An Extraordinary Destiny

by Shekhar Paleja

  Gavin said, “See how he lets the light from different sources spill into the room and light the scene?”

  Maybe he was right. She nodded while taking another look at the painting. He gave off a faint scent of tobacco mingled with what she could only describe as a fresh forest musk, which made her lean imperceptibly towards him. Jyoti wasn’t sure why she found his smell so alluring.

  She scrutinized the painting as if she were a discerning art dealer, trying to disprove or find fault with what he said. A handful of Japanese tourists had noticed Gavin going on like a curator and had gathered nearby, listening to his every word. Gavin was so wrapped up in the painting that he didn’t even notice them and continued pointing to different parts of the large canvas.

  “The flame in the candle stand on the far left lights the foreground. Look at how white Delilah’s skin is.”

  Jyoti blushed at Delilah’s bare breasts, but she thought there was something serene about the painting, about the way the bearded, muscled, nearly naked Samson had fallen asleep on Delilah’s lap.

  Gavin continued with enthusiasm. “And see how Rubens c-c-contrasts Delilah’s alabaster skin with Samson’s dark back, rippled with shadows? And standing behind Delilah is an old maid holding a small candle, which also helps illuminate the scene, but because it’s behind the plane of the large candle stand, it gives us more depth. And at the far back,” Gavin spoke faster, with more excitement, “one of the eager Philistine soldiers in the background is also holding a candle, giving the scene even more of a three-dimensional aspect.”

  They were standing side by side. Gavin’s arm grazed Jyoti’s every now and then as he pointed. He was enthralled. The Japanese tourists were impressed, nodding their heads. Jyoti found herself being drawn into the painting even more.

  He was right. Jyoti started to see things in the painting she hadn’t noticed before—it was subtle but dramatic and three-dimensional. Not wanting to completely accede (isn’t that what coquettish girls did?), she asked, with some doubt, “So he was the first to start painting this way?”

  “Well, I think Caravaggio was a big influence. He played with contrasting light and dark. The Italian word for it is chiaroscuro, which gives more depth.” Taking a step closer to Jyoti, he continued, “See how Rubens uses shadows? Sometimes he uses light from a single source to light the scene, but he makes the scene really come alive with his use of contrasting light and dark. At the time it was really innovative.”

  He’d never spoken so passionately, so earnestly. Their conversations on the tube were always casual, jokey.

  After a while, Gavin whispered, “Take a close look at Samson’s back. See something?”

  She looked but couldn’t see anything unusual, so she took a step closer and squinted.

  And then she saw it. She realized what he was talking about. A different light source. There were subtle shades of dark red and coral on the contours of Samson’s back and on the sole of his foot, reflecting from what must be a fireplace off to the right side that was not actually in the painting—the fourth and off-canvas light source. Gavin was right: it was a beautiful painting with depth and dimension, but she wouldn’t have known why or how to appreciate its beauty if he hadn’t shown her.

  He said, “One of my art college professors thinks this is a fake. She’s actually been banned from the gallery.”

  “Really? Why does she think it’s a fake?” Jyoti asked.

  “Lots of reasons. The brush strokes in details like the carpet, the statues, the soldiers, are all rushed and not as precise like in most of his other works. Also the saturation is turned way up. A master knows when to stop, when to hold back. A forger, allured by the alchemy, isn’t as self-restrained. Anyway, if it’s a fake, it’s a great study in chiaroscuro.”

  “How do you know all this? I didn’t know you were an artist. I thought you worked in the Square Mile,” Jyoti said.

  “I’m not an artist. And I do work in the Square Mile. I work in the kitchen of a restaurant. I did three years of art college in Dublin and realized I was, at best, an ungifted amateur.” Gavin shrugged with a self-effacing smirk, then went back to talking about how Caravaggio was frequently in duels, breaking out of prisons, fleeing Rome.

  But all Jyoti could think about was that Gavin worked in a kitchen. A part of her felt betrayed because she’d assumed he was a young professional, an intern working his way up in an office or bank. But as he went on about Caravaggio with rockstar reverence, she reasoned that he hadn’t set out to deceive her. During one of their conversations on the tube, he’d simply said, “I work in the Square Mile,” and Jyoti had assumed it was in one of the many financial institutions or law firms there. When she realized that she’d never entertained the idea of him working in a kitchen, she hated herself for being such an elitist. After all, he was intelligent, funny, unlike anyone she’d ever met, and not to mention those gorgeous green eyes. A tug-of-war began inside her. She told herself that back home, of course, someone from her socio-economic background would never dream of talking to a kitchen worker, let alone go out on a date with one. But that provided little comfort, and she hated herself for being so old-fashioned, so judgmental, so like her mother.

  She could just see her mother’s jaw drop in horror to learn that her daughter was on a date, unaccompanied, with a gora, a white. Not even a professional gora, but a dropout! And not just any kind of dropout—if he’d failed at med school or law school that would’ve maybe been somewhat tolerable—but an art college dropout? Who now worked as a cook or dishwasher? (Please let it not be a dishwasher!)

  And yet, as he went on about other paintings in the gallery, she found herself drawn to him. He was so passionate about how Caravaggio directly influenced Velasquez who influenced Rubens who influenced Rembrandt. Jyoti noticed how unaware he became, how earnest and passionate he was, how his stutter disappeared. He was the opposite of her. Unguarded, exposed, and unafraid. And maybe even a bit awesome.

  They moved on to modern paintings, elbowing each other now and then when they disagreed.

  “My neighbour’s five-year-old could have done that.”

  “Yeah, but I doubt you could have.”

  It was the first time anyone had physically flirted with Jyoti. She found it electrifying.

  If anyone were to describe Gavin’s passion for art, it might seem as though he was pompous, arrogant. But Gavin was so thoroughly earnest and unaware of himself, of his own nerdiness, that it was charming. It made her heart quicken. The possibility that someone could open doors she never knew existed thrilled her, and yet her complete inexperience with romance made her feel inadequate, awkward. She continued to follow him like a giddy schoolgirl, tingling with the possibility of their arms grazing again.

  As they left the museum, Jyoti couldn’t help but notice how nice his bum looked. The fabric of his jeans cupped his cheeks perfectly. Snap out of it! Have you no shame? Was her attraction to Gavin so strong that it had made her lose her senses? Where was her self-restraint? Where was this desire, fervour coming from? Had it been lying dormant inside her all this time?

  They spent three hours in the Café in the Crypt, under St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, drinking tea and eating scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. By eight o’clock, most of the patrons had left to see shows in the West End, but Jyoti and Gavin ordered more scones and tea and kept talking.

  “After three years of arts college in Dublin I realized I’d never gone anywhere in the world. I have an uncle who lives near Sloane Square—he’s a diplomat’s aide and travels a lot for work. He needed a cat-sitter so I figured I’d start in London.”

  He rolled his own cigarettes and Jyoti enjoyed watching him make them. She’d never seen anyone do that before. He was masterful, rolling the loose Drum tobacco and giving the thin strip of velum at the end of the rolling paper a quick and precise lick before binding it effortlessly between his fingers. It took him mere seconds to make a perfectly symmetrical cigarette.

  She
said, “So what type of things do you like to paint?”

  He laughed, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Not sure if I’ll ever paint again. The more time I spend away from art college, the more I realize how truly ungifted I am. I do sketches once in a while, just doodling. What I really want to do is travel.”

  “Where?”

  “Egypt. Turkey. Iran. Maybe I’ll continue eastward on land and visit you in India!”

  She smiled, overwhelmed by his enthusiasm, his audacity, and wondered if he knew his geography. Even if he were to get as far as Afghanistan, getting to Pakistan would be nearly impossible as he’d have to take the Khyber Pass, one of the world’s highest and most treacherous roads. But there was such an air of optimism about Gavin that to point out a detail like that would’ve been cruel. She let him talk of his travel plans uninterrupted and enjoyed his fervour, not to mention the aroma of his hand-rolled tobacco, which she much preferred to the stench of regular cigarettes.

  They caught the tube home together. It was past ten o’clock and there were a few young revellers in their compartment, young men and women like Jyoti and Gavin in their twenties, drinking cans of beer, presumably on their way to a party. One couple was so inebriated that they were fighting one minute and passionately kissing the next.

  Jyoti and Gavin restrained their laughter at the couple. But this public display of affection was also unsettling for Jyoti. Would Gavin be expecting a kiss from her at the end of the night? She’d never kissed a boy before.

  “What’s it like riding a train in India?” Gavin asked. “Is it really people hanging out the doors and windows and sitting on the roofs?”

  Jyoti had never been on a local train in Bombay in her life. She’d never really needed to as she lived in the heart of the city and her parents insisted that their driver take her everywhere. The only train travel she’d experienced was long overnight journeys with her mother to cities of religious worship in Gujarat, in first-class, air-conditioned sleeper compartments. But she didn’t want to come across as a spoiled brat. Having never been to India, Gavin wouldn’t understand. She found herself replying, “Well, it’s crowded, but I don’t take the train often.”

  “I’d love to visit India,” Gavin said, which made Jyoti smile. Many of her classmates had said exactly the same thing. So many Westerners wanted to travel to India, as though the country existed solely as some rite of passage for them.

  But Gavin seemed different from the students at school. Jyoti doubted he’d be one of those travellers who took photos of poor people and of cows roaming the streets only to return home and hang the photos on their walls as proof they’d survived a mystical, heathen land. She could picture Gavin travelling in a third-class train compartment and talking to locals. He was generous, curious. She found herself jealous of his independence, of his ability to quit school, drop everything, and travel aimlessly around the world. She could never in a million years entertain anything like that. Her mother would have a heart attack and drop dead before Jyoti could even begin to explain herself.

  As they emerged from the station at Sloane Square, Gavin said, “Fancy a drink?”

  In the gallery and the underground and in the café, Jyoti had felt enshrouded and therefore somehow free to flirt with Gavin, at least furtively, but now that they were standing in the street, out in the open, she felt as though her mother’s eyes were somehow on her. It was ridiculous; she was aware of her paranoia, but couldn’t shake her mother’s voice. Who is this Gavin-Favin? How do you even know if that’s the boy’s real name? What if the dropout cook is some kind of pervert, or murderer or rapist?

  But he’s intelligent, interesting, and funny, Jyoti reasoned, and despite their differences, they’d made a connection. What was wrong in pursuing a friendship with him? Of course there was more than friendship on her mind. And probably his. She couldn’t ignore that no matter how hard she tried. Every time she looked into his eyes there was an electric current and she had to dart her eyes away to muster enough strength to look at him again.

  “I should be getting home,” she said, fidgeting with her purse.

  “Can I walk you?”

  Even though she’d never walked down King’s Road this late, she shook her head. “Thank you, but I’ll be alright.”

  “I had a good time,” Gavin said, leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek, but she pulled away and stuck her hand out for him to shake, which he did, a bit awkwardly.

  Walking quickly up King’s Road, feeling like a complete idiot, Jyoti couldn’t stop thinking how immature she must have seemed, how prudish. Not allowing Gavin to kiss her on the cheek was quite possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done.

  - 21 -

  1997

  JYOTI STOOD UNDER AN AWNING of the LSE bookshop, sheltered from a late-afternoon drizzle, waiting for Gavin, whom she hadn’t seen since the handshake fiasco at the end of their first date. Jyoti had expected to bump into him at Sloane Square Station in the mornings, but there’d been no sign of him. Was he going to work early to avoid her? She had his phone number, but it wasn’t the irrational fear of her mother finding out that kept her from calling; she mostly felt like an imbecile for being so frigid, for not allowing him to kiss her on the cheek. She was convinced that he could discern her level of experience, or rather inexperience, and the fact that she didn’t possess the skill to hide her lack of sophistication only compounded her fears. She thought calling him might seem too forward, desperate. She didn’t know any of the girls at school well enough to confide in and ask for advice.

  It was ridiculous how much of her spare time was now hijacked with thoughts of Gavin. She’d catch herself thinking of him in the middle of a lecture, of his sandy ruffled hair and green eyes, his sinewy hands. One moment she’d be on the tube, surrounded by dozens of rain-soaked commuters, and then she’d close her eyes and suddenly be in a completely deserted room in the National Gallery with him. Simply thinking of his singsong Irish accent made her smile—at which point she’d remind herself she wasn’t here to flirt with boys, that her parents were spending a small fortune on her, and then a ghostly image of her mother would pop up with a wagging finger: Going around the town with a boy? With a gora?! What decent boy in Bombay will want to marry you if he comes to know? Just think of the shame!

  In Bombay, before Jyoti had left for London, her mother and aunts had dropped hints that a single girl in her mid-twenties in the Gujarati community was considered by many to be an old maid. “I don’t hold that old-fashioned point of view myself,” they often liked to remind Jyoti, “but it’s what the rest of society thinks,” implying that they had to comply, conveniently displacing any responsibility and guilt from themselves and onto society in general.

  Jyoti understood that her mother was proud of her for gaining admission to the LSE not just because of the career opportunities but also because it would parlay well into a match with a top-notch Gujarati boy. Her father didn’t see why there was any rush to get Jyoti married, but Jyoti knew her mother wasn’t one to waste a ripe opportunity such as a graduate degree from the LSE. She’d want to strike while the iron was hot. An arranged marriage wasn’t far off in the future.

  Yesterday—a week after their first date—Gavin had finally called and asked her to a movie, but she lied about having an assignment due and proposed that they meet in the afternoon for a coffee. The truth was that she was afraid to go out with him in the evening, when there was more possibility of romance.

  Gavin now came running towards Jyoti, who was waiting under the bookshop awning. He was drenched. “Bad day to forget the brolly,” he said with a smile. Even though he’d been running, he was barely out of breath. Jyoti wondered if he’d been an athlete in high school, a runner perhaps. She could see him in shorts with muscular legs that rippled with every stride. Stop it! Where’s your shame?

  “You’re soaked,” Jyoti said. The rain had begun to let up. The clouds were low and moving fast. They both looked out from under the awning and were surprised
to find a bit of sun shining down now.

  “Well, looks like Mother Nature’s clearing the way for us,” Gavin said. “Come on, I know a place where they make a deadly cappuccino.”

  They walked for a few minutes before the skies clouded over and it began to drizzle again, forcing them both to huddle under Jyoti’s umbrella. She liked the faint scent of tobacco that clung to his coat. They got as far as Holburn before the rain came pouring down so hard they had to run into the British Museum for shelter. In the main foyer, they took refuge along with a couple of dozen tourists and passersby, stomping and wiping their feet on a mat while looking out the window at the deluge.

  Her mother’s voice began: The rain is a bad omen. You’re not destined to be together. But then Gavin smiled at her with his big green eyes and Jyoti decided being superstitious was her mother’s thing, not hers. She returned his smile and said, “Reminds me of the monsoons in Bombay” while depositing her umbrella into an umbrella stand.

  “It rains like this in Bombay?”

  Jyoti laughed at the thought of Gavin walking down a monsoon-flooded road with rickshaws and cows. “Yes, even more. Sometimes it feels as though the rain will never stop.”

  “Well, looks like we’ve got a bit of London monsoon right now,” Gavin said.

  Jyoti had a flash of inspiration and said, “Follow me.”

  She led him away from the crowded foyer entrance towards the grand, sky-blue-domed reading room. Gavin said, “But isn’t the reading room closed to the public?”

  A sign by the door said: Reserved for researchers and students with special access only.

  She whispered, “Just follow me.”

  When they reached the entrance, Jyoti showed her LSE graduate student card and said to the lady at the desk, “This is my research assistant from the University of Dublin. He’s applied for his card but they’re in the process of sending it to him in the post. Would it be alright if he accompanied me this one time?”