Emergency Wife and The Coal Truth
Madhavkant called me to his cabin. ‘Have you ever been to Calcutta?’
‘No, sir, I have been wanting to, but never found an opportunity.’
‘First of all, stop calling me sir. Maybe not Madhavkant, but you could certainly address me as Madhavkantji.’ I realized that Madhavkant also had a strong objection to the word mahila being used in the magazine since it appeared to be a literal translation of the English word ‘lady’.
‘In any case, for the time being, you be off to Calcutta on an official junket. Coal India is taking a group of journalists on a trip to Calcutta, Jharia and some other places. Their PRO had called. They’ll put you up at Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta. It’s a grand old hotel on the last leg of its greatness.’ Madhavkant handed me the letter and asked me to contact the PRO right away. ‘Journalists like you have been to Amsterdam on pleasure trips but haven’t seen Calcutta yet! You should be ashamed and get down to seeing your own country first.’
As I came out nursing the dream of seeing Calcutta, my colleague and long-time assistant editor Sanjay Srivastava chimed in, ‘Sudhir, you must enjoy the Calcutta nightlife. It’s amazing.’
A grand welcome awaited the bunch of Delhi journalists in Calcutta. Great Eastern Hotel was counting its last days, in the manner of a decrepit zamindar’s dilapidated haveli. It reminded me of the pile in Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar. As I was heading for my room, I noticed a call girl wandering in the corridor. She beckoned me, but I had to catch the early morning train to Jharia. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I have to catch an early train,’ I said, but in a way which implied that if I were not to catch the train, I would have taken her in.
Actually, I was a little drunk on beer. At dinner, I had encountered a Marwari boy who was hell-bent on propounding his outlandish theory to convince me as to why Bengali wenches were so hot. He was a dedicated vegetarian but it looked like he had done great research at some university on the effects on one’s body of consuming fish. I had been listening to his exciting narrative and then, overcome by lethargy, went searching for my room.
The guest house at Jharia was even grander than the hotel. The British had built it for their rest and recreation and the tradition was being majestically carried forward in a free India. We were to spend two nights there. At dinner on the first day, I somehow got embroiled in a discussion with Rajni Gupta, an English journalist.
She was referring to the protocol laid down by some western newspaper according to which, if in the course of writing a story, a journalist were to interview a person, he was to bluntly refuse to accept even a cup of tea offered to him. Soon, we were hotly debating the saying, ‘There’s no free lunch’, since every perk had its price.
‘And now, look around and you’d notice we are enjoying the best hospitality at this guest house. What kind of a report are we going to write in this situation? Wolf down your chicken, down it with beer, sleep in an air-conditioned room and pray to God!’ Rajni’s voice was heavily laced with sarcasm.
For a time, I had this feeling that a piece of chicken leg I was in the middle of chomping down had got stuck in my throat. I had to gulp the glass of beer in one go.
After an evening cocooned in our air-conditioned rooms, the following afternoon, we stood in the scorching sun facing the cruel truth about coal mines. We went down to tour a so-called safe mine, came up soon after and then had our photographs snapped. I was busy making a laughable effort to take off my rather flimsy helmet but the damn thing just wouldn’t come off until Rajni came to my rescue.
I now spotted a knot of people in a corner, a young man among them, who beckoned me persistently, perhaps wanting to speak to me. I recalled the angry young man I had encountered when doing the report about the dead fish. It looked like this young man was present everywhere to narrate the bitter truth. I went up to him as Rajni followed me.
‘Sir, whatever these people are showing you doesn’t represent the truth at all. If you are keen on knowing the truth, then follow me. I’ll take only ten minutes of your time.’ He was a real angry young man – not the silver screen one in the mould of Amitabh Bachchan.
He walked us to his colony where a group immediately poured their hearts out and told us unvarnished narratives which summed up their complaints, compulsions and poor working conditions. Rajni was busy clicking pictures. Just then, a security guard walked in and snatched Rajni’s camera away from her. Things got a little heated at this point but Jaitley, the PRO, somehow managed to save the situation and Rajni got her camera back.
I didn’t join in the dinner that evening. Instead, I ordered it in the room. I was busy writing my report about the ‘coal truth’. Just then, there was a knock on my door. It was Rajni. She came carrying with her a glass of beer.
‘May I come in?’ she asked, as she entered. I left the door ajar. ‘What’s this, Sudhir? The air-conditioning would go haywire. Please close the door. The PRO has already screwed me, now he’s looking for you.’
I smiled weakly in the middle of my depression. Jaitley was now knocking at my door. He very politely sought permission to enter the room. Then he noticed the sheets of my incomplete report strewn across my table.
‘Great! You seem to have already started to write the report. But please have mercy on my job and do a balanced story. These labourers can never be appeased. All they have is a string of complaints.’
‘Mr Jaitley, tell me, what’s a balanced story?’ Rajni looked at him.
‘What I mean is, it should tell the truth from both sides.’
‘A true lie or a false truth?’ Rajni was clearly a little tipsy.
This discussion obviously didn’t have to reach a conclusion. In any case, the following morning, I got a message from my office that Kakkar Sr didn’t want my report published. He had issued a new ukase that in future, all sponsored trips were to be cleared by the management. The editor could no longer send a journalist on an assignment on his own.
‘Does this report also hurt the interests of the family?’ I asked Madhavkant over the phone.
‘I don’t know anything. And you better not try to make too many inquiries. Enjoy your Calcutta trip as much as you can. Jaitley has already booked your flight for tomorrow morning.’
I had brought up with the PRO the problems of travelling by train so he had booked our flights on the pretext of not being able to get us train reservations for our return journey. It was my last evening in Calcutta and photographer Karmvir and I were wandering around Park Street after leaving a bar. Suddenly, a rickshaw-puller hailed us from a dark corner, ‘Saheb, would you like to see some dance? A naked dance.’
I recalled Sanjay Srivastava’s remark about the Calcutta nightlife and, standing in Park Street, began to conjure up sweet dreams of Parisian nightlife in the Pigalle area.
But since the morning, I had a strange niggling feeling. The truth about coal had dragged me deep into a mine where the angry young man stood facing me and asking me how could I pretend to understand the situation while I enjoyed the comforts of Coal India’s palatial guest house, and what truth could I see. I told my colleague, ‘Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. We have to catch the flight at 5 in the morning. That Marwari boy had told me the rickshaw-pullers of Free School Street in the Park Street area are all agents of prostitutes’ dens.’
‘Then let’s go. We’ll go right there. I’ve never really seen the inside of the red-light area.’ Karmvir was swinging.
‘The thing is I have this brand new flashy watch given to me on my engagement day and quite a bit of cash in my purse. That Marwari had warned me that if you go up to them, they’d virtually clean you out. The ideal thing would be to carry just 20 rupees and land up there in underwear.’
‘Come on, I’m also carrying cash,’ and he showed me a wad of 100-rupee notes.
On our return to the hotel, we noticed dressed-up beauties wandering about in the hotel corridor. ‘Well, there’s no danger here!’ the photographer said. ‘Try to understand. I don’t want to have sex. All I want is to take a few nude pics. Artistic photos. It’s very difficult to bring such models to our Delhi studio.’
‘In that case, catch hold of any of them, show her the money and take her to your room. Why do you need me?’
‘Try to understand. I need you to retain my confidence. Left alone, I’d be nervous.’
‘But you’ll have to do the talking.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Just stay with me.’
After much persuasion, one girl agreed to become a model for 50 rupees. Karmvir took her to his room, while I followed in as his assistant.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Do you mean to interview me or what? This is a profession where one has no name and no identity. Choose whatever name you fancy. Rosie, Reena, Shabnam, Madhubala … any name will do.’
‘Rosie darling,’ Karmvir now addressed her as he set up his camera, ‘Why don’t you take off your clothes?’
‘I’m desperately hungry,’ said the girl, ‘Haven’t eaten anything since this afternoon. You better order some chicken and beer so I am able to look alive. And listen, if the two of you also mean to spill the stuff, then there’s a separate charge of 100 bucks.’
Initially, I couldn’t make out what she meant by the word ‘stuff’. Then it dawned on me that she was referring to what in UP is notoriously claimed to be selling at 80 rupees for 10 grams – to wit, the sperm. I couldn’t help laughing.
Karmvir placed an order on the phone. The beer and chicken created a certain kind of ambience but I refrained from taking anything. I was not myself. When I told Karmvir I was off to my room, he didn’t insist I stay back. By now, he was addressing Rosie as Shabbo in a completely filmy style.
Lying in my bed till late into the night, I tried to imagine how Karmvir must have clicked artistic nudes of a famished girl. Did he snap her pictures the way he was snapping in quick succession at the Jharia coal mines?
In the morning at the Dum Dum airport, Karmvir looked very fresh. ‘How come you look so sanctified?’ I said.
‘Well, I got up at 4 in the morning to go up to the Kali temple. The atmosphere there was so pleasant and solemn … It was so peaceful. The only thing that put me off was a dead cat lying right in front of the temple. But no faithful soul was willing to remove it.’
‘Then why couldn’t you remove it…’
‘It was beyond my ken to pick up that dead piece of flesh early in the morning. My mood would have been ruined…’
On my return to Delhi, I decided not to get into any argument with Madhavkant about my report. Instead, I quietly put together an imaginary interview with Rosie, the desperately hungry girl. A few things were true, the rest was all fantasy and imagination. The corridor of the Great Eastern Hotel got transformed into a lane in Sonagachhi. And I didn’t encounter Rosie in a gentleman’s preserve like the Great Eastern. The Rosie that I met in Sonagachhi had lost her father in an accident in a coal mine. A company officer had then brought her over to Calcutta. Or so I said in my report.
But it was liked and there was a stream of letters to the editor. The date of my marriage was coming close. Sudha would read each of my reports very closely. And after going through Rosie’s interview, she appeared quite disturbed.
The political atmosphere in the country was heavily charged at the time. Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement was at its peak, and it seemed the world was on the verge of transforming for the better. Madhavkant became quite emotional about journalism during this phase. He was especially popular in Bihar as a journalist with a combative spirit.
I remember being at an exhibition of abstract paintings with Madhavkant where he said to me, ‘I really don’t know much about paintings but I do feel that even today, one could write about the subject with a lot of emotion.’
The problem was that while immersed in his work and swinging on a highly emotional note, Madhavkant tended to forget that he was primarily an employee of a capitalist outfit. That he had not been given the editor’s chair, a cabin, a car, and all the attendant perks, to lead any popular movement. Surely, it was his job to bring out the truth and to take everyone to task in the process, but one couldn’t transform a magazine owned by a company into a pamphlet issued by a popular movement. And if one meant to do that, there would be a price to pay.
Not that Ranvir Saxena was silent about the movement in his colour magazine or was unwilling to say anything. But the management was particularly upset with Madhavkant’s style. Of course, one would need to do a lot of research to find out why the management didn’t throw him out. Maybe the company wanted him to resign on his own and leave quietly. But he held on.
Pravesh Tripathi continued to hope Madhavkant wouldn’t be able to save his chair. That the file on him, with quite a few serious charges, was ready. ‘The management is a strange bitch. You drive away with a company elephant through the main gateway with all the pomp and ceremony and yet, nobody will raise a whisper if you are on good terms with those who matter. But one fine morning, the same management might decide to catch you red-handed for stealing a needle.’
All this was true but Madhavkant was sacked only seven years after the Emergency, whereas once the Emergency had been declared, Pravesh Tripathi continued to hope every day that the management would suddenly offer him the editor’s position. In any case, he’d already passed away.
As for my marriage, my father had put a small condition – that the marriage would be solemnized only in Phaphamau. It was to be a simple ceremony without any dowry or a big baraat and only very close relatives were to be invited. Sudha’s family would have to come down to Phaphamau.
The marriage had been fixed for the evening of 25 June and on that very day, the Emergency was declared across the country. So I decided to give a name to Sudha in the marriage hall itself – Emergency Wife.
Three days after our marriage, Sudha said to me, ‘You look quite worried these days. You’d come out with such naughty and dirty stories but since our marriage, all you seem to do is sit there and sulk.’
‘Do you realize I might lose my job? Our magazine was in the forefront of the JP Movement.’
‘So what if it was? And why do you worry? If you lose your job, you could do something else. And I’m not one to sit at home either.’
Father shared that opinion. ‘Why is your editor so scared now? If you take a stand, then you also have to be prepared to suffer a bit. And why are you worried? Are you afraid of going to jail or what?’
I gave Father a surprised look. I couldn’t believe that a person who I thought was merely an orthodox Sanskrit scholar would take such a courageous stand on the Emergency.
That evening, I asked Sudha, ‘Okay, tell me absolutely truthfully. Do you really like my dirty stories? Don’t you get surprised or frightened by this side of a well-read writer–journalist’s persona?’
‘If you ask me, I just don’t like you as a serious person. Isn’t a writer–intellectual a human being too? Would you like to write a grave and solemn application to me before getting into bed with me in the evening? “I shall be grateful if you would kindly allow me to sleep with you tonight…”’
That evening, I read out to Sudha the so-called obscene letters James Joyce had penned for his wife Nora. Sudha listened to them and we continued to chat with gay abandon. For the first time since we got married, I felt light and unshackled. Emergency Wife had revived and restored my heart and rhythm.
Then I got this call from Madhavkant, asking me to cut short my vacation. The times were bad. On landing in Delhi that very evening, I headed straight for Madhavkant’s house. He looked quite worried and one could see the tension on his face. I was in his drawing room when he got a call from some officer in the Information Department. He was responding slowly and in a voice that sounded as if he was quite perturbed.
‘Well, it’s true he’s the head of the branch in his area and an old RSS follower. But in the office, he’s just an ordinary PA. He doesn’t have much of a standing and I’ve never been concerned with his politics.’
Madhavkant was sweating. He put down the phone but said nothing. There was complete silence in the room for about ten minutes. Maybe he wanted me to pose a question or expected me to ask him something. But I remained silent.
‘Come over with your wife for dinner. We’ve also bought a sari for her as a gift.’
I promised him that I certainly would. Then asked, ‘Madhavkantji, could your PA be arrested? I don’t really like his work but he is a gentleman. He also has a family to look after … children…’
Madhavkant wanted to change the subject. Then he suddenly phoned the personnel manager to brief him that the information department was making inquiries about his PA. ‘I’m merely informing you and not asking you to take any action.’ Saying this, Madhavkant put the phone down.
I returned to my room. A fortnight before my marriage, I had shifted to a tiny room in RK Puram’s Sector 8. The cooking range had to be installed on the writing table and there was a gas cylinder transferred from Phaphamau. Cockroaches seemed to have a field day under the range. Utensils and crockery had to be cleaned where one would normally sit and take a bath. I had to walk across the landlord’s drawing room to reach the cubbyhole. The only span of pleasure during this Emergency marriage was between 10 and 10.30 in the morning – just before I set out for the office.
That was the time when the landlord would leave for work, his children would have gone to school, and the landlady would have cleaned the house and gone for her one-hour puja session in her bedroom locked from inside.
By now, Sudha would also have finished the morning’s chores and would be ready to face the day dressed in her finery after a bath. The cockroaches under the cooking range would also mysteriously disappear. We’d now play some western classical music on our tiny music system and pump up the volume so the meditating landlady would not be disturbed.
‘You tend to play very loud music just when I am sitting down for my puja.’
‘Ma’am, the thing is, we don’t want to disturb you. You’d be more inconvenienced if we stopped playing the music. Then you won’t be able to perform the puja at all.’
Sudha had a hearty laugh as I explained this. The landlady got thinking for a while, then said, ‘We do all these things at night. But writers seem to have no sense of time for anything. Is that the time for—’
‘But ma’am, we aren’t writers any more. We’ve been reduced to the level of mere journalists. A ha’penny’s worth and cowardly ones to boot.’