The Guru of Love

by Samrat Upadhyay

  He was annoyed. “Then why did you agree to meet me?”

  “I wanted to see you.” She inspected her fingernails.

  “You’d have seen me tomorrow morning, during the session.”

  “What about you? Why did you ask me to meet you here?” she asked in a challenging tone.

  “I wanted to see you in the open air, in the sunlight.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I could get a different perspective, see your face clearly.”

  Her challenge dissolved, and she probed his face with her large eyes. “Do you like what you see?”

  He touched her lips.

  “Sir.” This time she didn’t turn away.

  He kissed her, grinding his lips into hers, hard, and she said, “Let’s go someplace else. Everyone will see us here.”

  They wandered through the woods behind them and finally found shelter in a ruined, abandoned temple. Inside, it was nearly dark; a stone statue of Lord Ganesh lay in the corner, the lower half of its elephant trunk broken. Someone had painted a red mustache above the statue’s upper lip so that it looked like a warrior with a broken nose. Cobwebs hung from the corners, and the floor was dusty. Ramchandra wrapped his hand around Malati’s waist and pulled her toward him. This time she responded. She ground her groin against him, and he felt himself rise. They explored each other’s mouths, and he squeezed her breasts. She began to moan. He lowered her to the floor—and at once, both of them sneezed from the dust. They laughed. His lips against hers, he fumbled with the buttons of her blouse. She stroked the back of his head.

  He felt a tug at his trousers and thought it was her hand, but then he turned and saw a large monkey. It was an arm’s length away, watching them. Ramchandra waved a hand to shoo away the monkey, but it blinked once and kept gazing, its eyes watery, as if the creature were saddened by the sight of the two. Malati let out a cry. Ramchandra heaved himself up from the floor and was looking for something to throw at the monkey when two more monkeys entered the temple. All three sat on their haunches and observed Ramchandra and Malati. “Do something,” Malati cried, and Ramchandra, scanning the floor, saw the broken elephant trunk lying beside the statue. He picked it up and hurled it at the animals, who merely ducked their heads. A few more monkeys now stood at the entrance of the temple.

  “Hurry!” Ramchandra told Malati. “Let’s go.” But Malati was frozen on the floor. One of the monkeys approached her and, grabbing the end of her sari, tugged at it, and it began to unwind. Another monkey joined the effort, and soon there was a tug of war between the monkeys and Malati. Malati was screaming, pulling the edges of her sari, while the monkeys, chattering, tugged with great vigor. Ramchandra threatened and shouted, but the monkeys at the entrance had sidled toward him, some of them baring their teeth. Then, incredibly, in one swift motion Malati’s sari was in a large monkey’s hand, part of it covering its body so that it looked as if it was the one wearing the blue sari. It ran out the entrance, the sari trailing behind. Malati, in her petticoat and her blouse, feebly tried to cover her chest with her hands, while she whimpered and the tears streamed down her face. And then, as if it had all been a big show, the monkeys left the temple, one by one.

  Ramchandra went to Malati and put his hand on her shoulder. She jerked it away, and buried her face in her knees. Scratch marks covered her legs, and her hair was disheveled. Ramchandra stood there, helpless, afraid to touch her again. But he had an idea. “Stay right here,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I don’t want to be here alone,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  He walked out and headed toward the main Temple of Pashupatinath, wondering whether the gods had sent the monkeys as punishment for what he was doing. After he crossed the small bridge, he found a shop that displayed saris and, cursing himself over and over, bought a cotton dhoti for seventy rupees. It was a cheap-looking bright red dhoti, the kind village women wore when they came to the city to sing and dance and fast for the festival of Teej.

  When he returned, Malati was in the same position. She took the sari silently, and as she put it on, he turned away. They walked out of the temple, down the steps toward Guheswori, and when she told him she wanted to walk home alone, he didn’t object.

  It was only eleven o’clock, and Ramchandra wondered whether he should go to the school to teach some classes. Bandana Miss might be partly appeased. If he hurried, he could get there during the lunch break and teach his three remaining classes. But the prospect of standing in front of the classroom and solving mathematical problems on the board depressed him. His mind whirled with images of Malati, crouching on the floor in her petticoat and bra, monkey scratches on her thighs, and her face contorted in terror as the monkeys unrobed her.

  Ramchandra headed toward the city. If he went home, Goma would ask why he’d left school early. He walked past Jai Nepal, where a movie with Amitabh Bachchan was playing. The façade of the building was adorned with a giant poster of the current feature, showing the actor with a red bandana around his head. He looked angry, with glaring eyes and a defiant stance. In the background was the figure of a dancing woman, the heroine, lifting her buxom chest in the air. Ramchandra had seen one of Amitabh Bachchan’s films, one in which he played a mild-mannered friend to another film star who was very popular at that time. But now the same actor had become famous as “an angry young man,” and youngsters in Kathmandu tied red bandanas around their heads and scowled at one another in the street.

  Ramchandra hadn’t been to a movie theater for several years. Before the children were born, he and Goma used to go every six months or so, even though they’d had to count their rupees carefully. Goma would dress in her best sari, and Ramchandra would wear his daura suruwal and would oil and comb his hair. Before they entered the dim auditorium, Ramchandra would offer to buy some fritters, but Goma always refused, saying, “Why eat this trash when I can cook better food for you at home?’’ Ramchandra didn’t remember the movies as much as he remembered their shoulders touching in the dark. A couple of times Ramchandra had put his hand on Goma’s thigh, tickled by the thought the others around him couldn’t see what he was doing, and she, embarrassed, had immediately pushed his hand away. But he had been persistent, and eventually she didn’t object. He even suspected that she was smiling at his touch. He could barely concentrate on the screen, and by the time the movie finished, he would have an erection. Once they reached home, she’d head to the kitchen to make tea, but he’d hold her and guide her toward the bedroom.

  For a moment Ramchandra was engrossed in these memories, until he realized he had an idiotic grin on his face. He immediately straightened himself up.

  Outside the gate of the Royal Palace, he stopped to observe the guard, who stood perfectly still with a rifle on his shoulder. Ramchandra couldn’t imagine standing like that for hours—it must take endless stamina. What did the man think about as he stood there? His face was expressionless; his eyes stared blankly at the street in front of him. Did he think of his wife in the village? Was he even married? Did he have a girl somewhere he was hoping to marry, or would he allow his parents to negotiate his marriage for him, as Ramchandra had done? Or was he fearful that, with all the political demonstrations going on, an agitated crowd might knock him down and storm the palace? As if the soldier could read Ramchandra’s thoughts, he said, sharply, “What are you staring at? Move on!” Ramchandra wanted to say, “Brother, is this job hard?” The man was once again looking forward, but out of the corner of his mouth he muttered, “Move on, I said.” Someone shouted from inside the small guardhouse by the gate, “Eh, who is it? Who are you talking to?”

  Ramchandra walked away and crossed the street toward Durbar Marg, with its rows of hotels and fancy restaurants. He stopped outside the bakery of the Annapurna Hotel, and looked at the cakes and pastries on display. He’d always wondered how much these cakes cost. Sometimes he’d had the urge to walk in and buy something for Sanu and
Rakesh, especially Rakesh, who had a sweet tooth, but he knew the price of one of those cakes would probably buy him a two-week supply of rice. Adjoining the bakery was one of the hotel’s restaurants, with clear glass windows that allowed the pedestrians to see who was eating what inside. He noticed some Indian families at the tables, and a few white foreigners, one of whom smiled at him and waved. Ramchandra, feeling self-conscious, walked on.

  Just as he reached the Ghantaghar clock tower, it began to ring. It was noon, and he had at least another two hours before he could go home without arousing Goma’s curiosity. Opposite the tower was Tri Chandra College, and, on impulse, Ramchandra walked through the gate. Students sat on the lawn in small clusters, enjoying the late autumn sun. Their voices were loud, boisterous, and Ramchandra remembered his own college days: the gaiety, the sound of his friends’ laughter, the mental clarity he had when he woke in the morning, the way the afternoon expanded before him, the deep, smiling world of sleep that he fell into at night. And now? What was happening to him now? He tried to see himself through the eyes of his in-laws, and what he saw was a small man among rich, powerful men, a man who was worthless unless he continually moved toward better jobs and bigger houses.

  Ramchandra entered a building and walked aimlessly through the corridors, occasionally peeking into classrooms, where teachers were lecturing and students were listening, with bored expressions. He should have been in one of these classrooms, teaching college students, and once again this thought pulled him toward that dark pit where he frequently fell these days. But now he stopped in the corridor and recalled Malati—not the battered and bruised Malati of this morning but the one who’d come to his door asking for help, the one who’d told him that she’d heard he was a good teacher. On the second floor of the building, Ramchandra saw three girls in a corner, giggling. If Malati passed the S.L.C. exam, she would become one of these girls.

  A noise startled him, and he saw one student chasing another. The chaser, passing close to Ramchandra, held a knife. Suddenly, three students appeared quickly and tackled the man. They threw him to the ground so violently that his head struck the floor with a smack. They kicked him, and one of them wrenched away the knife and held it close to the face of the man on the ground. “Motherfucker,” he said, and slashed the man’s right cheek. Blood poured from the gash and covered the man’s face.

  Ramchandra ran down the stairs. Others ran past him up the stairs, shouting, “Where are those panchays?” He quickly walked down the corridor toward the main entrance, as streams of students, all talking at once, left the classrooms. On the lawn, more students were craning their necks, trying to see what was happening on the second floor. “Who was that student with the knife?” Ramchandra asked one of the students.

  “How would I know?” the student said. “I can’t tell the difference between a panchay and a communist and a Congressi. They all look alike to me. I came to the city to get a degree, but the village was better.”

  Ramchandra left the campus just as a police van drew up and some helmeted men ran into Tri Chandra. He went to the park and sat on the platform of one of the stone umbrellas that were scattered in the park. A few people were reclining on the grass, dozing or reading a newspaper. Two homeless boys, with jute sacks on their backs, were fishing for empty cans and bottles. They jostled each other, then one smacked the other on the head and fled, and the chase began. Ramchandra, watching the two bedraggled and toughened boys, thought that they were much like his own children, who fought and kidded with each other in similar ways. Impulsively, Ramchandra called out to them, and when one of the boys came over, he dug into his pocket and took out two rupees. “Go eat some ice cream,” he said in a stern voice, as if he were scolding. The boy looked at the money in his hand and said, “With two rupees? We couldn’t even get peanuts with this.” Ramchandra gave him another rupee and said, “Go. I don’t have any more.” The kid shook his head and showed the money to his companion. “He said it’s for ice cream.” And they both chanted, “Ice cream man,” and ran away. “Donkeys,” Ramchandra muttered to himself, but he felt good, having given them even that small amount of money. The two boys had run out of the park and were crossing the street toward some fritter stalls. The sun’s warmth was at its peak for the day, and Ramchandra felt its heat on his shoulders. He reclined on the platform. The sun hovered in the sky like a soft simmering yolk, and soon he felt drowsy.

  He woke to the sound of his name and was startled to see Goma standing in front of him. “What are you doing here?” For a moment he thought he was dreaming, but there she was, holding a plastic bag, wearing that familiar dark-green sari she wore when she ran errands.

  “Why are you sleeping here? What happened to school?”

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said, his tongue thick with grogginess.

  “You haven’t been drinking?” It was more a statement than a question. In their thirteen years of marriage, he’d rarely had a drink.

  “No, no,” he said, wiping his face with his hand and hopping off the platform. “There was an accident at school, so the classes were canceled.” He was in the process of concocting an elaborate story about the accident when she asked him why he didn’t simply go home. He hadn’t been feeling well, he said, and wanted to catch his breath but had ended up dozing. He asked what had brought her to the park, and she said that she’d spotted his daura suruwal from the pharmacy near Bir Hospital, where she’d gone to get cough medicine for Rakesh. He’d been sent home early from school because he was coughing. Ramchandra recalled his own fake cough this morning when he’d lied to Bandana Miss, and wondered whether his lying had made his son ill. He dismissed the superstitious thought.

  “How much did it cost?” he asked Goma. “For the cough syrup?”

  “Don’t ask,” Goma said. “The children’s health is important.”

  And so they walked home together, and as the sun’s warmth waned, a cool wind blew across the city, and women tightened their shawls, and men put on the coats they’d taken off. Light fell on Ramchandra and Goma at an angle when they entered the courtyard; as she preceded him up the stairs, Ramchandra watched his wife’s behind, shifting with each step, and he assured himself that she had no suspicions or doubts about him. Instead of feeling guilty, he was pleased and proud, not because he was getting away with something, but because Goma accepted him as a complete man, someone who needed no tinkering to be perfect. And he knew, even as Malati brought him so much pleasure, that she would never see him the way Goma did, that even if Malati began to love him, there’d be gaps and holes in her perception of him that her love, no matter how genuine, could never fill.

  To his surprise, Malati did come. She had red blotches on her face, and a scratch that ran all the way from her left eye down to her chin. When Goma asked her what had happened, Malati said that Rachana had done it in a fit of rage. “Quite a feisty girl,” Goma commented. “She’ll be a handful when she grows up.” During the lesson, when Ramchandra asked Malati how she was feeling, she laughed softly. “Wasn’t that incredible?” she asked. “I’d never imagined something like that happening to me. Bad luck seems to have a particular liking for me.” And she laughed again. Ramchandra was relieved by her ability to bounce back. “I thought you wouldn’t come,” he whispered to her, running his finger up her arm. Her eyes followed his finger, a faint smile curving her lips, and when his finger reached her chin, she locked her eyes into his. “I am determined to pass the S.L.C.,” she said. “If anyone can make me pass, it’s you.”

  Half an hour later, after the children were dressed and sent to school, Rakesh’s cough a bit better, Goma left for the market to get kerosene, saying that she’d probably have to stand in line and wouldn’t be back for a long time. A few minutes after her departure, there was a crash on the street below. Startled, they both rose from the floor and rushed to the window, where they stood shoulder to shoulder. A crowd had gathered around a three-wheeler, the side of which had been smashed by a car now off
to the side, its left bumper dented. People shouted and gave instructions, and soon a bloody body was lifted out of the three-wheeler. The injured man was groaning. The people holding him set him down on the street, and someone called for water, which the tea shopkeeper brought over in a jar. The driver of the car, a man in a business suit, was being held by three young men, who were also jabbing him with their fists. “Just because you’re wearing a suit and tie and driving a car doesn’t mean you can destroy poor folks,” one of the men said. The driver, while battling the fists, attempted to offer an explanation.

  “That could have been me,” Ramchandra said. “These days I seem to be taking three-wheelers all the time.”

  “You shouldn’t say such things.”

  He saw that she had on a large chandan tika. Had she gone to the Pashupatinath Temple this morning?

  The commotion below lessened after the young men made the driver take the injured man to the hospital. Some people still milled around, going over the details of the accident. The shopkeeper looked up and said to Ramchandra at the window, “This is more interesting than tutoring, isn’t it, Ramchandra-ji?”

  Ramchandra and Malati sat down on the floor again, but they’d lost interest in tackling the math.

  “Do you want to study?” he asked.

  “What do you want to do?” She was smiling.

  He slid closer to her and took her hand. She’d chewed her fingernails, which looked frayed.

  “That’s a bad habit,” he said.

  “I do it when I worry.”

  “What are you worried about now?”

  “So many things,” she said. “But I don’t want to bother you with them.”

  “Tell me one thing you worry about.”

  “About passing the S.L.C. But here I am, not studying.”

  “I’ll make sure you pass.”