“Oh, nothing, really.” He gestured toward the distance. “Just a little lake with some gravel around it. It’s a very soothing place.”
“And why haven’t we all been invited there?” demanded Mr. Murthy.
The guests sat up. A triumphant Mrs. Rao entered the drawing room bearing a plastic tray whose multiple compartments brimmed with the evening’s first offerings: dried walnuts (which looked like little shrunken brains), juicy figs, sultana raisins, chopped almonds, slices of desiccated pineapple…
Before the guests had recovered, the next assault followed:
“Dinner is ready!”
They went into the dining room-the only other room in the house (it led into a little alcove-kitchen). An enormous bed, plump with cushions, lay in the middle of the dining room. There was no pretending not to see the conjugal site. It lay there, brazenly open to view. A small table was pulled up right next to it, and three of the guests hesitantly took their seats there. Their embarrassment disappeared almost immediately. The informality of their hosts, the voluptuous softness of the bedding beneath them-these things soothed their nerves. Then dinner rolled out of Kamini’s little kitchen. Course after course of fine tomato saaru, idli, and dosas flowed out of that factory of gustatory treats.
“This kind of cooking would amaze people even in Bombay,” proposed Mr. Anantha Murthy, when Kamini’s pièce de résistance-fluffy North Indian rotis, lined inside with chili powder-arrived on the table. Kamini beamed and protested: he was all wrong, she had so many inadequacies as a cook and a housewife!
When the guests rose, they realized that their buttocks had left wide, warm, and deep markings on the bed, like an ele phant’s footprints in clay. Giridhar Rao brushed aside their apologies:
“Our guests are like gods to us; they can do no wrong. That’s the philosophy in this house.”
They stood in line outside the washroom, where water flowed from a green rubber pipe twisted into a loop around the tap. Then back to the drawing room for the highlight of the evening-almond kheer.
Kamini brought out the dessert in breathtakingly large tumblers. The shake-served warm or cold, according to each guest’s pleasure-was so full of almonds that the guests protested that they had to chew the drink! When they looked into their tumblers, they held their breath in wonder: shiny flecks, strands of real saffron, floated between the pieces of almond.
They left the apartment silently, heeding Mr. Rao’s request not to disturb the sleeping Sharadha Bhatt. (The old lady turned restlessly on her wooden bed as they departed; in the background the religious music droned on.)
“Do come next week!” Mr. Rao said from the terrace. “It’s the week of the Satyanarayana Pooja! I’ll make sure Kamini does a better job with the cooking next week, unlike tonight’s disaster!” He turned into the house and raised his voice: “Did you hear that, Kamini? The food had better be good next time, or you’re divorced.”
There was a laugh, and a high-pitched scream from inside: “You’ll be the one to get divorced, unless you shut up!”
Once at a safe distance, the intimates burst into chatter.
What a pair! The man and woman such complete opposites! He was “bland,” she was “spicy.” He was “conservative,” she was “modern.” She was “quick,” he was “deep.”
Still picking their way along the muddy road, they began to discuss the forbidden topic with all the excitement and eagerness of people who were discussing it for the first time.
“It’s obvious,” said one of the women, Mrs. Aithal or Mrs. Shirthadi. “Kamini is the one ‘at fault.’ She wouldn’t have the operation. No wonder her life is racked by guilt. Don’t you see how she throws herself on any available child in a storm of frustrated maternity, showering them with kisses and blandishments and caramel chocolates? What does that signify, if not guilt?”
“And why did she refuse the operation?” demanded Mr. Anantha Murthy.
Obstinacy. The women were sure of it. Kamini simply refused to acknowledge that the fault was hers. Some of Kamini’s stubbornness, to be sure, came from her privileged background. She was the youngest of four sisters, all fair as buttermilk, the darling children of a famous eye surgeon in Shimoga. How she must have been spoiled as a child! The other sisters had married well-a lawyer, an architect, and a surgeon, and they all lived in Bombay. Giridhar Rao was the poorest of the brothers-in-law. You could be sure that Kamini was not the kind of woman to let him forget this. Haven’t you seen how defiantly she rides about town on her Hero Honda moped, as if she were the lord of their household?
Mr. Anantha Murthy raised several objections. Why were all the womenfolk so suspicious of Kamini’s “sportiness”? How rare to find such a free-thinking woman! The fault was surely his. Haven’t you seen him refuse promotion after promotion just because he would have to move to Bombay? What does that tell you? The man is lethargic.
“If only he would show…some more initiative…the problem of childlessness could easily be solved…” Mr. Murthy said, giving his bald head a sad philosophical shake.
He even claimed to have given Mr. Rao the names of doctors in Bombay who could solve his lack of “initiative.”
Mrs. Aithal reacted indignantly. Mr. Rao had more than enough “spunk” in him! Didn’t he have such thick facial hair? And didn’t he ride an entirely masculine red Yamaha motorcycle to the bank every morning?
The women enjoyed romanticizing Mr. Rao. Mrs. Shirthadi irritated Mr. Murthy by suggesting that the modest little bank manager was also in secret “a philosopher.” Once she had caught him reading the “religious issues of the day” column on the last page of the Hindu. He seemed embarrassed at this discovery, and parried her inquiries with jokes and puns. Still, the feeling had grown that beneath all his joking, he was undeniably “philosophical.”
“How else can he be so calm all the time, even without children?” Mrs. Aithal demanded.
“He has a secret of some kind, I’m sure,” Mrs. Murthy suggested.
Mrs. Karwar coughed and said, “Sometimes I fear that she might be thinking of divorcing him”-and everyone looked concerned. The woman certainly was “modern” enough to think of trying something like that…
But they had reached their cars now, and the group broke up and drove away one after the other.
Later in the week, though, the Raos were observed as they circled the Cool Water Well Junction on his Yamaha bike. Kamini sat on the backseat holding on to her husband tightly, and the observers were surprised to see how the two of them looked like a real couple just then.
The following Thursday, when the intimates returned to the Raos’ residence, they found Sharadha Bhatt herself open ing the door for them. The old woman’s silver hair was disarrayed, and she glared at her tenants’ guests.
“She’s having trouble with Jimmy-you know, her architect son in Bombay. She’s asked him again if she can come to stay with him, but his wife won’t allow it,” Kamini whispered, as she led them up the stairs.
Because of the anticipation of an extraordinary meal this evening, Mr. Shirthadi was putting in a rare appearance alongside his wife. He spoke passionately about the ingratitude of today’s children, and said he sometimes wished he had stayed childless. Mrs. Shirthadi sat nervously-her husband had almost crossed the invisible circumference.
Then Mrs. Karwar arrived with Lalitha, and there was the usual shouting and shrieking between Kamini and the “secret lover.”
After the sherbet, Mr. Anantha Murthy asked Mr. Rao to confirm a piece of gossip-that he had turned down another offer to be posted to Bombay.
Mr. Rao confirmed this with a nod.