Ghalib at Dusk Read online

  Rana asks Sanjay for the car keys so he can start loading their bags. Sanjay hands the keys to him slowly, unwillingly, and says he has to go to the bathroom before they leave. The bags are loaded. Urmila, Rana, his wife and the baby are in the car. They wait. Barely a couple of minutes elapse but the silence in the car weighs heavy, intensified by the sticky heat of the late July afternoon.

  Sanjay comes out on the verandah, humming a popular song, and then the phone rings.

  ‘Papa can get it!’ Urmila shouts before she can stop herself.

  ‘It may be important,’ Sanjay smiles. ‘I’m sorry.’ He bows in the direction of the car, exaggerating his apology. ‘Sorry, sorry, I won’t be a minute.’

  Urmila purses her lips as she watches him retrace his steps indoors. It’s getting hotter inside the car, the sun streaming in through the windshield. The thick humidity of July, before the rains come, is unbearable. She wipes the sweat from her face and feels her blouse damp under her armpits. She can hear Sanjay through the window that opens onto the porch. ‘Arre, sahib, where have you been? We’ve been trying to reach you every day at your office about that order.’ His ineffectual attempts at being the suave business man make her push her throbbing head back into the upholstery of the seat. The baby begins to whimper in the back and his mother murmurs to him. He’s hungry, or hot, and starts crying despite his mother’s efforts to soothe him. ‘Yes, certainly. He’s here and will gladly speak to you,’ Sanjay’s sweet melodious voice wafts out to her. She pushes her head harder against the seat to match the pressure inside. The caller wants Papa, as important callers always do. There was a time when Sanjay’s inadequacies used to make Urmila wince. People who do business with Sharma & Sons don’t trust her husband, but his seventy-year-old father. Sanjay has gone to look for him. It’s almost five, Urmila glances at her watch, and they haven’t yet started.

  ‘The station is only ten minutes away,’ Sanjay says, finally getting into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Urmila says reassuringly to Rana. ‘It’s not more than ten minutes by car.’

  But is it really ten minutes? It could be twenty. Urmila isn’t sure. She hardly goes out these days, only on Tuesdays and Thursdays to sat-sang meetings at a neighbour’s down the road. She reveres punctuality. Every morning, she’s done bathing by six so Asha can be roused and made to take her bath. The clothes are always in the washing machine by ten so the maid can hang them out when she comes around eleven. The lunch rotis are ready by one-fifteen so when Asha’s bus stops at the gate by one-thirty she can eat immediately. She never allows herself or Asha to nap beyond four in the afternoon. Tea is served at four-thirty. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons she almost never misses her sat-sang meetings. On Thursdays she fasts too, eating only in the evening.

  There is peace in this monotonous routine. She’d be lost if it were to change. When something keeps her from sat-sang she feels restless. Meeting the same women there over the years though she has no friends among them, listening to the swish of their starched saris, the squeals of their children playing outside, singing the same bhajans, waiting for the aarti tray to come round, placing the five-rupee note in it each time, inhaling the sweet suffocating smell of incense, walking back a little dazed, clutching the prasad for all of them at home—all this she needs to get through her weeks. She looks forward to Tuesday when the week begins, and then to Thursday, after which the week is almost at an end.

  Sanjay and Papa usually arrive home from work around nine-thirty. Sanjay likes to have a drink, his usual whisky and water, before dinner and goes for a walk after dinner. He has begun stopping at the temple on his walk. So he says. He told her about it and waited to see if she approved. His actions have long since ceased to make her happy or unhappy. If only he could leave her alone to get on with her days. But he has a way of insinuating through his scowls that she’s cruel, in spite of her fasting and devotion to sat-sang. He could go to the temple or not, she didn’t care as long as her Tuesdays and Thursdays continued unchanged.

  Six years ago her mother-in-law died. Urmila took over the household. It was she who now handled the servants, bought the right wheat, made pickles and preserves, and attended to the needs of her husband, daughter and father-in-law. Patience, tolerance, fortitude, these were a woman’s privilege and her essence, her mother-in-law had taught her. That Urmila labours at these roles passed down is something new and unwelcomed by her. She’s absorbed by her work, and yet some days she finds it hard to get out of bed. Images of green paddy fields, dense forests and rushing streams float before her and she sits lost for minutes, wondering why she should have such yearnings for solitude.

  ‘The baby is a copy of you,’ says Sanjay, gawking at Rana’s wife in the rear-view mirror as he backs the car out.

  ‘Of who?’ asks Urmila.

  Sanjay smiles and puts the car in gear. ‘His mother, of course.’

  ‘And how can you tell?’ Urmila snaps. ‘He’s barely four months old.’

  ‘It’s obvious to anyone. You just have to see his eyes and his forehead and then his mother’s.’

  Against her wiser self, Urmila is being drawn into stupid arguments. The two deep lines that have grown on her face in recent years from under her eyes down to her mouth deepen. She mustn’t let him get to her. He wants to humiliate her, he wants her to lose control before her guests. He wants that soft demure woman to feel sorry for him for having such a wife.

  Sanjay starts pointing out the sights of Allahabad to Rana and his wife in his unhurried manner, as if he’s out on a jaunt. What’s there to see in this decaying town, this mess of uncollected garbage, open drains, cow dung, stray cattle, scavenging pigs and dogs? Urmila has lived here for sixteen years and still she can’t get used to the filth that natives like Sanjay hardly notice. She shades her eyes from the blinding sun beating down on her forehead. Now one of those migraines will surely come on, the ones only vomiting will relieve.

  Rana’s wife shows an interest in the park they’re passing. She asks its name.

  ‘That’s Company Bagh,’ Sanjay informs her. ‘Now if you had only stayed a couple of days, we’d have taken you there for a picnic. And to Anand Bhavan too.’

  ‘You had all of yesterday to take them there,’ Urmila says.

  ‘You can change your mind and go by the early morning train, you know,’ Sanjay says, ignoring her.

  ‘Those pots!’ Rana’s wife points out to a man sitting on the ground by the roadside with clay pots and vases. ‘Are they hand-painted? They’re beautiful.’

  They’re nearing the station but Sanjay slows down.

  ‘Would you like to look at them? We can stop. Perhaps you can buy one or two?’ Sanjay’s voice has a plaintive, caressing quality that only Urmila can detect.

  ‘No, no. I just meant … next time, maybe,’ Rana’s wife replies shyly.

  ‘Question is, will there be a next time?’ Sanjay quips.

  Urmila turns to see the poor girl cowered against the window as if she feels responsible for Sanjay’s comment. Can she see the mesh he wants to wrap her in? From the way she ignores him, she probably has some inkling. But then, she’s the one who asked the name of the park, pointed out the pots. They’re playing games, Urmila thinks. Perhaps she’s not so artless.

  They reach the station. Rana says it’s five-fifteen and there’s no time to buy tickets. A coolie comes up to the car and Rana starts pulling out the bags from the trunk, loading them on his head. The coolie says the train’s leaving on time.

  ‘On time! That means it’s leaving in less than five minutes,’ Rana tells his wife. ‘We’ll have to run to the platform. Can you manage?’

  His wife nods and Rana starts after the coolie who’s already disappearing into the crowd.

  ‘Now in India trains are starting to leave on time. That’s the bad thing about progress,’ Sanjay laughs.

  Rana’s wife wishes them a hurried goodbye and trails after her husband. She struggles with the baby in her arms. Urmil
a watches until she is indistinguishable in the throng of travellers and red-shirted coolies darting about with bed rolls and suitcases on their heads, over-sized water bottles and tiffin carriers swinging from their thin arms.

  Sanjay is nowhere to be seen. Urmila stands by the car and waits. He may have gone for platform tickets she thinks, resting her tired back, sore from preparing elaborate breakfasts and lunches for her guests, against the car seat. She scans the crowd disinterestedly for Sanjay and finds herself wishing he would stay away just a little longer so this moment of quiet might last. But she can already see his white shirt and his broad forehead. He’s coming down the steps and seems to have tickets in hand. He’s thoughtful but his face seems ready to break into a smile. Urmila is puzzled to see him look so carefree and young, as if freed from her scrutiny he has regained his youth. There he is swaggering towards her, but as soon as he catches her gaze, he ages. Gone is that youthful expression. As he nears her, his face sags, his eyes becoming unsure, his gait that of a hopeless man.

  ‘They’re gone,’ she tells him with satisfaction.

  ‘Gone?’ he asks, disappointed. ‘But I have tickets for them. The train is on platform two. That’s not far. We can make it if we hurry. Or they’ll pay a fine for no reason.’

  Urmila wants to say there’s no way they can reach the platform with the tickets before the train leaves. If he is so bothered, he shouldn’t have made them late in the first place. But she sees his sweaty face, the blotches of red in his puffy cheeks, those brown patches under his eyes she attributes to drinking, and she finds him repulsive and pitiable. He’s wiping his face with a handkerchief and his eyes are far away, anxiously staring towards the platforms. He’s just a boy, Urmila thinks wearily.

  ‘Let’s hurry, then,’ she says, now benevolent and distant. She walks ahead and he follows. She can feel his eagerness and soon he is by her side, his gaze fixed on the signs overhead as if getting those tickets to the unsuspecting travellers is all that matters. At least he’s still aroused by simple causes. She feels petty and dried up before his zeal.

  He is rushing down the steps to the platform. Urmila stops to let a woman with many children pass. They block her view for a moment, those horrible, dirty, chattering children, and in an instant she’s lost. He’s gone, engulfed by the crowd surrounding her. She’s terrified. It’s Bombay all over again.

  The memory of being abandoned there three years ago starts to gnaw as she blinks and hastens her pace to find him. She and Asha had watched the train depart together, Asha crying for her papa. And Sanjay was waving. Waving at them! Smiling, bidding them goodbye. Did he not see the shock and disbelief in their faces? Did he not see his Asha crying? If she hadn’t had Asha with her, she too would have sat down in the dust and filth of the platform and wailed like a fresh widow. He left them, his wife and daughter, in Bombay on a platform full of strangers and without a care in the world went back all the way to Allahabad. He didn’t wait for them to board first, as any man with a family would do. Just jumped on himself and was gone.

  The headache she’s been anticipating since they left the house begins to throb at her temples. He did it on purpose, Urmila thinks, pressing the sides of her head with her hands. He wanted to pretend he had no wife, no child. Yes, he was at peace leaving us behind. Thoughtlessly, recklessly happy, just as he probably is now having gone ahead to get one last glimpse of Rana’s wife. A coolie in a faded red shirt comes up and tells her the compartment is just up ahead. She can’t recall if he’s the same man who took Rana’s luggage. He’s no different from the hundreds of dark, bow-legged, bent-backed coolies one sees at every station, but he seems to recognize her. She asks him to walk with her and in less than a minute she can see Sanjay. She fumbles for coins in her purse for the coolie.

  ‘It’s a few minutes late,’ Sanjay smiles at her. ‘We’re lucky.’

  She nods, out of breath, and smiles uncomprehendingly at Rana who’s standing at the compartment’s entrance. But where’s his wife? She’s feeding the baby, Rana says. The whistle sounds and the train begins to lumber out of the station. Urmila waves and Rana waves back. And then from a window she sees Rana’s wife, her face pressed to the glass. Urmila’s eyes dart to Sanjay’s face and she’s sure there’s a glow there that isn’t due to the heat. His blotchy face appears kinder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says as the last brown bogie vanishes into the dusty afternoon. ‘I had to run and leave you behind. I managed to give the tickets to Rana.’

  ‘I found my way,’ she replies. ‘As always.’

  His apology, not so much the words as their unspoken softness, is new. What is this gentleness in his voice, she wonders, gazing at the tracks. The tender shoots of new love sown by a woman who was here for a day? Where moments earlier the train stood now only urine-soaked gravel glints in the slanting afternoon sunlight, and she covers her nose against the stench with her dupatta. Sanjay is waiting for her and when she looks up she sees the lamps that lit his skin are extinguished, the illusion of softness gone from his face.

  ‘It’s so hot,’ she says. ‘Can we get a Limca or something? I have a bad headache.’

  ‘Certainly,’ he says obediently.

  They walk towards a cold-drinks stall on the platform. He motions her to stand a few paces from the stall. He can be so cordial with her, as if she were a schoolteacher he had run into after many years. Sanjay approaches the counter and asks for two bottles of Limca from a thin boy in a torn vest. The boy lets him touch the bottles to check for coldness. Sanjay returns them and the boy goes to the icebox and pulls out two more, wiping them with a dirty rag. Sanjay touches the new bottles and lets the boy open them.

  ‘Not very cold but that’s the best he has,’ he says, handing her a bottle.

  Urmila cleans the mouth of her bottle with a handkerchief. Sanjay empties his in three large gulps, and burps. She swallows small mouthfuls and feels the fizzy tanginess gurgling down to her stomach. The thought that she’s alone with him feels strange. He’s standing, eyes lowered, as if waiting for her to finish her drink. She watches the people ambling up and down the platform. With the train gone there’s a lull. The crowd of frenzied travellers has thinned. Coolies are squatting, smoking bidis and chatting, waiting for the next train to pull in. Urmila finishes her drink and wipes the sweat from her upper lip. She wishes they could talk, but what is there to talk about?

  In those early days of marriage too, they had little to say to each other. She thought it adequate to smile and lower her eyes when he complimented her on her dress or her cooking. When he came to meet her in Bombay before they were engaged, a meeting arranged by the elders of their family so the ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ could see each other, she didn’t say much. Nor did he, except for that one insignificant question. They sat in the restaurant with his parents, her parents, and the go-between uncle. The elders did most of the talking for them. She stared into her teacup and held her hands rigidly folded in her lap. He asked her just that one question, as if he’d been goaded into it. Which year of college was she in? She felt her hands entwine more tightly still and stared lower into her lap till her eyes were almost shut. Her mother had nudged her under the table and made her answer.

  Sanjay pays the boy for the drinks and walks towards the steps leading up to the parking lot. She starts a couple of paces behind him. What is this, Urmila wonders, pressing her hands to her temples to contain the throbbing. The heat, or her disturbed routine? She should never come out like this. It unsettles her. But she can’t explain the dull leaden weight, quite apart from the headache, that seems to be spreading and thickening inside her, making it hard to breathe. She tries to take in a lot of air with each breath. She wants to tell someone about this strange shortness of breath, even Sanjay, but he’s walking ahead of her. Was that love she felt when he stood there with the tickets looking like a lost, unhappy child? Love grows in a sacred place long since charred by him. Only cinders and ashes remain. Those memories—but she mustn’t let her mind go t
here now—to all the pettiness, all the pain. She clamps her lips as if to stifle a sob. But deep inside her, the sobs she hears are her own mingled with those of the servant girl.

  ‘How do you know it’s his child?’ Urmila had asked.

  ‘But it is,’ the girl wept. ‘I tried to tell you so many times, didi. He used to

  ‘When? When?’ Urmila pressed the girl. ‘Tell me when it happened? Where was I?’

  She pushed the girl for all the sordid details. In this room? On this bed? At night? In the mornings?

  Urmila cried for days after she let the girl go. Those nights on that bed of nails, whispering ‘How could you, and with a mere servant girl?’, sliding to the bed’s edge, to avoid his contaminating touch.

  Sanjay denied nothing, offered no defence, no opposition to her firing the girl. It was all left for her to decide. This power to choose diminished her irrevocably. His lies would have been less insulting, and her compromises more valiant, had he said, it was nothing, it was all a mistake, had he thrown himself at her feet when Urmila told him she wanted to leave. She would not have carried the burden of so formidable a silence with her all these years.

  As they reach home, Urmila is relieved to feel the black gathering heaviness clearing in her head. Now only the headache remains, a dull reminder of another storm mercifully passed. The sight of the black gate and the white house within revives her. There’s a promise of constancy the whitewashed bungalow holds out in the early evening light. There’ll be the servants awaiting her instructions for dinner. She feels grateful, as if she’s come to a place of worship. The sanctity of the home her resolve has held together, the intricate tapestry of domesticity she’s embroidered, the threads of pain that permeate this tapestry all magnanimously distance her from the doings of this man by her side.

  Asha comes out onto the porch to meet them, and before Urmila can get out of the car, she skips down the steps, and asks, beseechingly, if she can go for ice cream with two friends.