My Name Is Radha

Scorned

Drained from the day’s gruelling work, Saugandhi had fallen asleep almost as soon as she hit the bed. Minutes ago, the city’s sanitary inspector — she called him ‘Seth’—had gone home to his wife, dead drunk, after a prolonged session of stormy sex which had left even her bones aching. He would have stayed for the night but for the regard he had for his wife who loved him dearly.

The money that she had received from the inspector for her services was still stuffed in her tight-fitting bra, now stained with the man’s drool. Every so often the silver coins clinked a bit with the rise and fall of her breathing, the sound blending with the irregular rhythm of her heart. It was as if the molten silver of the coins was dripping into her bloodstream. Her chest was on fire, partly from the half-bottle of brandy the inspector had brought along and partly from the raw country liquor they had downed with plain water when the soda ran out.

She was lying face down on the large teakwood bed, her bare arms splayed out like the bow-shaped rib of a kite that has come loose from its dew-drenched paper. The grainy flesh visible in her right armpit had acquired a bluish tint from frequent shaving and looked like a graft from the skin of a freshly plucked chicken.

It was a small room. Miscellaneous objects were strewn about. A mangy dog was stretched out under the bed on a heap of shrivelled, weather-beaten chappals, snarling at some invisible object in his sleep. The mange had left the severely affected areas of his body so totally hairless that a person might think a folded rag being used as a doormat had been left on the floor.

A small shelf on the wall held an assortment of make-up: rouge, lipstick, face powder, combs and metallic hairpins that she probably used to keep her chignon in place. In a birdcage hanging from a hook near the rack slept her parrot, its head tucked inside its feathers. Bits of unripe guava and rotting orange peel lay inside the cage, their putrid smell attracting a hovering swarm of mosquitoes and minuscule fruit flies. A wickerwork chair, its backrest grimy from overuse, stood near the bed. To its right was an elegant three-legged tea table supporting a portable His Master’s Voice gramophone draped with a decaying black cloth. Rusted gramophone needles were scattered not just on the table but all over the dingy room. Four framed photographs of some individuals hung on the wall directly above the table.

Slightly to one side of the photographs, near the entrance, hung a brightly coloured portrait of Ganeshji, adorned with strings of faded flowers. The picture was likely some fabric brand label that had been removed from the bolt and stuck into a frame. A lamp and a cup filled with oil sat on a small, greasy rack near Ganeshji’s picture, along with a smattering of curled-up ash that had fallen from incense sticks. In the stagnant atmosphere of the room, the flame in the lamp burned as perfectly straight as the tilak mark on someone’s forehead. Saugandhi habitually touched her day’s first earnings against this image of Ganeshji and then against her own forehead before tucking them inside her bra; regardless of how many banknotes she stuffed there, they remained safe in the hospitable space between her ample, protruding breasts — safe, that is, until Madho showed up from Puna, taking a day or two off from his job. Then she would be forced to stash some of the money inside the hole she had dug under one of her bedposts just for such a situation. It was Ramlal who had let Saugandhi in on this trick for keeping her money safe. Hearing how Madho came over from Puna now and then and played around with her infuriated Ramlal so much that he let her have it one day: ‘Since when have you made that son-of-a-bitch your lover? Some affair you’ve got there! That bum! Doesn’t have to spend even a paisa of his own money, but ends up having a good time with you all the same. And to top it all off, he even swindles you out of some of your own money. . Why, don’t I know every last weakness of you girls? After all, I’ve been in this business for seven years.’

Ramlal, who worked as a pimp in different quarters of Bombay for some one hundred and twenty girls who could be had for anywhere from ten to a hundred rupees, went on to give Saugandhi a piece of his mind. ‘Stupid woman, don’t fritter away your money. You just watch, one day he’ll snatch the very clothes off your body. I’m telling you, he will—that damned lover of your goddam mother! Listen to me; dig a hole under one of the bedposts and stash all your earnings in it. When he shows up, say: “By your life, Madho, I haven’t seen even a paisa since morning. Come on, send for a cup of tea and some Aflatoon biscuits from the café downstairs. I’m so ravenously hungry and starved that my stomach is rumbling.” Understand! These are critical times, my dear. The damned Congress has slapped this accursed ban on alcohol and ruined our business. You, at least, get something to drink, one way or another. Do you know how I feel when I see an empty bottle in your room and the smell of booze wafts up my nostrils — by God, I feel like migrating inside your skin.’

Saugandhi was particularly fond of her breasts. One time Jamuna had advised her: ‘Keep those watermelons of yours in good shape. Use a bra and they’ll stay firm.’

Saugandhi laughed and said, ‘Jamuna, you think everyone is like you. People come and ride roughshod all over your body for a measly ten rupees a pass and you think this is what happens to everyone else. Let anyone so much as touch me in places I don’t want them to and. . Which reminds me to tell you about yesterday. Ramlal brought this guy, a Punjabi, at two in the morning. We settled on thirty rupees for the night. Anyway, when we slipped into bed I turned off the light. Would you believe it, the guy panicked! Did you hear me? All his swagger, that macho bravado — it vanished in the dark, just like that! He took such a fright. I said, “Get on with it, man, why are you wasting time. It’s nearly three and it will be daybreak soon.” “Roshni,” he begged, “roshni, please.” “Roshni,” I said, “what’s that?” “The light! The light! Please turn on the light.” His choking voice made me laugh. “No, I’m not going to,” I said, and pinched his fleshy thigh. He jumped up and immediately switched on the light. I quickly pulled the sheet over my body and said, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, lout?” When he climbed back into bed I got up and turned the light off once more with a quick movement of my hand. He began to feel nervous all over again. I swear by your life, Jamuna, the night was totally out of this world! So enjoyable — now dark, now light, off again, on again. As soon as the rumble of the first tram was heard, he hurriedly slipped on his pants and took off. The son-of-a-bitch must have made the thirty rupees playing the stock market. He just threw them away without getting anything for them. . You really are terribly naive, Jamuna. But me, I know a lot of tricks for dealing with them.’

The fact is, Saugandhi did know many tricks and even shared them freely with her friends in the profession. ‘If the fellow turns out to be a gentleman, not given to talking much, play tricks with him and keep talking endlessly. Tease him, tickle him, and play with him. If he has a beard, run your fingers through it, pulling out a hair or two now and then. If he has a big fat belly, pat it. Never ever give him a moment to do what he wants. But these quiet types — they’re the worst. They’ll crush your bones if they have their way.’

Saugandhi wasn’t quite as clever as she let on. She had very few clients. Being overly sentimental, she allowed all her wiles to slip from her mind and straight down into her belly, which having once given birth to a child was now lined with stretch marks. When she first saw those marks, she thought her mangy dog had clawed her there. Every time a bitch passed by him indifferently, he traced similar lines in the dust, as if to hide his smallness, his sense of shame at being ignored so heartlessly.

For the most part Saugandhi lived inside her own mind. Still, when someone spoke to her with kindness, or said just a gentle word, she melted on the spot and let it work its magic throughout her body. Although her mind considered sexual intimacy patently absurd, every other part of her body longed for it. Every limb yearned to be worked over, to exhaustion, until fatigue settled in and eased her into a state of delightful sleep — the wondrous sleep that comes after the body has been crushed, the torpor that follows when the body has been roughed up badly, when every limb aches and the joints loosen and relax, and a sleepy languor takes over. At times you feel you’re very much there and then you’re not, and sometimes in this middling state of being and non-being you feel as if you’re suspended very high in the air, with nothing around you — above, below, to the right or left — but air. Even the sensation of choking in this air has a pleasure all its own.

Even as a little girl, when Saugandhi hid in her mother’s big trunk during a game of hide-and-seek, she had felt the same suffocating pleasure when her heartbeat quickened from the lack of oxygen in the closed space and the fear of being caught.

She desperately wanted to spend her whole life hiding inside a trunk just like that one, with her seekers going round and round looking for her; she wanted them to find her sometimes, so that she might try to find them in turn. Wasn’t this life she’d been living the past five years like a game of hide-and-seek, after all? Sometimes she sought someone out, sometimes someone searched for her. This is how her life bumped along. She was happy, because she had to be. Every night there was a man by her side in her large teakwood bed and Saugandhi, who knew umpteen tricks to thwart their attempts to get fresh with her, who had firmly resolved not to succumb to their unreasonable demands, and would treat them with a forbidding coldness, was always swept away by her emotions and remained only a woman craving love.

Every evening her companion, someone new or a regular, would profess, ‘Saugandhi, I love you,’ and she, knowing only too well that he was lying, would melt away, believing he truly did love her. Love — could any word be sweeter! The desire to melt it and rub it all over her body until it penetrated every pore overwhelmed her. Or, if not that, then perhaps if she could somehow crawl completely inside it and lower the lid, as though it were some sort of box. Sometimes, when the desire to love and be loved became dire, she felt like gathering the man lying beside her into her lap and rock him to sleep, singing lullabies.

Her ability to love was so profound that she could love and remain true to any man who visited her. Wasn’t she, after all, harbouring her love to this day for the four men whose pictures hung on the wall facing her! The feeling of being a good woman — indeed a very good woman — never left her. Why, oh why, were men so bereft of goodness? Once, contemplating herself in the mirror, the words ‘Saugandhi, the world hasn’t treated you well’ involuntarily escaped from her lips.

The past five years, every night and day of them, were inextricably woven into every fibre of her being. And even though she hadn’t been quite as happy during this time as she had wished to be, she nonetheless longed for her days to continue along the same course. Why lust after money — after all she wasn’t planning to become rich. Her going rate was ten rupees, out of which Ramlal took two and a half as his commission. The balance was quite adequate for her needs. In fact, when Madho came down from Puna—‘to storm her’, as Ramlal put it — she had saved enough to even offer him ten or fifteen rupees by way of tribute. Tribute for what? Let’s just say she had special feelings for him. Ramlal was absolutely right. The man had something about him that Saugandhi fell for. No point hiding it. Might as well let it out. During their first encounter Madho had told her flat out: ‘Have some shame! You’re wrangling over your price? Don’t you know what you’re dickering over and what it is I’ve come for? For heaven’s sake! A mere ten rupees, out of which Ramlal takes a quarter. That leaves seven and a half, doesn’t it? And for this measly sum you promise to give me what you have no power to give, and I come to take what I really can’t take. I need a woman. But do you need a man, right now, this minute? For me, any woman would do. How about you, do you fancy me? Nothing tangible binds us together. . nothing except these ten rupees, out of which a quarter will go as commission and the rest you’ll spend as you will. You hear their jingle, so do I. Your mind is on one thing, mine on another. Why not talk about something totally different: like you need me and I need you. Look, I’m a havildar in Puna. I’ll visit you once a month, for, say, three or four days. Give up this business. I’ll pay your expenses. Well now, how much rent must you dish out for this kholi?’

Madho had said quite a few other things as well. They affected her so deeply that for a moment she thought she was already a havildar’s wife. After talking for a while, Madho brought some order into the things that were scattered around her room, and then tore up the smutty pictures she had on the wall above her bed without waiting for her permission. ‘Well, Saugandhi,’ he said, ‘I can’t allow these here. . and,’ he added, ‘this water pot, look how grimy it is. And these rags. . my God, they smell awful. Come on, throw them out! And why have you ruined your hair? And. . and. . and. .’

After jabbering for three hours the two started feeling quite close. Saugandhi began to feel as though she had already known the havildar for some years now. No one had minded the presence of smelly rags, the grimy water pot, or the smutty pictures in the room before, nor had anyone ever made her think that she too had a place of her own that she could turn into a home. Men came and went without noticing even the grime and filth of the bed. No one had ever said, ‘Saugandhi, your nose looks quite red today. You aren’t coming down with a cold, are you? Okay, I’ll go get some medicine for you.’ How awfully considerate Madho was! Whatever he said was absolutely right. Hadn’t he given her a piece of his mind without mincing words! The thought that she needed Madho began to take hold. So they hitched together.

Madho came over from Puna once a month. Before leaving he never failed to warn her, ‘Look, Saugandhi, if you ever go back to turning tricks again, we’ll have to break up, and if I ever catch you with another man here, I’ll drag you by your hair and throw you out. . and yes, I’ll send you this month’s expenses by postal money order as soon as I get back. So now, what’s the rent for this kholi?’

Madho never sent her any money from Puna, nor did Saugandhi stop turning tricks. Both knew well enough how things were. But she never turned on Madho, never said, ‘What’s this harping about money all the time! When have you ever given me even a chipped pie?’ Nor did Madho ever ask, ‘So where do you get all this stuff from when I never give you anything?’ Liars — both. Living a sham. And yet Saugandhi was happy. If you can’t afford real gold jewellery, you settle for fake.

At that moment a bone-tired Saugandhi was fast asleep. The electric bulb overhead, which she had forgotten to turn off, was shining right above her closed eyes drowned in heavy sleep.

Someone knocked at the door. Who could it be at two in the morning? The sound of the knock filtered faintly into her ears like a distant hum. When the knock came again, insistent, more urgent, she woke up with a start. The two different kinds of liquor she had downed last evening and the bits of fish still caught between her teeth had produced a sticky, acidic saliva in her mouth. Rubbing her eyes groggily, she wiped the foul-smelling gob off her lips with the edge of her dhoti. She was the only one in the bed. She leaned over and peeked underneath only to find her dog sleeping with his head resting on the weather-beaten chappals, snarling as usual at something invisible. The parrot, too, was asleep with its head tucked into its feathers.

When someone rapped on the door again, Saugandhi forced herself out of bed. She had a splitting headache. She filled a mug with water from the pot, rinsed her mouth, filled the mug again and hurriedly gulped down the water. She opened the door just a crack and asked, ‘Is that you, Ramlal?’

Tired from repeatedly banging on the door, Ramlal exclaimed with visible annoyance, ‘Did a snake bite you or something? I’ve been knocking now for over an hour. Where the hell were you?’ Lowering his voice, he added, ‘You haven’t got anyone inside, have you?’

When she told him there wasn’t anyone inside, he raised his voice again and asked, ‘So why wouldn’t you open the door? This is the limit. By God, you sleep like a log. If it takes two hours to fix up each one of you with a customer, I might just as well say goodbye to my business. Now don’t stand there gawking at me. Take off this dhoti and put on a sari, the one with the floral print, and put some powder on your face. Then come with me. A seth is waiting for you outside in his car. Come on, hurry up!’

Saugandhi plunked down in the armchair while Ramlal walked over to the mirror and started combing his hair.

She reached towards the tea table, picked up the jar of balm and said as she unscrewed the cap, ‘Ramlal, I don’t feel well today.’

He put the comb back on the shelf, turned to her and said, ‘Oh, I see. . You should have said something earlier.’

Saugandhi rubbed the balm on her forehead and along her temples. To let him know that it wasn’t what he was thinking, she explained, ‘Now don’t get any wrong ideas, Ramlal. It’s just that I had a bit too much to drink.’

Ramlal’s mouth began watering. ‘If there’s any left, let me have a drop! I haven’t tasted any for ages.’

She put the jar back on the tea table and said, ‘If I had saved any, I wouldn’t be having this infernal headache. Look, why don’t you bring the guy in.’

‘No, there’s no way he would come here. He’s a respectable man, a “gentleman”. As it is, he was feeling quite nervous about parking the car outside in the street. Change your clothes and come with me out to the corner. Everything will be all right.’

It was only a seven-and-a-half-rupee deal. Under normal circumstances, Saugandhi would never have accepted it when she had such a terrible headache, but she desperately needed money. The husband of her next-door neighbour, a Madrasi woman, had been run over by a car and died. She needed to return to her hometown with her young daughter, but she had no money and was languishing here, feeling utterly despondent. Just the other day Saugandhi had comforted her by saying, ‘Sister, don’t you worry. My man is due to arrive from Puna any day now. I’ll ask him for some money and arrange for your travel.’ That Madho would descend from Puna was certain, but the money was something else again. Saugandhi would have to arrange for it herself. So she got up and was ready to go in five minutes flat, her floral sari draped perfectly, and face powdered and rouged. She drank another mug of cold water and set off with Ramlal.

The street, quite a bit wider than the ones in small towns, was perfectly still. A feeble glow filtered through the gas streetlamps whose shades had been partially blackened out because of the war. In this muted light she could make out the dim silhouette of a car parked at the very end of the street.

The sight of the dark shadow of the black car at this late hour on a night filled with mysteries gave Saugandhi the inescapable feeling that her headache had seeped out and permeated the atmosphere. The air even had a fetid taste, as if saturated with the stench of brandy and country liquor.

Ramlal went on ahead and spoke to the man inside the car. When Saugandhi caught up with him, he moved to one aside and said, ‘Here she is. . a very fine piece. . She’s joined the business only a few days ago.’ And then, addressing Saugandhi, ‘Come a bit closer, Saugandhi. Show yourself to Sethji. He’d like to see you.’

Twisting a corner of her sari around her finger, she came forward and stood near the window. The seth turned the torch straight on her face and her drowsy eyes were dazzled momentarily. The light went dead with a click at the same time as an ‘Oh no!’ escaped from the seth’s lips. At once the engine sputtered and the car sped away.

It was gone before Saugandhi had time to think. The intense light from the torch was still lodged in her eyes. She hadn’t even seen the seth’s face properly. What had happened? What was the meaning of that ‘Oh no!’ which was still ringing in her ears? Yes, what?. .

‘He didn’t like you,’ she heard her pimp say. ‘Okay, I should move along. Two hours wasted.’

When she heard this, Saugandhi’s legs, arms, hands, indeed her entire body was overcome by the violent urge to spring into action. Where was that car? That damned seth? He didn’t like her — is that what the ‘Oh no!’ meant? A curse word rose from the pit of her stomach but stopped at the tip of her tongue. Whom would she aim it at? The car had already taken off, its tail lights fading before her in the gathering darkness of the bazaar. It felt as though the ‘Oh no!’ was driving deeper into her breast like the red-hot bit of an auger. She felt like screaming her lungs out: ‘O Seth, stop, wait just a minute.’ But the seth, God curse him, was long gone.

She stood in the desolate bazaar alone. Her floral sari, worn only on special occasions, was fluttering in the gentle breeze of the late night hour. Suddenly, she found she detested it and the velvety rustle it made with every fibre of her being. The desire to shred it to bits seized her; its every flutter seemed to mimic that unforgiving ‘Oh no!’ She had dabbed her cheeks with powder and painted her lips red. All this to look desirable — the very thought evoked feelings of shame and she began to perspire from a surge of regret. She made up a slew of excuses to shake off that crushing feeling of humiliation: ‘I didn’t do it to show myself off to that potbelly. I always use make-up. Why, everyone does. But. . but at two in the morning? And Ramlal the pimp, this bazaar, that car. . and the glare of the torch. .’ The thought of it made her head swirl and an infinity of bright spots began to stream past her as far as her eyes could see. The snarl of the car’s engine was audible in every gust of wind.

Because of the perspiration, the make-up over the balm on her forehead started to run and her forehead felt like someone else’s, not her own. When a puff of air brushed over it, she felt as though someone had pasted a patch of cerotin there. The racking headache was still there, though a plethora of noisy thoughts had subdued it temporarily. Many times she tried to help the headache rise above the surface of her thoughts but failed. She desperately wished for her body — her head, her legs, her stomach, her arms, everywhere — to ache all over, so severely that she would be aware only of the pain and oblivious of everything else. Suddenly something happened to her heart in the midst of her thoughts. Was it pain? Her heart contracted for a moment and then relaxed. What was that? Curses! It was that same ‘Oh no!’ causing her heart to contract and expand by turns.

She had just started to walk back home when her feet froze. ‘Does Ramlal think the man didn’t like my looks?’ she wondered. ‘Well no. He didn’t say anything about my looks. All he said was, “He didn’t like you.” And even if he didn’t like my looks, so what? I also don’t like the looks of many men. The guy, the one who came on the night of the new moon, what a grotesque face he had! Didn’t I turn my nose up at him in disgust? Didn’t I find him revolting when he got into bed with me? Didn’t I feel like throwing up? That may well be, Saugandhi, but at least you didn’t turn him away, or spurn him. But the seth, who came riding in his fancy car, he flat out spat in your face: “Oh no!” What else could that “Oh no!” have meant? Except, huh, A muskrat rubbing jasmine oil in its smelly head! — as the saying goes — or My, my, such high hopes with a face like this! “Oh, Ramlal, is this the girl you were praising to high heaven? — This girl. . for a full ten rupees! Why not a donkey. .”’

She was deeply immersed in her thoughts while ferocious flames were leaping from her big toe to the top of her head. By turns she felt angry with herself and then Ramlal, who had caused her so much misery at two in the morning. The next moment she felt that neither of them deserved any blame; instead, her thoughts focused on the seth. And with that, her eyes, ears, arms and legs, in fact every inch of her body instinctively turned around trying to find him somewhere. The desire to see the earlier scene play out again, just once, gripped her: she moves slowly towards the car, a hand pulls out the torch and points the beam at her, she hears that ‘Oh no!’ again and, straight away, she pounces on him like a wild cat and starts scratching his face mercilessly with her fingernails, grown long according to the current fashion. She should yank him out of the car by his hair, pummel him with her fists and. . break into sobs, exhausted.

The thought of crying surfaced only because a few big fat teardrops had collected in her eyes from an excess of fury and despondency. All of a sudden she confronted her eyes: Why are you weeping? Why are you shedding these tears? The answer floated for a few moments in the droplets hesitating on the edge of her lashes. For the longest time Saugandhi kept looking through the liquid screen of her tears off into the space where the seth’s car had vanished.

Thump-thump-thump. . What was this sound? Where was it coming from? With a start, she scanned the whole area. She couldn’t see anyone around her anywhere. Ah, it was the sound of her own heart, which she had taken for the sputter of a car’s engine. What was the matter with her heart — running so smoothly and then suddenly this thump-thump-thump? Like a needle stuck on a worn-out record that keeps regurgitating the single word ‘stars. . stars. .’ at the end of the line ‘I spent the night counting stars’.

The sky was filled with stars. She looked at them and exclaimed, ‘How pretty they look!’ She wanted to think about something else, but as soon as she uttered the word ‘pretty’ a new thought leapt into her mind: ‘Yes, sure, the stars are pretty. But you’re not. You’re ugly. Hideously ugly! Have you forgotten that you were spurned just now?’

Saugandhi, you’re not ugly! And with this thought every one of the countless images of herself that she had contemplated in front of the mirror over the last five years flitted before her eyes. Of course, she didn’t look quite as fresh and vibrant as she had five years ago when she lived with her parents, unencumbered by any cares whatsoever. But she hadn’t exactly become ugly either. She looked like any other woman who always attracted the amorous glances of the men who passed her by. She had all the essential qualities that she thought anyone wanting to spend a few nights with a woman would want to see in her. She was young. She had a shapely figure. When her eyes sometimes fell on her thighs while bathing, she admired their round firmness. She was affable and genial. Hardly any man had come away from her place feeling dissatisfied in these five years. She was friendly and full of compassion. Last Christmas, when she was living in Golpetha, a young man had spent the night with her. In the morning he went into the other room to put on his jacket and found his wallet missing. The poor boy was terribly upset. (Saugandhi’s maid had swiped it.) He had come from Hyderabad to vacation in Bombay. Now he had no money to pay for the return trip. Saugandhi had taken pity on the lad and returned his ten rupees to him.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked every single object that was in front of her: the dimmed gas lamps, the iron lamp posts, the square cobblestones of the sidewalk, and the dislodged gravel from the road. She looked at each of them in turn and then raised her eyes to the sky hanging low overhead. But none returned an answer.

The answer was there inside of her. There was nothing wrong with her, and she knew that. She was, in fact, good. Yet she wanted to hear someone praise her. Have someone, anyone, put his hand on her shoulder right now and just say, ‘Who says you’re bad, Saugandhi? If anyone calls you bad, they must be bad themselves.’ All of this wasn’t even necessary. Just ‘Saugandhi, you’re very good!’ would have sufficed.

Why did she want someone to praise her, she wondered. She hadn’t ever needed to hear this so desperately before — so desperately indeed that today she had even looked at inanimate objects with such solicitous intensity as though hoping to extract from them a confirmation of her goodness. Why was every atom of her being pining to become a ‘mother’? Why was she preparing herself to gather everything on earth into her lap like a mother? And why did she want to wrap herself around the lamp post up ahead, to rest her warm cheek on its frosty surface and take away its chill?

For a moment she felt as though the dim light of the gas lamp, the metal lamp post, the square cobblestones of the sidewalk, in fact everything around her in the still night, was looking at her compassionately. The sky overhead, now a dark grey sheet with numerous holes, seemed to understand her, just as she seemed to understand the meaning of the blinking stars. But why this tension that was churning her inside? Why did she feel like the weather just before the rains? She wanted every pore of her body to burst open and let out whatever was boiling inside. But how could that happen? How?

She was now standing by the red letter box at the end of the street. A strong gust of wind shook the metal flap hanging like a tongue in an open mouth. The ensuing rattle made her look automatically in the direction the car had sped away, but she couldn’t see anything there. How desperately she yearned for the car to approach her once again and. . and. .

‘To hell with it! What do I care! No point making my life miserable! Let’s go home and take a long, restful nap. Nothing will be gained by engaging in this kind of thinking. Get moving, Saugandhi, go home and have a mug of cold water, rub on a dab of balm, and doze off. You’ll have a good sleep, absolutely first rate. Everything will be all right. To hell with the seth and his car. .’

Suddenly she felt light. It was as if she had just emerged from a dip in the refreshingly cool waters of a pond. It was the same lightness she always felt after puja. It caused her steps to falter a few times as she started walking home.

As she was nearing her place, the entire episode shot through her heart like an obdurate pain and spread over her whole being. Her steps began to feel heavy once again and the memory of how a man had sent for her, slapped her with the beam of his torch, and insulted her in the middle of the bazaar a short time ago came back to haunt her and made her feel absolutely miserable. The very thought made her feel as if someone was poking at her ribs with his hard fingers, as though she were a sheep or a goat and he wanted to check whether the animal had any flesh at all. ‘That seth, may God. .’ Saugandhi thought of cursing him, but stopped short. What would be the point? She would have enjoyed it far more if he had been standing in front of her and she could curse every single part of his being, from top to bottom, using such foul, abrasive language that he would be writhing in agony for the rest of his life. She would have torn her clothes and stood in front of him stark naked, saying, ‘This is what you came for, didn’t you? Here, take it! Take it for free! But whatever I am, whatever lies hidden inside me, you can’t buy it, no one can buy it — not you, not your father, not anyone — not for all the money in the world!’

Ever-changing methods of exacting revenge were insinuating themselves into Saugandhi’s mind. If only she could come face to face with that seth again. . she would do this to him. . no, not this, but that. . avenge herself like this. . no, like that. But realizing such an encounter was next to impossible, she contented herself with a single invective, a small one, which she wished would stick to the lout’s nose like a pesky fly, never to leave it for as long as he lived.

Absorbed in this back and forth with her inner self, she had climbed up to her second-floor kholi. She took out the key from her bra and reached to unlock the door. The key turned in the empty air. There was no padlock on the door. She gave the door panels a gentle push and heard them creak softly. Someone unlatched the door from the inside. The panels yawned open and she stepped in.

Madho laughed through his moustache. Closing the door after Saugandhi he said, ‘Good, you finally took my advice. An early morning walk is good for your health. If you keep it up, you’ll be cured of your sluggishness. And the back pains that you keep complaining about all the time, they’ll disappear too. Guess you must have walked up to the Victoria Gardens, right?’

Saugandhi didn’t answer, nor did Madho show any desire to press on. When he talked, it never required her participation. They talked only because they thought they had to.

Madho plunked down into the wickerwork chair; its backrest had a big grimy stain left by his heavily oiled hair. He crossed his legs and started stroking his moustache.

Saugandhi took a seat on the bed and said, ‘I was expecting you today.’

Madho lost his bearing. ‘Expecting me?’ he said. ‘How in the world did you know I was coming today?’

Her tightly pressed lips parted a little and a wan smile appeared. ‘I dreamt about you tonight. When I woke up, you weren’t there. So I told myself, “Let’s go somewhere for a stroll.” And. .’

‘And I showed up,’ said Madho, beside himself with delight. ‘So, after all, the sages have said it: Caring hearts reach out for each other. When did you have this dream?’

‘At about four,’ she replied.

Madho got out of the chair, walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. ‘And you know what? I saw you in my dream at around two, in a floral sari, exactly like the one you have on, standing before me, holding, yes, a bag full of money. You put the bag in my lap and said, “Madho, why do you worry? Here, take it. After all my money is your money.” Would you believe it, Saugandhi, I swear by your life, I got up right away, bought my ticket and headed your way. Oh, what can I tell you? I’m in a terrible mess. Somebody has lodged a court case against me for no reason at all. If only I had twenty rupees to bribe the inspector with, I could perhaps buy my way out. You aren’t tired, are you? Come, lie down, I’ll massage your feet. Surely a person feels tired when they’re not used to taking walks. Here, extend your feet towards me.’

Saugandhi lay down, supporting her head on her folded forearms like a pillow and, in a tone that wasn’t her own, said, ‘Madho, who is this rogue suing you? They won’t put you in prison, will they? Just tell me if that might happen. . What are twenty or thirty rupees? Fifty, even a hundred to warm the hands of the police in such a predicament is worth it. One can make millions as long as one’s life is saved! Enough! You can stop now. I’m really not that tired. Stop massaging and tell me everything. My heart has been thumping violently ever since I heard the word “case”. When do you have to go back?’

Madho smelled liquor on Saugandhi’s breath. He thought the time was right and blurted out, ‘By the afternoon train. . I’ll have to. If by evening I don’t unload fifty or hundred on the sub-inspector of police. . No need to give him more, I think fifty will be plenty to do the job.’

‘Fifty it is!’ Saugandhi said calmly, rising slowly from the bed and proceeding quietly towards the wall with the four photographs. The third from the left was Madho’s. He was sitting on a chair in front of a curtain with a large floral print. His arms were stretched out along his thighs and he was holding a rosebud in one hand. Two fat books sat on a tea table nearby. He was so overwhelmed by the thought of being photographed that everything about him was spilling out and screaming: ‘I’m having my picture taken! I’m having my picture taken!’ In the photo he was glaring at the camera so intently it seemed as if he was in the throes of some incredible ordeal at the time.

All of a sudden Saugandhi broke into peals of laughter. It was so sharp and pointed that Madho couldn’t help feeling needles poking deep into his flesh. He got up from the bed and walked over to Saugandhi. ‘Whose picture is making you laugh like this?’

She pointed at the first photograph on the left. ‘His, the city’s sanitary inspector. Just look at his stupid face. He says a rani fell in love with him. A rani — huh! Not with a face like that!’

As she said it she pulled the frame off the wall with such force that even the nail came out and with it a fair chunk of the plaster.

Madho had still not quite gotten over his initial surprise when Saugandhi threw the frame out of the window. It fell down two floors and crashed noisily on to the pavement. ‘When the sweeper woman Rani comes to collect the trash in the morning,’ Saugandhi said through the splintering echo of the glass, ‘she’ll pick up my raja too.’

Once again, a burst of the same sharp, pointed laughter began to spew from her lips, as though she was sharpening a knife blade on it.

Madho smiled. And then he laughed too, ‘Hee-hee-hee. .’ but with considerable difficulty.

Saugandhi plucked the second frame off the wall and flung that out of the window as well. ‘What’s this saala doing here? No ugly faces are allowed! Isn’t that right, Madho?’

Once again Madho smiled, and then snickered, but with no less difficulty than the time before.

With one hand Saugandhi grabbed the frame that held the photo of some guy flaunting a turban. She stretched out her other hand towards Madho’s frame while he stood there cringing, as if her hand was coming towards him instead. In a split second, the frame with his photo was off the wall and in her hand, nail and all.

Saugandhi let out a booming laugh, exclaimed ‘huh’, and tossed both frames out of the window. When they crashed on the pavement two floors below, Madho felt as though something had exploded into pieces inside him. With tremendous difficulty he laughed and said only, ‘You did well; I didn’t like it either.’

‘Oh, you didn’t like it either?’ she said, edging closer to him. ‘But what I would like to know is this: Is there anything about you that someone could like? Your big fat nose, like a pakora? This hairy forehead? These puffy nostrils? These twisted ears? Your awful breath? Your filthy body? You didn’t like your photo? How could you, since it hid all your faults? Can’t be helped, for such are the times: If you conceal your faults, you’re damned.’

Madho stepped backwards, until he was flat against the wall. Then, injecting some firmness into his voice, he blurted, ‘Looks as though you’re back to turning tricks. I’m telling you for the last time. .’

Saugandhi interrupted him and finished the rest in his own style: ‘If you ever go back to turning tricks, it will be over between us, and if I ever catch you with another man here, I’ll drag you by your hair and throw you out. . And yes, I’ll send you this month’s expenses by postal money order as soon as I get back. Now, what’s the rent for this kholi?’

Madho’s head began to spin.

Saugandhi kept going: ‘I’ll tell you. . fifteen rupees a month for the kholi and ten a night for the use of my body, of which, as you already know, my pimp takes away one quarter. As for the remaining seven and a half, I had promised to give what I have no power to give, and you had come to take what you can’t take. What was there between us? Nothing! Nothing at all, except these ten rupees. So we decided to do something else — something that would make us need each other. Until now it was ten rupees that jingled between us, now it’s fifty. You can hear their jingle, and so can I. . What have you done to your hair, anyway?’

With a quick movement of her finger, Saugandhi flipped the cap off Madho’s head. He was pissed off. ‘Saugandhi!’ he said sternly.

But she yanked Madho’s handkerchief out of his pocket, sniffed it, and tossed it on the floor. ‘This filthy rag. . how awfully smelly it is. Throw it out! Come on. .’

‘Saugandhi!’ Madho yelled.

‘Saugandhi ke bachche!’ she yelled back, even more sharply. ‘Why have you come here in the first place? Why? Does your mother who’ll dish out fifty rupees to you live here? Or are you some strapping young man who’s stolen my heart? You pig, you wretch. Look at you, ordering me around! Am I under your thumb or something? Moocher, what do you think you are? A thief, a pickpocket — what? Why have you come here at this hour? Should I call the police? Whether you have a court case against you in Puna or not, I’ll definitely drag you into one here!’

Intimidated, Madho could only mumble, ‘Saugandhi, what’s come over you?’

‘Who are you to ask, you stinking bastard? Get out of here, or else. .’

Her screams made her mangy dog, sleeping with his head resting on her weather-beaten chappals, wake up with a start. He got on his feet, raised his snout and began barking, eliciting a bout of hysterical laughter from Saugandhi. Madho was petrified.

When he bent over and reached for his cap, Saugandhi thundered, ‘Don’t you dare touch that. . Leave it there and get out. As soon as you’re back in Puna, I’ll send it to you by postal money order.’

With another cackle, she plopped down into the wickerwork chair. With his ferocious barks, her mangy dog sent Madho scurrying out of the room and down the stairs. When the dog returned, wagging his stumpy tail, and sat at her feet flapping his ears, Saugandhi was startled. She felt a terrifying stillness around her, a stillness she had never experienced before. A strange emptiness engulfed everything, and she couldn’t help thinking of a train standing all alone in its metal shed after disgorging every last one of its passengers. This feeling of emptiness which had suddenly arisen weighed heavily on her. She made repeated attempts to fill the void but failed. She was trying to stuff her brain with countless thoughts all at once, but it was like a sieve. As fast as she filled it, everything filtered out.

She sat in the chair for the longest time. When she couldn’t find anything to distract her mind with even after a long and desperate search, she picked up her mangy dog, put him down beside her in the spacious teakwood bed, and went to sleep.