Khushwant Singh Best Indian Short Stories Volume 2

by Khushwant Singh

  Came the Parsi New Year’s Day, Navroz. It was a sectional holiday only for Parsis. I had a feeling that Pesi Lalkaka would visit his old haunt, the Dadiseth Fire Temple, at his usual hour to be able to give alms to the expectant beggars. I was as usual at the neighbouring bookstall, glancing over the pages of a magazine with an eye on the temple gate. Standing beside me was a man also turning the pages of a magazine. He had one eye on me.

  There was quite a throng of beggars outside the temple. Parsi gentlemen were dressed in their traditional spotless white starched daglis and trousers and black velvet caps. Their ladies wore their sari in Parsi style, draped straight over their right shoulder. The sandalwood seller beside the doorway was doing brisk business.

  My hunch was right. Pesi Lalkaka was there, this time accompanied by his wife and daughter. He looked very different in his all-white outfit. His arm was not in a sling but both arms were engaged. His right hand rested on his wife’s shoulder; his daughter held the left to help him down the temple steps. On Navroz it was Mrs Lalkaka who dipped into her handbag to dole out coins to the beggars. Many complained that they had not seen the Sahib for a long time and made enquiries about his health.

  The trio turned their backs towards me to walk in the direction of his office. It was then that I noticed that the Missy Baba was wearing a pleated miniskirt. Fat thighs. And what a tail! Her buttocks swayed as if keeping beat to a tango. I cast aside the magazine in my hand and followed them.

  Walking three abreast through the crowded pavement was slow business. I walked close behind Missy Baba with my eyes glued to her posterior and languorous music ringing in my ears. By the time I came to the parting of ways I was in a high state of exultation. When would I ever get such a chance again! The desire to caress overcame discretion. I quickened my pace, came along the Missy Baba and let my right hand give the silken contour of her behind a loving caress. A voice behind me called: ‘Mr Bottom-Pincher!’ I turned back. It was the man I had seen beside me at the bookstall. He took me by the arm. ‘Come with me to the police station. Please follow us,’ he said to the Lalkakas.

  If I had protested, the crowd would have given me a rough time. But I could not help pleading innocence, asking my captor what all this was about. ‘You will find out, I’ve been watching you for some days,’ he said. I went like the proverbial lamb to the slaughterhouse.

  What a fool I had been! What would people say when they read about it in the papers? ‘Who could have believed it of him? The old lecher!… It often happens to men in late middle age,’ etc. I’d be sacked from my job, removed from all committees and expelled from my club. I’d never be able to face the world. Should I kill myself? Or just disappear from Bombay, take the vows of a sanyasi and spend the rest of my days in some sadhu ashram in the Himalayas?

  At the police station I was given a few moments to compose myself. The subinspector opened a large yellow register to record my statement. I said: ‘I have nothing to say. I don’t know what it is all about. You have made a big mistake.’ It did not impress him. ‘No mistake, mister! We checked your telephone calls and what you did I saw with my own two eyes. You better come clean.’

  I refused to come clean. I refused to speak to the fellow. ‘If you want to consult a lawyer, you can send for one. Otherwise I’ll put you up before a magistrate,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to see any lawyer for anything.’ I replied. ‘But I would like to see Mr Lalkaka.’

  ‘Aha! So you admit to knowing him!’ he exclaimed, very pleased with himself. He recorded that in his register.

  I had put the noose round my own neck.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to see Miss Lalkaka too!’ the subinspector said with a nasty sneer. ‘She will be the material witness to the kind of things you do.’

  That was too much for me. I lost my temper and retorted. ‘Has she eyes behind her head to see who pats her bottom?’

  ‘Aha! So you admit somebody did pat her bottom,’ he replied triumphantly. And wrote it down in his register. I had put yet another noose round my neck. I tried to extricate myself. ‘No I don’t want to see Miss Lalkaka. I want to see her father.’

  ‘Why? He has nothing to do with this case.’

  ‘If he has accused me of harassing him, I want to comfort him. He has made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Let’s keep Mr Lalkaka out of this. He is a respectable citizen.’

  ‘So am I,’ I said stubbornly. ‘I am every bit as respectable as he.’

  We sat glowering at each other. If my reputation was to go down the gutter, I was determined to take Pesi Lalkaka’s with mine. After a while the subinspector gave in. He pressed the bell on the table. A constable came in. ‘Ask the Sahib to come in.’

  After a while, the constable came back and whispered something in the ear of the subinspector. Then both left the reporting room. I could hear the voices of the subinspector and Pesi Lalkaka, but could only catch a few stray words like confession…watertight case…not compoundable…. Then a long silence. The subinspector re-entered and sat down in his chair. He fixed me with his eyes. ‘This time I will let you off with a warning. But if I catch you again doing anything or harassing respectable people, you will go to jail. You can go now.’

  I did not want to prolong the agony by protesting my innocence. I got up quietly and left the room.

  The cream-coloured Mercedez-Benz was parked outside the police station. I turned my face away as I walked past it. I heard a voice call: ‘Gentleman! Gentleman!’ It was Pesi Lalkaka. A very doleful-looking Pesi it was. ‘Gentleman,’ he pleaded, ‘can I drop you anywhere?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Kama Sutra Game

  KHUSHWANT SINGH

  Sage Vatsyayana, author of Kama Sutra, the Hindu treatise on love, classified women into four categories according to their physical characteristics and desires and emotional responses. He placed them in the following order of merit: Padmini, Chitrini, Sankhini and Hastini. The classification can be better comprehended if we reverse the order and start at the bottom.

  The Hastini, named after the elephant, is pachydermatous in her proportions: massive, off-size with a large pumpkin-like bosom, enormous hips and buttocks, expansive thighs and hirsute around the private aspects of her anatomy. She has a gargantuan appetite for food, strong liquor and sex. Her body exudes an odour reminiscent of a mahout’s wife – if you have been lucky enough to have known one. In the crisis of her excitement she is said to trumpet like a mast (rogue) elephant.

  The Sankhini partakes of the nature of the conch shell; she is hard, hollow and sexually as agitated as the Bay of Bengal during a typhoon. In the frenzy of excitement she is known to dig her nails into the flesh of her paramour and scream obscenities like a harlot.

  The Chitrini is the arty type: somewhat smaller of bosom and behind than her more amply endowed sisters of the two categories mentioned above. Her appetite for food and sex is correspondingly smaller. She loves music and painting. She likes to put jasmine chaplets in her hair, wear jewellery and fine clothes. She gets more enjoyment from being embraced and kissed than in the act of sex.

  The fourth category partakes of the lotus flower and is therefore named after it as the Padmini. She is petite, demure, with a water-lily blush on her damask cheeks. Her eyes are like those of a gazelle and she is therefore also described as mriganayani. And like some species of gazelles, she carries an invisible pod of musk in her navel which envelops anyone fortunate enough to envelop her in his arms. Padmini has a small appetite; she imbibes nothing stronger than cool, clear water – or perhaps a lemonade with lots of ice. As the sun sets she folds up her petals as if they were veils and retires to bed. She never uses coarse language, expresses no desire for sex. When taken she submits with grace as expected of a good Hindu woman. She makes no sounds which may be interpreted as pleasurable. A sigh may escape her lips and with the sigh some expression of thanksgiving to her Creator – Hai Ram !

  Vatsyayana, like other great Hindu savants, was pron
e to reducing every subject on which he wrote into precise categories. He enumerated the varieties of kissing, ways of biting, scratching and sexual pastimes. Modern Hindu scholars have enriched Vatsyayana’s enumeration by adding techniques known to the Arabs and the people of France. They are of the considered opinion that not only was Vatsyayana wrong in classifying women in four distinct categories but that he also erred in ascribing specific characteristics to them. There are, for instance, Hastinis who eat very little, are strict teetotallers and abhor sex like the plague. And there are Padminis who guzzle steak carved out of the flanks of the holy cow and wash it down with the fiery brew called Asha – desire. The modern generation of students of the Hindu art of love dismiss Vatsyayana as a lot of bull. The following incidents prove how wrong the Kama Sutra can be as a guide.

  Women-spotting has long been my favourite sport. Bombay is a great city to practise it in. And in Bombay the foyer of the Taj Mahal or the Oberoi-Sheraton is the best place from which to tee off as on a lush eighteen-hole golf course.

  According to the rules foreigners are excluded from the game. Their women are larger than ours and I am not as familiar as I would like to be with their culinary tastes and bed behaviour.

  I take my place on the settee facing the reception desk and watch people as they come to register or make enquiries. They present their posteriors for scrutiny. Although the sari is designed to get calculations awry, with a little practice you can strip off the unnecessary millimetres of colourful camouflage and plant a mental label on their bare behinds.

  First comes a large, twin-pumpkin rotunda draped in shimmering chiffon with a dahlia embroidered in the centre in gold. She is chewing paan and surveys the men in the hall to see who will make a nice betel leaf. A Hastini without any doubt. But one must not jump to conclusions without examining the rest of her facade with x-ray eyes. That dahlia covering the rear cleft is somewhat distracting and instead of consulting the Kama Sutra, I recall the limerick of the young man of Australia, who painted his behind with a dahlia, etc., etc. She strides away behind the porter carrying her valise. No label.

  The next one at the reception counter is in a saffron lungi. She is very small with a behind like that of a schoolboy. The clerk at the desk towers above her. She has to stand on her dainty little toes to fill in her name in the register. She turns round. Very petite! Little red dot on her forehead. A smear of sindoor (vermilion) in the parting of her hair to indicate her marital status and a black-beaded mangalsutra to reinforce it. Where is her husband? She gives the porter a rupee note and tells him to take her bag to her room and leave the keys at the reception. She catches me ogling at her. A faint lily blush comes over her face. Padmini! A hundred paise worth of Padmini in the rupee.

  My hundred per cent Padmini glides down the corridor. She reminds me of Robert Herrick’s lines: ‘When as in silks my Julia goes/ Methinks how gently flows the liquefaction of her lungi!’ She casts a sidelong glance at a boutique window, abruptly turns right and disappears from view. ‘Not the Harbour Bar?’ I almost scream to myself. What would a Padmini be doing amongst the dissolute lot who foregather in that dim voice-top madhushala? She must have gone up to the Rendezvous to join her husband, or brother, or father. I saunter down to the elevators and take one to the rooftop restaurant. I brush aside the steward and scan the faces of the diners. No Padminis there. Three or four likely Chitrinis and one Hastini.

  I take the elevator down to the reception and saunter into the Harbour Bar. There she is! Demurely perched on a tall stool fixing a cigarette in a long ebony cigarette holder. I take the stool alongside with an air of bored indifference. The barman lights her cigarette. She rummages inside her handbag, finds her health permit and slaps it on the bar. ‘Scotch on the rocks. Make it a double.’ She pouts her lips and sends rings of blue smoke like the emblems of the Olympic Games floating into the room. Two more jets shoot downwards from her nostrils, recoil on her lungi and then settle back in her saffron lap. While the barman is pouring out a large Scotch for her, she stretches her arm, draws a bowlful of pickled onions towards her and tosses three into her dainty mouth. This is tamasik (stale) food, a wholly unsuitable diet for a Padmini.

  The barman gives me a glass of lager. I steal a pearl onion from her bowl. She ignores my presence. In two gulps Padmini disposes of the Scotch and onion bowl. The barman pours another double into her tumbler. She looks questioningly at him. He explains, ‘That gentleman over there in the corner! With his compliments.’

  Padmini turns her gazelle eyes towards the corner. The gentleman flashes a gold-studded denture and waves a hand laden with sparklers. Padmini ignores him. Without as much as a smile of thanks she returns to her Scotch-on-the-rocks. The second large Scotch goes down the lovely hatch; a second bowl of raw onions is emptied. When the barman pours the third burra Scotch, Padmini merely asks, ‘The same chap, no? Who is he?’

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ replies the barman in a tone heavy with reverence. ‘He, richest richest man of Bombay.’ I don’t catch his name, but it sounds something like ‘Seth Hiralal Sonamal Magnolia’. Padmini is unimpressed. She simply drains the Scotch and holds out the tumbler to the barman. ‘Can I have another large one? Put it on the fat bastard’s bill.’

  My faith in Vatsyayana’s classification is rudely shaken. The image of the chastity and incorruptibility of Hindu womanhood is on the verge of being shattered. Surely any woman who accepts drinks from a total stranger can have little compunction in expressing her gratitude in the conventional way! But, as I said before, don’t jump to conclusions. Padmini has had her regular quota of four large whiskies and two bowls of raw onions. She asks for her health permit and the bill for the first drink. ‘Taken care of, Madam,’ replies the barman.

  Padmini puts her cigarette holder in her bag and slides off the stool. Seth Hiralal Sonamal Magnolia threads his way through tables of drinkers and comes to stake his claim. ‘Good evening, Madam!’ he says, with an ingratiating smile. ‘Would you care to join me for dinner? I am Seth Hiralal Sonamal Magnolia.’

  The moment of truth has arrived. If she says yes, it would be clear proof that she looks like a virgin Padmini, but she is in fact a Hastini slut. If she politely rebuffs the richest richest man of Bombay she redeems her status as a Padmini.

  Padmini gives Seth Magnolia an icy stare. And in words loud enough to be heard by everyone in the Harbour Bar hisses, ‘Seth Hiralal Sonamal, you know what? I’d like to be your widow. Now **** off!’

  (Note: Asterisks stand for ‘buzz’)

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Second Nose

  YASHPAL

  When Jabbar’s father discerned the first stirrings of youth in his son, he decided to have him married and selected a girl from the neighbouring village for him. But, in the meanwhile, Jabbar had seen Hasba’s daughter Shabbu fetching water from the well and he had lost his heart to her.

  As a fairy tale goes, a prince once saw a golden hair floating down a river. His mind was so much taken up with the thought of what the girl who possessed such beautiful hair would look like that he shut himself up in the tower of his palace and, pining for her in his dreams, starved himself to death. Something similar happened to Jabbar. He could not say openly what worried him, but his listlessness and lost looks told their own story.

  Seeing his miserable condition Jabbar’s parents took counsel of each other and by vague hints they conveyed to their son that the day of his marriage was not far off. Shamsul’s elder daughter Jahunna, they told him, had no peer among the girls of the adjoining villages. Young and robust, when she walked carrying the big pitcher of water on her head, the earth shook under her feet, so firm were her steps. Adept at household chores, she would be an asset to the family and of great help to Jabbar’s ageing mother. But his parents’ talk left Jabbar cold. He would lie brooding in his cot and sigh every now and then.

  One day, Jabbar’s mother, with tears in her eyes, begged her son to tell her what troubled his heart. Jabbar said that he loathed. Jahunna�
��s very name. ‘It’s either Hasba’s daughter Shabbu, or none!’

  Jabbar’s parents tried to make him see reason. They would broach the topic of his marriage within his earshot, praise Jahunna and disparage Shabbu. Why did he not understand that marriages born of blind infatuation always brought disgrace to the family? They employed all the rhetoric that they were capable of and cited chapter and verse to drive home their point. But it cut no ice with Jabbar; he stuck his ground.

  At last, yielding to Jabbar’s mulish obduracy, old Gaffar one day set out to talk things over with Hasba. When he returned, his face was livid with rage.

  Jabbar’s mother was out in the yard, feeding jejube leaves to the camels. She came in running. Jabbar, outwardly unconcerned, was all ears to know the outcome of his father’s visit.

  The old man was bursting at the seams with anger, but Jabbar’s mother, anxious to shield her wayward son from his father’s anger, put her finger on her nose and calmly surveyed her husband. ‘Now stop fretting,’ she said, ‘and tell me what has happened.’

  ‘What worse could happen?’ old Gaffar said, throwing up his arms in despair. ‘What can one expect from a useless son? I have been greatly insulted.’

  ‘Will you tell me what happened or just keep fretting?’ the old woman said, mumbling a prayer to take upon herself his misfortunes.

  ‘If he thinks so highly of himself he should have contrived to get born in the royal family of the Khan or Kalat,’ old Gaffar said, still fuming. ‘Do you know what Hasba said? And do you know that he did not even offer me a seat? “Forget about Shabbu”, he said, giving me a cold stare. “Her price is Rs 250. A bag full of Rs 250.” That’s what I must have before I talk to anyone about Shabbu’s marriage.” ’