by Akhilesh
Then she turned supine and her bosom was bare now. She said, ‘Crazy fellow, you have a wound mark on the chest too!’
Nobody knew how Kamana had received this gift. Kamana’s mother used to say it was God’s will, while her father believed that his grandfather too had a similar power. He could see a person’s past, present and future. The power had reappeared in Kamana, in the fourth generation. Kamana had another explanation: ‘I had to wear glasses when I was in the twelfth standard. Everyone teased me in college, calling me “chashmish”. I preferred to use contact lenses and escape the taunts. But the eye surgeon was such a greenhorn that he fixed the lens in such a way that I started seeing through things.’ Kamana had laughed after the declaration so it was difficult to ascertain whether it was a fib or a fact.
But she had lied, and this was discovered when Shibbu wondered one day if she could really see what was inside one’s clothes, she must be able to see through other men’s clothes too. After the doubt took hold in his head, he went to the market with Kamana the next day, and he suddenly broke out into a terrible sweat. He quivered at the idea that Kamana must be looking at the bare bodies of all the men in the market. He went home immediately and collapsed in bed. He stopped speaking to Kamana and refused to eat. He was unable to sleep. When he did, he had strange dreams of bare male bodies and sat up in bed.
Moved by his wretched state, Kamana sat him before her and asked him what was wrong. She doubled up with laughter when Shibbu told her what was on his mind. ‘Crazy Sathiya, I don’t see all these things! I hazard a guess, merely a guess! And I’m lucky every time. I have also failed on hundreds of occasions.’
‘But what about your lenses?’ Shibbu inquired.
‘I swear by my lovely eyes that they have no lenses fitted on them. Let alone lenses, I have never even donned glasses.’ She giggled again, ‘You’ve no sense of humour, Sathiya!’
Shibbu accepted Kamana’s explanation to a degree. After some time, he felt sure that Kamana could not really see through anything but simply speculated about things and the speculation was correct most of the times. And thus, he was convinced that Kamana did not see men naked. Still, the scar of his fears made him uneasy and he requested her to not display her talent too much. So, when the wager between Suryakant and Kamana lingered, he cut it short and said, ‘Go make tea for all of us to celebrate your victory.’
Another difference between the previous night awake and this night was that there were frequent rounds of tea. All sorts of stories were exchanged – Suryakant and Gauri’s untold history, Gaurav, Nupoor’s wedding, Babuji, Amma, Shibbu, Kamana, Roli, Dadi, Chacha and Chachi and their family.
When Suryakant had been expelled from the family, the issues of a job and marriage were at the core of the dreams and struggles of the family. Awadh Narayan’s life was centred on merely two wishes. The first was that Suryakant should get a nice job, and the second that Nupoor should get married soon. He hunted for a suitable match for Nupoor while at the office, making inquiries of his acquaintances, and on holidays he visited these potential matches. A small leather bag accompanied Awadh Narayan in his sojourns, containing Nupoor’s photograph, biodata and copies of her horoscope. If the negotiations failed, he took the photograph back and put it in the bag again. It is not necessary to mention that he had to do this on innumerable occasions. Once the wedding was called off after the variccha. Consequently, he had to take back the silver sphere, the silver platter and the one hundred and fifty-one rupees gifted at the engagement ceremony.
Nupoor was not ugly – she was fair and sharp-featured and could undoubtedly be called charming. When she wept or when she laughed, her shapely nose would turn red. Even at such moments, she looked alluring. Awadh Narayan was not tight-fisted regarding dowry. He would tell each prospective groom’s father, ‘I have made up my mind to spend at least one lakh for my daughter’s wedding, so please state your demands.’
The prospective groom’s father would ‘state’ his demand. One would say, ‘I have no demands, but the girl must be beautiful and the barat should be given a grand welcome.’ But later on, he would hand over an inventory list – ‘I don’t require anything personally, Bhai Sahib! This is a list of things for the groom and the bride.’ The list would include a demand for things like a scooter, a colour TV, a fridge, a washing machine, a sofa set, a double bed, a dinner set and two sets of gold jewellery. Cash, hospitality to the barat, the brass band, the fireworks – all these expenses would top the one-lakh mark and Awadh Narayan would take back the photograph to then knock on another door.
He had become such a veteran after wading through numerous such experiences that he could judge what was inside a book by its title. He perceived the attitude of the groom’s party on whether he was served tea or not. If he was served samosas and pakoras as well as tea after a couple of visits, he would be filled with profound hope. But his heart still quivered and his fears would come true, and the negotiations would break off.
In desperation, Awadh Narayan started considering marrying Nupoor off to a boy from a weaker financial background or someone with an inferior job. But in the meanwhile, Devdatt ‘Tendulkar’ surfaced like a happy dramatic event in a tragic narrative.
Awadh Narayan had returned from a visit to a possible match in Allahabad. As on all previous occasions, Nupoor’s mother read from his face that he had failed again. Still, she thought she should ask what had happened. She brought him a glass of water and a plate with two biscuits on it. ‘Have some water.’
‘Don’t know what to eat, what to drink!’ Awadh Narayan replied as he guzzled the water and swallowed the biscuits. Nupoor, eavesdropping on the other side of the door, cocked her ears.
‘What did they say?’ Mother inquired.
‘Beggars, bastards, whining like scroungers.’
‘Did they refuse?’
‘Yes, the rascals!’
Nupoor’s nose began to turn crimson, and she ran into the room and exploded, ‘I don’t want to get married!’ she shouted loudly. She howled so pathetically that Chacha and Chachi rushed down the stairs from the upper floor and tried to calm her down by patting her back.
She stopped but her frustration and fury did not lessen. She felt like sharing her agony with someone and finally, went to speak to one of her friends from a PCO. A crowd was waiting for the phone rates to be lowered at 8 p.m. and it was still 7.50 p.m. Nupoor waited for her turn. She was standing below an electric pole without a bulb, away from the crowd. Devdatt Tendulkar made an entry at this moment.
‘My father is a worthless fellow. He told your father about a match in Allahabad. The idiot is my phupha’s son – utterly useless!’
‘The boy is an idiot and his father is a rascal!’ This time Nupoor’s nose grew burgundy with rage, but she did not shed tears. The change in the tint of her nose was not visible in the darkness under the pole.
‘You’re right, my phupha is a rascal but my own father is no less. He is not letting me get married because of dowry.’
Her nose turned ruby from laughter and she said, ‘This is the first time I have heard that a boy’s marriage is being hampered due to dowry.’
‘My father is demanding a hefty dowry.’
‘There must be people willing to offer it.’
‘There are, but I spoil the game every time. I won’t marry a girl chosen by my father.’
‘Do you cherish anyone in your heart?’
‘Of course! I have been in love with her for eight years now.’
‘Why don’t you tell her?’
‘I’m afraid to – she gets angry at the drop of a hat, and her anger reddens her nose.’
‘Her nose turns red when she laughs and also when she weeps. Have you noticed this?’
‘How can I? She never laughs or weeps when I’m around – she only gets cross.’
Nupoor giggled. Devdatt Tendulkar gazed at her nose in the darkness like an owl.
Devdatt Tendulkar was not a Marathi but a bhaiya from UP. Tendul
kar was not his last name but his alias. He came to be called Tendulkar in the most interesting way. He was a great fan of the famous cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, and a specialist at neglecting his studies during his school days to watch cricket on TV. His family used to say that had he concentrated on studies, he surely would have been a famous allopathic doctor instead of being a lowly Ayurvedic apothecary. Anyway, since fate had decreed that he should be an Ayurvedic doctor, he went to Gurukul Kangri to pursue the Bheshaj curriculum.
He wrote several letters to his idol Sachin Tendulkar and in one of them he wrote: ‘The real reason for me to study Ayurveda is that I want to discover a medicine that would one, prevent all your muscle pulls, and two, delay the process of ageing and effect of age-related diseases.’ The signature of his letters carried phrases like, ‘Your greatest admirer’, or ‘Your devotee, Devdatt’.
It was a historical day for him when a postman brought an envelope with Sachin Tendulkar’s letter and autograph at the end of it. It was a two-line missive, a collective reply to all Devdatt’s correspondence, and it read: ‘I value all your greetings. You are studying Ayurveda these days, and you should concentrate on your lessons. May your future be brilliant! Sachin.’
Devdatt grew so excited after going through the letter that he started running up and down the hostel veranda. Hearing the commotion, his friends strode out of their rooms to find out what the matter was. Strutting gleefully, he held out the letter to them. From that day onwards, all his friends started calling him not Devdatt but Tendulkar, and the fad was adopted by his acquaintances and teachers too.
Devdatt was already a die-hard Sachin Tendulkar fan, and the letter from Sachin and the moniker of Tendulkar made him a bit crazy. If Sachin scored badly in a match, he would not eat that day. Once, when Sachin was bowled out for a duck, Devdatt refused food for two days. It was an innovative configuration of Mahatma Gandhi’s fasting technique. Whenever Sachin Tendulkar was declared out between ninety and a hundred, Devdatt would break into a howl and reduce his intake of rotis at supper by one. History stands witness that Devdatt’s appetite improved when Sachin belted out a century.
After finishing his course, he left no stone unturned to bag the job of a government Ayurvedic doctor. Eventually, disappointed, he started a clinic in Sultanpur. The signboard on the clinic bore his name as ‘Devdatt Tendulkar, BAMS’. He distributed publicity pamphlets carrying the claim, ‘The only doctor to cure all chronic and incurable diseases – Dr Devdatt Tendulkar (Ayurveda Expert).’
Although he was a doctor, he still suffered the indignity of not being a true-blue allopathic doctor. The feeling grew worse whenever a patient called him ‘Vaidji’ or ‘Vaidya Maharaj’ instead of ‘Doctor Sahib’. An elderly fellow crossed all limits of decency by asking, ‘Is this a new shafakhana?’ Tendulkar did not appreciate the use of words like ‘shafakhana’ or ‘dawakhana’ as synonyms for his clinic. It was an entirely different matter that the patients did not care for his likes and dislikes. One of them was cheeky enough to address Tendulkar as ‘Kaviraj Vaidya’. Had he not been bound by his profession, he surely would have bumped the person off by mixing arsenic in his medicines.
He was married to Nupoor in those days of struggle. He was convinced that this was the only aspect of his life in which God had granted him a larger accomplishment than his expectations. He had never imagined Nupoor would step into his life because, despite being head over heels in love with her, he had a strong inferiority complex. He had a small fleshy lump at the back of his head which made him believe that no girl worth her salt would ever want him. His fear changed into belief when the fathers of several girls met him but never returned. He often lied that his marriage negotiations had failed because he had rejected the proposals.
So, when his wedding to Nupoor was fixed, he discarded his resentment against God and devoted himself, heart and soul, to her. He grew addicted to Nupoor’s sensuous figure. The very first night, when he was removing Nupoor’s wedding sari, a pearl from her jewellery snapped apart in the scuffle and started spinning, from the vortex of her navel, then rolling down her shoulder. Tendulkar watched the pirouette of the pearl, mesmerized. The next day, he purchased five hundred and one pearls from the market and cascaded them over Nupoor’s body, watching intently. There were pearls of all hues on Nupoor’s skin – they spooled, gathering speed, plopping down on the bed. A couple of them lingered on her stomach, breasts and her waist. Tendulkar gathered the pearls up from the bed and showered them over Nupoor again and again.
The next day was a Sunday and the market was closed so he used lipsticks of different colours on Nupoor this night. Nupoor’s burnished skin quivered. He drew a flower with one of the lipsticks and kissed it. Soon, he had drawn flowers of different tints on her body and was kissing them madly. Then, he asked Nupoor to lie still and traced motifs of leaves, swastika, om, lips, eyes and shubh on her back, waist, hips and thighs and started caressing her passionately.
One day, he brought her anklets and another day silk threads in cherry, azure, yellow, emerald and violet hues. He gilded Nupoor’s forehead, arms, neck, stomach, ankles and wrists and caressed them. One night, when he ran out of ideas, he embellished her with bangles. He would bedeck Nupoor’s nude form with one object or the other and would be so aroused that his passion exploded like an irrepressible volcano.
Nupoor was one of those rare women that remain a perpetual mystery to their husband’s heart and mind. A girl whose form was such a roiling sea of narratives that they engender a different, pristine legend of adornment even before the previous one is finished.
‘How is Dr Tendulkar?’ Suryakant faced his sister.
‘What can I say, Bhaiya, we make ends meet somehow. He has installed a photostat machine at the clinic, and earns a bit from it, but I wouldn’t call it shining luck.’
‘Why?’
‘There are not enough patients. Only poor people come to Ayurvedic and homeopathic doctors. The rich come to him only after allopathy fails and their illness turns terminal. Such patients cannot bring a good reputation to the clinic.’
‘What will he do then?’
‘He’s up to something,’ Nupoor smiled mysteriously.
‘What’s that?’
‘Ask him yourself.’
Kamana came in with the tea tray.
Suryakant teased her, ‘Kamana, I too can tell, just like you, what is inside this teapot.’
Kamana laughed, ‘Wonderful, Bhai Sahib! I certainly would have failed to tell you!’
Everyone joined in the laughter. Kamana poured tea into the cups. She handed a cup to Suryakant, ‘Bhai Sahib, take him to Lucknow as well.’
‘Yes, Bhaiya, I’m dying to get out of Sultanpur,’ Shibbu said.
‘What’s the problem here?’
‘Is this a place worth living in? It’s impossible to grow here.’
‘You’re right. Villagers believe if they go to the town, they’ll get big opportunities. Townsmen think similarly about cities. And men in a megapolis plan to migrate abroad. These days, nobody wants to stay at their native place.’
‘Bhaiya, I talk straight,’ Shibbu said and sipped his tea. ‘I want to get rich – by hook or by crook.’
Suryakant tried to pacify him, ‘What will you do with all this money?’
‘I’ll invest it to earn some more.’
‘Once it increases, what then?’ Suryakant was enjoying the banter.
‘I’ll make even more.’
‘Will you enjoy it all by yourself or share some with Didi too?’ Nupoor said, mocking him.
‘Didi won’t lack for anything – just wait until Jijaji hits the bullseye, and money will shower from the heavens.’
The child lying by Dadi’s side inside the mosquito net broke into a cry. Kamana put down the tray and moved towards Dadi’s cot.
At night, Dadi got inside the net and tried to sleep. In her old age, her diurnal routine had converted into a nocturnal one. Now, she didn’t have much to keep herself oc
cupied. After Kamana’s arrival, she had a lot of spare time on her hand. Naturally, she usually lay in bed. She got up periodically and then fell asleep again. It was hard to determine when she dozed and when she opened her eyes. As expected, she did not sleep at night. She just lay with her eyes shut, waiting for the night to get over, for the dawn to break. She got up frequently to visit the toilet or to sip water and try to guess how far the sunrise was.
She was often asked about her day siestas.
‘Why are you sleeping all the time, Amma?’
‘What’s there for me to do?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘When I lie down, I fall asleep.’
A campaign was commenced in the house to induce her to TV. She was forced to sit before the box but evidently, she had grown older and like all other organs, her brain cells too had perished and weakened. Consequently, she remembered the forms and the faces from the real world but the matters, stories, incidents and dialogues connected with them she forgot quickly. However, when she was made to sit and watch a serial, she made it impossible for others to enjoy: ‘I saw this yesterday.’
‘How could you, the episode is being telecast today!’
‘No, how shall I believe you? I saw it with my own eyes, this man and this woman were talking these very things.’
There was no point in contesting her; everyone would fall silent and concentrate on the show but she would leave and return to her cycle of wakefulness and sleep. With time, the family tried to entertain her by inviting her to watch documentaries, to keep her occupied, but she would grow abusive, ‘This is brazen nudity!’ Sometimes she shrieked, ‘Get off, you bare-bummo!’ A mega dance show was telecast, the family was assured Dadi would enjoy it and forced her to watch. She sniggered: ‘You call it dance? It is circus!’ She added, ‘Bare-bummo’s acrobatics. The bastard is doing push ups.’ And she chuckled as if she had just told a very funny joke.
Finally, she was disenchanted with the TV and went back to her waking-sleeping sequence and at night, when everyone fell asleep, she would reminisce her past. The feebleness of her memory could be determined by the fact that when she recalled her past, she also forgot it immediately and then recalled it again. For instance, she recalled an incident underlining the similarities and the differences between her two sons, Awadh Narayan and Chacha. After some time, she started recalling it once again as if she was doing it for the first time.
