Begum Taqi Reza remained silent.
“I think it’s time she got married,” he continued.
“To whom?”
“To me, of course.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, sonny? You ditched your own cousin for that . . . that . . . slut!”
“I beg your pardon, Chachi-jan!” he retorted in a shocked voice.
“Listen, beta,” the aunt tried to control herself, “last December when you came, Susan and Gulabia went to your room to clean it, and Susan found Champa Begum’s sari in your wardrobe. We had all seen her wearing it off and on. How could you do this to us—and so brazenly?” Begum Reza broke down.
Amir was flabbergasted. Why had the stupid woman left her sari in his room, of all places? And how had she gone back to her hostel without a sari, for goodness’ sake? He felt giddy. Then he remembered in a flash: one winter month the entire family, including most of the servants, had gone to Kalyanpur for a wedding. The coast was clear. He had taken Champa boating down-river; she had brought a change of clothes in a bag because he had said he would at least teach her how to float.
The water had been too cold and she began to shiver and sneeze. Amir brought her back to Gulfishan, she changed hurriedly in his room, and left her wet sari behind in her nervousness because she had spotted somebody coming towards the house. Amir narrated the incident to his aunt but she was not convinced. Still, his lapse was forgiven and Tehmina was told that Amir wanted to marry her straightaway. There was this nice, airy flat in Colaba waiting for her. Tehmina was furious. No, she shouted, enough was enough.
Kamal returned from Mussoorie along with Hari Shankar while Amir was still in Lucknow. When he reached home from Char Bagh he was told that Tehmina had said her final and emphatic “No” to Amir’s long-awaited proposal of marriage. Everybody in the house was very subdued. In order to escape the mournful atmosphere he decided to take the “Hawapur University” radio script to Champa. He found her sitting under a garden umbrella on her tiny lawn. Cousin Amir was also there. He had gone there to tell her about the sari disaster, but left as soon as he saw Kamal.
Champa was petrified. Now if she agreed to marry Amir, it would only prove that she had been sleeping with him. Life was so absurd. She was not willing to lose her reputation, whatever was left of it. These people of the upper middle class and middle-level feudal society had as strict a moral code as her own petit bourgeoisie. She was already being counted among the three or four ‘fast’ girls on campus.
The following day Kamal heard about the Case of the Hidden Sari, and was asked to persuade his dear sister Tim to change her mind.
Tehmina didn’t say “Yes” once she had said her mighty “No”.
Champa continued meeting them. They were too civilized to mention the sari episode, but Talat and Nirmala remained very agitated. One cloudy afternoon, all of them were having their tea on the back lawn of Gulfishan. In the far corner of the lawn a tall, Chinese champa tree stood in solitary splendour. A carpet of its tiny, yellow flowers covered the grass.
“Whenever I look at this tree, Champa Baji, I think what a lovely, fragrant name you have!” said Kamal with great sincerity. How these stupid men still admire the sorceress, thought Talat indignantly.
Gulabia, the sweepress, passed by. She gave Talat a knowing, mischievous look. That made up the young lady’s mind. She blurted out, “Listen, Champa Baji. Now that the cat is out of the bag, let’s not continue with this farce of good manners. It’s getting on my nerves. Did you or didn’t you? Just say yes or no.”
There was a shocked silence. Champa turned pale like a fallen champa flower.
Tehmina glared at her younger sister. Kamal and Hari looked away, acutely embarrassed.
“No,” Champa answered coldly.
“That’s okay, Champa Baji,” Kamal apologised. “Please don’t mind Talat. You know she’s a nut.”
“Your great and glorious cousin Amir told me that he had told you all about how I left that controversial sari in his room. Also, kindly note that he proposed marriage to me again. I refused, again for dear Tehmina’s sake. I BEG YOUR PARDON!” she almost screamed, and rose from her chair.
“Talat, you horrid creature! You’re a spoilt brat but you have no right to insult your guest. Say you’re sorry!” Tehmina cried. “Champa, you know she’s quite mad. Please, don’t go.”
But by this time Champa had already run across the lawn and got on to her bicycle.
Nobody spoke. The amaltas leaves rustled overhead, the Chinese champa continued to spread its fragrance. Talat was unrepentent. She grumbled, “I’ll be judge and I’ll be jury, said the cunning old Fury.”
“Shut up,” Tehmina rebuked her crossly.
“We have all discovered during the last few years, that she tells fibs, and also fancies herself as a femme fatale,” Talat replied.
“Come on, yaar, she’s no Chhappan Chhuri,”1 said Hari Shankar peaceably.
“Says you! She thinks she is Marlene Dietrich,” Nirmala piped in. “She is cunning, a designing woman, a so-and-so . . .” They were very loyal to Tehmina, and Champa had become the traditional vamp of Hindi movies.
Tehmina got up and walked back to the house. Hari and Kamal admonished the younger girls.
“Don’t you realise how much you’re hurting poor Tim by raking up this Sordid Sari Sequence?” said Kamal. “Sorry for the alliteration.”
“All right. But don’t you go on defending The Wicked Lady,” Talat growled. They had seen this British film the previous evening.
“No, you must give her the benefit of the doubt,” Hari Shankar got up. “The court is hereby adjourned.”
1 Janaki Bai, a famous gramophone singer of Allahabad of the 1920s was stabbed fifty-six times by a spurned lover, survived, and was known as Chhappan Chhuri, ‘Fifty-six knives’.
44. Miss Champa Ahmed (Graduation Portrait by C. Mull, Hazrat Ganj, Lucknow)
Professor Bannerjee’s youngest daughter got married a few days after Partition. It was a subdued affair. The Professor belonged to Dacca and his relatives could not come because of the riots. They had also decided to stay back in Dacca as Pakistanis. Things were happening too fast and much too violently, and the world seemed to have gone quite mad.
The Bannerjee house was overflowing with people who had come for the wedding lunch. The senior Rezas and Raizadas had already arrived. Champa, who did not wish to be seen by them, hid herself behind the youthful crowd surrounding the bridal couple. All of a sudden a young Bengali addressed her loudly: “Hellow, there! How is Mr. Jinnah? How is it that he has gone away to Karachi and left you behind?”
Champa was completely taken aback. Who was this stranger? How had he guessed that she was a Muslim? Was it written on her face? Was this how Muslims were going to be sneered at in the future? The man was immediately rebuked in Bengali by someone else and Champa slipped out of the room quickly.
On the way back to her cottage she saw Talat and Nirmala, dressed in wedding finery, ambling along in the direction of the campus bungalows. They did not notice Champa because they were talking urgently to each other.
“Honestly, I don’t feel like running away to England at a time like this, when the country is plunged in total disaster. But higher education is necessary, too, for rebuilding India. Although right now it would be a kind of bourgeois opportunism, don’t you think?” Talat was saying.
“Quite right,” replied Nirmala gravely. “But it is so difficult to get admission into Cambridge. I’ve managed only because my father studied there.” She fell silent. Gautam had not even hinted that he would marry her, but her parents were hopeful because he was going to England, too.
The girls flitted by and mingled with the moving crowd of wedding guests.
Now Kamal was approaching Champa.
“Champa Baji, congratulations! Your Pakistan has come into being, after all.” Intense bitterness, irony and heartbreak lent an edge to his voice. Champa was aghast. She half expected him to deliver another fiery speech
but he was strangely quiet, as if this was no time to get worked up and lose one’s temper. The era of debates was over; now a real world waited for action. Kamal stood still for a while, gazing at the royal gatehouse of Badshah Bagh. After that he also went his way.
On Thursday evening Champa ran into Talat at the radio station in the studio of programme producer, Begum Saeeda Reza (no relation of the Gulfishan family). The radio station was a cosy place, like India Coffee House, frequented by the inhabitants of Lucknow’s Bloomsbury and Belgravia. That evening when Champa entered Begum Saeeda Reza’s room, Akhtari Bai Fyzabadi’s transformation was being discussed by a few women. Akhtari had been India’s Dame Melba, but after her recent marriage to a barrister she was respectfully addressed as Begum Akhtar . . . and she had turned extremely pious.
“She wore a patched cotton gharara,” said Mrs. Maya Jameel to Talat. “When I asked her, she said it is Sunnat-i-Rasool— the Lord Prophet usually mended and patched his clothes because of his poverty.”
“Ah! So that’s why some dervishes wear patched smocks! Anyway, Akhtari Bai may have changed, but some people don’t!” Talat had bitched, throwing a glance at Champa—who had deceived Tehmina and Nirmala and waylaid Amir and Gautam in rapid succession. Champa was a maha-thugnee and unforgivable.
Then Talat had added darkly. “Okay, I must rush, Saeeda Apa, my cousin Amir has come home on leave and he is taking us to Mohammed Bagh Club for dinner. Would you like to come along, Champa Baji, for a bit of old waltz, for old times’ sake?”
Everybody in the room kept a poker face. Champa fumed.
Now, three days later in the cloudy silence of Badshah Bagh, Champa recalled Talat’s insult at the radio station. She had done so once before in her own house after the sari episode. Champa ground her teeth with sudden resolve. I’ll show her, the bloody, snooty bitch . . .
Of course Amir still cared for her. He had written from the high seas, said he would look her up when he visited Lucknow. She made a snap decision. She would go to him and say: Here I am, the time of troubles is over, we shall have rest and tranquility. Let others tear their hair and eat dust in the valley of sorrow. A day shall come when they will tire and try to find some refuge, their haughty heads bent low. But they are shameless hypocrites. They were all anti-British leftists and now they are making a bee-line for England, deserting the toiling masses for whom their hearts used to bleed. Damn them.
She reached University Road and continued walking till she stopped at the gates of Gulfishan. With much bravado she called out to Ram Autar who was busy switching off the tube-well motor. Gunga Din stood near him, smoking a bidi. He quickly threw it away when he saw her. “Salaam, Bitiya,” he said.
“Is Bhaiya Saheb in? Tell him to come out and meet me,” she ordered in a firm voice. Who were they, after all? Mere servants. Was she going to be intimidated even by the gardeners and coachmen of Gulfishan? She closed her eyes for an instant and felt she was growing to her full size and, like Alice, had realised that all these creatures of Wonderland were just a pack of playing cards. But she woke up with a snap when she heard Gunga Din answering her gruffly, “Bhaiya Saheb left early this morning for Pakistan, and everybody else has gone to Badshah Bagh for the wedding.”
He looked at her morosely and saw that the news had shaken her. He spoke slowly, “Yes, Bitiya, I am very sorry, too. I’ve known him since his infancy, he was very fond of me. He would play with me, and I took him out in the buggy every evening for fresh air. He was only four years old when Lady Saheb went to Heaven. He came running to me and cried: ‘Gunga Din! Gunga Din! Mummy is asleep and they’re taking her away in a very strange manner, on a bed sort of thing. Why isn’t she going in your buggy? Run after them and bring her back!’”
Gunga Din wiped his wrinkled eyelids and continued hoarsely, “He hated his governess, Nina Memsaheb. I am sure that firangi poisoned Lady Saheb.” He paused and sighed deeply. “Now in my old age he has deserted me for good. I have a feeling everybody will leave for Pakistan, we’ll be left all alone over here. The earth has slipped from under my feet, Bitiya . . .”
Ram Autar’s reaction was somewhat different. He was frowning. Being literate he read Hindi newspapers, and he recollected the editorial in his newspaper that morning in which all Indian Muslims were described as traitors and potential Pakistanis. He informed Champa, “He has gone to Bombay where the navy is being divided into Hindu ships and Muslim ships. He will take his Muslim ships with him and sail off to Karachi, Qadeer was saying. Ho! . . la! . . .” he emitted a deep and angry sound from his throat to scare away the parrots and threw a stone at the guava trees.
Gunga Din kept very quiet.
Champa was dumbstruck. Ram Autar and Gunga Din remained lost in thought. She turned away like a defeated long-distance runner. Amir Reza had left because, apart from horses, sports cars and pretty women he now had a fresh interest in life: a brand new country, promotions, greater opportunities and challenges. Men have an entirely separate world.
And I wasted so much time on this person . . .
It was about to rain. Suddenly something strange happened. Champa felt an inexplicable elation. There was freedom in the wind, joyous contentment was palpable in the rustling of the leaves. Did others also experience this sense of liberation? Poor Tehmina, for instance or foolish Gautam, who was in love with his cousin’s wife, Shanta?
Ha . . . ha . . . how funny, she laughed to herself, and began to run. Wide, wet, sweet-smelling earth was spread all around her. She jumped over a crystal-clear brook and ran round the compound of Gulfishan until she came upon the lattice which stood in front of the outhouses. She caught a glimpse of Qamrun’s turmeric yellow sari through the mulberry trees.
“Salaam, Bitiya. What is it, you all right?” Qamrun addressed her, coming out of the grove.
“Salaam. I’m fine, Driver’s Wife,” she replied, panting.
Qamrun looked at her in silence.
“May I sit down here, Driver’s Wife?”
“Certainly, Bitiya, do come in. It’s going to rain any minute.”
Champa entered the veranda. Its floor was intensely cool. Pot and pans glimmered on the railing, Qadeer’s black felt cap hung from a nail on the wall, pappad lay drying on a printed bedsheet on a cot.
“One doesn’t get a wee bit of sun these days to dry them,” Qamrun made polite conversation. She was aware that something was amiss. Then she began abruptly: “Bitiya, you do not know what men are. We do. They are happy as long as you go on adoring them, and they want enormous sacrifices from us. Otherwise they’re unhappy. How can I explain to Tehmina Bitiya that girls are always in a weaker position? Why did she say no to him in the first place? Now that he has gone away for good, she’s crying her eyes out.”
Champa didn’t reply.
“What is a mere woman, after all,” Qamrun continued sadly. “She is a man’s personal servant as a wife, and even as a mother. In her youth she is tormented by her in-laws, in her old age she is bullied by her daughter-in-law, as a widow, if she is poor she is ignored by everyone. All her life she has to serve, serve, serve. And even then men are not satisfied. What do they want? Complete submission, like God.” Qamrun knew all about Champa and Amir. “Are you also going to Vilayat?” she concluded.
“He is not the only man in the world, there are thousands of others. All men are not alike, Driver’s Wife,” Champa said weakly. In a gush of easterly wind a shower of rain fell on the lemon trees.
“They are all alike, Bitiya, whether they live in bungalows or servants’ quarters. Even in Vilayat they are probably no different. My father used to work as a cook for English Saheblog, and some of them were wife-beaters. Shall I make a paan for you, Bitiya?”
“No thanks, Driver’s Wife, I must go. Khuda hafiz, Ram Daiya.” She rose from the charpayi and walked away.
“Why don’t the Bitiya-log understand . . . ?” Qamrun asked Ram Daiya ruefully.
“They are scared, they think they know everything because they have re
ad a little English,” Ram Daiya replied, shaking her head. “They are no better than us after all.”
Champa walked briskly back to her cottage, another resolve forming slowly. She had half-heartedly applied for a scholarship advertised by the new Ministry of Education, for interpreters. They were to be sent to Paris. She had taken some evening classes in French during the golden days of her romance with Amir Reza. She must get that scholarship. She thought of all the Beautiful People who were about to leave the shores of Ind—Atiya Habibullah, Ranjana Sidhanta, Feroze, Talat, Nirmala, AIR’s handsome announcer, Aley Hasan. Even Gauhar Sultan, the AIR singer, was going. Both Amala Roy and Hari Shankar had joined the new Indian Foreign Service. (Only poor Tehmina was staying back like the drab Phoebe of Quality Street.) If she, Champa Ahmed, got the scholarship— well, it would be the password to the real fairyland, the Western World . . .
The Exodus from India had begun.
She entered the sitting room of her tiny bungalow in Chand Bagh and flopped down, exhausted, on the settee. She had just run a marathon against Time. Unwittingly she looked up at her graduation photograph adorning the cornice. She had retained her small-town habit of displaying one’s own pictures in the drawing-room with flower vases on either side. Her graduation portrait was by the famous society photographer, C. Mull, taken in 1943 when she, too, had performed the exciting ‘ritual’ of going down to Hazrat Ganj with fellow graduates of I.T. College. They wore their best saris and had on their caps and gowns, scrolls in their bags and stars in their eyes when they were greeted by the suave photographer. That was four years ago, and in 1945 another picture had been taken of her with her M.A., L.L.B. degree. Also by C. Mull.
Now, for the last couple of years, she had been a lecturer. She was thirty—Talat and Nirmala were ten whole years younger than her. She must hurry up and stop fooling around. No more going to the India Coffee House with the local long-haired, pipe-smoking fraternity. She was called the Intellectuals’ Moll. When she went out with Ahmed Hashim, the playboy-owner of the ritzy Hazrat Ganj restaurant, Rose of Sharon, they began to refer to her as the Countess of Sharon. What was she to do? Desert her poor unsuspecting parents for the time being, and go away.
River of Fire Page 29
