Every evening Shekhar would hear the sound of laughter coming from the room next door, so he went inside one day and that’s how he was introduced to this group. The room belonged to the chief member of this group, Chatursen, whom no one had heard speaking the vernacular language, and for this reason alone he was one of the three monitors3 of the dormitory. His friends—whom Shekhar had been introduced to as Narendra, Bhupendra and Moti on the first day, but starting on the second day began to be called ‘Kaalu’, ‘Bhopu’ and ‘Puppy’—came regularly. It was considered taboo to call any member of this group by his full name; given names were social conventions. Kaalu had said one day, ‘Members of our group are opposed to social conventions—it’s another barrier between men relating to others in an honest way. We want to know humans as humans, not as social veneers in the shape of “scarecrows”.’ Shekhar didn’t object to this idea, but it seemed strange coming from Kaalu’s lips as he was the dimmest member of the group. ‘Puppy’ had a keen intellect—he ranked high in the university—but he would laugh a distorted, sarcastic laugh after anything anyone said, so much so that he even laughed in constant displeasure at himself. He often talked about the girls at the college, and he had such intense disrespect and contempt towards them—towards the whole of womankind—dripping in everything he said about them . . . Shekhar thought, ‘Here’s a man who’s dispositionally an ascetic, but his self-restraint has turned around and become poisonous, and unable to detest the detestable, he’s constantly spitting out venom.’
This fact both attracted him and sometimes filled him with repulsion and pushed him far away, but his keen intellect magnetically drew him towards Shekhar slowly and, one day, strangely, Shekhar learned a lesson from him.
Puppy introduced Shekhar to three sisters named Miss Kaul who were known in their circle as Rani, Lily and Ruby. The eldest was getting her MA and the other two were getting their BAs. One could still see their natural beauty beneath their fashionably eyebrow-less and colourfully painted eyes and their lipstick-stained lips, a beauty that they had spared no effort in perfecting. A few times, after Shekhar had been listening to their war-wearied, haughty and indifferent banter, he would leave wondering how they ever managed to put on all that lipstick and make-up through their indifference, and once he unconsciously asked this question aloud. Puppy asked him, ‘Which one of them seems the most indifferent to you?’
Shekhar responded, ‘Can’t really say. Maybe Ruby.’
‘Come on, I can’t keep their names straight. I can only tell them apart by the smell of their perfumes.’
Shekhar couldn’t keep from smiling. He was now mature enough that he could appreciate such conversation, even if he couldn’t participate in it. He said, ‘I’m not much of an expert as of yet . . .’
Puppy said, ‘It’s for the best. You’ll never believe what happened the other day. I told Kaalu something similar, and that rascal snuck in and switched their perfumes. We all went to the movies later, and on the way back I couldn’t tell who was who.’
Puppy shut up when he saw that Kaalu was coming this way. But Kaalu had already heard what they were talking about and said, ‘Hey, tell him the whole story! Why did you stop? The thing is that we were walking back under a canopy of trees. Puppy was taking advantage of the darkness to take Ruby’s hand when she snatched it away and said, “How dare you, Puppy!”4 The poor guy started apologizing. And that’s when Lily burst out laughing.’
‘Liar! Why don’t you tell him about yourself—did you already forget? It’s only been two days. After your little joke, Lily was—’
‘When was this?’ Shekhar smiled as he asked.
‘Just the day before yesterday.’
But Kaalu interrupted Puppy in the middle of what he was saying, ‘In all honesty, though, it’s impossible to tell anyone apart these days. The other day Chatter [that’s what Chatursen called himself] thought that he was being really cheeky, said that you can only know who a person is by the taste of her lipstick, but—’
Shekhar was a little vexed. He didn’t mind listening to talk about women or jokes about their mannerisms, but it still upset him to listen to jokes about sex which was for him connected to love. ‘There’s no such thing as love. There’s the body and there’s the brain—one chooses the body and the other chooses money. That’s all that love really is.’ Shekhar could never accept that point of view. He left his friends and remembered that the night before last all of them were in the dormitory, and Chatursen had taken attendance himself at 9 p.m., so how did they go to the movies?
He couldn’t get this question out of his mind. Without realizing it, he started paying attention to what these fellows were up to after the nightly attendance. On the third night, he saw all four of them descend the back staircase after attendance, and they were followed by a young servant who worked in the dormitory. The servant was about to close the gate after the four had gone out when Shekhar rushed to say, ‘I’ve got to talk to Chatursen,’ and he went out as well.
Neither did it escape Shekhar’s notice that the servant hid the bottle he had been carrying.
Shekhar returned at 11.30 p.m. The four boys had walked about two miles and then sneaked into a house. Shekhar turned around and went back after he saw that. The gate was open. He quietly climbed up the back staircase, went to his room and went to sleep.
The next day, he set out in the evening to find out whose house that was. He was standing at some distance from it, thinking to himself about whom he could ask, when the mathematics professor from the college emerged, recognized Shekhar and said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Shekhar? This is no place for decent men.’
‘Why?’ asked Shekhar in surprise.
‘Can’t you see? That’s the neighbourhood where the brothels are.’
Shocked and embarrassed, Shekhar left with the professor.
*
In the second circle, Shekhar never heard any talk of women. All of the focus of this group was basically centred on reforming society. When talk of women happened, it was only in the singular—woman was the fulcrum of civilization, woman held the reins of civilization, woman was the centre of this male-dominated society, woman was this and that . . . It’s possible that the reason for this was that there was only one woman amongst the members of that group and she was its leader.
Manika was educated in Oxford and Paris. She came back to India after getting her degrees there, but because she was independently wealthy she didn’t find it necessary to seek employment.
It was only to pass the time that she had accepted an unpaid job as a lecturer on literature for four or five hours a week at a college, and that was how she maintained her reputation amongst the students. It was well known in all the colleges that any young man of quality from any college would certainly be in Devi Manika’s salon. So the boys who fancied they were—and those who didn’t—were always trying to gain entrance into her salon.
Shekhar was taken there by a young classmate. That Bengali boy had a flat, Mongol face and thick lenses on his glasses that covered fixed and slightly swollen eyes, all of which dripped with stupidity. But supposedly he had some ability and was considered knowledgeable about certain genres of English literature. Because of an essay he had written on Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite poets for his exams, Shekhar was deemed worthy of attending Devi Manika’s salon, and that’s where the Bengali boy was taking him.
Shekhar was on his way, but he thought the timing was wrong. He was filled with contempt and loathing for all of these cultural organizations. Earlier that day he had been in a fight with Kaalu when he had gone to take a bath—Kaalu had sworn at him when he noticed that Shekhar was taking too long in the bathroom. Shekhar had come out naked and beaten him up—ever since, something had been eating away at him. He didn’t want to go to her in his present condition, but when he learned that time had been set aside especially for him, he went.
Devi Manika’s drawing room was beautiful, but he never had the chance to admire its beauty.
He certainly did notice for just a moment the three other people sitting in the room. Devi Manika had been reclining on the sofa when she noticed Shekhar and his companion enter the room. She fixed on the other boy and said, ‘Hello, Cream Puff, is this your friend?’
Shekhar was a little stunned when he looked at his friend. It fit him well—Cream Puff. He couldn’t suppress a smile at the sharp tongue on the slight woman reclining on the sofa and the appropriateness of the name it had chosen. Cream Puff—once you heard the name, it was impossible to imagine that the man had ever had another!
Shekhar also noticed that in the time that it took for his companion to introduce him—‘My friend, Chandrashekhar Pandit, Miss Manika Devi’—Manika had looked him over from head to toe and decided that he was not an interesting person.
Manika stretched out her arm to gesture him to a chair, ‘Sit. Do you smoke?’ With two fingers, she slid an elaborately carved walnut box in Shekhar’s direction.
‘No, thanks, I don’t smoke.’
Seated to Manika’s left was a fat, pink-nosed Anglo-Indian man who said, ‘Miss Manika, not that. Give him the other stuff. Initiate him.’ He placed a glass next to Shekhar and yelled, ‘Waiter!’
Shekhar followed his finger to a side table next to Manika and the tray with two bottles and a few glasses of different sizes on it.
‘No, thanks.’
‘What—don’t you drink? That just doesn’t fly here. I can’t stop until I’ve had a drink. And the rules of civility—’
Manika interrupted drily, ‘Well, good sir, at least leave the rules of civility alone.’
Cream Puff said, ‘Matthews always says that the Greek empire fell because the Greeks stopped drinking—they were fine as long as they were drinking.’
The waiter brought tea. One of the men who had been quiet until now spoke, ‘Surely, you drink tea, don’t you, Mr Pandit?’
‘No, thanks, I don’t.’ There was a hint of condescension in the question, which angered Shekhar enough to get up. He said, ‘Moreover, I find it insulting that you’d even ask the question. “Surely you drink tea?”, “Surely you’ll have a cigarette?”, “Surely you’ll have a drink?” As if the only test of civility were the answer to the question, “Surely, you’ll have some?”’
It was the first time that Manika looked interested. She said, ‘Well said, Pandit. It’s the first intelligent thing I’ve heard all day.’
Matthews was hostile, ‘Mister Pandit speaks! I thought that he didn’t say anything other than “no” and “thanks”.’
‘Mahatmas don’t speak much, but when they do it’s always meaningful.’
Shekhar turned to Cream Puff in order to make clear his contempt for these questions lobbed at him and asked, ‘Do you also drink?’
Manika smiled, ‘Are you trying to test his civility?’
A cackle of laughter erupted. Matthews spoke first, ‘Hey, Cream Puff! You’re a spongy cream puff soaking up liquor like a sponge,’ and he laughed at his own pun.
Shekhar responded, ‘I had no idea that the life of a student in Punjab was so disgusting. I had hoped that these able bodies might have something of substance in them, but they are just putrid, rotting masses of flesh.’
What happened to that meeting was not unlike what happens to pet goldfish when a crab is released into the bright waters of their fish tank. Everyone got up and walked out immediately, and finding himself alone with Manika, Shekhar, too, got up in order to take his leave.
As she was getting up, Manika proclaimed, ‘It was really nice to meet you’ and just as Shekhar was about to respond to her ordinary formalities in kind, she added, ‘The people who come to me have intelligence, certainly, but no character, and that saddens me as well. We have big teeth, but we don’t have strong intestines—we can take big bites, but we can’t digest what we have eaten. You don’t seem to take an interest in eating, but your digestive system seems to be in order.’ She stopped for a moment and then continued, ‘It really was a pleasure to meet you.’ This time, her voice didn’t carry a note of formality, just honesty.
With the slightest of gratitude, Shekhar replied, ‘Goodbye.’
‘No, not like—’ Manika said as she extended her hand. Shekhar shook her hand and she added, ‘You definitely have to come again, John the Baptist.’
Shekhar liked the nickname—‘John the Baptist’. It had something of the plain-spoken goodwill of the half-crazed and the prophetic. And the gentle pressure of Manika’s hand also felt nice—it felt affectionate, as if it were a man’s hand.
*
There was an idiosyncratic compassion in Manika’s disposition which made one angry, made one feel sorry and even made one feel a little respect—and that was the reason that Shekhar went back to her house a few more times. Each time he left, he was a little more impressed and substantially more distressed. Manika had a piercing intellect, but she didn’t have the resolve to keep it in check; at the same time, she had the pathetic and painful knowledge of her own lack of resolve, and that made it difficult to get angry with her.
After their first meeting, Shekhar received an invitation for tea one afternoon from Manika, in which she had added after the customary words of invitation, ‘At that time, there won’t be any undesirable people here, don’t worry.’ And on that day, Shekhar learned how deep Manika’s intellect was and how feeble her strength—although intellect is often confused with strength.
A few other times, Shekhar went whenever he had been invited, but he had never seen anyone else present. After that, he was familiar enough with her that he wouldn’t hesitate to go over without an invitation.
One day, Shekhar went out for a walk after dinner when he decided that he wanted to see Manika. At her place, European customs were in sway, which meant that there was nothing inappropriate in dropping by for conversation after dinner—this is what Shekhar thought when he arrived at her house.
He ran into Matthews outside. He didn’t care—nor was Matthews pleased with their sudden encounter.
Shekhar knocked on the door to the drawing room, knocked again and then went inside. The drawing room was empty, and the other door to the drawing room was open; there were some dirty dishes on the table but there was no one in the room. Shekhar stood there confused for a moment. Then he sat down on a chair in the drawing room and immediately stood back up again. In the opposite corner of the drawing room, in a dim light, on a blue sofa, in a dishevelled sari, was Manika, lying down, a bare arm dangling down to the floor.
Shekhar called out to her, ‘What happened? Are you all right?’ Then he went to her and asked again, ‘What’s the matter, Miss Manika?’
Manika’s eyes fluttered indecisively and then opened. They stared at Shekhar’s face for a moment and then closed again. They opened again—the effort it took to open them was written clearly on her face—and she said, ‘Shekhar, oh!’ She tried to get up once, admitted defeat and then, as if in desperation, said, ‘Shekhar, I am dead drunk!5 That Matthews brought something . . . I’ve never had a wine so strong . . . I had no idea . . . the scoundrel!’
‘Matthews brought something? Why did you drink it?’ Shekhar didn’t know what else to say.
‘Drank! I drank!’ Manika laughed. ‘I have a wicked laugh, don’t I? I know I do. I am feeling stupid, stupid6 [I am not myself].’ She stopped momentarily and said, ‘Will you bring me that book, the one with the blue cover? And bring the lamp over here, too.’
Shekhar did exactly that. Manika opened the book, her hands trembling, and pointed to one passage and said, ‘Have you read this poem?’
Confused and overwhelmed, Shekhar took the book from her hands and began reading to himself distractedly.
‘Read it aloud. I want to hear it.’
Shekhar read it aloud:
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah my foes, and on my friends—
It gives a lovely light!7
Shekhar was sile
nt.
‘Read on.’
Shekhar said in a hurt voice, ‘Forgive me, but I don’t want to read any more right now.’
‘Don’t want to? Why? But you’re right. You’re feeling sorry for me, aren’t you?’
Shekhar didn’t answer.
‘But I think—’ Manika sat up in a fit of emotion ‘—you’re wrong. And why did you come here when you weren’t invited? Go away. Who do you think you are to feel sorry for me and disturb my solitude?’
Shekhar had turned around to leave when Manika laughed—‘I’m drunk, aren’t I? I know I am. I have such a stupid laugh. Yes, you should go. And don’t come back unless you’re invited, understand?’
Shekhar left.
‘I was right before. Burn at both ends,8 that’s what a body is good for. What it’s good for. You’re an idiot, an idiot, my John the Baptist.’
Outside, Shekhar recalled that when they had been talking the day before, Manika had asked, ‘Do you have any passions?’ And he casually replied, ‘I like collecting pictures.’
‘How uninteresting!9 No divine being?’
Shekhar explained that a long time ago he had a great interest in keeping animals and birds as pets and in catching butterflies, but he didn’t any longer.
‘That’s all? I collect men.10 They’re all such strange specimens—but—’ when suddenly her voice fell from boredom and exhaustion—‘they’re all the same under their skins. Uncivilized, uncultured—avaricious beasts!’
*
As he recalled that day’s conversation, Shekhar began drawing a connection in his mind, ‘They’re all the same under their skins—all men, all women—men and women, women and men . . .’ ‘We have big teeth, but we don’t have strong intestines—we can take big bites, but we can’t digest what we have eaten . . .’
Shekhar Page 30
