While waiting for his wish to come true, Rustomji enjoyed watching Gajra modify her sari each morning before she started work: she hauled it up between her thighs and tucked it in around the waist so it would not get wet in the mori. When altered like this, the layers produced a very large, very masculine lump over the crotch. But her movements while she, steatopygic, completed her daily transformation — bending her knees, thighs apart, patting her behind to smooth down the fabric — were extremely erotic for Rustomji.
Mehroo was usually present when this went on, so he would have to pretend to read the Times of India, looking surreptitiously from behind or over or under and taking his chances. Sometimes, he remembered a little Marathi rhyme he had picked up as a boy. It formed part of a song which was sung at every boisterous, rollicking party his father used to give for his Parsi colleagues from Central Bank. At that time, little Rustom had not understood the meaning, but it went:
Sakubai la zaoli
Dadra chi khalti…
After many years and many parties, as Rustom grew up, he was allowed to sit with the guests instead of being sent out to play in the compound. The day came when he was allowed his first sip of Scotch and soda from his father’s glass. Mother had protested that he was too young, but father had said, “What is there in one sip, you think he will become a drunkard?” Rustom had enjoyed that first sip and had wanted more, to the delight of the guests. “Takes after his father, really likes his peg!” they had guffawed.
It was also around this time that Rustom started to understand the meaning of the rhyme and the song: it was about the encounter of a Parsi gentleman with a gunga he caught napping under a dark stairwell — he seduces her quite easily, then goes his merry way. Later, Rustom had sung it to his friends in St. Xavier’s, the song which he remembered today, on Behram roje, in his easy chair with the Times of India. He hoped Gajra would arrive before Mehroo finished using Hirabai’s telephone. He could then ogle brazenly, unhindered.
But even as Rustomji thought his impure thoughts and relished them all, Mehroo returned; the office had promised to send the plumber right away. “I told him ‘Bawa, you are a Parsi too, you know how very important Behram roje is’ and he said he understands, he will have the WC repaired today.”
“The bloody swine understands? Hah! Now he knows it, he will purposely delay, to make you miserable. Go, be frank with the whole world; go, be unhappy.” And Mehroo went, to make his tea.
The doorbell rang. Rustomji knew it must be Gajra. But even as he hurried to answer it, he sensed he was walking towards another zone of frustration, that his concupiscence would be thwarted as rudely as his bowels.
His instinct proved accurate. Mehroo rushed out from the kitchen as fast as her flopping slippers would allow, scolding and shooing Gajra away to do only the sweeping — the rest could wait till tomorrow — and leave. Sulking, Rustomji returned to the Times of India.
Mehroo then hurriedly made chalk designs at the entrance, not half as elaborate or colourful as planned. Time was running out; she had to get to the fire-temple by eleven. Dreading the inauspiciousness of a delay, she hung a tohrun over each doorway (the flowers, languishing since six A.M., luckily retained a spark of life) and went to dress.
When she was ready to leave, Rustomji was still coaxing his bowels with tea. Disgruntled over Gajra’s abrupt departure, he nursed his loss silently, blaming Mehroo. “You go ahead,” he said, “I will meet you at the fire-temple.”
Mehroo took the H route bus. She looked radiant in her white sari, worn the Parsi way, across the right shoulder and over the forehead. The H route bus meandered through narrow streets of squalor once it left the Firozsha Baag neighbourhood. It went via Bhindi Bazaar, through Lohar Chawl and Crawford Market, crawling painfully amidst the traffic of cars and people, handcarts and trucks.
Usually, during a bus ride to the fire-temple, Mehroo attentively watched the scenes unfolding as the bus made its creeping way, wondering at the resilient ingenuity with which life was made liveable inside dingy little holes and inhospitable, frightful structures. Now, however, Mehroo sat oblivious to the bustle and meanness of lives on these narrow streets. None of it pierced the serenity with which she anticipated the perfect peace and calm she would soon be a part of inside the fire-temple.
She looked with pleasure at the white sari draping her person, and adjusted the border over her forehead. When she returned home, the sari would be full of the fragrance of sandalwood, absorbed from the smoke of the sacred fire. She would hang it up beside her bed instead of washing it, to savour the fragrance as long as it lasted. She remembered how, as a child, she would wait for her mother to return from the fire-temple so she could bury her face in her lap and breathe in the sandalwood smell. Her father’s dugli gave off the same perfume, but her mother’s white sari was better, it felt so soft. Then there was the ritual of chasni: all the brothers and sisters wearing their prayer caps would eagerly sit around the dining-table to partake of the fruit and sweets blessed during the day’s prayer ceremonies.
Mehroo was a little saddened when she thought of her own children, who did not give a second thought to these things; she had to coax them to finish the chasni or it would sit for days, unnoticed and untouched.
Even as a child, Mehroo had adored going to the fire-temple. She loved its smells, its tranquillity, its priests in white performing their elegant, mystical rituals. Best of all she loved the inner sanctuary, the sanctum sanctorum, dark and mysterious, with marble floor and marble walls, which only the officiating priest could enter, to tend to the sacred fire burning in the huge, shining silver afargaan on its marble pedestal. She felt she could sit for hours outside the sanctuary, watching the flames in their dance of life, seeing the sparks fly up the enormous dark dome resembling the sky. It was her own private key to the universe, somehow making less frightening the notions of eternity and infinity.
In high school she would visit the fire-temple before exam week. Her offering of a sandalwood stick would be deposited in the silver tray at the door of the inner sanctuary, and she would reverently smear her forehead and throat with the grey ash left in the tray for this purpose. Dustoor Dhunjisha, in his flowing white robe, would always be there to greet her with a hug, always addressing her as his dear daughter. The smell of his robe would remind her of mother’s sari fragrant with sandalwood. Serene and fortified, she would go to write her exam.
Dustoor Dhunjisha was now almost seventy-five, and was not always around when Mehroo went to the fire-temple. Some days, when he did not feel well, he stayed in his room and let a younger priest look after the business of prayer and worship. But today she hoped he would be present; she wanted to see that gentle face from her childhood, the long white beard, the reassuring paunch.
After marrying Rustomji and moving into Firozsha Baag, Mehroo had continued to go to Dustoor Dhunjisha for all ceremonies. In this, she risked the ire of the dustoorji who lived in their own block on the second floor. The latter believed that he had first claim to the business of Firozsha Baag tenants, that they should all patronize his nearby agyaari as long as he could accommodate them. But Mehroo persisted in her loyalty to Dhunjisha. She paid no attention to the high dudgeon the A Block priest directed at her, or to Rustomji’s charges.