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KHUSHWANT SINGH: BOOK EXTRACT Life, Lust and Lament It's Unusual of an author aged 84 to churn out very contemporary prose in a manner more suited to a pot boiler specialist in the prime of his career. Khuswant Singh's The Company of Women (Viking, Rs 395, pages 296), which hits the bookshops next month, spans most of the life of Mohan Kumar, like Singh a Punjabi form Delhi. the similarity ends there. Singh clarifies the protagonist is purely fictional. Even so, in the following extracts, the carping commentary on the Indian society and hypocrisy, the brazen view on sex, the essential loneliness of a gregarious persona, suggest that the book, in however tortuous a manner, is a window to its creator. GETTING MARRIED: 'US-returned' Mohan Kumar is a suitable boy. but he has mixed feelings about the marriage market.
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 wristwatches 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 conversation 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 weighted 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 fantasising 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. SUSANTHIKA: After his divorce Kumar has many affairs. One of them with a Lankan Sue was punctual. She did not come in her embassy car but in a taxi. From the balcony I saw the cab slow down outside Ranjit Villa and pull up in front of my neighbour's. I saw Sue pay off the driver, open her parasol to cover her head against the midday sun and gingerly walk back into Ranjit Villa. Before she could ring the bell, I opened the door to let her in. "Hi there!" she said as she folded her parasol and put it in the coat stand. "It's hot as hell; I'm sweating all over. Thank God your house is cool." "I've switched on the ac in the sitting room." I led her by the hand into the cool sitting room. Besides the ac, the ceiling fan was on at maximum speed. She collapsed in an armchair, stretched her hands behind her and said, "Let me cool off." "Glass of iced beer?" I asked. "That would be nice." I opened two cans of chilled beer, poured their contents into crystal glass tumblers and handed her one. She turned the frosting glass in her hand and exclaimed, "Lalique, tres chic! Mr Kumar, you are a man of expensive tastes." "Yes, ma'am. You see, it results from the company I keep." "Flatterer!" she screeched. "I bet you say the same kind of thing to all the women you entertain with we-know-what designs." "Not solely my designs," I protested, "mutually-agreed-upon designs." "True. The fly inviting herself into the spider's web." We finished our beer. "Would you like a bite? The cook's left some fish mayonnaise and cold salad in the fridge." "Are we not getting our priorities mixed up? Lunch can wait." She stood up. I took her by the hand and led the way to my bedroom. "I'm sticky with sweat. I'd like to get out of these clothes first and take a shower." "Not a bad idea. I'll join you." We stripped and went into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, took a cake of scented soap and rubbed it over her body -- face, neck, breasts, stomach, between her thighs, on her small buttocks, down to her ankles. Under the cascade of water she gently took my member in her hands and remarked, "You really are the biggest I've ever seen. I did not notice it in Hardwar. Let me soap it for you." She wasn't tall enough to soap my neck, so she concentrated on my middle -- rear and front. It was exquisite. We rubbed each other dry, tossed the towels on the floor, went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. "Get me a few cubes of ice from the fridge, I'll show you the Sri Lankan boob trick," she said. I did not know what she was up to, but got her a tray of ice nevertheless. She put some cubes in a handkerchief and asked me to rub it against her breasts. As I did so, her breasts began to stiffen and her nipples turned into hard blackberries. "I know you men like them hard," she said. "Now you can warm them with your mouth." I did so, kissing and sucking and biting till she slid up and pressed her lips hard onto mine. We were lying on our sides; she put one leg over mine and with one bony hand guided me into her. I could not enter her fully in that position. "Come over me," she ordered as she lay flat on her back and raised both her legs. I went into her again. "All of it," she cried hoarsely, again and again. "All of it. Nothing to worry about this time." I rammed into her. She was small but had no problem taking all I had. Every time I plunged into her she thrust her pelvis up to receive me. I bit her little breasts savagely. She egged me on. "Bite them harder and give me all you have." I did. We came in a furious frenzy. "By God, that was the greatest f*** I've had in my life," she said lying back exhausted. "And you?" "It was great," I replied. I did not want to be disloyal to women who had given me as much pleasure, most of all her predecessor, Molly Gomes. "It was great," I repeated. Perhaps she understood that it was not the greatest. DEATH OF MOHAN KUMAR: An HIV+man awaits death. And duels with destiny. For nearly two years after Dr Malhotra had pronounced the dreaded verdict, Mohan led a relatively healthy and outwardly normal life. He eschewed sex. It was difficult at first, but gradually he learnt not to let it torture him; he crowded his waking hours with work and harmless socialising with his old friends and at night he slept soundly, often after having taken a sleeping pill. Then, in October that year, the season changed, he caught a chill. It turned into a virulent cold. He could not shake it off. When Dr Malhotra examined him, he detected symptoms of TB in his lungs. He passed the death sentence on Mohan as gently as he could. "I'm afraid you have aids. I can control its onset with your help but I can't cure it." Mohan tried to take the verdict manfully. For the next week he recited the Gayatri mantra from sunrise to sunset. He started reading the Bhagvad Gita. He had his father's copy, which he had found at the ashram in Hardwar. Much of what he read in it made sense to him, but the passages on death confused him. The Lord was right in saying, "For one that is born, death is certain," but there was no proof that Mohan knew of to support Krishna saying, "For one who dies, birth is certain." Mohan gave up taking sleeping pills and stored them for future use. If sleep did not come to him he recited the Gayatri mantra over and over again till he dozed off. One night he was shaken by a violent bout of coughing. The phlegm was choking him. He went to the bathroom and spat it into the basin. His phlegm was full of blood. That decided his fate. He went back to bed and lined 30 sleeping pills on his bedside table. For a moment he thought about the implications of his suicide. What would people say? What would they think? He didn't care, as long as they didn't connect his death with aids. And they could not, he decided, for only Dr Malhotra knew and he would not talk. He thought about his children. What would they make of it all? But perhaps they would be better off without him. Besides, hadn't he ceased to matter to them already? The image of his father, alone and content by the Ganga in Hardwar, came to his mind, and he clung to it as a deep sadness overwhelmed him and tears slid down his face. Then he resolutely composed himself and took the first Calmpose; as he gulped it down with a sip of water, he recited the Gayatri mantra. He did the same with the second, and the third, till the last: 30 Gayatri mantras with 30 pills. Then he put his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. |
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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.