Kunta and her parents. He cursed her for coming to his house empty-handed and his own foolishness for accepting her. That brother of hers—working for the railways—could he not get Jamal a job cleaning the station? Maybe he didn’t want Jamal Haddi to learn how corrupt he was. They all were! Why, there were sahibs in the municipality who had made so much money taking bribes that they could build bungalows in their villages. It was said when they had a marriage in the family they filled up their wells with alcohol—so much money they had.
Despite his poverty, Jamal would make it a point to visit the adda every evening. He would get the money from Kunta, who would give it to him without a word. Part of her earnings would go toward the daily rations, part toward buying her peace from Jamal’s ranting.
Kunta had found work at a local hospital. She washed vessels and linen and did odd jobs like helping in the sickroom when the nurses failed to turn up or cleaning up after aged patients who had lost control of their bowel movements. It was a thankless job and she hated it, but it kept her from Jamal Haddi and his slow, leering persecution.
The money wasn’t much—eight hundred rupees a month: four hundred for the house, four hundred for Jamal Haddi. Being practical, Kunta knew how to scrimp and cope with expenses. She made a deal with Pramilabai, who lived three kholis away and sold vegetables grown along the railway tracks. Every two days Kunta would buy stale vegetables at one-eighth their original price. These she would boil, reboil, and serve as broth, a meal rounded off by a solid crust of bread. There was no money for milk, but she was sure the broth would sustain the children.
One day, five months after Jamal Haddi had been discharged from the municipality, Kunta lost her job at the hospital. She did not tell Jamal why or how it happened, but he heard her crying one night to herself. That stirred something in him. He moved forward to touch her, but she became cold and resentful as soon as his hand touched her face. He felt the presence of a stone wall, hard, cold, and unavailable to him. He thought it prudent to roll onto his side and sleep, his back to her.
With Kunta at home, things became worse. Jamal Haddi sneered and spat insults at her. Useless, so useless she was, that even her employers had gotten rid of her. In his case, it had been a retrenchment drive, a policy decision, but she was singled out for expulsion. Maybe he should get rid of her, too. It was his goodness that had kept her, and for this he was now paying a price.
Day in and day out, Kunta heard his insults without a trace of retaliation or a flicker of emotion. If there was suffering, she did not show it. Not even when he called her a slut or hit her. When things got too much, she would take the children out and leave them at the neighbors’. The blacksmith’s family was nice. They remembered to feed the children before returning them home.
Jamal Haddi had not known when Kunta’s alternate life had begun, when she had first taken such a step, canceling out the restraining angels in her mind. All he knew was the money had started pouring in: twenty, thirty, even forty rupees a day. He didn’t need to fight for it, get abusive, or wrench it away. Morning and evening, the notes would appear in his shirt pocket. He would wait for a day when it wasn’t there so he could spit abuses at her, but she never failed him. That suited him, for he could drown himself and his demons at the adda, his back to the crowd, his face to the wall.
Jamal Haddi recalled there was one other woman in the slum where they lived who had turned to the convenience of an alternate income. But she was a widow with two young mouths to feed. She had an excuse, and Jamal himself, returning one night from the adda, drunk and staggering, had offered her two rupees to jerk him off. After an hour, the woman had flung back his limp cock, spat her disgust, and walked off, leaving Jamal feeling exposed and incomplete. For a moment he had wondered if that was the reason that Kunta had turned to other men but then quickly—by the alchemy of self-deception—convinced himself that his impotency was born of her wrongdoings, her faithlessness. He hated her all the more.
Thinking about Kunta and her indifference, Jamal downed the hooch in his glass and almost instantly felt a burning in his gullet, a spinning sensation in his head. He hoped that Gulabi wasn’t mixing anything into the liquor. Last year, two youths from the slum had died of poisoning, but that was because they had drunk at one of those unfamiliar addas, where they weren’t known. At Gulabi’s, things were different. He usually came up and cautioned Jamal Haddi when he had drunk too much. He also extended credit to Jamal and once or twice had dropped him home.
Jamal hadn’t liked the way Gulabi had looked at Kunta. It was sly, coaxing, and loaded with a message of desire. Although Kunta hadn’t returned his interest, Jamal had, in his mind, blamed her for arousing the adda owner. Bloody whore, she affects men, Jamal thought, because men know that she is available. She throws sex at them—the fucking whore. The blood rushed to his face, and he felt a wrench in his chest, as though it were exploding. The poison was spreading, searing different parts. Jamal massaged his chest, glad that he was sitting with his back to the crowd. This was his favorite spot: the lone bench, facing the wall. The wall was his best friend, his mirror. It never changed countenance, never made demands; by its sheer presence it discouraged others from sitting with him. Jamal was not the best of company. He preferred to drink alone, drink quietly, facing nothing but the brooding sandstorms in his mind and the fits of vengefulness he felt, during which he contemplated the many ways by which he could murder Kunta. Petrol, axe, the grinding stone, the gunnysack—he had been through every method. If he had delayed the decision it was because he hadn’t found a way that was satisfying enough.
That day itself Kunta had been particularly bad. She had disgraced him by allowing two men to call on her. Both were tall, broad built, and flashy. Both wore sunglasses, white starched shirts, and gold watches and looked, at first sight, like cops. This scared Jamal Haddi, who kept himself out of sight. It was only when he heard her laugh, lightly, flirtatiously, as she joined them outside the hut that he realized they were her paramours. For the evening? Or the night? he wondered. How would she be? came the next thought. Warm and responsive? Or passive and reluctant? He felt a stab of jealousy as she got into a white Ambassador and drove away with them.
Painfully, with tears blinding him and the sullen brick wall for company, Jamal realized that Kunta didn’t “go” just for the money. It was gratification she was after, a rebellious celebration of her revived youth. He saw her riding one of the men, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her dark, heaving figure soaking in his manhood, deriving strength from it, deriving power. Because Jamal knew her well, knew how she grew with her own sexuality, he saw her take control of the second man. She’d do it rhythmically, naturally, without guilt or clumsiness, because her dark, foaming beauty allowed her that much power and that much grace. She was the universe when she copulated, and Jamal hated it that she had shared this abandonment with others. Sometimes, when he and she were together, her passion had scared him, because he wasn’t sure he could take all of it himself. Now he knew he wasn’t enough. He remembered how in their early days she would continue to sway and rock, taking her own pleasure, learning her own lessons, claiming her own fulfillment, as if in a dream. Jamal looked down and saw he had an erection.
He didn’t know whether to feel angry or elated. He was a bit of both actually, more elated because it was a long time since he had felt aroused. All these months, the booze had made him ineffective, and frankly, Jamal had ceased caring. The notion of sex had barely crossed his mind, except in the form of ugly memories of Kunta. So the strain and throb that plagued him now, in his khaki trousers, came as a surprise and a revelation. He decided to borrow money from Gulabi and vent his frustrations on an economically priced prostitute in the red-light district.
THE LIGHTS OF KAMATHIPURA TWINKLED mischievously and Jamal felt excited as he approached the cages that housed the ladies of pleasure. The time was past midnight. The area was abuzz with activity. A late-night show had ended, and hordes of animated y
ouths walked out of the theater. Jamal paused to look at the billboard over the entrance. Being illiterate, he could not read, but the picture said it all. A busty woman in a bra and petticoat, her hair loose and flowing, looked down at a man who adhered to her midriff. This merged into a collage of the same woman being made love to by a man who was nuzzling her neck. Jamal stared at the points of her brassiere. His eyes wandered to the swell of her breasts and followed the man’s hands, which were just above her crotch. Jamal made up his mind he would take a woman who looked like that. And he would punish her.
He approached the cages and saw the first bunch of whores—Nepalis. He didn’t like them. They had flat faces and flat chests. Besides, they seemed so inexpressive, so remote. He walked farther and felt excited. There, sitting on the steps outside the cages, were the kind of women he liked. They wore thin, strappy dresses that ended above their thighs, boldly showing their legs. There were four such women, standing cockily, and as Jamal stood and gloated at them, one of them lifted her leg and showed him the underside of her thigh, right up to the butt. This made Jamal want to rush in and relieve himself, but he knew that he must be patient. He must find the face he was looking for. Then he could afford to get carried away.
As he walked away, the whores taunted him. They challenged him and his manhood, and Jamal flushed, because he knew that they were laughing at him. This made him angry. All whores laughed, he thought. It was their way of protecting themselves against the world. He sneered, because just then he thought how Kunta had laughed when she went off with the two men. The bitch—she was a born whore. Well, he would show her. Soon he would.
The next cage had dark women from the South. They had thick legs, voluptuous bodies, and black wavy hair left loose for effect. One of them who was standing stretched languidly, deliberately. She wore black hot pants that cut into her thighs and a sleeveless top that showed her shaven armpits and a tubular stomach. Sexy, she looked, thought Jamal, as he felt a stirring in his blood. There were two whores sitting on the steps; one was running a comb through the hair of the other. Jamal preferred the one standing. He thought she came closest to the woman on the billboard. He asked her her price, but she quoted high. Jamal laughed and walked on. The whore called after him, “Arrey, I was only joking. Come back. That was the full night rate. One time is only twenty rupees, and you can take your time.” By then Jamal had rejected her. The booze inside made him feel light and powerful. He liked this feeling. He had a choice. He could take whom he wanted, how he wanted. He could be unkind and merciless. He would show her that a whore had no right to enjoyment. He would teach her how whores deserved to be treated. Why, in a single night he would punish all the whores of the world.
That’s when he saw her—alone, on the steps, outside her cage. There were sounds of laughter from inside. But she sat alone, a radio to her ear. A song was playing—“Jiya bekaraar hain”—but it was hoarse and cracking. She kept trying to adjust the tuning. She did not see Jamal looking at her. She was slim and dark. She wore a petticoat and a blouse—no sari to cover her. She ran a finger through her hair, and Jamal saw the full sweep of her face. It was young, sensual, slightly sad. The song added to her sex appeal. Jamal wondered why she was alone. He peeked inside the cage. Saw customers and whores there. The customers were being fed; they were being teased. One of them had his shirt off. The room was divided into small cubicles by long, moldy curtains.
The girl saw Jamal looking at her. She put the radio down and smiled at him. It was a bleak, famished smile, one of forced labor. Jamal pretended to look indifferent. “How much?” he asked. “One time first—then, later, maybe more.”
“Ten rupees,” she said. “Want to come?”
Jamal was stumped. She was the best-looking girl he had seen so far, and her price—so reasonable! He couldn’t believe his luck. He swelled with masculine pride. “Don’t talk about one time,” he said. “Talk about a full night. How much?” he asked.
“No full night,” she replied fiercely. “Only one time.”
Jamal was taken aback. He felt rejected. He wanted to walk on. There were many more cages to see, many more women from different parts of India. He didn’t need to suffer this girl, who acted as though she was doing him a favor.
He looked at her and saw that her waist was showing above the petticoat. It was flat, smooth, and inviting. Her hips were slim. Her breasts were firm and beautifully proportioned, kept in place by a low blouse, which was buttoned with a single button and a straining safety pin. Jamal knew that he wouldn’t be able to walk away from those breasts. They were too real, too potent. Like Kunta’s body, they had a language of their own.
By then the girl had lost interest in Jamal. She was fiddling with the radio and humming along. Jamal liked the song, too, so he felt an affinity with her. On an impulse, he began to dance to the song. Not too fast, not too abruptly, he twirled to the tune. The girl looked up and giggled. Her laughter came naturally, infectiously. Girls from other cages began to point at Jamal.
Jamal felt free and liberated. He knew that all eyes were on him, but he did not care. After a long time he was making someone laugh, and he liked the laugh, for like the song, it rose from the gut. Jamal danced some more. Passersby thought him mad and stepped out of his way. “Wah, Meena, you seem to have won yourself an admirer,” said a voice from inside. “Hush, don’t call her that,” said another voice abruptly, sharply. “She is Sunaina now, remember.”
As she heard this the girl’s eyes narrowed and clouded with pain. Some past brought to the surface, thought Jamal, despite his own liquor-soaked senses. Quickly he wooed her, distracted her, gesticulating like a courting hero. A ripple of laughter followed. Jamal quivered youthfully to the rhythm. His eyes fastened on the girl in front of him. He was dancing for her, for her happiness only. Eventually, she raised her hand to her face and laughed. It was a gushing bridal laugh, not the laugh of a whore, and it convinced Jamal that, be it one time, he would go with her.
The song ended. The whores clapped. An announcer’s voice on the radio announced that the program was over; it would resume the next day at the same time. On the street, a small traffic jam had occurred. People leaned out of their cars, their eyes devouring the women who called out to them. The women blew kisses and beckoned. The onlookers looked away.
“Chalo andar! Come inside!” Jamal whispered to the girl, his throat parched partly with passion, partly with lack of refreshment. She shook her head. She didn’t want to go with him.
Jamal pleaded, “Chalo, please. I won’t bother you. Only once.”
“No,” she said fiercely. “I won’t go with you. I am tired. Take someone else. Anyone but me.”
“I can’t,” said Jamal. “It’s you I want. You I fancy. I don’t come usually. So don’t refuse, please.”
She wavered and looked at him. Then suddenly she said, “You are nice, but don’t insist on me. Don’t! You will hurt yourself.”
Jamal was puzzled. He spoke through his confusion and his liquor, which now made his head feel heavy. “How can you hurt me? I am already hurt, damaged. You can’t hurt me. No one can hurt me. I am beyond hurt.”
“Then go away; leave me alone,” she hissed.
Jamal felt sad and defeated. This was unexpected, but he knew he couldn’t walk away. There was something about the girl that held him. The way she had given herself to the song: she had belonged to it, to its romance. She did not belong here—on the streets of Kamathipura.
“Why should I go? What’s wrong with me? Am I deformed? Distorted? Too ugly for you? Is it a lover you are expecting? Give me a reason, and I will leave,” said Jamal sullenly.
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just . . . just that I am not well, not clean. I don’t want to contaminate you. Please understand.”
Jamal stared at her disbelievingly. From inside the cage came a light curse—“sali bewaqoof”—that made Jamal angry. It seemed unfair to him that Meena or Sunaina—whoever she was—was being cursed for her ig
norance, her honesty. Jamal looked at the girl before him. She had lowered her eyes, out of sadness, out of shame. It made Jamal want to do something for her, something heroic. In that moment all the liquor left him. He looked at her soberly and said, “I still want you. I won’t go away till you agree. I will wait till morning, if I have to.”
She looked at him despairingly, as if he were mad. She was convinced he was a lunatic; the doubt showed itself in her eyes. “Okay.” She shrugged. “If that’s how you want it, it’s your funeral.”
“No, not mine.” Jamal smiled. “Many others’, but not mine,” he added cryptically as she led him into a stench-ridden room at the side.
BREATHLESS IN BOMBAY
♦ ♦ ♦
ARINGDHAM BANERJEE SURVEYED THE SCENE with clinical satisfaction. Everything was perfect, just the way he liked it. The band—sharp and peppy yet pleasantly restrained—played the music at a pitch that encouraged genial conversation and left room enough for the occasional squealing reunion. The lawns glowed with warm orange lights; the trees from which they hung were dark and self-effacing; the waiters were clean, white, and smiling, all of them; the bar was ample and expansive, manned by three bartenders, young, restless, and anxious to set a jolly pace.
The guests were discerningly dressed. The older men in sherwanis and Nehru jackets, the younger ones in jeans and jackets—jeans tucked into boots or flowing over soft mojris curled at the tip. The women wore designer labels. Their look was crisp, elaborate, self-conscious, capable of inviting and sustaining conversation and brazenly or subtly calculated so that flesh would show: a planned ripening, you could say. The women threw one another sharp glances from afar and compliments from near. Under their breath they hissed or burned. If they became too competitive, they downed their feelings with cool, colored cocktails and with a flick of their hair changed the subject to other matters. Expertly they skirted from topic to topic and bubbled with revelations sharp and high-pitched, lending to the occasion an all-too-fantastical grace, a fierce bonhomie that was brittle, brewing, and bombastic at times.
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