Half of What I Say

by Anil Menon

  However, that wasn’t the reason the movie had flopped. She’d had her doubts in the first story session itself. Indian audiences simply wouldn’t tolerate a wife who betrayed her husband, no matter how terrible he might be. Mir had thought otherwise:

  ‘Bankim-da understood the Indian psyche. But the novel failed for two different reasons. First, it was written in English. Had he written it in Bangla, things would have turned out very differently. English can’t capture the emotions of a Bengali bride who speaks no English. What is her fundamental fear? That the task of reforming her man may have to substitute for sharing a life with him. As Reza Aslam said somewhere, worse than being in jail is being in a jail where the prisoner has to reform the jailor. Though Bankim-da was gifted, he couldn’t persuade the Indian woman of one of her old possibilities: betrayal.’

  ‘How was it a possibility? His heroine tries betrayal, fails and dies.’

  ‘That’s the second reason the novel failed.’

  ‘But mian, then why are you killing me!’

  ‘Saki, why are you so fixated on success? I’ll give you such a beautiful death.’

  When Mir said ‘beautiful,’ he meant ‘necessary.’ When an object was what it had to be, then it could not be substituted without loss. When he moaned, ‘it’s beautiful,’ he meant he couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  He had given her a beautiful death, and she had ruined it with an erect nipple. Such was art. Such was life.

  So many movies, so many lives. How would she know whether she had really died? Like now. Was it all real? Lying here, neck-deep in water, staring at the crimson ceiling? Any moment now, someone would shout Cut! Shabash! and people would start to stream towards her. Set up privacy screen. Limca, ma’am? Iced tea, ma’am? Touch-up. Gown. Next shot prep.

  She reached for the remote. Click. Waited. Click, click.

  ‘Bindu!’

  Click, click, click. The screen stayed blank. Hated these digital devices, they got more and more complicated all the time. Why wouldn’t the haraami turn on? Where was Bindu when she needed her? A menu rolled into view: Select Input device. Your sister’s vagina, bhenchod!

  ‘BINDU.’

  The screen blinked into life. She eased back into the tub, grabbed a few potato chips from the frosted glass bowl on the rollaway sidetable next to the tub. The channel showed students rioting in Delhi’s streets. Somewhere near Chandni Chowk, it looked like. A collage of images: tires being burnt, students flinging Molotov cocktails, storefronts damaged, police helping old people to safety, uniforms forming a defensive ring around defenceless ladies.

  It was a nice story. First present the harmless Situation, going about, adjusting its pallu, minding its business. Then push the Situation up a tree, pelt with stones, threaten it with a one-eyed python, molest it with bees, and just when all was about to be lost, swoop in with the Lokshakti’s forces and save the hysterically weeping Situation. Thanks to the Lokshakti’s surgical strike, a radical student cell had been identified, broken up, and the ringleaders placed in custody. The Situation was expected to make a complete and shining recovery.

  Flip. Nicole Kidman at some function. Where had she met the actress? The Belgian Consulate party? Four years, five years ago? Nice woman. Like a doll, really. Getting old, poor bitch.

  Flip. Sports. Flip. A mouthpiece of the Lokshakti arguing with an Animal Rights activist over stray dogs. The activist called it a holocaust, whatever that was, and the mouthpiece talked about rabies, safety of elders and children, and surveys showing overwhelming approval of the Lokshakti’s eradication campaign. She approved. Dogs were filthy. Flip.

  She stared at the pretty actress with her cute dimples and high cheekbones. Kavita Vohra had a long neck, perfect for strangling. Saya checked her own shorter version; in Chunauti, she’d been strangled and had to wear a scarf for three whole days. Bastard Mir.

  Look at Vohra, shaking and shaking. Sharmila Tagore 2.0, the media called her. She was good, it had to be admitted. Vohra knew how to use her body with its limited charms. But such a hack. See— that little step, the shaking of her hips, hand on waist—that was from the Ishq Kameena item song. But she also knew Vohra probably hadn’t had much choice. This particular dance sequence was from one of her early movies. Kavita had done what she’d been told to do.

  Flip.

  Bindu entered the bathroom. ‘Are you going to loll for ever? Too much water isn’t good for your skin. Come on, come on. Oh— Mir SMS’d to ask if he could visit for a few minutes? He’s in the neighbourhood. Should I say yes?’

  ‘Chalo, at least he remembers me when he needs something. Say yes, what choice do I have?’

  The news lifted her spirits. She hummed as Bindu helped with her dress. She kept an eye on the TV screen but didn’t really pay attention. ‘Lift your arms.’

  Her thin gold bangles jangled as she scratched an itch on her waist. She should’ve gone easy on the hot water. Hot water always made her itch. It was a luxury she found impossible to get used to. Turn a tap and voila!

  ‘Stand still. And don’t scratch as if you have lice.’

  Bindu daubed some aloe on the itch.

  ‘Stop fidgeting.’ Bindu struggled to loop the golden thread through the eyelets on the choli’s two back flaps. ‘This is like lacing a shoe, except that this shoe won’t sit still. Why couldn’t we do this in the bedroom?’

  Because the bedroom was a mess of discarded clothes. Unsuitable clothes. What-was-I-thinking clothes. On this night, it was too depressing to sit in a room full of mistakes.

  ‘Don’t lace it too tight.’ Saya glanced down at her breasts. At least half a billion desis couldn’t get enough of them. Mir Alam Mir had burst into poems the first time he’d seen them. Dorabjee would probably be all giggles and spittle.

  ‘Don’t lace it too tight,’ warned Saya again. Too loose and cholis became pillow cases. Too tight and they were just glorified bras. This one fit just right. And so jhakaas. Sigma Farooqi had worked the red-and-gold pattern on the fabric to reproduce an Urdu couplet. If she could moisten looking at herself, imagine the effect on the audience.

  ‘Okay, turn around.’

  Saya obliged. ‘Well?’

  But she already knew the answer from her assistant’s face. Saya extended her arm and gave her regal permission for Bindu to kiss the tips of her fingers. ‘Is it too tight?’

  ‘The blouse fits perfectly and the zari threadwork is cool. Very cool.’

  ‘Just cool? Be more specific, my convent-educated coconut.’

  ‘The General will be very pleased,’ said Bindu, smiling. ‘Please tell him I had a small role in his pleasure.’

  ‘I’m not your bloody postman. And if you want to get sodomized in my place, just say the word. So it is tolerable? Yes?’ She studied herself in the mirror, twirled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stop holding in your breath. Your boobs jiggle too much that way.’

  Saya exhaled. Breathe. Must remember to breathe. Just one more night to get through. She pointed at the television screen.

  ‘That fellow liked my jiggle.’

  Eshwar Pillai was holding forth on bringing high-speed internet to the masses. Pillai was looking particularly crazy today—untidy springy hair, hawaii shirt, Goth arm band, manic eyes. He was waving a packet of bidis around.

  ‘I don’t remember you meeting him.’ Bindu sounded surprised.

  ‘Before you. Many years ago. I couldn’t afford slaves then. I was part of Dodda Gowda’s agency in those days. I think he was using it to launder money or something. Lots of shady girls. Most of his models were poor Kannadigas; I guess he didn’t think I was very different. Anyway, I’d been ordered to go to some party in South Delhi. I was just a scenery girl. You know, somebody who is hired to wear a bikini, hang about the pool, make the place look sophisticated. I wasn’t supposed to chat up anyone, but of course there was lots of under-the-table business going on. I didn’t like the oxygen and was keeping to myself, then Pillai sits down and says he likes the wa
y my breasts jiggle and wants to use them in a game— Yes, as casually as if we’re discussing the price of onions. So I tell him in English thank you very much, now please to go fuck your uncle. He laughs and says he’s serious, it’s all totally professional, so-and-so famous photographer will be doing the shots, they’ll fly me out to Mumbai, pay for my hotel et cetera. In fact, Pillai pays me five-thousand rupees on the spot. He had this little clip of cash, I remember. Peeled off five thousand-rupee notes. I thought chalo, let’s see what happens. Voila!’

  ‘What voila?’

  ‘The jiggle in his female action models? Yours truly.’ She stuck out her celebrated breasts.

  Pillai had been an arrogant know-it-all but a decent sort nonetheless. He’d paid well, paid promptly and paid without asking for extras. The money had been enough to put a down payment on her first apartment in Delhi. Selling her body for money felt so much cleaner than trading it for influence. She’d never had a second’s regret shaking and slithering for the screen. All those rain sequences. The chest collisions. The navel shots. The item numbers. The pretend-orgasmic expressions when the hero groped her. So why did this evening with Dorabjee make her skin crawl? As if she were selling her soul, not mere flesh.

  Gulabi entered to say Mir Alam Mir had arrived.

  ‘Goodness, why is he waiting, you stupid girl? Send him in.’

  She made her way to the alcove by the window. The nook was her favourite spot in the house. For some reason, it was also usually the coolest.

  Mir’s circumspect smile included everything in the room except the woman that had been its inspiration.

  ‘Mir! How are you?’

  ‘I am doing very well. You?’

  Saroj shuffled in with a silver tray, wheezing from the effort of climbing the four short steps that ended the corridor connecting the inner rooms to the kitchen.

  ‘At last,’ cried Saya. ‘I thought you had gone to China to get some tea. Bhaaji, please set it on the side-table. Bindu, serve him—’

  ‘I hope I haven’t come at an inconvenient time.’ Mir accepted the cup from Bindu.

  ‘Mir, why are you standing there like a lost giraffe? Come, sit by my side.’ She straightened her choli. ‘Do you like? It’s by Sigma Farooqi.’

  ‘It’s very beautiful.’ Mir leaned closer. ‘Is that Urdu?’

  ‘Are you referring to my breasts?’

  He laughed and continued his close inspection until he’d figured it out. ‘Sau zubanon per bhi khamoshi tujhe manzoor hai; Raz voh kya hai tere seene mein jo mastoor hai.’

  ‘Will someone please translate?’ begged Bindu.

  ‘Despite myriad tongues, you have chosen silence; what secret lies concealed in your bosom?’ Mir smiled and inclined his head at Bindu. ‘It’s from Iqbal’s Gul-e-Rangeen.’

  Saya couldn’t help recoiling. The English syllables sounded harsh and dissonant to her ears. Like drinking wine from a paper cup. She suppressed her irritation at Bindu’s ‘oh, how deep,’ ‘how poetic,’ ‘I wish I knew Urdu,’ ‘Wasn’t Iqbal Pakistani?’ and other coconut ejaculations. Eventually, her assistant got the hint, made her excuses, left.

  ‘You mustn’t mind,’ said Saya, moving closer. ‘I only keep the loon around because she has no one else.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mir stroked her cheek with a crooked finger. Smoothed a curl. ‘How womanly you look. Are you going out tonight?’

  ‘Unfortunately. If you had only let me know—’

  ‘I only asked because of your finery,’ he said, quickly. ‘Actually, I too have a function to attend. Ranbir Rai has a new book—a stinker— but I made the mistake of praising it, so now I must pay the price. You’re not headed there by any chance?’

  ‘No.’ She was a little offended. Did he think she had nothing better to do than attend some author’s baby shower?

  He waited, as if he expected her to say more. ‘Good, then. Your presence would have completely eclipsed Ranbir’s book.’

  She was embarrassed by the empty compliment. Then angry. Look mian, she wanted to say, there is a time and place for your refined rubbish. If you’re curious to know where I’m going, say so. If you don’t like what you know, say so. If you’re having a gender crisis, say so. Your asexuality doesn’t bother me one bit. Indeed, it’s a relief, as we both know. So let us not have any dung between us. I’m not Gulabi and you’re not Guru Dutt. The only sign I require of your love for me is your desire to spend time with me.

  ‘Mir, stop it.’ She poked him in the ribs. ‘All this buttering makes me think you’re about to put me on the tava. Have you found a better ending for Johar’s movie? Am I going to die?’

  ‘Didn’t Johar call you?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  He dropped his eyes. ‘The project is in jeopardy. The Cultural Affairs Department has refused to give a no-objection certificate. They want us to make changes to the plot. I refuse. The fork is the heart of the story. A woman comes to a fork in the road and takes it. Draupadi has to choose a husband from among five men and she picks five husbands. I like forks. I am not interested in parallel lines, ladders, loops or spoons.’

  ‘Mir, what in Shaitan’s name are you babbling about? What was the change? A different hero? I think Rajpal Yadav is very well suited for playing the twins.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. The Lokshakti is willing to accept five husbands as long as they’re in five parallel story-lines. An alternate-realities type story. In each, Draupadi has a different husband. In one world, she’s married to Arjun, in another to Bheem, and so on. See? She remains a good Hindu wife, that way nobody will get offended.’

  ‘That way nobody will care about the movie.’

  ‘Agreed. But what is poor Johar to do?’ Mir made a disgusted noise. ‘It’s not important. It is the usual struggle. Oh, I miss my friend Durga today. Do you remember the first time I brought him here? I’m afraid we were rather rude.’’

  ‘Oh, you think so?’

  Mir had brought Durga Dhasal into her life one very cold Delhi winter night, almost twelve years ago. Maybe earlier. She didn’t like to dwell on time. The haveli, barely two years in her possession, still wasn’t her home. It lacked the memory of conversations, mistakes, laughter. She had been glad to hear he was bringing a friend who had the gift for all three.

  Mir’s head had been bare, but from her window on the first floor she’d observed that as he waited for Gulabi to open the front door, he hurriedly donned his woolen Kashmiri cap. The cap kept his head warm and a warm head was a head immune to colds. She had explained this simple truth to him several times, and he’d heartily agreed, but somehow he never seemed able to remember. Now he’d sit in her living room, sniffling surreptitiously, not daring to remove the cap from his head.

  The two men had walked into her haveli, made themselves comfortable and continued their conversation, as undistracted by her presence as if she, the country’s most beautiful woman alive, were merely a piece of furniture. At first she had been diffident, respectful, the way she always was with the learned. She’d been most impressed with the fluency and purity of Durga’s Hindi. Then the men, inevitably as men, had begun to annoy her.

  Durga and Mir had just seen the movie I, Robot. They’d hated it. They seemed determined to remake the movie in her living room. They spoke to each other in the telepathic manner of a long-married couple, an octopod of private winks and telegraphic barks. ‘Will Smith as—’

  ‘I know! Wasted, totally wasted.’

  ‘Knowing Alex Proyas, what do you expect?’

  Thin sharp laughter from Mir, loud hoarse laughter from Durga.

  ‘Let’s be fair. Don’t forget Dark City.’

  ‘Exactly. I expected more. I wanted to like the movie.’ Mir had sat on her couch, woollen cap askew, long arms gripping his bony knees. ‘I wanted to like it. But he made a stupid thriller out of Asimov’s robot stories. It’s like gazing upon a tiger and seeing only circus tricks.’

  ‘My dear Mir, the great Asimov himself barely recognized
his robots are Kantian monsters—’

  Greatness goes hand in hand with ignorance, O fat one.

  ‘My dear Durga, the day I meet a writer who reads, let alone reads Kant, that is the day I will offer my hair at Tirupati.’

  ‘Never mind others; what can we do, that is the question. It is up to us.’

  ‘The problem is with the robots. Forget the expense, the moment you bring in a robot into a story, everything else becomes invisible. How do robots think? What do they wear? How is their sex life? Will they get our jokes? Irrelevant questions. That is the problem with robots.’

  The problem is with your large feet. Please take your feet off my fifteen-thousand dollar Mark Hatfield coffee table.

  ‘There are robots and there are robots, Mir. A robot, first and foremost, is a creature of dharma. A peculiar dharma perhaps and not the dharma you or I might prefer, but it is as inseparable from its dharma as ghee from its clarity.’

  ‘Michael Kohlaas,’ grunted Mir.

  ‘Of course, of course. Kohlaas. What a story. Humans always make the best robots.’

  ‘If Balraj Sahni were alive—’

  ‘O Balraj. How he is missed, how he is missed. How about Amitabh as Michael Kohlaas?’

  ‘Durga, I wish. Lambhu-ji and I are currently not on speaking terms.’

  Haan, at last the idiots were making sense. First, select the actor. Second, persuade the actor to join the project. Then pick the bloody story.

  ‘There is another problem,’ said Durga, tapping some supari onto his palm. He tilted back his head, tossed it down. ‘In Michael Kohlaas, the villain is the State. That won’t do. The enemy of a man fond of rules cannot be an institution also fond of rules. We need something more remarkable.’

  ‘We need a remarkable woman.’

  She waited, modestly.

  ‘I have it! Effi Briest!’

  ‘What about Effi’s breast, Durga?’