‘Tell me what happened,’ she asked taking his hand, ‘you look depressed.’
‘I have reason to be,’ he replied. ‘Give me time to collect my thoughts. Fix me a drink.’
Sarojini had never poured out a drink for anyone but knew roughly how much Mohan took. She held up his cut-glass tumbler in her left hand and tilted the bottle of Scotch with her right. ‘Tell me when.’
‘A Patiala,’ he replied, ‘quarter of a glass of whiskey, some soda and ice.’
She handed him his glass and poured out a sherry for herself. ‘Now tell me all and get it off your chest.’
He told her of his brother-in-law’s nastiness and that the servants knew she was no relation of his. ‘You don’t know my wife. She hates my guts and will do her utmost to hurt me. And you. So far she doesn’t know your name, because the servants don’t know it. Or in what college you teach. But she will ferret it out. Once she finds out she will persecute you, write to your principal, to your parents. Even to your son in his boarding school; she will stop at nothing.’
For the first time the enormity of the folly she had committed sank in. They sat silently holding hands, each working his or her way out of the predicament. ‘Let’s sleep over it,’ she said at last standing up. ‘Tomorrow may bring some ideas.’ They spent the night in the same bed. They had no sex nor much sleep.
The servants sensed that the sahib and his lady friend were upset. He was reading the paper; she was polishing her nails. They were not talking to each other. Nor to them. Something had transpired at the cremation ground which had put both of them in ill humour. They felt uneasy at their own role in the affair. When Dhanno came in, neither the sahib nor the memsahib as much as looked at her or acknowledged her greeting. After breakfast both left together, telling the servants that they would not be back till after dinner.
Mohan asked the driver to take them to Connaught Place. Sarojini did not want to spend the day at the house. In the car she put her hand on his and without turning towards him, said: ‘It was too good to last. We were living in a fool’s paradise of our own making. When would you like me to leave?’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ replied Mohan. ‘I was hoping you would be with me for at least three months till your college re-opened. Perhaps longer. You have been with me barely one month.’
‘One month, two days and two nights,’ she corrected him with a smile. ‘And you have paid me the second month’s wages in advance. I must return your money before I go.’ She sounded quite firm in her resolve. ‘If you allow me, I will stay another day or two. I’ll ring up my parents and ask them if I can spend the remainder of my leave with them. I’ll take my son to Mussoorie, come back to them and then return to Rewari. Will that be okay?’
He pressed her hand and replied: ‘You stay as long as you like, come back when you like.’
She got the message.
He asked her where she would like to have dinner. ‘Your favourite eating place,’ she replied. He gave her a list of his favourite haunts for French, Chinese, Italian, Thai and Indian cuisine. ‘Depends. What do you fancy this evening?’ he asked.
‘Somewhere quiet where we can talk undisturbed and unrecognized,’ she replied. ‘I’ve heard a lot about Le Meridien. I’m told it is very fancy and very expensive. I’ll never be able to go there on my professor’s salary.’
‘Not a bad idea,’ he agreed. ‘It has lots of bars with corners where other people cannot see you. Also many restaurants with different kinds of cuisine. We’ll decide where to eat when we have our drinks.’
Sarojini got off at the British Council Library, from where Mohan would pick her up for dinner.
Everyone in the office was very solicitous. Everyone also knew that his relations with his wife had been strained for quite some time and had finally broken down. Condoling with him was a formality they were expected to observe before getting down to work.
Before leaving the office, Mohan cashed a personal cheque for Rs 20,300. He put Rs 300 in one envelope and wrote on it: ‘Tips for servants’. In a second envelope he put Rs 10,000 and sealed it. He put no name or address on it. The remaining Rs 10,000 he put in his wallet. He asked Jiwan Lal to take him to a well-known jewellers’ shop in Connaught Circus, where he bought a gold ring and took a receipt stating it could be exchanged if it did not fit. A few moments after 7 p.m. the car pulled up outside the British Council Library. Saroj was standing there with an armful of books she had bought from Connaught Circus bookstores. ‘Haven’t you already got enough books to last you a lifetime?’ he asked.
‘When you have nothing better to do, you read books,’ she replied taking the seat beside him. ‘I will have nothing to do for some months to come besides eating and sleeping—alone, I may add—so I’ll read and read and read.’
‘Le Meridien,’ said Mohan to Jiwan Ram.
The car went up to Connaught Circus and turned back along Janpath, past Imperial Hotel, round Windsor Circle and went up through the hotel gates to its plate-glassed entrance. Two huge Sikh commissionaires in blue uniforms opened the car doors and greeted them. They escorted the two up four black marble stairs, opened the doors to let them in. Sarojini stopped in the reception hall to take in the grandeur of the glossy black marble floor and the huge chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling. She watched the coming and going of foreign tourists, pretty girls flitting about, and page boys in forage caps, buttoned coats and tight pants which made their buttocks stick out. They went past a row of glass elevators which shot up at rocket speed to the seventeenth floor and dived down to what appeared to be a gurgling pool of water. Mohan led Sarojini past a dark-skinned girl crooning in a husky voice to the strumming of a guitar. They found a cosy little alcove for two and ordered their drinks. ‘The lady is vegetarian,’ Mohan told the waiter, ‘so only vegetarian canapes and potato chips.’
The waiter served him Scotch and placed a glass of sherry before Sarojini. Then he brought a silver salver full of canapes. ‘Leave them on the table,’ Mohan ordered, ‘we’ll help ourselves.’ The waiter understood they wanted to be left alone.
Mohan fortified himself with a second Scotch before he took out the two envelopes from his pocket and pressed them into her hands. ‘Put them in your handbag,’ he said.
‘What is in them?’ she asked.
‘Three hundred in one for you to tip the servants, a hundred each. The other has what I still owe you over the deal.’
‘You don’t owe me anything. It is I who have to return the advance you gave me two days ago,’ she replied.
‘It is no longer a commercial deal,’ he said taking her hand. ‘This is to assure you that I value your friendship more than your body.’ He took out a small blue velvet box from his pocket and opened it. He took out the gold ring and slipped it on her third finger.
She looked puzzled. ‘You seem to be anxious to get rid of me and at the same time you want me to remain with you. I don’t understand you.’
‘It’s not very complicated. Your staying with me will hurt your career and your reputation. I don’t want that to happen.’ With a meaningful smile he added, ‘You still owe me almost two months in services to be rendered. I will avail of them if and when you feel like clearing your debt. I can always put you up in this hotel; I get a hefty rebate as I bring my business partners here. We can spend our holidays together in some unknown place where no one knows us. You will keep in touch with me, won’t you?’ She nodded her head without committing herself in words.
Mohan finished his third Scotch. She a second sherry. He handed the waiter his credit card and placed two ten-rupee notes on the table for him.
‘I have no appetite,’ said Sarojini getting up, ‘I’ll sit with you while you have your dinner.’
‘Me neither,’ he replied, ‘let’s go home.’
On his way out he handed ten-rupee notes to the Sikh commissionaires who saluted him again. ‘You squander your money without much concern,’ she said as they got into the car.
‘Wh
at else do you do with it?’ he said. He half-expected a stern little lecture from her in response, in her best lady professor tone. He wanted to hear it. But she said nothing. He knew he would miss her badly.
The servants were still waiting for them when they got home. It was not yet 9 p.m. Mohan went through his ritual of locking the gate and latching the doors. For some reason he did not go to urinate in the garden.
‘May I use your phone to ring up my parents?’ She said.
‘By all means, go ahead.’
She dialled the code and number. When her mother picked up the phone, she asked, ‘Mama, can I come over for a few weeks before my college re-opens?’ Her mother must have replied, ‘Of course. When will you come?’ ‘I’m not sure,’ Sarojini said, ‘I’ll take the first train on which I can get a seat and let you know. How’s my Munna?’ She listened for a while, then said ‘Good night’ and put the phone down.
‘All is well with everyone. Tomorrow I’ll try to book my seat on the Dehra Dun Shatabdi Express. I believe it leaves New Delhi railway station very early in the morning—six or thereabouts.’
‘Not to worry,’ he replied. ‘I’ll have the office get your ticket and the reservation. No matter what time it leaves, I’ll drive you to the railway station.’
‘That will be kind,’ she replied, ‘but the reservation people will want my name, age and sex. You don’t want to divulge all that to your staff, do you?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll ask my travel agent to do the booking and have the bill directed to me at my home address. He’ll let me know tomorrow when he can get a berth. There should not be much traffic on this sector at this time of the year.’
Sarojini had been careful, yet somehow she had begun to feel that Mohan’s house was hers to share as long as she liked. Now the bitter truth confronted her. She felt deserted and forlorn; the tedium of college routine in Rewari was all the reality she would know now. She put both her hands on her face and began to cry. Her mood sparked off a similar emotion in Mohan. He went down on his knees, put his head in her lap and started sobbing. They cried for some time. Sarojini ran her fingers through Mohan’s hair and said very gently, ‘We don’t have to cry like babies; let’s behave like grown ups. You know this is going to be much harder for me than for you. The world is more forgiving towards men. You will be envied; I will be condemned as a slut. But nevermind that. For me it was a memorable experience.’
They stood up together. He took her in a tight embrace and in a hoarse voice said, ‘Saroj, I love you.’
‘Mohan, I too love you more than you can imagine.’
It was the first time in their month-long relationship that they had used the word love with each other. All night they lay in each other’s arms; neither made any attempt to undress. The word love had made lust profane.
The next morning after Mohan left for the office, Sarojini started packing her clothes and books. The bearer and the sweeper woman were anxious to help but she turned down their offers and told them that she had very little to pack and did not want to be disturbed till lunch time. She had a frugal meal and asked Jiwan Ram to take her to Birla Temple. At the entrance she bought several leaf cups of rose petals to make offerings to all the gods and goddesses installed in different parts of the temple complex. She sat a long time, her eyes closed, in front of the idol of her favourite goddess, Saraswati, and chanted hymns in her praise.
She joined the congregation of worshippers at the Krishna temple where a keertan was going on. She fixed her gaze on Lord Krishna’s graceful statue. The gentle blue god with both tenderness and mischief in his eyes, holding a flute to his lips. He was the one deity above all others in the pantheon of gods and goddesses who understood the physical compulsions of human beings and forgave them by setting an example. He had a lifelong love affair with his aunt, Radha, and innumerable village girls, married and unmarried. People worshipped him and no one dared to call him a womanizer or the women in his life harlots. And here was she, abandoned by her husband for no fault of hers, who had briefly found physical fulfilment with another man—what great sin had she committed?
Sarojini left the temple light of heart. She knew this chapter of her life was over. She would forge her future destiny with her own hands.
She was back in Mohan’s house well before sunset. Jivan Ram went to fetch his boss. The first thing Mohan did as he came up to the balcony where she was sitting in silence watching the sunset was to fish out an envelope from his pocket and place it on the table beside her. ‘Your ticket. The travel agent was able to get you a seat on tomorrow morning’s Shatabdi. Better ring up your father straightaway and tell him to pick you up at the station. I think it gets to Dehra Dun around eleven.’
Sarojini rang up Dehra Dun and got her son on the line. She sounded happy. ‘Hello, beta, I’ll be with you tomorrow morning. Come with your nana to pick me up at the station. He knows the time the Delhi Shatabdi gets in.’
She put the phone down and came and sat next to Mohan. He thought he should say something but then saw that she was content. The sound of her son’s voice had comforted her. And then he thought of his own loss. Sonu would now make sure he got to see as little of the children as possible. And she would turn them against him. When the bearer came to lay out the drinks, Sarojini gave him a hundred-rupee note. ‘This is for you; I’ll be leaving very early tomorrow morning. Send the cook and the jamadarni.’ The bearer took the note and touched her feet. ‘If I have erred in any way, please forgive me,’ he said humbly. Sarojini knew he did not refer to any error on his part; it was the standard formula used by servants to express thanks. The cook and the jamadarni accepted their tips with both hands without saying anything. Sarojini examined her railway ticket. The computer print described her as Dr S. Bharadwaj, 37, F. It was as nondescript as could be. She put the ticket in her handbag.
They had their drinks and dinner without much conversation. The servants bade her goodbye and left for their quarters. Mohan went down to lock the gate and latch the doors. He marked another corner of the garden with his urine and came up to join her. ‘I think we should go to bed early. I’ve set the alarm for four. It will give us plenty of time to wash up and get ready.’
They got up together. ‘Can I spend this last night with you?’ he asked.
‘As you wish, I have a lot owing to you,’ she replied.
‘Don’t make it sound so businesslike.’
She took his hand and led him to her bed. ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do,’ she said, taking off her clothes.
‘I want you to do nothing except lie with me till the alarm clock wakes us up.’
They got into a tight embrace. She noticed that Mohan had no desire for sex; he only wanted the warmth of her body against his. They dozed off into a light sleep, turning away from each other, then turned round to encircle each other in their arms. The shrill ringing of the alarm clock roused Mohan in more ways than one. He found Sarojini awake and receptive. They rocked and buffetted against each other as if it was the last time in their lives they would savour each other’s bodies. For both of them it was a farewell celebration.
They showered together. Sarojini changed, put the old clothes into her suitcase and declared that she was ready to leave. She did this firmly, determined not to give herself any chance to dawdle; there was still a temptation to delay the departure, but she should not succumb to it. The heavier case containing her books had been put in the boot of the car the night before. Mohan picked up the other suitcase and put it on the rear seat. He unlocked the front gate. They drove out into a deserted street with the street lights glowing eerily in the early dawn. The headlights caught an occasional newspaper vendor on his bicycle, tossing papers into peoples’ houses and balconies, or a milk-seller, weaving his bicycle through non-existent traffic, cans dangling from the handle bars and the pillion seat. They drove past India Gate into Connaught Circus, past early morning walkers doing their rounds, wearing sweaters or shawls as the mornings had become
quite chilly.
Despite the early hour, around the railway station there was bedlam—an unruly jumble of buses, cars, scooters, cyclists and pedestrians. They were assaulted by the ceaseless blowing of horns, the harsh glare of neon lights and people yelling at each other. It took Mohan some time to find a place in the parking lot and a coolie to carry Sarojini’s two cases. They wove their way through the jostling crowd, up an overbridge and down to the designated platform. Mohan found Sarojini her coach and seat. The coolie placed both cases on the rack, took the ten-rupee note Mohan gave him. There were only a handful of passengers in the coach. Sarojini took her seat by the window. He sat beside her. While he held her hand, he kept an eye on his wrist-watch—these Shatabdis were notoriously punctual and picked up speed very quickly. Tears welled up in Sarojini’s eyes. Mohan held her face in his hands and wiped the tears off with his thumbs. ‘This is not the end,’ he assured her. ‘We will keep in touch and meet whenever we can.’ His assurance sounded hollow to him. And to her. A minute before the train was due to leave, he stood up. She also stood up. Without bothering about the other passengers they kissed passionately. As he came out of the compartment, he overheard a woman passenger hiss, ‘Besharam (shameless)!’
That was the last Mohan saw of Sarojini. She did not call up or write. It took a few days for it to sink in that the Sarojini chapter of his life was over.
The first few days after Sarojini Bharadwaj left him, Mohan was a little confused by his feelings. He should be missing her: he did a little but not too much. The house looked emptier; curiously, he liked its emptiness—he had it all to himself once again, and that was a pleasant feeling. No one to talk to except himself. Switch on the TV, switch it off. Flip through magazines; toss them aside. Listen to film music on the transistor he kept beside his pillow; switch it off when sleep overtook him. Being absolutely alone had a lot to be said for it.
Company of Women Page 6
