I went along with whatever my father wanted me to do. He had missed me a great deal and wanted to smother me with affection. He was proud of my achievements and wanted to show me off to his cronies. He was old; I had been away for six years enjoying life while he had slogged here, alone. So I indulged him. The day after I arrived he invited a dozen of his friends and relatives to the tiny apartment and plied them with tea, coffee, cakes and biscuits. They were a bunch of old fogies, Hindus and Sikhs, who began their day by listening to shabad-keertan at the nearest gurudwara, met in Lodhi Gardens in the afternoon to mourn over the ways of Indian politicians, and ended the day with a visit to the Sai Baba temple near by. Once a month, usually on a Thursday, they also went to the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya to listen to qawwalis. That Father had turned to religious ritual during my stay abroad did not surprise me. He had aged quite a bit, and like most other ageing Indians had taken to temple-going and prayer. I knew he would not insist on my accompanying him to these prayer sessions, but Haridwar and a dip in the Ganga were unavoidable. This I could endure, because I needed to see where Father wanted to take sanyas—retirement from the world.
What did surprise me—only because I had not anticipated it—was my father’s anxiety to see me married. For him it was the top priority. Without consulting me he put in an advertisement, with my photograph, in the matrimonial columns of The Hindustan Times and The Times of India. There was little finesse in what he had to say: the advertisement mentioned my Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, and, for good measure, added that I held a Green Card. He included details of the salary I had been offered by a multinational corporation. In rupees the figure came to several lakhs a month. He did not bother to conceal his own identity behind a box number: he gave his name, address and telephone number and asked interested parties to get in touch with him. I only got to know when the first family arrived with father, mother, bride-to-be, her uncles and brothers. Father interviewed them like the chairman of the Public Service Commission: How far had the girl studied? Was she working? What salary was she drawing? What was the family worth? Who were their references? And so on. In turn they interrogated Father. I sat silently watching the girl and wondering what she would be like in bed. After a few weeks of abstinence, sex had again reared its ugly head in my mind. I had got used to bedding women almost on a daily basis; sometimes two in one day. What a woman looked like no longer mattered very much to me; more important was her bed-worthiness. I caught the girl, decked up in a Kanjeevaram sari and gold jewellery, stealing a coy glance at me. We did not exchange a word.
It was after the family had left that I spoke angrily to my father: ‘Papa, what is all this?You should at least have asked me about it.’
‘Why?’ he replied truculently. ‘It is a father’s duty to see his son married in his lifetime. I am only fulfilling my dharma. If your mother had been alive, she would have been helping me. Now I have to do it alone.’
I would not let him get away with that excuse. ‘Papa, if you had a daughter whom strangers came to inspect and then rejected, how would you have felt? It is very humiliating for girls of marriageable age to be treated like this. I don’t like it one bit.’
He did not relent. ‘You leave this business to me,’ he said in a tone of finality. ‘If I like a girl and her family, I will ask for your approval. I will leave the final choice to you.’
Thereafter not a day passed without a family being invited over for tea or soft drinks and an interview session. I remained a mute spectator, eyeing one girl after another, my eyes stripping them of their saris or salwar-kameez. I found all of them beddable in different ways and fantasized about them at night. My Father recorded his opinions on paper and filed them. He could not get over the habit acquired in a lifetime of government service of noting down everything and methodically filing it for future reference.
I began to tire of these daily sessions and felt sorry for the girls and their parents who were told that we would get back to them. At the end of every meeting Father would ask me, ‘What did you think of the girl?’ I would give him the standard reply: ‘Okay, you decide.’
‘So far all the parties we have met were lower middle class,’ he said once. ‘You deserve the richest and the best-looking girl in Delhi.’
‘What about that visit to Haridwar?’ I asked to change the subject. ‘I still have to atone for my sins.’
‘I haven’t forgotten that,’ he replied, ‘I have asked my friend Sardar Mehnga Singh to lend me his Mercedes Benz for a weekend. It was his car I came in to fetch you at the airport. He’s as generous as he’s rich.’
A day before we were to leave for Haridwar, a car drew up below our flat and the driver delivered a letter to Father. He was very excited. ‘It is from Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram. He’s one of the wealthiest Punjabis in Delhi: sugar mills, cinema houses, bungalows, farmland. He wants us to come to his house for tea. He has only one daughter—still unmarried!’
Father sent back a note saying he would contact Lala Achint Ram as soon as he and I had returned from Haridwar.
I had never seen Haridwar. My father had first visited it over twenty years ago when he had gone there to immerse my mother’s ashes in the Ganga. Thereafter he had gone there several times by bus and stayed in the ashram in which he had rented a room for himself. Travelling in a large Mercedes Benz was for him a novel experience. We left early in the morning. All the way from Ghaziabad through Meerut, Aligarh and Roorkee, he talked of nothing else except the Achint Ram family. ‘If it comes through, it will be a very good alliance—brains from our side, money from theirs,’ he pronounced. ‘He will set you up in a good business or help you in whatever you choose to do.’ And so on.
We reached Haridwar before noon and drove straight to his ashram. He had his room opened. The only furniture it boasted was a charpoy, a chair and a table. The ceiling fan hung precariously in the the middle of the room, and some distance from it dangled a naked bulb. The lavatory was Indian style. A bucket under a tap and a lota on a stool were the only items in the bathroom. ‘What more do I need?’ Father said when I remarked that the arrangement was a little too basic. ‘I bring my own bedding roll and soap. I use keekar twigs to brush my teeth.’
‘They serve good vegetarian food,’ he went on. ‘There is katha and keertan every evening. Scholars and pundits expound the teachings of our holy books and people from all parts of the country come to listen to them. And there is Mother Ganga herself, descending from the tresses of Lord Shiva in Gangotri high up in the Himalayas.’
We had our afternoon meal with many other ashram regulars, sitting cross-legged on the ground, served by men wearing nothing besides their sacred threads and flimsy dhotis. I had lost the art of eating with my hands and spilt quite a bit of the daal and vegetables on my shirt. My father retired for his afternoon siesta. I went out to take a look at the city and find something that would make me feel less out of place.
All the streets in Haridwar ran off from the main road and led to the river bank. I had to dodge a succession of paandas wanting to tell me vital facts about my ancestors or armed with receipt books asking for donations for gaushalas (cow pens) orphanages and temples. I came to the Ganga. A bridge took one across to an island with an ugly white clock tower standing in the middle of it. I stood on the bridge to take in the scene. To the north was a range of hills covered with thick forests. To the east, low hillocks. To the south, the plains through which the river ran. To the west was a mountain wall overlooking the city. And under the bridge flowed a very fast-moving river. Along the banks was an endless stretch of nondescript temples of no architectural merit. Well-fed, good-looking cows roamed along the ghats looking for pilgrims offering them bananas. Every few yards there were conclaves of ash-smeared sadhus sitting around smouldering fires and smoking chillums. There was nothing very sacred about the river front except the clear blue water of the Ganga sparkling in the sunshine.
I returned to the ashram to fetch my father. He was waiting for me. We walked back to the ghat. A large crowd had gathered at the ghat called Har Ki Pauri, Steps of the Lord. ‘We will get a better view from the clock tower,’ said my father. We crossed the bridge to the island and took our places on the tower facing Har Ki Pauri. The sun went over the western range. A deep shadow spread over the ghat. The scene changed dramatically. From temples along the banks emerged priests bearing huge candelabras of lamps. They came down the steps of Har Ki Pauri, as if in a majestic procession. The huge wicks soaked in ghee produced fierce, tall flames. The heat must have been intense, for some priests had what looked like white gloves covering their hands and forearms. As they waved their candelabras over the river, touching the bases to the water, tracing the sacred ‘Om’ with the bright flames in the night air, they intoned a hymn in praise of Mother Ganga. All at once the temple bells started clanging. Pilgrims placed leaf-boats with flowers and lit oil lamps in them on the stream. They floated away bobbing up and down. The dark river reflected a myriad quivering lights. I stood entranced by the magical scene spread before my eyes. My father joined the palms of his hands above his head and loudly sang the hymn of praise to the holy river:
Om! Victory to thee, holy Mother Ganga!
Victory ever be thine.
Anyone who worships thee
A true worshipper is he;
What his heart desires
You grant without fail.
Om! Mother Ganga, hail, hail, hail.
The spectacle ended as abruptly as it had begun. The temple bells fell silent. The priests disappeared into their temples, carrying their candelabras with them. The leaf-boats with oil lamps floated away out of sight. I joined a group of Bengali pilgrims and raised a full-throated cry: Jai Ganga Mata—victory to thee, Mother Ganga.
As we were leaving the ghat, a half-moon rose in a clear blue sky. And beside it the evening star, Hesperus, sacred to lovers. The part moon and the star were reflected in the calm river.
The scene haunted me all night. It was to recur in my dreams for the rest of my life.
Early next morning, while it was still dark, Father woke me up and said, ‘Get up. We must go to Har Ki Pauri before it gets too crowded. From there we’ll drive on to Delhi. Put your things in the car.’
I quickly brushed my teeth, shaved and washed my face with tap water. Though the water came from the Ganga, it was not considered holy. We drove through dimly lit streets past a stream of men and women going towards the ghat. We left the car on the main road and pushed our way through towards the river. Har Ki Pauri was beginning to get crowded. We muscled our way through the crowd, left our clothes in the care of a paanda and went down the steps. The sun was just coming up over the eastern hills when we stepped into the water. It was icy cold. Undaunted, my father went in till the water came up to his chest. I followed him. He scooped some water in his cupped hands and offered it to the rising sun, mumbling some kind of prayer as he did so. He ducked into the river several times and ordered me to do the same. As I dipped myself into the chilly water I thought of Yasmeen humping me and mocking me about the pious Hindu’s faith in the cleansing properties of the waters of the Ganga.
We stepped out of the water to dry ourselves. Father reassured me, ‘Now we are cleansed of all our sins. Ganga Mata has washed them away and will drown them in the sea.’ So he thought. As I rubbed myself with a towel, my eyes fell on other bathers, mainly women with big breasts and bigger buttocks, their wet saris clinging to their bodies and displaying their voluptuous contours. The waters of the Ganga had done nothing to cleanse my mind of libidinous desires.
On our drive back to Delhi we passed scores of men carrying water-pots slung on either end of poles balanced on their shoulders. My father explained to me that they were carrying water from Har Ki Pauri to their villages to offer as prasad to others. ‘These pots must never touch the ground, if they do the holy water loses its purity. Ganga Jal is sacred. Drops are put into the mouths of new born babies as well as the dying. Idols are bathed in it before they are worshipped. Some wealthy Hindus get tanks full for their daily baths …’ He went on in this fashion till I could not take it anymore. This was as good an opportunity as any I would get to let my father know that not everything he said and did agreed with me. But when I spoke I did so gently. ‘Pitaji, this is bharam (superstition). The waters of the Ganga are no more sacred than those of the Yamuna, Ravi, Narmada, Kaveri, Krishna or the Brahmaputra. Or for that matter the Thames, Rhine, Danube, Volga, Seine or the Mississippi. Now most of the rivers in the West are polluted with industrial effluents as ours are with garbage, human excreta and half-burnt corpses. At Haridwar the Ganga is clean because it descends from snow-clad mountains. But see it after it has run past Allahabad, Varanasi and Patna and you would hesitate to put your foot in it. By the time it becomes the Hooghly in Bengal, it stinks like a sewer.’
My father snubbed me: ‘Don’t talk like that! I don’t know about other rivers but scientists have analysed the water of the Ganga and found unique healing properties in it. No other river in the world can match it. It is not for nothing that our ancients declared it holy, our sages lived in caves along its course and meditated on its banks. You have been contaminated by Western materialism.’
There was no point arguing with a man so set in his ideas. With the years my father had turned into a religious zealot. He was a good, caring and kindly man who never hurt anyone nor ever said an unkind word against another human being. But he had become a bigot. It was too late to change him. We did not exchange many words during the rest of our journey.
Father rang up Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram and told him of our return from Haridwar. ‘When would it be convenient for us to call on you and pay our respects? Or would you honour us with a visit to our humble abode? We live in a small DDA flat.’ His tone was very obsequious. Achint Ram invited us to come for tea the following day.
This time my father did not ask his rich Sikh friend to lend him his Mercedes Benz. ‘I don’t want to give them a false impression of ourselves. We will go in a taxi.’
My father dressed himself in sherwani and churidars and tied a grey turban round his head. I wore a Princeton T-shirt and blue denims. I knew I looked best in casuals. We hired a taxi and told the driver to take us to the address on Prithvi Raj Road. It was among the most expensive residential areas in New Delhi. Our taxi pulled up under the porch of a large double-storeyed house surrounded by a well-kept garden—an open lawn with a marble fountain in the centre, flower beds with large chrysanthemums. A liveried bearer opened the door and let us into the drawing room. Huge sofas and armchairs, ornate black marble tables, two huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, photographs of the President, the Prime Minister and members of the family in silver frames—everything smelt of newly acquired wealth and social status.
The Rai Bahadur came out of his study and embraced my father. They were about the same age and the same height. But Father was a lean man; Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram had quite a paunch and wore thick glasses. I bowed my head as I said ‘Namaste’, and he put his hand on it. He addressed me as ‘Beta’ and asked us to sit down. He called out to the servant to bring tea and tell the rest of the family that the guests had arrived. His three sons came first and shook hands with me, but there was no warmth in their handshakes. They were followed by their wives—all over-made-up, over-dressed and loaded with jewellery. They folded their hands, said namaste and sat down on the sofa furthest from us. They were not expected to open their mouths. They did not. Then came Achint Ram’s wife, a fat woman, also loaded with jewellery. Behind her came her daughter, properly decked up for inspection.
Tea was served and cakes passed round. The Rai Bahadur took my father aside and the two men went into a huddle. The boys got talking to me. The asked me about my school and college in India and my years abroad. In turn I asked them where they had studied. They had gone to the elitist Modern School and then joined their father’s business. ‘What is the point of getting degrees from colleges?’ said the eldest, ‘they don’t help you in business. For that you need practical experience.’ That gave me an opening to talk to the girl. ‘Do you agree?’ I asked and she snapped back, ‘Of course not. I don’t want to go into any business or work in any office. I did my BA in English literature from Miranda House. Papa would not let me do an MA.’
Her mother intervened, ‘Sonu is our one and only daughter. No one wants to marry girls who are better educated than they. She is the first in our family to have gone to college. We are very proud of her.’
Sonu gave a wan smile. I had a good look at her: fair-skinned, slender but with an alarming resemblance to her obese mother. This was evidently the first time she had been subjected to the indignity of an inspection and she did not relish it. She looked sullen and would undoubtedly take it out on her parents as soon we left.
When it was time for us to leave, everyone stood up. I towered above all of them. I was certainly a lot more presentable than the girl’s brothers. The entire family came to see us off at the porch. The Rai Bahadur saw the waiting taxi and ordered his bearer to pay off the cab driver and send for his car. My father made a mild protest and tried to pay the fare. Rai Bahadur held his hand. ‘No, brother, I will not allow it. My driver will take you home in my car.’ They embraced again. I touched the Rai Bahadur’s and his wife’s feet. ‘Jeetey raho, beta (May you live long, son),’ said the Rai Bahadur. ‘Lammee umar hove puttar (May you have a long life, son),’ said his wife. I shook hands with the boys and said namaste to their wives and to Sonu, who folded her hands in response but said nothing. She looked unsure of herself.
On the way home my father was in an expansive mood. ‘The Rai Bahadur told me that his daughter will get an equal share of his property with her brothers. That could be several crores. He’s more than willing to make you a business partner. The girl is not bad looking. She’s educated. It may take her some time to adjust to our modest lifestyle, but where would she find a handsomer and better qualified husband than you? I have told the Rai Bahadur that I cannot make a final commitment till I have consulted you. Now it is for you to decide. I have promised to get back to him in two days.’
What did I make of the Achint Ram family? They had everything I disliked about upstart Punjabi families. Pots of money but no class. I had seen enough evidence of that in their sitting-room. Black marble floor, white marble walls, chandeliers more appropriate in the lobby of a hotel than a private home. Italian marble tables with silver framed photographs of powerful politicians, but no Gandhi, no Nehru. Despite the large garden there were plastic flowers in ornate vases and crystal bowls with plastic bananas, cherries, apples, grapes and pineapples. I suspected that the chandeliers were not made of cut glass but of plastic. Achint Ram had dyed his hair and walrus moustache, but the white at the roots showed they needed a fresh coat of dye. His black sherwani had gold buttons studded with diamonds. The walking stick he carried even inside the house was of black ebony with an ivory handle carved to resemble a snarling lion. His wife was as fat as him and decorated like a Christmas tree with heavy gold jewellery: earrings, necklaces, bangles and rings. I had expected the sons to be more sophisticated than their parents, but they had turned out to be arrivistes as well. They wore Western clothes but with shiny bright red ties, and red handkerchiefs sticking out of their front pockets. All three had used too much perfume, had gold or platinum rings with precious stones on their fingers, and gold-chained wrist-watches worn with the dials facing inwards. And they kept cracking their fingers—thig, thig, thig. The youngest was the most crude; while talking to me in his loud voice he kept jigging his legs. First he rested one leg on the other which he kept rapidly pushing up and down. Then he changed his style of shaking them by spreading out his thighs and bringing them together—endlessly. How could I have a serious coversation with someone who was fidgeting all the time?
Achint Ram’s daughters-in-law sat like dumb painted dolls without any expression on their faces. They kept gaping at me as if envying their sister-in-law for having landed a husband who was more handsome and better educated than their own husbands.
Then there was their Mercedes Benz which brought us home. There was a silver Ganpati on the dashboard and a bottle of perfume beside it. A fluffy gnome dangled on the rear pane.
It was no use telling my father about the lack of class in this rich family; he would not have understood. I also felt it was not fair to club Sonu with the rest of the family. She was beddable enough and I could teach her about the right style of living and behaviour, the difference between crystal, cut glass and plastic.
I weighed the pros and cons of marriage. To me sex was the more pressing need than love or companionship. For too long have we been fooled into believing that the basis of a happy man-woman relationship is love. Love is an elusive concept and means different things to different people. There is nothing elusive about lust because it means the same thing to all people: it is the physical expression of liking a person of the opposite sex. Cuddling, kissing and fondling leading to sexual intercourse. Love cannot last very long without lust. Lust has no time-limit and is the true foundation of love and affection.
In America I had got all the sex I wanted, and without long-term commitments. In India it was not so easy. I did not relish the idea of visiting prostitutes or looking for call girls. Even if I succeeded in persuading a working woman to share my bed, there was no place I could take her to: Indians do not believe in privacy; they are a nosey people and the one thing they will not do is mind their own business. At least marriage would ensure a woman in my bed.
I also thought over the wisdom of marrying a rich man’s daughter and bringing her out of a large mansion to a pokey little flat. I would have to find better accommodation and earn enough to keep her in the style she was accustomed to. I did not want to be beholden to her father and be treated as a ghar jamai—the resident son-in-law.
Then there was Sonu herself: passably fair and undoubtedly looking forward to marriage like all Indian girls of her age do, but a little haughty. She was almost certain to be a virgin and looked the kind who might resent my not being one. During the tea session she was sulking, as if preparing herself for a rejection: if you don’t like me, go to hell and find another girl. If I said yes, she might think that I was swayed more by her father’s wealth and position than her looks.
Father was obviously looking forward to a matrimonial alliance that would raise his status in society. Lala Achint Ram was keen to have an ‘America-returned’, highly educated boy as his son-in-law to add respectability and sophistication to all the benefits of wealth that he already had. Everything depended on my saying yes.
Ultimately, it was fantasizing about deflowering Sonu, the haughty little memsahib, and having her in bed whenever I wanted to that made me decide in favour of accepting the offer.
The next afternoon my father asked me, ‘So, puttar, have you thought over the matter?’
‘Yes, Papa,’ I replied, ‘I’m willing. But I don’t think it would be right to bring a girl from that kind of family into a tiny flat like ours. If you agree we can sell this place and get a larger one in a better locality. I think I have enough dollars saved up. We can pool our resources and find something more spacious. At least three bedrooms with bathrooms: one for you, one for ourselves, one for the guests. A sitting-dining room, servant quarters, a garage and perhaps a small garden.’
‘I have been thinking about that myself,’ he replied, ‘but houses like that cost a lot. I’m not sure we’ll have enough even with your dollars to buy such a large house in a good neighbourhood. I will get in touch with property dealers straightaway. So can I tell Lalaji that we are agreeable to the match?’
I nodded my head.
I could see my father was bursting with desire to convey the news to Achint Ram but he held himself back. He told me he would first go to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib to seek the blessings of the Sikh Gurus and then to the Sai Baba temple before talking to anyone. He was gone for many hours and come back with prasad from both places and ordered me to eat it. He picked up the phone and got Achint Ram on the line. ‘Rai Bahadurji, my son and I are agreed that he and Sonu would make a very happy couple. A hundred thousand felicitations to you and Bhabhiji.’
Rai Bahadur told his wife. She came on the phone. My father repeated the same words to her. ‘And Bhabiji we are looking for a nice house for the daughter of a noble family. Our flat is not good enough for her. We hope to find one soon.’
She handed the phone back to her husband. My father told him about looking for a nice house and assured him that we had enough money to buy one. ‘But of course, Rai Bahadurji, if we need any help, who else will we turn to? But right now it is all under control, I am contacting property dealers for the best possible deal …’ He was going on and on. He put his hand on the mouthpiece and said to me, ‘He’s asking his wife about something.’ Achint Ram came back on the line, and father said, ‘Oh, shagun! You consult your astrologer and fix a suitable time and date. Give us a week or ten days to get things for Sonu. Perhaps we should have the same astrologer examine both Mohan’s and Sonu’s horoscopes. I’m sure they will match.’
I was suddenly transported from a world in which men and women bedded each other if they so desired into another where they sought the guidance of palmists, astrologers and soothsayers before taking off their clothes. I decided to go along with everything my father wanted. Perhaps I should not have, but I hate discord and unnecessary complications in life. Father and Rai Bahadur could do what they liked; Sonu was beddable enough, how the marriage was conducted was not important.
Finding a new house proved surprisingly difficult. I had no idea how exorbitant property rates were in Delhi. Father was right; even after selling his flat and using up all the dollars I had saved, we would not have enough money to buy the kind of house I wanted. Besides, every one insisted on more than half the money in cash which would not be shown in the papers. Neither my father nor I had any black money. Lala Achint Ram let us exhaust ourselves and cleverly waited till my father was frustrated and hinted to him that his daughter might have to suffer a small house for a couple of years after marriage till we found a larger one. Then the Lala acted—he bought a three-bedroom flat in Maharani Bagh jointly in his daughter’s and my names. Again, I allowed Father to persuade me into accepting the deal. Though to be honest, I too was relieved to be out of our depressing, poky DDA flat.
Once again an astrologer was consulted, prayers offered at Hindu and Sikh temples, and the date and time fixed for a change of residence. We spent the morning of the chosen day helping labourers load our furniture onto trucks. My father oversaw the packing in the old house, I received the furniture at the other end. The new house had been well looked after by the widow who owned it before us and she kindly assisted me in arranging the carpets, sofas, tables and chairs. By the time my father arrived on the last truck carrying odds and ends, the new house looked lived in. He came armed with a Sikh granthi and a Hindu priest. The bearded granthi recited a short ardaas; the pandit chanted shlokas in Sanskrit. We distributed halwa to everyone present, including the truck drivers and labourers.
There were lots of hassles to be overcome before we could settle in comfortably. The telephone number had to be transferred from the old to the new residence; electricity and water bills to be directed to us. And much else. My father knew how to go about such things. He simply paid the linesmen and meter readers more than they expected and they sorted out the details.
A date and time for the shagun was fixed. We, father and son, would go to Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram’s home at the appointed time with gifts for the family. Sonu and I would exchange rings after which I would be allowed to visit her in her home. The date for the wedding would be fixed by mutual consent, as also details of how many people would come with the bridegroom’s party and who would be invited for the wedding reception.
It was a different Sonu I saw when I went with my father for the shagun. She looked radiantly happy; as if she had passed the most important exam in her life with flying colours. Father had brought a suit length for the Rai Bahadur; a sari for his wife; metres of silk for Sonu’s salwar-kameez and a gold necklace my mother had worn; suit lengths for the sons. I carried a gold ring in my pocket. After I had touched her parents’ feet and shaken hands with her brothers, Sonu asked me saucily, ‘Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?’ I shook her by the hand, put my arm round her shoulders and embraced her. She blushed. Her mother remarked, ‘What a lovely couple you make! May both of you live long and have seven sons!’
Sonu went red in the face. ‘O shut up, Mummy. No one is allowed to have more than two.’
It was a cordial union. Sonu and I sat on the same sofa. I took out the gold ring I had brought with me and slipped it on her finger. My father put the gold necklace round her neck. Her mother handed her a ring with a diamond. She took my left hand and slipped it on my finger. Presents were exchanged: suit lengths for my father, a suit length and a gold watch for me. Father gave them what he had brought for the family. After another round of embraces, tea was served. Sonu poured out cups for my father and me. She addressed him as Pitaji; me as Mohanji. ‘You must tell me about your college days in America,’ she said. ‘Come out with me this evening,’ I replied, ‘and I’ll tell you all,’ to which her mother said, ‘Puttar, you come here any time you want to talk to Sonu. We can’t allow you to go out together yet; people begin to talk.’
After the ceremony was over, we were driven back in the Rai Bahadur’s Toyota. My father was still riding on cloud nine. ‘We are very lucky to have made such a good alliance. Your future is assured.’ I brought him down to earth. ‘Papa, I don’t mean to live on Sonu’s money. You have already made me accept the house they bought for us. I can’t take any further obligations from my father-in-law. I don’t intend becoming a ghar jamai. I have to set up my own business and earn my own livelihood.’
The question of my future was in the Rai Bahadur’s mind as well. When I visited their house the next day to spend some time with Sonu, he took me out to his garden and asked me, ‘Puttar, what are your plans?’
I told him that I meant to buy some running concern which was not doing well or set up one of my own. I was looking for space to set up my office. ‘What kind of business?’ he asked. ‘I have many going concerns, you could pick up one of them with office and staff provided.’
‘Pitaji, if you don’t mind I would rather have an independent business of my own. Import-export, manufacturing car parts, or machinery. I’m a computer expert; I can handle accounts and staff. I can handle anything.’
He was impressed by my self-confidence. However, eventually it was through him that I got in touch with a couple of society women who were running a garments export outfit on a very modest scale. It brought them more headaches than money, and they readily agreed to sell me their stock which was mostly junk and their goodwill which was worse than junk. They were also willing to give me the list of their clients abroad. I signed a deal with them. Again it was through the Rai Bahadur’s influence that I was able to rent two floors of a high-rise building in Nehru Place. I put in advertisements for clerks and accountants and personally interviewed every applicant, offering higher salaries than the going rate in the employment market. I had my firm registered and stationery printed. It was hard work running from one government office to another. I spent a fortune on taxi fares till I bought myself a secondhand Fiat. I was quick to learn the tricks of the trade, the most important being: when you run into an unsolvable problem, use grease liberally; it opens all doors.
I made it a point to drop in at the Achint Ram residence regularly and inform them of the progress I was making. Sonu started nagging me. ‘So you found a few minutes to see me as well?’ would be her opening remark. I tried to reassure her: ‘It is for you, us, that I’m slogging day and night. I want you to have the same comforts you have enjoyed in your parents’ home.’ She had the last word: ‘As if money is everything,’ which, considering her lifestyle and the things she expected—cars, servants, jewellery—was a stupid thing to say. But I did not tell her that.
My business picked up very fast. In addition to readymade garments of high quality, I started exporting semi-precious stones, leather goods, spices and basmati rice. I imported nothing, and I earned foreign exchange for my country. The Rai Bahadur made it easy for me to become a member of Delhi’s top clubs—the Golf Club, the Gymkhana and the India International Centre. He was keen that I become a member of the Rotary Club of Delhi as well. ‘You’ll make good business contacts,’ he assured me. ‘All Rotarians are leaders in their respective fields: top industrialists, doctors, engineers, professors—the cream of Delhi society. You have established yourself as an entrepreneur, you should make it easily. If you like I can speak to the chairman of the South Delhi Rotary. I was chairman twenty years ago.’
I avoided giving a straight answer; ‘Let my business pick up a little more,’ I said. The fact was that I did not have the slightest wish to join a club like the Rotary or the Lions club. I had attended a few Rotarian lunches in the States and found them uniformly puerile and boring. They followed a ritual which made no sense. The chairman wearing an insignia round his neck clanged a bell to declare the meeting open. They got down to eating a tasteless meal. The chairman proceeded to welcome new members. A big hand for each. He named members who had celebrated their birthdays that week. Another round of clapping. The hero of the function was the fellow who had not missed a single luncheon meeting. The biggest hand for him. And finally, the guest speaker was asked to deliver a speech. No more than fifteen-twenty minutes, just enough time for the gentlemen of the Rotary to let their gastric juices dissolve what they had consumed or to release gases that had accumulated in their bellies. They were constipated with self-esteem and considered themselves good citizens who performed their civic duties: arranged blood donation camps, and free eye operations, put benches in parks and at roadsides, raised contributions for some charity. I could do all that without lunching every week with the champion bores of the city.
Barely a year after my return from the States, I had acquired, or was well on my way to acquiring, the essentials that a successful businessman should have. The only thing that I did not have was the company of a woman. And sex. I was ready to get married. Father was beginning to get impatient. The Rai Bahadur and his wife were also anxious to fix a date for their daughter’s marriage. ‘Long engagements are not good,’ pronounced Sonu’s mother, ‘and you have been engaged for over seven months.’
Consultations followed. An auspicious day was found in the Hindu calendar. Fancy wedding cards with an embossed figure of Ganpati were printed by both sides. My father did not have many friends but the news that his son was to marry Rai Bahadur Achint Ram’s only daughter revived many old friendships and relations. We were able to muster nearly a hundred people to join the bridegroom’s party. For Rai Bahadur it was an occasion to display his wealth and high connections; ministers, governors, judges, senior bureaucrats and over a thousand others of the elite of the city accepted his invitation. I rode from my house to Sonu’s on a white horse which had half its body covered with gold cloth. Strings of jasmine buds covered my face. In front of me a brass band played the latest hits from Hindi films, behind me a dozen fat men and women danced the bhangra—amongst them my aged father in a pink turban. He threw handfuls of coins over the crowd. Street urchins dashed in and out from under people’s legs to collect them. Dozens of men carrying neon lights on their heads marched along on either side. At another time I would have thrown up on seeing such a garish display of vulgar opulence, but I had to remind myself that I was the central figure of this charade; the bridegroom.
Rai Bahadur’s mansion was aglitter with coloured bulbs; red and yellow lights shone on the walls, over the shrubbery in the large garden, even in the trees lining the road leading up to the bungalow. Two shehnai players with tabla accompanists sat on a platform playing wedding melodies. As soon as our party arrived at the gate they stopped. An army band struck up. All around us were offical security guards with guns slung from their shoulders. Clearly the ministers and governors had arrived. I dismounted from my horse and was pushed forward to be received by my in-laws to be. I put a garland of flowers round Sonu’s neck; she put one round mine. Rai Bahadur conducted me to the lawn to introduce me to his innumerable guests. I shook hundreds of hands and received hundreds of congratulations. The auspicious hour was near. I was taken to a small square pit in which the sacred fire burnt. Sonu and I were seated side by side. Our respective pandits confronted each other and cross-checked our credentials. Sonu’s pandit recited shlokas and every few minutes asked Sonu and me to take a handful of rice, sesame seeds and incense to throw into the fire. Every time we did so he chanted ‘Swaha’. This went on for more than half an hour. Then he made us walk round the fire seven times. We sat down again. There were more swahas. He put Sonu’s hand in mine and pronounced us husband and wife.
The Rai Bahadur had on display the dowry he was giving his daughter. Stacks of expensive Banaras and Kanjeevaram saris, gold bangles, a diamond necklace, diamond ear studs and a diamond nose pin. Capping them all was a brand new Mercedes Benz decked in flowers in which I was to take away my bride. He asked the most senior Union Minister who was at the wedding—the Finance Minister—to hand me the keys of the car. It was as dazzling a display of wealth as any I had seen.
After everyone had eaten the sumptuous dinner laid out on the lawn, it was time for me to take Sonu to her new home. There was much sobbing and crying. Her parents wept as if they had lost their only child. Even her brothers cried as they bade her farewell. Sonu sat in front with me. My father took the rear seat. We drove in silence to our flat in Maharani Bagh. My father had had it festooned with coloured lights. In the absence of female relations, he had done up my bedroom. Garlands of marigold hung from the ceiling fan. Jasmine petals were strewn on our bed. For some time we sat in the sitting room. We had nothing much to say to each other. At last my father got up and said, ‘You must be very tired; I certainly am. I will go to bed. You take your time and retire when you like.’ Both of us got up. He put his hands on our heads and said, ‘May you be happy for ever and ever.’
Sonu and I sat for a while holding hands. She was bewildered by her new surroundings. And apprehensive of what was to come. She had heard much about the suhaag raat—the first night of marriage. She later told me that her friends had ‘warned’ her that being deflowered was painful and bloody. Thereafter, they had said, the same act became something one wanted to be repeated again and again. Sonu dreaded the initiation the way some people dread a doctor’s needle.
I escorted her to our bedroom. ‘Take off all your jewellery and get into something comfortable,’ I told her.
She stood in front of the dressing room mirror and slowly divested herself of the gold teeka dangling on her forehead, the earrings, gold bangles and the necklace. She did not remove the ivory bangles which covered her forearms: a bride has to wear them for at least a fortnight. She went into the bathroom and changed from her sari into a diaphanous dressing gown. I sensed her nervousness and tried to reassure her. ‘You are a beautiful girl,’ I said. She looked down at her breasts, belly and legs. ‘You think so? Nobody has told me that before. Only my mother.’
‘I’m telling you, that should be enough.’
I sat down on my bed, still wearing my wedding attire of sherwani and churidars. I took her by the hand, seated her in my lap. ‘Are you going to hurt me?’ she asked.
I kissed her on the back of her neck and replied, ‘It hurts a little the first time.’
‘Can’t you put it off for a few days? I’m not ready for it.’
‘As you wish. There’s no hurry. We have a lifetime ahead for it. But you will let me kiss you, won’t you? And lie with me for a while?’
She turned her face towards me and pecked me on the nose. ‘Not like this,’ I told her, as I laid her head on the pillow and pressed my lips on hers. She clenched her mouth. I put my arms round her and held her close to my body. She went stiff. I gently massaged her back till she relaxed. I put my hand on her bosom. She went stiff again and brushed away my hand. ‘Enough for the first night,’ she said peremptorily. ‘Now you sleep in your bed, I will sleep in mine. I have never shared my bed with anyone before.’
She got up and lay down on her bed. I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and got into my night clothes. I was aching with lust, desperate to deflower her. That was what the suhaag raat was meant for. It would have to be postponed for a day or two. I switched off the light. And fantasized about Jessica and the other women I had laid, most of all the fat Yasmeen Wanchoo with buttocks like overripe pumpkins pounding away on top of me.