Passion Play ( A short story)

By Shevlin Sebastian

Very soon, after her marriage, Sundari Tandon began to regard her husband, Deepak, as a wimp. He walked, with his head tilted forward and the eyes, jutting out from behind thick-lensed black spectacles, were always focused on the ground. He had stooped shoulders, wore trousers whose ends scuffed the floor and seemed to be permanently chewing his lower lip. He always carried a faded black briefcase, and, with shuffling steps, he would head for the office. He worked as an accountant for a private transport company in Bowbazar in Calcutta and earned Rs. 12,000 a month. The owner, Purshottam Agarwal, trusted Deepak implicitly; he was honest and conscientious and had been working for the firm for thirty years.
Sundari, who came from the village of Tarn Tarn in the Punjab, realised quickly that she could bully her husband. He remained silent all the time. She had stopped studying when she failed her Class twelve exams and was married off by the time she was 24 to Deepak because her father, a poor farmer, felt that he was a nice man, who did not make any monetary demands.
Sundari, however, had plenty of misgivings because, at 50, Deepak was so much older, but she was afraid to go against her father’s wishes and agreed to the marriage. When Sundari came to Calcutta and saw how fashionable the women were, she abandoned her salwar kameez. She wore high black heels, and chiffon sarees and see-through blouses, with a very low neckline. Her only drawback was that she had a hoarse masculine voice but she compensated that with a powerful sexual drive that her husband could not satisfy.
Once, when he had his orgasm, his eyes blinking as if somebody had given him a slap, she said, “You have finished so quickly. And I haven’t even got into the mood!” Her husband got up silently, groped around for his slippers, and, with bumbling steps, walked to the bathroom.
She felt unfulfilled and frustrated. The gap between their ages was too much. Feeling a sense of emptiness, she would say, “I want Rs. 200 for a lipstick set,” and in her hoarse voice, it sounded like a command. Or she wanted high heels or a leather purse or anything else that struck her fancy during her weekly and, sometimes, bi-weekly trips to the New Market. Deepak tried to satisfy her wants but when a woman is sexually unfulfilled, no material thing can really satisfy her. In this state of grinding restlessness, five years passed by.
Deliverance was at hand when her nephew, an elder sister’s son, who stayed in Haryana wrote and said that he would like to do his B.Com from Calcutta University.
Sundari, without consulting Deepak, said yes. She merely told him that one of her nephews would be coming to stay with them. Since they had an extra bedroom, near the kitchen, in their second floor flat in Park Circus, there was no problem at all.
And when on a Monday morning, the nephew arrived, she was seeing him after ten years or so, she felt a wetness between her legs and her face reddened.
“Hi Aunty,” Jagjit said, putting down the scuffed blue VIP suitcase in the hallway, “the train was late by two hours.”
“You have grown so much,” Sundari said, staring with frank admiration at the thick biceps and the muscular chest, and the body, which was a chiseled V, made more elegant by a slim waist. “It’s been so long since I last saw you. How are your parents?”
“They are fine,” Jagjit said as Sundari took his suitcase and led him to the bedroom, on bare feet. Jagjit watched the smooth roll of her buttocks and the creamy flawless skin exposed by a blouse with a low back and he felt a sudden desire arise in him. He was surprised to see that his aunt was so sexy, made more so by the tinkling anklets that she wore.
“Let me get you a soap and a towel for your bath,” Sundari said, as she placed the suitcase, upended, near the wall.
It was a small, sparse room. The single bed, covered by a blue counterpane, was placed next to a wall and on the other side, there was a table, on which there was a small flower vase, with plastic red roses, and a chair. Jagjit went to the window and looked out through the iron grill. There were buildings on either side. Down below, he saw a gaunt rickshaw-puller, sitting on his haunches, on the leg rest of the vehicle and puffing away at a beedi.
Later, Sundari served Jagjit with roti and tarka and a mutton curry. Jagjit wore a t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, and his face, after his bath, gleamed with the vigour of youth. “So what is the news in Haryana?” Sundari asked, as she glanced surreptitiously at his hairy legs…
Within a week, Jagjit realised that Sundari called the shots in the house. Deepak rarely opened his mouth and when he was introduced to Jagjit, he held out a limp hand. Every night, Deepak and Sundari would have their dinner by 8 p.m. and he would go off to sleep. Jagjit ate alone since he preferred to eat at 9.30 p.m. Sundari would stay awake to serve him.
“My husband is a very boring man,” Sundari told Jagjit at dinner one night. “He has a fixed routine that never changes. And you know life can get very boring if there is no excitement.” She looked meaningfully at Jagjit when she said this.
Jagjit chewed his chicken silently.
“That’s why I haven’t hired a cook,” she continued, as she sat next on a chair next to him. “If I don’t have anything to do, I will go mad.”
Today, she was wearing a see-through nightie, which she had put on after Deepak had gone to sleep. Jagjit could clearly see the firm breasts with the pointed nipples and she had tied up her hair in a knot. An unbearable desire arose in him. She continued to talk but he did not reply. He just stared at her.
“What are you thinking?” Sundari asked. “You have been so quiet.”
“You are so sexy,” Jagjit said, shaking his head, to break out of his trance-like mood.
Sundari laughed, pleased by his praise.
“Are you getting excited?” she said, as she opened the top two buttons of her nightie. Jagjit was transfixed by the movement of her fingers on the pink buttons as she opened them all and bared her breasts. A half smile was playing on her face.
Jagjit leaned forward and kissed her. Her thick red lips quivered with excitement. Then she guided his mouth to the nipples and he sucked hard on them. She moaned and he began licking her heaving breasts.
“Wait,” Sundari managed to utter, “finish your dinner first.”
Later, they went to his bedroom and Sundari locked the door and, with one swift movement, she threw the nightie to the floor. She untied the knot and her hair fell in a smooth sheet down her back. Jagjit watched, his Adam’s apple going up and down like a cork in water, and Sundari laughed. She pulled down his Bermuda shorts.
“Oh dear nephew,” she said, licking her lips, “you are hotter than hell.”
Their bodies melted into each other and they kissed feverishly, but after a while, Jagjit asked, quickly looking at the door, “What about Deepak Bhaiyya?”
“Forget him, I want to fuck now baby,” Sundari said, pulling him closer.
But when Jagjit entered her, an unbearable excitement came over him and he came much too quickly. Sundari grimaced in displeasure.
“I am sorry Aunty,” he said, “I got too excited.”
“It’s all right,” she said, as she reached out to make it hard again, “after you get some experience, you will be all right.”
It did not take long for Deepak to realise what was happening, because Sundari was indiscreet. On mornings, when Jagjit did not go to college, she would sit with him in the bedroom, the door locked, and take Jagjit’s hard cock, with its curly tendrils of hair surrounding the testicles, into her mouth.
Sometimes, Deepak would come to the kitchen wanting to tell Sundari something and would not find her there. He would notice that behind Jagjit’s locked door, excited murmurs and the sound of laughter could be heard. He did not say a word of reproach. Instead, he went to the puja room, an alcove, which was on one side of the drawing room, and sit cross-legged on the floor, bare-bodied and in a white dhoti. He lit incense sticks and prayed to Lord Krishna for a child.
For some reason, Sundari had not conceived. She would not allow any tests to be done. Deepak felt that once Sundari became a mother, she would cease to be girlish and immature. Deepak prayed with a rising sense of despair. He was 55 now and time was running out. He prayed that good sense would prevail in Sundari although he could sense that she was in the coils of a deep passion.
One night Deepak uttered a loud, mournful groan. It seemed to come from deep within his soul. Sundari, lying sideways, her face buried in the armpit of Jagjit, woke up with a thudding heart. She hurriedly put on her nightie and rushed to the other bedroom.
She switched on the light and saw that her husband was perspiring profusely. His face was red and he was gasping for breath. Sundari felt a panic within her. She rushed to Jagjit’s room and awakened him. They ran out to call a doctor. It was a cold, chilly night, and thick fog hung heavily, almost smothering the street. They walked to the next road, where Sundari remembered there was a doctor.
Dr Dipak Malik was awakened and by the time he got dressed and came, half an hour had passed. Dr Malik, balding, with long, thick, sideburns, which went halfway down his cheeks, looked for Deepak’s pulse and there was none. Deepak looked peaceful in death and the doctor scratched his head and said, “Madam, I am sorry, it is too late. He is gone. It was a massive heart attack.”
Sundari burst out crying, her body wracked by sobs. The doctor left and Jagjit hugged her tightly. The next day, Deepak was cremated. The ashes were collected and Jagjit and a few colleagues from Deepak’s office went and immersed it in the river Hooghly.
Sundari went into a shell for a few days. She sat on a chair by the window and gazed down at the street. Jagjit spent the whole day roaming around aimlessly. He had liked Deepak because he was a decent man but now his death had come as a shock. As for Sundari, she was not really sad. In fact, she felt a little relieved. It was an unhappy marriage and now she was free. The only question was how much money had her husband saved up.
One morning, she wore an overcoat over her black saree and a muffler around her neck and went to the bank. The news was good: Rs 3 lakh in savings. She then went to the transport company in crowded Phears Lane and met Purshottam Agarwal. He folded his hands together and assured her that she had nothing to worry about. All the dues, including his Provident Fund and Gratuity, of his most loyal employee would be cleared within a month. So money would not really be a problem, although she had spent lavishly because Deepak had saved slowly and steadily. Sundari also had plenty of jewellery, so if things got very bad, she could always sell it off and get some money. But she realised that she would have to be careful on how she spent her money now. She would have to live off the interest and not touch the capital.
One day, Sundari fell ill. The temperature shot up to 105 degrees. The doctor was called. Jagjit placed cold compresses on her forehead throughout the night. She shivered and groaned. Her face became flushed and her eyes were bloodshot. There were dark shadows under her eyes. The fever took a week to subside. Jagjit was worn out.
Ratna Pathak, a neighbour, sometimes came and sat with Sundari. The house was in a mess. The dishes lay unwashed in the sink. Dust collected on the floor and on the window sills. Ratna told Sundari it was time that she hired a maidservant.
Around this time, Sundari’s thyroid gland started to malfunction. The doctor prescribed tablets. But within a month, Jagjit watched with horror and fascination, her steady increase in weight. She began to get fatter and fatter.
Sundari, who had prided herself on her fine, curvaceous figure, found that things were going out of control. A jowl of fat formed under her chin and on her stomach, thighs and buttocks. Her fingers became so thick, she could not insert her rings. She could not wear her blouses any more. They would get stuck at the elbows. She consulted, with a rising sense of desperation, several doctors and they prescribed all sorts of medicines, different coloured pills, of all shapes and sizes but nothing happened.
She continued to be fat.
She became tired quickly. If she walked a few yards, she would be drenched in perspiration. She weighed 110 kgs and people looked at her and laughed. The neighbours’ children laughed the loudest and shouted, “Hey fatty bum bum.” When she got into a taxi, it would seem as if the vehicle would not move.
And the men no longer drooled at her. Where, earlier, they would salivate with desire when they saw her beautiful figure, the saree always worn below her navel, allowing it to swing sexily from side to side as she walked, now they looked away and spat.
Jagjit was horrified by the way Sundari had changed. He felt a distaste, arising like bile, when he looked at her. He had lost all desire and now he would sit in the bedroom, the door locked and read his study books.
One night Sundari knocked and when Jagjit opened the door, she said, “I feel so lonely. Can I sit with you for a little while?”
Jagjit just stepped back. Sundari waddled into the room in a white housecoat and sat on the bed.
“I am in really bad shape,” she said. “What a fate it is. The doctors said it would be difficult to become thin again.”
Jagjit just stared at her. After a pause, she said, “Can we fuck Jagjit?”
“I am sorry,” he replied, looking at the floor. “I feel no desire for you. Please don’t blame me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Sundari said. “But how about one for old time’s sake? I gave you so much of pleasure.”
Jagjit shook his head and she opened her housecoat and bared her breasts.
“These are nice ones,” she said. “You used to suck my nipples with so much pleasure.”
Jagjit stared at the huge, drooping breasts and shook his head once again.
“You are being ungrateful,” she said. “I may be fat but that doesn’t mean I cannot fuck.”
“Sundari, you are ugly,” Jagjit said, as he stood up and paced the room. “Have you seen yourself in the mirror? I have no desire for you. God has taught you a lesson. You killed your husband with your affair with me.”
“You talk as if you are completely innocent,” Sundari said, her eyes flashing in anger. “You are equally guilty. It takes two hands to clap.”
“I agree,” Jagjit said, as he continued walking. “I was young and inexperienced and made a mistake. I feel sorry.”
She reached out to grab him and he stepped back and said, “Don’t touch me now. I am moving to a hostel. I cannot stay here anymore.”
Sundari buttoned up her housecoat and stood up. “You ungrateful bastard,” she said and walked out of the room.
Within a few days, Jagjit moved to a private hostel on Lower Circular Road. Now Sundari was all alone. She wandered around, in the silence, from Jagjit’s room, to the kitchen, to the bedroom, to the living room. Sometimes, she would sit on the sofa in the living room and stare at the opposite wall. But most of the time, she sat on the bed and watched Star TV or Zee or MTV. She would see all those sexy women in the music videos with their hourglass figures and a deep remorse would arise in her. She felt lonely and needed to converse with somebody. So she asked Ratna whether she could arrange for a maidservant. Ratna assured her she would get somebody.
Within a week, she brought Laxmi, a small built girl with coffee coloured skin and cup like breasts. Sundari was so desperate for some company that she hired her.
Time passed and the servant and the mistress grew close. Sundari listened intently to the maid’s story as she sat on a high wooden stool in the kitchen. Laxmi came from a very poor family in Bihar. Her father worked as a farmhand in the land of a rich landlord and earned a paltry six rupees a day. The family of three daughters and a mother had little to eat and, in desperation, Laxmi fled to Calcutta. She wandered around for days before she found shelter in a church. The priest arranged for her to work as a maidservant. She worked in the house of a bank manager for three years before the family got a transfer to Bangalore. The bank manager was a friend of the Pathaks and that was how she came to work at Sundari’s house. She told Sundari of how she met Jaggu Prasad in the vegetable market and fell in love and they had been married for a few months only.
“Tell me something about Jaggu,” Sundari said, as she cut onions on a small wooden board with a stainless steel knife.
“He works as a night durwan in a multi-storeyed building on Ritchie Road,” Laxmi said.
“That is not very far off from Park Circus,” Sundari said. “Why don’t you bring him home?”
“I will bring him tomorrow,” Laxmi said.
The next day, Laxmi brought Jaggu and Sundari liked him immediately. He wore a blue shirt and a white dhoti. He had a broad chest and close cropped hair that usually men of the Army sported. His small eyes darted from object to object in the bedroom.
“How old are you?” Sundari asked, as she sat on the bed, the television set blaring some western music.
“I am twenty-five Madam,” Jaggu replied, not looking at Sundari. He felt shy to be in the bedroom. He would have been more comfortable if he had spoken to Sundari on the street or at the door of the flat.
Sundari decided to go straight to the point.
“Would you like to earn hundred rupees?” Sundari said, looking at Laxmi, standing near the door.
“What do I have to do Memsaab?” Jaggu asked.
“Fuck me. Each fuck Rs 100,” Sundari said and grinned, showing teeth that had been stained red by the constant eating of betel leaf.
Jaggu and Laxmi went out into the hallway.
“What do you think?” he asked his wife.
“It’s up to you,” Laxmi said, tears in her eyes.
“The money will be good for us,” he said. “It’s not much work. We will be able to set up a house for ourselves.”
Laxmi did not reply. Instead, she fingered the glass bangles that she wore and looked at the floor.
“Come on Laxmi, say something,” Jaggu said. “She’s got money. Let’s take advantage of that.”
“Jaggu, it is up to you,” she said.
When Jaggu entered the bedroom, Sundari was almost sure that the answer was yes, “Call Laxmi. I will give her fifty rupees if she sucks my nipples at the same time.”
So Jaggu called Laxmi and they stood near the bed and dropped their clothes on the carpet as Sundari quickly took off her housecoat.
She grabbed Laxmi and kissed her violently on the mouth. When Jaggu saw that he got excited and enraged at the same time. Laxmi looked like a dark doll against Sundari’s fair skinned body. Jaggu climbed on to the bed, moved his wife to one side and plunged himself deep inside Sundari. She let out a gasp but the kissing between the women continued, as Jaggu began his piston-like movements.
“Aaah,” Sundari let out a deep moan, and she broke off from Laxmi, threw her head back, closed her eyes and pressed her heels against the small of Jaggu’s back, “Aah, aaah, this is good.”
Laxmi got up from the bed, picked up her saree and went to the kitchen. It was 1.30 and time to set the lunch. Half an hour later, Sundari called out to her. So she went to the bedroom.
Laxmi,” Sundari said, with a bright smile, “your husband is one of the best fuckers I have met. You are a lucky girl.”
She took out a deerskin purse from under her pillow and said, “Here’s one hundred and fifty as promised.”
Jaggu took the money and put it inside his shirt pocket.
“Can you come tomorrow at the same time?” Sundari asked.
“Yes Memsaab, I will be here,” he said.
Outside, Jaggu kissed Laxmi and said, “Don’t look so sad, darling. It’s good money and we need it.”
So, Jaggu became a regular visitor to Sundari’s house but Laxmi rarely joined in. Most of the time, she was in the kitchen cutting up onions and beans and feeling a pain because Jaggu was with Sundari. But the money was good and so she did not complain.
Meanwhile, Sundari got closer and closer to Jaggu. The Bihari sometimes sat with her on the bed, his arms around her, both nude, and watched television. But Jaggu, with his darting eyes, kept a sharp eye on everything. When Sundari opened the cupboard, he noticed that there were rows and rows of chiffon, polyester and silk sarees hanging on blue hangars. Sometimes, she opened the safe and from where he was sitting, he could see a few small square boxes.
When Sundari locked the cupboard, she lazily threw the keys under the pillow. Once Jaggu asked in a casual tone, “What is in those boxes?”
“Gold,” Sundari said, as she climbed on to the bed. The bed creaked as she sat down, and said, “It’s so hot. It’s time to install an air conditioner.”
“But Memsaab, this is winter. How can you feel so hot?” Jaggu said, smiling.
“I am hot in the head,” Sundari said and laughed out aloud.
Soon, Jaggu asked for an increase from Rs.100 to Rs. 150 for a fuck and Sundari opened her mouth in shock and said, “I don’t have that much of money. Hundred is already too much for me.” But Jaggu knew that she had plenty of money.
A month later, when Jaggu was inside her and Sundari had closed her eyes and started moaning, Laxmi crept in and gave Jaggu a foot long hammer. She crawled back out of the room.
Jaggu stopped his thrusting movement and swung the hammer at Sundari’s temple. Her eyes opened suddenly, she gave a loud cry of pain and fell unconscious. A small lump formed on the temple.
Jaggu dressed quickly and called out to Laxmi. She came running in with a long rope. They tied Sundari’s hands and legs together and Jaggu spread a thick, brown tape across her mouth. Laxmi ran to the kitchen and returned with a huge gunny sack. Jaggu unconnected the wires and put the TV set and the VCR into it. He took the keys from under the pillow and opened the cupboard.
Laxmi gasped when she saw the row after row of expensive sarees. She began hurriedly putting them in the sack. Jaggu opened the safe and took out the jewellery boxes. There was also a stack of currency notes and he threw the bundles inside. Laxmi rushed to the kitchen and gathered all the plates, the utensils, the knives, the spoons and the tumblers. They tied the sack with a rope and Jaggu wiped his forehead with a towel.
“Have you ever seen a woman like this?” he said, looking at the mass of flesh that was Sundari. “Come, let’s go.”
“Wait,” Laxmi said, as she jumped on to the bed and walked till she was astride Sundari’s breasts. Then she lifted her saree and urinated.
“The bitch,” she hissed, “no better than a whore,” as she watched the liquid flow down her breasts towards the base of her throat. Jaggu laughed and he also urinated on Sundari’s face.
“That’s the last time you are going to see my cock,” he said, but Sundari was unconscious. A part of her forehead had become bluish purple.
Jaggu lifted the sack and placed it on his back and they made good their escape. The police would not catch them because they would have reached Bihar and done the disappearing act.
Two days later, the milkman became suspicious. The milk bottles that he placed outside the door had not been collected. He alerted Ratna Pathak. Nobody had seen her for quite a while. Otherwise, she would go down the stairs once a day, to buy eggs or bread with a yellow plastic bag. The men in the building gathered together including a couple of policemen from the nearby Beniapukur station and broke down the door.
Sundari was lying on the bed, nude, her eyes wide open and frightened, the tape still across her mouth, the smell of urine pervading the room. And when the men saw her, this fat naked slob, they could not help but laugh. It was the funniest sight in their lives.
“I am sorry,” Mr. Pathak said, as he noticed the empty cupboard and safe. He tried very hard not to laugh by biting his lower lip.
Sundari has now lost her trust of men. The rumour is that she is using carrots these days. They are cheaper and they don’t betray you and cause a financial loss.
Carrots are a woman’s best friend.

OMANA’S STORY (A short story)

By Shevlin Sebastian

“I didn’t know how I got pregnant,” Omana said, as she sat on the floor, and looked up at the mistress, “I still don’t know.”
The mistress, with a double chin and strands of gray hair, sat on the bed, her back resting against a pillow placed on the headrest. Outside, in the village of Mamood, near Changanacherry, leaves on rubber trees shook in the breeze and created a rustling, soothing, romantic sound. A parrot sat on the branch of a guava tree and squawked now and then.
“How can that be?” the mistress said, “surely you would have known who made love to you?”
“No Madam,” Omana said, “let me tell you the story from the beginning. I was employed by this eye doctor called Sunny Thomas in Ernakulam. He is originally from Kottayam. He has a wife and two children, a boy and a girl. Six years ago, I was quite sexy and pretty.
“I knew that the eye doctor was interested in me. He had desire in his eyes, as he eyed my body whenever his wife Mariamma was in the bathroom.
“Mariamma was a nice person. She was quite plump. She treated me well. Since she was a housewife, she remained in the house most of the time. The two children were studying in school. Shaju was in class five while Lizzie was in class three.
“Around six months after I started working there, one Saturday, the children went off with Sunny Saar’s brother, who lived in Kothamangalam, to spend a week-end there. So, there was just the three of us: Saar, Mariamma and myself.
“That night, when Mariamma had gone into the bathroom for a bath, Saar came and gave me a glass of red juice in the kitchen. He said, ‘Omana, drink this. It has a lot of vitamins and is very good for your health.’
“Now when the head of the family says this, there is nothing to do but drink it. After all, I was a mere servant. Although one part of my mind felt a little uneasy. ‘Why did he give it to me when Mariamma is not here,’ I thought to myself. As I drank the juice, I saw that his eyes were on my breasts.
After dinner, he gave the same juice to his wife and she drank it without a second thought. Mariamma rarely spoke to her husband and, most of the time, she sat in her housecoat with her nose in some Malayalam novel or the other.
After dinner, they went to the bedroom. I slept on the floor in the room where the children stayed. I had barely closed my eyes before I went off into a deep sleep.
“The next thing I knew it was morning and the sunlight was falling on my face. I was astonished. Normally, I wake up at dawn. As soon as I opened my eyes, I could feel a heaviness in my head, as if an object was being pressed down on me.
“I got up and my head swayed. I went out of the house, to the servant’s bathroom at the back. I cleaned my teeth and splashed a lot of water on my face. But still, there was a buzzing in my head. I went back and saw Saar standing in the kitchen. He gave a half-mocking smile at me.
“He said, ‘Omana, have you made the tea?’
“I replied, ‘Sir, I have a bad headache. Can you give me some tablet?’
“No problem,” he replied and went to his bathroom where he has a medicine cabinet. He returned with a Crocin.
“I asked, ‘Sir, is Amma still sleeping?’
“Yes,” Saar replied, “Please make the tea.”
“I nodded although my mind was on Mariamma. It was unusual because Mariamma also wakes up early. At about nine o’clock, Mariamma came to the dining table, rubbing her forehead with her fingers.
“Sunny,” she said, “I have a terrible headache. Is there a Crocin?” That was when I experienced the first feeling of suspicion. l mean, both of us had terrible headaches, and both of us had drunk the same juice the previous night. Saar gave a Crocin and said, ‘There must be something wrong with that juice.’
“He opened the fridge and took out the bottle and emptied the syrup in the sink. I did not mention to Mariamma that I had a headache also. I didn’t know why I did not say it. Perhaps I thought it was not important.
“Later, when I was having my bath and was washing my vagina, I felt a slight pain. I did not pay much heed. Anyway, the children came back and the house was once again filled with laughter and noise.
“A month passed and my periods did not come. I normally get my periods by the 14th of every month, but this time, it was already the 25th and nothing happened. I was beginning to get worried.
“One afternoon, I was standing on the balcony, the flat was on the first floor, and was watching the traffic below, on Banerjee Road, when everything became a blur and I fell to the floor in a faint.
“When I opened my eyes, Mariamma was splashing water on my face. She said, ‘Omana, what has happened?’ I got up and blinked. My head was feeling heavy. I didn’t know why I had fainted suddenly. Two days later, I was in the kitchen making breakfast when I suddenly vomited. This time, Saar was in the house and he came and put an arm around me and took me to the bathroom. I rinsed my mouth.
“‘We have to go to the doctor,’ he said calmly. The next day, we went to a lady gynaecologist, who did a urine test and the result was positive. I was pregnant!
“Suddenly, there was tension in the house. Saar told Mariamma and she came to the kitchen and asked me, with a pinched look on her face, ‘Omana, who is the father? Surely you had intercourse with a man. Who is it?’
“I didn’t know what to reply. Madam, let me tell you in all honesty that I had not had sex with anybody. Whatever happened, had taken place in that house. Yet I had no proof. So what could I tell Mariamma? I remained silent. After a while, things calmed down and they asked whether I was going to abort the child. I said that since I am a Catholic, I did not want to go against my religion.
“A couple of days later, Saar told me that he had arranged for me to stay in a nursing home near Trivandrum. But I had to work in the kitchen and help in the cooking.
“I think the main reason for Saar taking me somewhere else was because he did not want a whiff of scandal attached to his name. You know how it is in Kerala? People pounce on a morsel of gossip and wreck a person’s reputation.
“Saar was also afraid that if he abandoned me, then I might go around telling people that he made me pregnant. So, some time later, he took me to this small nursing home.
“It was in a secluded place, away from the main road, and set in an estate of rubber trees. It was a most peaceful place. I was given a room to myself. There was a bed and a picture of Jesus Christ on the wall and a small bathroom. Saar’s friend, Dr. Sunil Mathew, owned this nursing home.
“During the day, I helped the cook, Theresa, by cutting vegetables and making cups of tea. I could also feel the kicks of the baby within me and that was such a thrill.
“I would sing softly to myself, hoping that the baby would hear. Nine months later, Saar was present with Sunil Mathew as the labour pains started.
“I give birth in that small room. There was a nurse to assist the doctor and I had a smooth, normal delivery. The baby was born perfect. He had smooth, fair skin like mine. I have no idea how I have this fair skin of the North lndians.
“Two days later, when I was lying contentedly in bed, my baby beside me, Saar came in and said, ‘Omana, you have to give the child away.’
“I shouted, ‘Why should I?’ I was hysterical. You know what the feeling of the mother is, immediately after the birth of a child. In the beginning, I said a vehement ‘No’ to Saar. But he was patient and slowly made me see reason.
“He asked me how was I to explain to people whose baby it is? People would start saying all sorts of scandalous things. At that time, I had no idea of blood tests to prove the paternity of the child. Otherwise, if Saar could be proved that he was the father, I would have filed a case and asked him for monetary support. But I was an ignorant girl then, at the mercy of the educated and smart people.
“Saar said that there were so many expenses in bringing up the baby. He said I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t take the baby to my parents’ home because they would not accept me. So slowly, I came around to the idea of giving away the baby. I felt that it would be traumatic for any child to grow up in these circumstances.
“And really, all this time, Saar was very patient. He would come every morning and talk to me. He would hold my hand and play with my fingers. Not once did he look at the baby. “One day I said, ‘Saar, can you tell me how I got pregnant? I have no idea myself.’
“Saar looked at me with no expression on his face. Then he said very softly, ‘Omana, if you don’t know, then how am I to know?’
“I did not know say anything although l knew that it had to be Saar. Anyway, the baby was given away to a convent nearby and I cried the whole night. The next day, Saar said that he would arrange for the adoption of the child. There were agencies that arranged for children to be adopted by people living abroad.
“We returned to Ernakulam. I thanked Saar and Mariamma. I said that I wanted to go back home. But Saar said that he had spent money for me like paying the doctor’s fee and the hiring of the nurse and buying of medicines. Many scans had also been done and he told me it was expensive. Saar told me I had to work for a year without any salary.
“He had not said this, before I was went to the nursing home. But then, I had to be grateful. So I agreed. And so once again, I started working there and Mariamma, from the very beginning, would not leave me alone.
“Whenever the children went out to play and her husband had left for the clinic, she would come up to me and say, ‘Omana, tell me, who made you pregnant?’
“In the beginning, I continued to say that I had no idea. But she persisted and so finally I got very irritated and told her about my suspicions about Saar. She remembered the night of the red juice and I could see in her eyes, the shock of the truth hitting her.
“She whispered to me, ‘I had a suspicion, but I could not be sure.’ But there was nothing that she could do. She could not even confront her husband about it. After all, there was no proof. She was a housewife. She had no income. She was dependent on Saar. So there was no question of walking out or divorce or anything like that.
“She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘Omana, I am sorry for what my husband did to you. All men are animals. My husband does not care for me. He does whatever he feels like doing. But how can I leave him? What will my children do? How will my parents react if I tried to leave? This is Kerala, after all...’
“Mariamma started crying and I hugged her and wiped away the tears with my fingers. She looked so helpless. Poor thing. But what surprised me was how quickly she accepted that her husband could have raped me.
“Three months later, Saar told me that the baby was adopted, but he did not know who the parents were. I kept quiet. What was the point of knowing, anyway? After the year was over, I left them and Saar gave me two hundred rupees. He was aloof with me during that year. Therefore, I was really surprised when he gave me that cash gift.
“I came back home to Changanacherry and started living with my parents. l have three brothers and they are all married and live in different parts of Kerala. My father is very old and ill and cannot move around much. My mother, of course, worked for you.
“For almost a year, I did not get a job. My parents were very irritated. But, to tell you frankly, I was recovering from the loss of the baby. The one year that I spend with Saar and his family, I did not feel it so much because I was busy. But when I came back home and started to spend a lot of time alone, that was when the shock of abandoning my baby hit me.
“I was remorseful; I was depressed; I was frightened for my baby. What had happened to it? Was everything all right? Who had taken my baby? Were they good parents? All this used to go through my mind day after day.
“Finally, unable to bear it any longer, I got out of the house and started searching for a job. I was lucky to get a job as a cook in the house of a LIC manager and his wife. They live near the railway station. They were nice people, childless and quiet, and I worked there for a year. But slowly, I began to feel restless. I wanted something more from life. I wanted to get married. I wanted children. I wanted lots of money.
“About this time, I saw an advertisement in the Malayala Manorama newspaper for a maid for a lady who lived in Bangkok. I applied, with a colour photograph, and a month later, I was called for an interview.
“The woman’s name was Reena Nair and she had come with her two-year-old son Mani. She was staying with her sister in Tiruvalla. We met and straightaway, we liked each other. She was about my age, 31 or 32, and she seemed nice. And the boy was cute. He could already speak a few English words.
“Reena said that I needed to learn English but she said that there was nothing to worry. When I came to Bangkok, she would teach me. That was when I knew that I got the job. Reena said later that the reason she selected me was because I was of the same age as her. And as for me, I had no doubts about going. Firstly, I would earn so much more. And secondly, I really wanted to get away from Kerala. I wanted a change of environment, to lift my spirits.
“It took me two months of running around and employing an agent before I got my visa and passport. Then Reena came back specifically to take me. She was a gentle, soft-spoken person and treated me like I was her friend. We finally left for Bangkok.
“Bangkok surprised me by its crowds. I thought that only Indian cities were crowded. But there was a lot of traffic on the streets. There were so many foreign cars, smart-looking bikes with young men in jeans and sneakers, chewing gum and with girls sitting on the back seat and hugging them tightly.
“They have a funny type of auto-rickshaw called the “tuk-tuk”. It scoots through the traffic, twisting and turning like a snake.
“There were so many women in the streets of Bangkok. They clearly outnumbered the men. They wore all types of dresses: short skirts; full length gowns; jeans; shorts and hot pants.
“It was a bungalow style house. There was a garden in front and at the back; there was a servant’s quarter and a vegetable patch where Reena grew tomatoes. There were five rooms on the ground floor and three rooms on the first floor. Reena told me that I could stay on the terrace. There was a small room with a window and a bathroom.
“I liked it immediately; it reminded me of the small room that I had in the nursing home when I give birth to my child.
“Reena’s husband, Ravi, was a nice man. He worked for a Japanese company, C. Itoh. I could see that Reena was in love with him. They had no servant for quite a while and so it was with relief that they welcomed me.
“There was another servant, by the name of Raghavan. He lived in the servant’s quarter and worked as a driver. I settled in quickly. Reena taught me to speak English. I started going to the market within a month.
“Reena’s son Mani got along well with me. I think he was excited by me. He would always want me to hug him and touch my breasts. I guess he had not seen such large breasts before. Reena did not have large breasts.
“Every morning, Mani would rush into my arms, saying, ‘Omana, Omana.’ I loved him very much. He was very fair. Keralites don’t have such a fair colour; neither did Ravi nor Reena seemed so fair.
“I would take Mani up to the terrace room in the afternoons and he would sleep with me. One day, missing my son very much, I took off my blouse and bra and gave my nipple to Mani to suck. He looked surprised and puzzled but when I smiled and rubbed his hair with my fingers, he began to suck willingly. What a feeling of pleasure coursed through my body. I wished I had my child with me. But I was happy that at least there was Mani.
“After that, we did it regularly. Whenever we went to the terrace on hot summer afternoons, Mani would say, ‘Omana, I want to suck!’ And then I would give my nipple to him to suck and I would feel the loss of my little boy who was living with some strange people, who had no idea that he had been abandoned by his real mother; that she had got pregnant with him in a mysterious way.
“A year passed and then came another development: Raghavan fell in love with me. He was fifty eight years old and a bachelor. He treated everybody with great respect and with a sense of humility.
“He had come to Bangkok as a young man and started working as a driver in C. Itoh and had been working for the company for thirty-five years. He said he had not married because he was shy in front of woman and somehow, he didn’t feel like going back to Kerala to find a bride. He told me that I was the first woman he found easy to talk to.
“Ravi and Reena had a hectic social life. ln C. Itoh, there was always some party or the other to attend almost every day. Sometimes, they left Raghavan behind and Ravi drove the car himself.
“Then Raghavan, Mani and I would sit in the backyard, on small plastic chairs, in the darkness and talk and laugh and have a good time.
“Raghavan told me he had saved a lot of money. He said that he had two more years to go before he retired and after that, he was planning to go to Kerala to settle down. I asked him where and he said that he had not decided on the place. His parents had died a long time ago and he was an only child. After their deaths, he had gone back and sold off their property in Ottapallam.
“We talked about a lot of things; like his early life in Bangkok; the struggles; the feeling of alienation in a strange city; the long hours at the wheel, although he was always paid overtime. He was very decent and respectful of me.
“Not once in his conversation did he hint about wanting to do anything with me. One day, Raghavan told me that he loved me. We were alone that day. The Nairs had taken Mani out for an evening ride. He said that he wanted to marry me. He said that he knew that I was a young woman and he was an old man. He said that there was nothing to worry. He would look after me well.
“For some time, I was stunned by his proposal. I was least expecting it. I had never looked on him as a prospective bridegroom. It was true that Raghavan was too old for me but it was also true that I was 34 and unmarried.
And I didn’t think that my chances for getting married were really bright. Frankly also, I was dying to get married, to belong to somebody. How long could I live alone, clutching a pillow at night for company? After all, deep down, every woman wants to get married and start a family. And I wanted a child of my own. That earlier pregnancy had whetted my desire to have another child.
“So I said yes and we kissed in the backyard. Then we told the Nairs the news. They were surprised; then they became very co-operative.
‘Let’s have a registered marriage,’ Raghavan said.
‘In Bangkok or in Kerala,’ I asked. He replied that he would prefer to get married in Kerala. So we decided to go back.
“The plan was that Raghavan would buy a plot of land which had a house on it and install me there. After that, he would return to Bangkok. Then he would come down again during his annual leave. We would carry on like this, till he reached 60 and would retire from C. Itoh. He would collect the dues and come and live with me. So we made preparations to leave.
“We bought a lot of utensils for the kitchen, clothes for me, house-coats, bras, panties, perfumes, bed sheets, a tape recorder, an iron, a mixer, etc.
“We left Bangkok on a Thai Airways flight. We landed in Chennai and took an evening flight to Ernakulam. We checked into the posh Hotel Sealord. Can you imagine that? For years, whenever I used to go to Ernakulam for a visit I would look at the Sealord and wonder what sort of people stayed in that hotel. Surely, they must be all rich people. But now fate had created such a situation where a driver and a maid would stay there, although, it was only for a day.
“The next day, we found a marriage registry office and persuaded two waiters who were going off-duty to act as witnesses. So, in front of a woman officer, whom we bribed in order to avoid the one-month notice period, I was married to Raghavan Verma. He was a Hindu and I was a Catholic and I wondered how my parents would react to that.
“We had lunch, then we checked out of the hotel, got into a taxi and went to my parents’ place.
“My parents were stunned to see me because I had not told them that I was coming. On top of that, I had brought along a husband and that too, an old man. But they kept quiet since l had brought so many so many utensils; clothes, razors, blades, shirts.
“My mother, however, took me aside and said, ‘He’s a Hindu, isn’t he?’ I said yes and she did not say anything else. How quickly poor parents forgive you anything if you bring them material gifts. My parents smiled at Raghavan and gave him tea and banana fries. My father also took me to the courtyard and said, ‘Why did you have to marry such an old man? But he seems to be gentle. Thank God, he is rich.’ Later, he broke out into a big smile when Raghavan gave him a carton of 555 cigarettes.
“Then we told my parents about our plans to settle down somewhere and my father said that there was a plot of land that was up for sale, about five kilometres away. There was a house, with a bathroom and a kitchen and it cost one lakh rupees. We went and saw the land. It was half an acre in size.
There was a patch of land in the front, filled with weeds, and a well at the back. There were no houses nearby. It was by the side of the Karuvelil rubber estate.
“Raghavan looked at me and I said that it was okay. It was silent and quiet. We went and met the owner. He was an old man who had studied with my father in the government primary school many decades ago. He agreed at once. It seemed that this plot of land had been up for sale for quite some time and there had been no buyers.
“So we settled into the new house. It took us a week to clean it up. We put pictures on the wall. We got an electricity connection (and how much money in bribes we had to pay to get that), we bought a bed and a mattress, two tables and chairs, a table fan and bulbs. All in all, it was a hectic time, but Raghavan was calm and relaxed and did everything to make the house comfortable.
“Finally, after we were all settled, I told Raghavan that we should make love. He didn’t seem pushy about it all, although we had slept together for quite a few days now. I was puzzled about it.
“Normally men are the ones who are so impatient to have sex. But Raghavan seemed passive and docile, acting exactly like the grey-haired man that he was. When I mentioned that he would make love, he smiled a little and I noticed that he had started sweating.
“We started kissing. I climbed on top of him and I started getting hot. I gave him my breast to suck. I could feel myself getting wet as he sucked on my nipple. I stretched my hand downwards to grab his penis.
“It was soft, like a wad of cotton. He was impotent. I pulled on it; sucked on it; caressed it; but nothing happened. It was limp and soft. There seemed to be no life in it. I got up and put on the light. Raghavan smiled a little foolishly and said that he had been impotent for years. So that was that.
“There was nothing that I could do. I had married him and now I had to live with him for the rest of my life, or his life, because, most probably, he would go first. So here I was, unable to fulfill my dream of becoming a mother once again. So much for womanly calculations. How it can backfire! Really, we are pawns in the hands of fate. This is what I have understood from life.
“Anyway, we continued to live together and a month later, Raghavan left for Bangkok. I was alone once again. I was lonely. I was bored. I had to wait another year before I could see him again.
“But then fate created another twist in the tale. Six months later, Raghavan died in a car accident while he was coming back from the airport after dropping a C. Itoh official. Reena wrote to me and said that a truck hit his car and the steering wheel rammed into Raghavan’s body, killing him instantly. So what was I to do?
“I was a widow with a house and a land of my own. And this is where my story is at present. My mother is no longer in good health and she has asked me to come and work for you.
“And that is why, here I am, Madam, and I don’t know how life is going to treat me next. Except that I hope and pray that I will get a little bit of peace. There have been too many eventful happenings in my life. Now I want to lead a very simple life.”
Suddenly, a car horn was heard. The mistress of the house sprang up from the bed, as if she had been struck by a bolt of electricity and said, ‘Omana, go and open the gate. The master has come. Make a cup of tea after that.’
Omana went outside, this ripe woman, in a red saree, with long black hair, and buxom breasts and narrow hips, and opened the gate. The master was at the wheel, a square-jawed man, with a thick salt and pepper walrus moustache and with a pipe sticking out from his mouth. As the Lancer car swept past her, Omana saw the gleam of desire in the master’s eyes…

A MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION (A Short Story)

By Shevlin Sebastian

“Don’t break up your marriage like I did,” said Suresh Chacko, as he sipped a glass of whisky at the bar of the Regency Club in Kolkata. “In the end, you will lose everything.”
There were only two other men, one bald, with bushy black eyebrows and the other, a thin reed of a man, with black spectacles, who sat on long stools with their elbows resting on the counter. The muted lights, embedded in the false ceiling, just above the bar, looked like so many unblinking eyes, while the rest of the room was in semi-darkness. There was a mirror placed right across the wall, behind the counter, and in front were small glass shelves on which were placed bottles of whisky, rum, and vodka.
Sitting next to Suresh was Leslie Jones, the club’s swimming champion. He had the white skin of a Westerner, and his biceps rippled in the tight, red sleeveless t-shirt that he wore, with the legend, ‘I am a hero’ penciled in italic white across the chest. He had translucent blue eyes, straw-coloured hair, and red lips, all the result of his Anglo-Indian heritage.
“You are young,” Suresh continued. “You feel on top of the world, a hero, as your t-shirt says. The women are coming in droves. So why stick to one woman, right? Why stick to your wife, right? So, the idea is to screw around. One doesn’t get chances like this all the time but do you know what happens in the end?”
“No man, I don’t,” Leslie said, as he shook his head rapidly, like he was saying no. He was trying to shake off a buzz caused by too many drinks.
Suresh stared at Leslie’s flushed face in silence for a few moments. Then he said in a grave voice: “You lose everything…and I mean, EVERYTHING.”
“Like how?” Leslie asked, as he looked sideways at Suresh’s lips, which had turned grey because of excessive smoking.
“Take my life as an example,” Suresh said, “I was a young stud like you. Most of the women in the club, especially the older ones, have messed-up marriages. They are always looking out for some excitement. And there I was, in tip-top condition, because I played first division hockey and football and they all parted their legs for me…and now look, what has happened to me. Not a single one looks at me. Of course, my paunch sticks out a mile. I have a double chin. I am not physically fit at all. They have also become older and fat like me, but now, they are trying for guys like you. When you reach 38, my age, they will throw you aside. You are not going to get women all your life.”
Leslie pursed his lips in a mock grimace and yawned.
“Don’t be cock smart,” Suresh said, irritated by Leslie’s casual reaction. “I like you and that’s why I am warning you. You should listen to my life story and then, maybe, you will understand that what I am saying is the truth.”
“I didn’t mean to put you off Suresh,” Leslie said. “It’s just that I was feeling a little sleepy.”
The balding man placed a twenty-rupee note beneath his empty glass as a tip for Ali the bartender, who smiled and said, “Thank you.” The bald man nodded and the two men left silently. Only Suresh and Leslie remained in the bar. The quietness was interrupted now and then by the rattle of the Voltas air-conditioner under a window.
Suresh lit a cigarette, with a gold lighter, exhaled a stream of smoke upwards, and began: “I first met Kathy at the annual Christmas Eve dance. She had just become a member. Her parents were from Asansol and her father had come to Kolkata on a transfer and took a flat on Kimber Street. I can’t remember in which company the old man worked in. When I first saw Kathy at the dance--she was sitting at one of the many tables in the hall, with her parents--my legs turned to jelly. I am not exaggerating…she was wearing a bright red mini skirt that rode up her thighs and had the most lovely, long legs that I have ever seen. She was 18 years old, chestnut brown hair that she had casually tied with a red ribbon, smooth arms and nice, firm boobs. I was instantly attracted. I approached her for a dance. Most of the other guys—Stan, Ashley, Ben, Davis and Eugene—were also interested but they hesitated to make a move. After all, she was new to the club. I had no such problems. I just walked up to their table and said, ‘Excuse me, could I have a dance with you?’ She looked up, a half smile on her face. Since she was sitting with her parents, she didn’t know whether to say yes or no. She looked at her mother and I quickly said, ‘Madam, can I take your daughter for a dance.’ The mother, who was in her forties and looked beautiful herself, smiled at me and said, ‘Go ahead, Kathy.’ The father also nodded.
“So Kathy and I started dancing. She was at that age when she was ready to fall in love. And on that Christmas Eve, because I was the only one who approached her, she fell in love with me. Although, as you can see, I am not conventionally handsome. I have dark skin, a snub nose, but at that time, I had muscular shoulders, a V-shaped upper body and a slim waist.”
“Blowing your trumpet, Suresh?” Leslie said, with a smirk.
“Yeah, it’s been gathering dust for years. And you don’t need to blow yours, since I am already doing it for you.”
Leslie burst out laughing and tapped Suresh on his back, showing his appreciation for his repartee.
“That night I felt very smart,” Suresh continued. “I was doing pretty well also. I was working in my pop’s furniture business and had a flat in Sunny Park. I had a car, membership in the Regency and I was getting married pussy regularly…what more could a young man want, except maybe, to fall in love with a beautiful, tall chick with smooth Amul butter legs.”
“Utterly butterly delicious,” Leslie said and grinned.
The ever-smiling Ahmed said, “Please Sahibs, finish your drinks. The bar is about to close.”
“Ahmed Bhai,” Suresh said, as he put two fingers inside his shirt pocket and took out a hundred-rupee note in a smooth movement. “Leave us alone for some time. I am telling this young man the story of my life.”
“This is a fucked up place,” Leslie said in an undertone. “Why do they have to close a bar, of all things, at midnight?”
They watched Ahmed, the peaked white cap on his head, carefully fold the currency note and put it in the front pocket of his uniform. He smiled his thanks and turned to place some Old Monk bottles on a shelf.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Kathy and I became steady dates. Frankly speaking, I couldn’t believe my luck. I mean, to think that this beautiful girl had fallen for me. We courted for a year and decided to get married. I am a Malayali and my parents wanted their only child to have an arranged marriage with a rich Mallu chick from Kerala and get a fat dowry.
“On the other hand, Kathy’s parents had no objections. They knew that there were not too many successful Anglo-Indian guys around, so they felt that their daughter would have a better life with me. As for me, I wanted Kathy since I was not a hardcore Malayali. I was born and brought up in Cal. I can hardly speak Malayalam, let alone, read and write. I felt more in tune with Kathy and the other chicks in Cal.
“Anyway, to cut a long story short, I finally managed to persuade my parents although they had been vehemently opposed at first.
“Kathy and I got married in Christ the King church in Park Circus. We went for our honeymoon to Gangtok. It was a fantastic time. Enjoying the beauty of Nature and doing non-stop humping. She was a good woman: good in bed, good off it, kind, considerate and sharing. I was very happy. I had plenty of money. The business was doing well. We went to the best restaurants and discos. I bought her the best clothes, and she furnished my flat, which my father had gifted to me, in style and elegance. In short, it was a good life but then, like all greedy people, I wanted more from life.
“Sometimes when I came to the bar while Kathy was sitting outside on the lawn and talking to her friends, I would meet the women whom I had sex before my marriage. As soon as they saw me, they smiled and whispered, “Hey Suresh, I miss you. I want you inside me.” And so on and so forth. In a way, your affairs before your marriage come to tempt you all the time. For example, there was Shona, always ready, her marriage in a mess, secretly hating my happiness. Whenever I met her, she would say, ‘Suresh, how about one for old time’s sake?’
In the beginning, I resisted. I wanted very much to be faithful. When I look back now, I realised that I should have become a member of another club. Then, there would not have been such obvious invitations. Anyway, things went along fine, till Kathy became pregnant. For quite a while, we could not have sex because the doctor said so. And you know how horny we Mallus are. Always wanting to screw. Must be due to the coconut oil we put on our heads.”
Leslie laughed and said, “Yea, yeah, I agree. All South Indians are horny, especially the women.”
Suresh smiled and continued, “It was during the pregnancy that I spent an afternoon with Shona. I was feeling a little frustrated and it didn’t help that Kathy did not like to give blowjobs. And Shona had been so relentless in pursuing me. One night at the bar, she told me that her husband was out of town, the servant had gone to her village and she was ‘fucking bored’ out of her mind. So I went and had sex with her. I thought that one session would not make much of a difference but I was wrong. Because, once you start you cannot stop. It was the beginning of the end of our marriage. Whenever the urge arose, I went to Shona. And that went on till Kathy gave birth to a boy.
“When Mark was born, Kathy changed some more. She became engrossed in Mark. She stopped paying me the complete attention I was used to. I cannot blame her because to look after a baby is a 24-hour job, but she seemed obsessed.
“When I returned from the office, feeling tired and depressed, she just smiled, gave me a cup of tea and sat with the baby. It was just Mark, Mark, Mark all the time. She did not seem interested in sex any more. She had put on a lot of weight, especially around her stomach and bum, and seemed to have lost interest in maintaining her figure. It pissed me off. I would say, ‘Kathy, do something about your appearance. How can you allow yourself to go fat like this?’ And she would reply, ‘Yes, yes, I must start some exercises’ and then she would look at Mark and tweak his cheeks and forget what I had just said.
“I was getting angry. So I would take a shower, dress up and go to the club. ‘Fuck it,’ I thought, ‘if Kathy didn’t want to talk to me, I had lots of other women who were interested in me. After all, I was wealthy and, from time immemorial, women have always been turned on by money and power.
“On hot afternoons, I would take off from the office on Shakespeare Sarani and go to Shona’s place in Ballygunge Circular Road. As she grew older, and began losing her looks, because of too many late nights and too much drinking, she is becoming desperate to fix up some young stud. But it is getting more and more difficult. Age, after all, catches up with everyone. Anyway, it was during this time that I met Rosalie for the first time. I don’t know whether you know Rosalie. She’s an Anglo-Indian who works as a secretary in Brooke Bond and is about ten years younger than me.”
Leslie narrowed his eyes, stared hard at the mirror, and shook his head. “No, the name does not ring a bell,” he said.
“Maybe, her boobs will,” Suresh said, as he stubbed his cigarette hard into the steel ashtray, “she had the biggest knockers this side of the Suez Canal.”
“Does she play basketball? Brown hair, tanned legs, very short skirts,” Leslie asked.
“That’s the one. You’ve got good eyes, stud. You’ll go a long way,” Suresh said in a half sarcastic tone. “Now she had just ended her first marriage with a disc jockey and was footloose and fancy-free. We met and she took me to her flat on Elliot Road. And what a session we had…she was a panther in bed. She was wild but she was also very cunning. In return for all the sex, she made me spend money on clothes, perfumes, jewellery, shoes, handbags, sexy, foreign lingerie…she wanted everything. She was also a little crazy. She would tell me suddenly, when we were having sex, ‘Suresh, I want you to marry me. I am a much better wife. I give you so much of pleasure. I deserve a better deal.’ There used to be a mad look in her eyes when she said this and it used to frighten the hell out of me.
“I may be a rake but the one thing that I always made clear before I did anything with a woman, was that I would not leave Kathy. Most women accepted the situation since they were married themselves. But Rosalie was unpredictable…you know how women can behave once their emotions are churned up.
“Guess what Leslie, as I mention the word Rosalie, I am getting a hard on. What a chick she was. Her micro mini skirts, the high heels, the deep cleavage…anyway, when I returned home, Kathy would be fast asleep, one arm around the baby. Life went on. She continued to dote on Mark and we talked less and less. But I still loved her. There was something beautiful about her character, so we did not have any fights. We just drifted away from each other.”
“Ahmad is sleeping,” Leslie said, pointing at the barman, who was resting his head on his arms on the counter, at one side, the cap still in place. They could hear a snore, which sounded like the wheeze of an asthmatic, occur at regular intervals.
“Poor fellow,” Suresh said, as he picked up his glass. “Must have had a long night. Come on, let’s go and sit in the lawn. I have to finish this story. What’s the time anyway?”
“It’s 12.30,” Leslie said.
“Do you want another drink?” Suresh asked.
“No man, my head is reeling,” Leslie replied as they stepped off the stools and went outside, to the lawn at the back of the club. Suresh walked heavily, his black leather shoes making a flapping sound on the cement floor while Leslie seemed to glide, in his thick white Adidas sneakers. They sat down on plastic chairs placed haphazardly across the lawn. The light from the clubhouse lit up one side and they decided to sit there, so that they could see each other. Otherwise, it was dark all around. After the coolness of the bar, the air was muggy.
Suresh tried to press his glass into Leslie’s hand but he said, “No Suresh, I can’t take another drop. I won’t be able to make it home.”
“You are not going home,” Suresh said, with a mocking smile. “Isn’t that true?”
“Where do you think I can go at this time of the night?”
“You are going to Sharon’s place on Shamshul Huda Road.”
For a few moments Leslie was silent, his hands gripping the two ends of the chair, and he gazed at Suresh, who stared right back.
“You are a smart cookie,” Leslie finally said, as he leaned forward and gave a mock fisticuff to Suresh’s shoulders.
“I am an old hand at this game, Leslie” Suresh said, smiling, “I know who is screwing whom and where.”
“The Regency’s Sherlock Holmes,” Leslie said, in a faintly sarcastic tone.
“I can tell from a glance whether two people are just acquaintances or had sex with each other. It is there in the body language, in the way they look at each other. As far as you and Sharon are concerned, it was just an intuition. She looked at you in a very intimate way a few days ago in the bar. I happen to see that look and I knew that you were having sex with her.”
“Wow,” Leslie said.
“Sharon does not want to be seen with you in public,” Suresh continued. “After all, her husband died in that motorbike accident only two months ago. But she doesn’t want to waste a year mourning for somebody. Let’s face it, nobody is indispensable. Women will love you, if you are in front of them. But if you die, it is simply a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ This happens to good husbands also. These are the plain facts of life.”
“You should have been a professor, Suresh,” Leslie said, laughing a little.
“I haven’t finished, Leslie. Sharon is now looking out for a young and experienced guy and she has settled on you. Although I don’t know whether the scene is temporary or permanent. It is too early to say. But since you are also married, things have to be done in secret. She is also aware that people will look at her with contempt if she openly has a scene with you. Things are not as cool as it is in America. But Sharon needs sex. So you go to her place at night, have sex, then dinner and go home. Am I right pardner?”
“Just wrong about the dinner part. I have the sex and then go home and have dinner,” Leslie said.
Suresh lit another cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and said, “I am sorry Leslie, there are no secrets in this world. The truth comes out sooner or later. Today, only I know about your scene but tomorrow, the whole club will come to know. Rest assured, I am not going to open my mouth. But Leslie, remember, no secrets.”
He blew smoke upwards and added, “Listen to me and avoid the mistakes that I have made.”
“That’s why I am here, Matador,” he said. “You are a straight talking guy and I like that.”
Suresh slapped away some mosquitoes from his face and grinned. “I like that, calling me a matador although I was more like a bull in a china shop.
“Anyway, carrying on with my story, I was having this mad scene with Rosalie and Kathy did not know about it. Things were cool. But then one night, everything changed. At 1 a.m., the doorbell rang and Kathy went and opened the door. A drunk Rosalie said, ‘Where is my husband?’ I heard Kathy reply, ‘I think you have come to the wrong house. There is nobody here, except my husband Suresh.’ ‘You stupid fool,’ Rosalie said, her voice slurring like crazy, ‘that bastard is also my husband since I am also screwing him. You can ask him that. And let me tell you that I screw better than you. That’s why he always come to me.’
“Kathy could not take it any more. She came and called me. I got up with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew then and there that the bitch was going to ruin my marriage. I went into the living room and Rosalie was sitting on the sofa, one leg on the knee of the other, the pink skirt riding all the way up and I could see her pink panty. She looked at me and said, ‘Hi lover. I missed you. Your wife does not seem to know that you are screwing me on the sly. She is shocked out of her mind. So honey, how can you be so secretive about it? Isn’t it time that you told your wife everything. I mean, this necklace, this dress, and even this panty—you bought them for me.’
“I turned around and Kathy was standing near the door in her white nightie and she was staring at Rosalie with a mixture of fascination and fear. She said in a cold, angry voice, ‘Please leave the house. I will not tolerate anybody talking to my husband like this.’ Rosalie laughed and then she said, ‘Fuck you bitch.’ That made me see red. I slapped her and said, ‘Stop making a nuisance of yourself. Now go away.’ Rosalie replied, ‘I won’t leave. You have to drop me home.’ Kathy suddenly said, in a firm voice, ‘Suresh, take her home.’ I pinched Rosalie’s arm fiercely and she giggled. I went to the bedroom and put on my jeans and t-shirt. Then we went down the stairs, Rosalie leaning on me and whispering in my ears, ‘You want the best of both worlds. But I only want you. I don’t want to share you with anybody, you horny Mallu.”
“I didn’t reply. There was no point. The whole thing was ruined. As we sat in the car, all I could see in front of my face was the picture of my dear wife, horrified by the act of betrayal that I had done. I understand one thing now: a woman will forgive a man all the sins of the world except the sin of infidelity. You sleep with another woman and if your wife comes to know about it, it is the end of the marriage. If she continues to live with you, it is no longer the same. The sense of complete trust is lost. Anyway, I am fast-forwarding the story.
“So I took Rosalie home and had to carry her up the steps, since she refused to walk. I deposited her on the bed and was about to leave, when she grabbed my crotch. She began stroking me and within seconds, I could feel an intense pleasure go through me. She took out my cock and put it inside her mouth. I screwed her and went back home. Kathy was sleeping and I quietly slipped into bed and went off to sleep, my body smelling of Rosalie. It was the beginning of the end.
“We didn’t have any big fights. She just told me, with tears in her eyes, ‘Suresh I trusted you and you betrayed me. This is your child Mark and I love him very much.’”
“‘Perhaps that was the problem,’ I said. ‘You concentrated on him so much, that you forgot about me. Maybe, that’s why I started to stray.’ Kathy looked surprised and said, ‘You should have told me. I didn’t know.’ But the damage was done. We seemed to be on an irreversible path, like two cars with no brakes, on a collision course. Soon, she heard about all the other screws…somebody in the club filled her up on my exploits. Women can be such bitchy gossips. So Kathy and I just drifted away from each other.
“I continued to screw Rosalie. Then Kathy got herself a job as a secretary. Around this time, we were lucky to get an old and trustworthy maidservant, Kamala, who began to look after Mark. I maintained my late nights. Soon, Kathy started an affair with her boss and did not hide it from me. One day, when he called I picked up the phone and abused him like mad. Kathy stood near the door, heard what I said and after I put down the phone, she said, ‘Suresh, I want a divorce. I cannot live with you anymore. I don’t think this is a good atmosphere for Mark.’”
“‘He is my son also,’” I said.
“‘If Mark is your son,’ Kathy said, ‘then how come you don’t play with him? How come you have not carried him in your arms at all?’ That was true. I didn’t like my son. I lost my wife because of him. Now I felt a terrible anger against my wife and there arose a desire in me to humiliate her. It came to such a stage that sometimes, I would bring Rosalie and Shona home and we would have an orgy on the carpet.
“Kathy did not say anything. She hired a lawyer and started legal proceedings. Meanwhile, I was sinking. I was drinking like crazy and spending money on these whores. Kathy moved out and began staying in a flat on New Park Street. She broke off from her boss and began going around with a tennis coach of the Saturday Club, Richard Francis. He thought he was the best coach on Planet Earth. Do you know him?”
“I have heard of him but I don’t know him personally,” Leslie replied, as he also slapped away some whining mosquitoes.
“It was an on and off affair. You have to have the skin of a rhino to tolerate that loud-mouthed asshole. Meanwhile, the divorce came through. Kathy got custody of Mark and I was given visitation rights, once a week.
“Kathy was back to her beautiful old self. Slim, tall, with those beautiful long legs. Sometimes, when I saw her at the club, during New Year’s Eve dances, she looked ravishing. And I would feel a terrible pain. To think that this gorgeous woman had once been my wife and I threw it all away, in an utterly senseless manner. Kathy finally married Richard and they moved off to Malaysia, where he got a job as a coach in a five-star hotel. Mark went with them. Later, I heard from her friends that she just wanted to get out of Kolkata and all the malicious gossip. She also didn’t want to see me. Richard used to give me dagger looks. I couldn’t understand why since Kathy belonged to him now. So what was he angry about? So, that, in a nutshell, has been my life.
“Meanwhile, Rosalie got married to one of the African football players who play in our first division league but even now, when her hubby goes out of town for some tournament, we have sex for old time’s sake. Shona’s husband divorced her but she walks around with such a desperate look on her face that people have started calling her ‘Hungry Eyes’. And as for me, I am living with a young Anglo girl. Life goes on…but I’ll tell you something.
“I’ll do anything to get my wife and kid back. I know this is wishful thinking because we are divorced and she is married to somebody else. She is never going to come back. My greed to have more sex resulted in me losing everything. I lost what was most important to me. There is a constant ache in my heart. I don’t keep good health at all. If only I had another chance…”
Suresh became silent. Leslie also did not say anything. They were lost in their own thoughts. A dog barked far away, a haunting, mournful sound.
Finally, Leslie pointed the dial of his watch towards the lights of the club and looked at the time.
“It’s time for me to go Suresh,” Leslie said. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Sharon’s getting impatient, isn’t it?” Suresh said, in a sarcastic tone.
Leslie did not say anything, as he sat poised at the edge of the chair, about to get up.
“Look Leslie, I told you my story as a sort of warning, because I like you. I don’t want you to go down the path that I have gone and lose everything. But isn’t it a fact that your marriage is cracking up?”
“It is,” Leslie admitted.
“I think Caroline knows that you are sleeping around and you don’t seem to care. What happened? You had courted each other for so many years. Then how come, within a couple of years, the whole thing has collapsed?”
Leslie cracked a knuckle, which sounded like a bone being broken, and said, “I have no idea what went wrong. Women behave differently before and after marriage. When I was courting her, Caroline was sweet and cute. But after marriage, all her negative qualities--her jealousy, her selfishness, her career obsession--came to the fore. And let’s face it, she is a flirt who likes to party every night.
“I heard stories from the other guys about the shameless way she flirts in the office and even here at the Regency, when I am not present. That pissed me off. I found that I liked her less and less. It was nice before marriage but when we started living together, it was no longer nice. And these married women have shown so much interest in me. I couldn’t resist and started screwing around. Caroline, on some days, would say no to sex with me because she was in an off mood. What’s the use of a wife if she doesn’t give you sex? I think our marriage is heading for the rocks.”
“Is Caroline sleeping around?” Suresh asked.
“I don’t know maan. Nor do I care. I am not bothered. She has a lot of girlfriends with whom she spends the weekends. I have no idea what she does. Maybe, she’s a lesbian or a bi. Sometimes, she comes back home from office on Monday evenings and tells me that has spent the weekend with her friend Annette. Women can be so secretive.”
Leslie stood up and said, “Suresh, don’t mind, it’s 1.30 and I have to go. I really enjoyed listening to you. Thanks.”
Suresh reached up and shook Leslie’s hand. Then he watched him jog across the lawn, up the five steps, and into the hall. After a while, Suresh heard the sound of Leslie’s motorbike starting and the staccato sounds rising and falling, as the bike moved further and further away from the club.
Suresh picked up the empty glass from the grass and went back to the bar. Ahmed was still sleeping. He placed the glass on the counter, went to the telephone at one corner and dialled his home.
“Hi,” Caroline said, picking up the phone on the second ring, “where have you been?”
“Sorry darling, what are you doing?” Suresh said.
“Watching MTV and drinking whisky. I am going mad waiting for you.”
“I was talking to Leslie,” Suresh said, in a whisper, as he didn’t want Ali to hear anything, “I was trying to advise him to lead a straight life.”
“Fuck him,” Caroline said, anger in her voice. “he’s an asshole. Didn’t I tell you that he is sleeping with Sharon? She told me that. Just imagine! Her husband Arthur is barely in his grave and she has started screwing around. And Leslie thinks I don’t know about his scene, the fool…of course, it is another story that I once did a threesome with both of them. Now hurry up and get your ass up here. I miss you darling.”
“I miss you too, where’s Annette?” Suresh asked.
“She is sleeping. She’s having her periods and is not in the mood. I am feeling horny, lover. You know I don’t enjoy masturbating any more. So hurry up. ”
“Okay baby,” Suresh said, smiling, “just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be home.”

The Ageing Lion (Short story)

THE AGEING LION

By Shevlin Sebastian

Indranil Dhar stared at the white sheet of paper rolled up in his typewriter. The words, ‘Holders Mohun Bagan’, were typed out. He drummed his fingers on the small glass-topped table.
It was quiet in the reporter’s section of The Daily newspaper in Kolkata. Most of his colleagues had gone for dinner in the canteen. He had not felt hungry and had remained behind, at the second table, which was part of a row of tables, placed one behind another, beside a wall. Each table had a Remington typewriter, a one-foot high monstrosity, on it. There was another row of tables placed against the opposite wall of the narrow room. On green felt boards running along the two walls were pieces of paper, placed haphazardly, with red pins on it, announcing some press conference or the other. Just above it were lockers painted a muted orange.
It was 9.30 p.m. and Indranil was trying to write a match report of the football league in Kolkata between champions Mohun Bagan and Aryans. He got up and began to walk up and down between the tables, his head tilted forward and his hands clasped behind his back. The parallel rows of bright fluorescent lights embedded in the false ceiling behind rectangular glass frames, the cool air-conditioning and the silence gave the room a feel of an operation theatre in a hospital.
He walked for ten minutes but his mind remained blank. ‘This must be the 600th match report I am writing,’ he thought. And now, he discovered that he could not write.
As usual, he turned for help. He stopped at his desk, opened his locker and took out a bottle of ‘Old Monk’ rum and a plastic glass. He poured one and a half pegs into the glass, carefully screwed the cap back on and put the bottle back in the locker, covering it with a newspaper. He filled the glass with water from a cooler placed near the entrance and drank it in two big gulps.
He made a smacking sound with his lips and felt better. He washed the glass in the cooler tap, even though he was not supposed to, shook it so that there were no drops of water, and placed it in his locker. He then sat down at his desk, rubbed his palms together, and stared at the paper, with narrowed eyes, for a few moments. Then he hit the keys with the third finger of both his hands. The action resembled a woodpecker pecking at a tree trunk. He looked up to see that he had typed, "Holders Mohun Bagan", once again. His eyes widened a little in shock. He fell back, rested his head on the back of the chair, stretched his legs, and closed his eyes.
He couldn't understand what was happening. He had done this for years together. It was something he could have done blindly earlier. And now, he could not even write a sentence.
Time passed; one by one his younger colleagues returned and soon, the room vibrated with the rat-a-tat sound of typewriter keys being hit at high speed and the tinkle of a bell when the noisy carriage reached one end. He opened his eyes and his vision was blurred for a few moments. Then he realised that he had been crying. He hurriedly pulled out a handkerchief, shook it open and wiped his face.
“Anything wrong?” asked Sanjukta Datta, a female reporter in a low voice. She was sitting at the same desk on the opposite row, and wore a body hugging yellow t-shirt, tucked into tight Levis jeans, with the breasts jutting out like twin peaks. “No, no, I am fine,” Indranil said, smiling hastily. She caught his eyes for a moment, frowned, then nodded and turned towards her typewriter. Thankfully, no one else had observed what was going on. `They are young, and I am old,' he thought, as he watched a coil of cigarette smoke move towards the ceiling in slow motion.
It was 10.30 p.m. He took a couple of deep breaths, and gripped the end of the table with his fingers. He did not know what to do. A few moments passed. Then he picked up his reporter’s notebook from the table and got up. He could feel Sanjukta’s puzzled eyes on his back as he stepped out of the room.
In the newsroom, he was assailed by the shouts of sub-editors asking for a photograph or a copy, all sitting at similar glass topped tables, with typewriters on it. There was an occasional buzz from the square-shaped teleprinter, placed on a table, with four long legs, like a crane’s, at one corner, as it spitted out a roll of white sheets now and then.
He made his way to a series of glass cubicles placed side by side, at one side of the room. He knocked on one door. Sports Editor Sanjib Sen looked up and nodded. As soon as Indranil shut the door, it was suddenly silent. Sanjib, who had thin arms, a sunken chest and thick black spectacles, was editing a copy with a blue ballpoint pen, a lit cigarette wedged between the first two fingers of his left hand.
“So, what is the news?” Sanjib said, as he continued to make small changes in the copy.
"Sanjib, I have a problem," Indranil said, coming straight to the point.
"What is it?" the Sports Editor said, as he took a drag from his cigarette. The tip glowed brightly for a brief moment.
"I just can't write," Indranil whispered; his eyes contracted in pain. "It's becoming regular, isn't it?" Sanjib said, as he exhaled the smoke upwards in one steady breath. Indranil rubbed his forehead and said, "My mind is blank. I just can't write. I think I am having some sort of a block."
"Try a drink," Sanjib suggested.
"I tried," Indranil said, "but still nothing's happening."
They stared at each other in silence. Sanjib took another drag and carefully placed the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, which was already filled with butts. Then he took off his spectacles and cleaned the lens slowly with a handkerchief. He felt tired. He knew he had to cover up for Indranil, because they had known each other for years and were both dependent on this job. In Kolkata jobs were scarce, because of a stagnant economy, and, in the absence of social security, if you were sacked, you headed straight for poverty.
After the cleaning operation was over, he held the spectacles, at arm’s length, to check whether the lenses were clean and then put them back on. Indranil was surprised to see that Sanjib had bushy black eyebrows, which had been hidden by the spectacles.
"Pass me the notes," Sanjib said.
Indranil exhaled through his mouth and pulled out the blue notepad from his back pocket. He flipped through the pages, before he found the notes on the match.
"I am sorry," he said, as Sanjib began reading.
"Don’t worry," Sanjib said, as he looked up, his eyes suddenly pulsing with warmth, "I'll write it."

Indranil stood at the bus stop, near Great Eastern Hotel, on Government Place East, leaning against a lamppost. He was the lone traveller at this time of the night. The street was bathed in the orange light from the sodium lamps. An occasional Santro or Maruti sped past, headlights blazing. He gazed at the trees, all bunched together and shrouded in darkness in the gardens of Raj Bhawan on the opposite side. Beside it, there was a tall building, all the windows in darkness, except for the lighted lobby. He closed his eyes and rubbed the sides of his forehead in a circular motion with his fingertips. He could sense the beginnings of a headache as he thought of his life.
He remembered the great love for journalism that he had in the past. The stories that he had written; especially the scandals on the Maidan: the nexus between the hoodlums, the politicians and the football officials; the fixing of matches; the intimidation of referees; the illegal betting that took place during important matches.
He had been a respected, professional investigative sports reporter and would frequently receive tips and snippets from people who wanted to bring down those who were in power.
He recalled how effortlessly he would churn out his articles. He thought of the hard life that he led, the excessive drinking every night and the facile way that he carried on working the next day. It seemed as if he was indestructible.
He remembered his youthful romps. Of how he had picked up rich, bored society ladies, in their expensive chiffon sarees and clunky gold jewellery, while covering golf tournaments at the elite Tollygunge Club and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club. Of the slim Mizo girl he seduced—doe-eyed, black shoulder length hair and wearing a short red skirt—a nice interlude while covering the Gold Cup in Darjeeling; of the widow in her forties in the Accounts Section, ebony-skinned, with bulging breasts, who was so sexually hungry. Somehow, even after his marriage, he would go for a discreet session with her on a Saturday evening at her home in Bhowanipore.
He thought of his wife Aparna, whom he had met at a friend's place. It was love at first sight for both. He was of medium-height, but with muscular shoulders, a broad face with a long nose and neatly trimmed sideburns and brown eyes, that focused on people with the intensity of a laser beam.
He was famous then: Calcutta's premier sports journalist. She was awed! Journalism, like films, had always been regarded as such a glamourous profession.
Aparna had hair that ran down like a sheet to her waist, firm breasts, a narrow waist and strong legs with broad calves. They had married after a six-month courtship. Years later, he still loved her. They had a son Sandip, eight years old, thin and frail but bright-eyed and possessing an electric energy.
How time had passed! How quickly his youth had gone past! He had experienced too much, too soon. But now he felt stale. He had an intuitive sense that he was heading towards a burnout. Indranil Dhar, star reporter, forty-five years old, could not write anymore. He suddenly realised he was leaning against the lamppost when the mini bus arrived with a squeal of brakes.
It was empty save for a few men who sat singly at the window seats and looked out pensively. Indranil got in and sat on the back seat. The bus was noisy, with the windowpanes rattling and the wooden slats on the seats knocking against each other. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the noise.
He was still travelling in mini buses, he thought. He earned poorly every month. He remembered once telling his wife, as they walked by the riverside, on a Sunday evening, "Journalism looks a great profession from outside, but my salary is poor." She just held his hand, squeezed it hard and said, looking deep into his eyes, “It doesn’t matter Indro, I love you.”
And now, they were living in a three-room flat.
The bus came to his stop on Diamond Harbour Road, near the Birla hospital and Indranil got out. He crossed the road and entered Ekbalpore Road, which had patches of darkness because of non-functioning lights. He saw a dhoti-clad beggar, with a straggly grey beard and a hunched back, spread a few empty sacks on the sidewalk, near a wall, preparing to go to sleep.
He reached a four-storeyed building and paused at the bottom of the stairs. Then taking deep breaths, his chest jutting out with the effort, he went up the stairs, with slow, ponderous movements, to the second floor. He rang the bell, ‘ting-tong’ went the sound, and Aparna opened it immediately. She smiled as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. The skin was cool and smooth, and there was a sweet fragrance about her. She no longer had her long hair. She had cut it because “it is so difficult to look after,” she had told him a couple of years ago. She stepped back, put her hands in the pockets of the blue cotton housecoat and said, in mock anger, "You are drinking again?"
"Just a little bit," he admitted and added, "I am hungry."
She nodded and hurried to the kitchen on bare feet and lit the gas stove with a lighter. Indranil took off his shirt and observed a line of dirt around the inside of the collar. He grimaced as he hung it across the chair in the dining room. His hairy chest could not hide his small potbelly, which hung over the band of his trousers.
His wife shouted from the kitchen, "Why don't you have a bath?"
"No, no, I will eat first," he replied, as he washed his hands at the washbasin and splashed water on his face.
Placing soft, hot chappatis and a steaming mutton stew in front of him, his wife sat down at another chair, and looked at him as he began to eat.
"Indro," she said, "why do you look so unhappy?"
He stared at her as she rested her face on the cradle of her palms and felt a hollowness within. A husband was always naked in front of a wife. And vice versa too. A few moments passed in silence.
"I can't write," he finally said, looking at her.
"What do you mean?" she asked. “You have been doing it for years.”
"I don't know, maybe I have dried up. This is the fifth time in a row. There is no confidence in me. I feel so empty, so dead."
Aparna leaned forward and ran her hands through his thinning hair.
"My baby, don't worry, it's just temporary. I am sure of that," she said, as she held his chin with her fingers and shook it gently. It was an admonition mixed with encouragement.
"I don't know," he replied, staring at the plate. He felt ashamed suddenly. He shouldn't have told her his problems. She would worry needlessly. He continued to eat in silence.
"Indro, go and have a bath," Aparna said, when he had finished, and was licking his fingers, "You will feel better."
In the bathroom, he turned on the knob for the shower, and allowed the jets of water to drum on his head for quite a while before he rubbed his hair vigorously with Liril soap, making his head look like it had been covered in snow. He washed off the soap, wiped himself and entered the bedroom, the white towel wrapped around his waist.
Aparna sat on the bed, leafing through the latest issue of Stardust. He felt a little less anxious now. Sandip was sleeping on a divan in the drawing room.
Indranil put on his white kurta-pyjamas and combed his hair with his fingers. He lay down on the bed, the back of his head resting on his palms. He stared at the ceiling in silence. Aparna switched off the light and placed the magazine on the windowsill. The room was bathed in the soft blue of the moonlight. They were like shadows to each other. He could see the white window curtain being lifted up now and then by a gentle breeze.
Aparna sat beside him and began to massage the sides of his forehead. Her fingers were cool and soft. He began to relax. After a while, she kissed him on his eyelids because he had told her, years ago, on their honeymoon, that he liked that a lot. It soothed his tired eyes. Slowly, the tension began to ease away from his mind and his breathing began to get steadier. He put his hand between the buttons of the nightie and tweaked her nipples. Aparna quickly became aroused, the nipples becoming pointed within moments, but he was too tired and within moments, he was fast asleep.
Aparna stared at his face for several moments. She had wished for some sex. They made love rarely now. Somehow, Indranil always seemed so tired and uninterested in sex. She wondered briefly whether the marriage was a bit shaky. She spent so many hours alone at home and it was so boring. She knew that she loved Indro but their marriage seemed stagnant. It was clear that he was having problems in the work place.

----x----
The sunlight lit up a square patch of floor in the bedroom as Sandip tapped his father’s ankles.
"Baba, Baba," he said, "get up."
Indranil blearily opened his eyes and looked at his son. Those big round sensitive eyes of his son were filled with pride and happiness. "What is it," he said, "can't you let an old man sleep?"
"Baba," Sandip said, smiling, "your report has come. See."
Indranil tightened inwardly, as he reached out for the newspaper. He flipped it to the back page and saw his byline, "By Indranil Dhar," in neat, black, capital letters.
"Holders Mohun Bagan," he read through the report. It was precise and to the point. Sanjib had done a good job, as usual, but Indranil felt a sense of shame. How could he tell his son that he hadn't written the report?
“Ah yes, Baba’s report,” he said, as he quickly glanced at the other headlines on the page. Then he folded the newspaper and gave it back to his son, with a smile, "So, how is school?”
“Fine, Baba, I have come first in spelling and arithmetic,” Sandip said, his face gleaming in pride.
Indranil tweaked his son’s chin. “Good boy, good. I am very happy to hear that. Keep it up,” he said, as he searched for his slippers with his feet.
“Thank you Baba,” Sandip said.
“Sandip, hurry up, or you will be late for school,” Aparna called out from the kitchen.
“Coming Ma,” Sandip said, as he smiled at his father and walked out of the room.
Indranil got up and went into the bathroom and had a shave and a bath. As he dressed, Sandip came into the room, in his white shirt and grey shorts, with a khaki bag on his back, “Baba, I am off.”
Indranil again squeezed his son’s chin and said, “See you in the evening. Have a good day.”
“Okay Baba,” Sandip said and ran from the room. Both of them could hear the honk of the school bus downstairs.
Indranil sat down to a breakfast of omelette and four slices of toast and a cup of coffee.
"Did you sleep well?" Aparna asked, watching Indranil eat.
“Yes, your massage really relaxed me,” he said.
Aparna smiled at Indranil and said, “Thank you.” Suddenly, she had a desire to meet Manik today. Yesterday night’s lack of sex had whetted her appetite. She wondered whether Manik would be at home.
Indranil glanced at Aparna’s glowing face, and realised that she did not really understand what he had said yesterday night about his problem. How do you explain writer's block to anyone? Or burnout? Or staleness? Or tiredness of the spirit?
He was, by now, so far away from the reputation that he had established. In public, at the work place, he was popular and charming and gregarious. To his wife, he was the steady husband. To his eight-year-old son Sandip, he was a hero because his classmates thought very highly of him.
To his parents, he was the great investigative reporter. To his sisters, he was the cute, sweet and charming Indro. And yet he knew, now, he was just a parody of what he had been in the past.
Drip, drip, drip...the spirit had seeped out of him.
He knew that he would grind to a halt soon. It was just a matter of time. Then the management would come to know. They were experts at finding out whether a man was finished or whether he had some fire left. They lived off the work of the journalists and had nothing to fear like writer's block. They would praise him when he wrote well, knowing that a writer's sense of insecurity was deep.
"What a lovely article you have written today," they would say.
"Really Indranil," he remembered the Circulation Manager, Shyamal Ghosh, once telling him, "if you are not a genius, then who is?"
What did a little praise matter to him, as long as he could collect his bonuses for selling so many magazines and newspapers in so many sectors and as long as he secured the loan from the company to build that house in Birbhum, to live in comfortable retirement. And here, in Kolkata, Indranil was barely able to make ends meet with his salary.
All the year around, he had to keep his spirit fresh and sharp, so that his writing would be enthusiastic and incisive. But now, he could no longer keep up the battle to stay young forever. The knocks of life were knocking his zest also. His writing was losing its sharpness. The management would then sit up and say, with a smirk on their faces, "The bastard's finished!"
He remembered what had happened to cricket correspondent Dipankar Mitra. There was a time when, almost every day, there was an article by him in the newspaper. But he had gone stale and slowly but relentlessly, he was sidelined. No more Test matches to cover or one dayers or even a Ranji Trophy match at the Eden Gardens.
Again, the word had passed around: "Let the bum be content with subbing copy." And so, almost overnight, Dipankar became desk-bound. His spirit was crushed but he was abjectly dependent on his salary, so he swallowed his humiliation and continued to work.
Indranil ate slowly. It was silent save for the tick tock of the wall clock.
“Indro, Sandip wants a cycle" Aparna said.
“How is he doing in class?” Indranil asked. He hoped that his son would study more than him--he was only a graduate--and get a better job with a good salary.
"Oh," Aparna said, her eyes shining, "he is very clever. He's coming third in class."
“Then I guess, we can buy him one,” Indranil said, as he sipped his coffee. “Or maybe we can set him a goal. Come second in class and you will get a cycle. Then he will appreciate what he gets.”
“Very good idea,” Aparna said, smiling.
“I don’t want to do what my own dad did,” Indranil said, looking at Aparna. “He gave me whatever I asked because he was doing well as a lawyer. It spoiled me. Made me lazy and I did not appreciate what I was given.”
Aparna held his chin and said, “You are not spoiled at all. But I agree it is a good idea. I will tell Sandip about it.”
Indranil nodded and his mind began to wander. He wondered whether he was all that innocent in his career. There were many times when he had written an article with a biased viewpoint. Either he was supporting the players or the officials, depending upon his personal relations with them at that particular time. He was making careers and destroying them through the power of his pen and he relished this power.
But, after a while, he developed a contempt for the reader, because he could manipulate them so easily. This was the great power of journalism--a few people influencing the minds of many towards a particular mode of thinking. How could he have any respect for people he could manipulate?
Therefore, he wrote and charged or accused or supported according to his whim and fancy. Was he any different from the managers? They were as keen on power as he was. Everyone, everywhere, wanted to dominate but his hold on power was now shaky because the skill to write forcefully had started to wane.
Snapping back to the present, he stared at the face of his wife and realised that she was quite content to live in this small flat, without any desire to lord over anyone, without this urge to be well known. Indranil felt disgusted with himself. He got up and went to the washbasin.
"I'll be late," he said, kissing his wife on the cheek.
He walked quickly down Ekbalpore Road, towards the main road. The sun's rays hit his chest through the thin cotton shirt that he wore. It was a humid morning. He reached the main road and was immediately hit by the ceaseless din of the traffic--horns being pressed, brakes being jammed. The buses came one by one and they were all jam-packed. People, with perspiration dripping from their faces, were holding desperately on to the rod at the entrance, with just a toehold on the last step. All of a sudden, he felt tired. He had no desire to fight his way into a bus. Crossing the road, he jumped into a vacant taxi.
"Riverside," he said, as he leaned back into the seat gratefully.
He had a sudden desire to escape from everybody--from the people in the office, from the footballers on the Maidan, from his wife, from his son, from his friends...he wanted to just be by himself.
He lit a cigarette and stared out of the window. As the taxi hurtled down the road, he saw two bare-chested men, in coloured lungis, sitting on a charpoy, under a tree, eating breakfast on round steel plates, at a roadside restaurant. There was a truck parked near it. ‘Drivers,’ he thought.
Soon, the taxi went thudding over the crater-like holes on the Kidderpore Bridge. Indranil bits his lips in irritation at the jolts he received because of the cab’s poor shock absorbers. Near Hastings, the road became clear. Ten minutes later, the vehicle reached the riverside and Indranil got out with a sigh of relief. He crossed the railway tracks that ran parallel to the river and stood near the railing.
It was deserted at this time of the morning. A steady breeze blew and the leaves in the trees nearby made a rustling sound. A ship was docked far away and he could see men in white overalls with long brooms cleaning the deck. He saw the small boats, with the tiny awnings, bobbing up and down, near the jetty. Far ahead in the distance, he observed the steel-grey arches of the Howrah Bridge wrapped in a haze of polluted air. He flicked the cigarette butt into the water and sat down on a bench. He gazed at the yellowish water and, for a change, the stresses of life seemed far away. For a long time, he sat like this and then, he sensed somebody come and sit beside him. He looked sideways and saw that it was a woman.
"Saab," she said, in a gruff voice, "do you want?"
She wore a red and white striped cotton saree with a red blouse and she was chewing pan. Her mouth was red and she had stringy hair. She wore plastic orange slippers.
He stared at her, and then at her big breasts, which were her only redeeming feature. It looked odd because she was so thin. He wasn't in the mood and hadn't gone for years.
Still, he asked, in a bored voice, "How much?"
"Seventy for me and thirty for the boatman," she said, gesturing to the small boat that was bobbing up and down near a flight of wet steps. The boatman, a wiry, bare-bodied man, wearing khaki shorts, sat on his haunches and was puffing away at a beedi.
"Forty for you and twenty for the boatman," Indranil said.
"Fifty for me," she bargained, chewing away.
He nodded and followed her, watching her bum move under the saree. He carefully went down the steps, and jumped onto the boat.
As he stretched out his right hand, to regain balance, he remembered a quote he had read in some book:
"Sin," it said, "was an escape from emptiness."
True, he thought, as he took off his shirt.

(Published in Debonair Magazine)