A shower of gravel descended upon him, striking his head and neck and back. He jumped up. Saw three boys sprinting away. Started to give chase, then stopped. What will I do even if I manage to catch the urchins?
He was trembling and could not sit down again. Breathing hard. Quick short breaths. Hands shaking. Armpits damp. He decided to walk. To the children’s playground. The gym-by-night. Where children’s game equipment became the parallel bars of the poor; where the stone-broke used the see-saw to bench-press, with flagstones for weights. Yes, they would build their muscles, one way or another.
As the twilight faded the exercisers arrived, and stripped down to lungoatee and vest. A little adjustment of the pouch with a swift downward movement. Tucking in and fine-tuning of the formation within. Then tightening expertly the knots of the waistband.
Their bodies moved through the various exercises, and once again Jehangir felt the urge to join them, join them in their sweating, rippling activity. He imagined meeting them every evening, taking off his clothes with them, down to his shorts and sudra; they would sweat and pant together, a community of men, and when the exercises were done they would all go arm in arm, laughing and joking, for a hot and spicy shik-kabab and sugar-cane juice. He could even learn to smoke a bidi with them.
He seriously considered taking up exercising. He was tired of being a skinny-armed, stoop-shouldered weakling. He would start in private, at home, and after his body strengthened he could join them in the open air. Surely they would welcome him. It would be a fraternity sufficient and complete.
He would go to Behroze’s house on Saturday and say he had to speak to her about a serious matter. Make a clean break.
He prepared a mental list. He decided to conclude by saying that their relationship was making everyone unhappy: first, his parents were; she was, too, because they did not like her; besides, she could not tolerate their influence on him. Now she could resume her life as it was before he trespassed into it. Yes, trespassed, that was a good word, he’d use it.
The Kamala Nehru Park beckoned from across the road, through the dusk. The maali must have been at work, cuttings and twigs and leaves lay in heaps around the hedges. The sculptures looked magnificent, the birds on the verge of flight, the camel and elephant and giraffe about to lumber off into the darkness. But all of them ultimately frozen. Trapped, like Bhagwan Baba said. The words of Bhagwan Baba. Should be labelled A Philosophy For The Faint Of Heart And Weak Of Spirit. Or better still, The Way Of The Sculpted Hedges.
Behroze was alone when Jehangir arrived on Saturday evening. Her parents were out, so was the servant.
“You missed choir practice on Thursday,” she said accusingly, crossing her legs. Her skirt slipped above the knee, exposing part of her thigh, and she did not pull it down.
Jehangir sensed nervously that somewhere in this was a challenge to him. The trace of hostility in the air narrowed the distance between them and made the room more intimate. Outside in the compound a game of volleyball was in progress, and the dull thud as the ball met flesh and bone could be heard inside the flat.
“I’m sorry. I had something very important to do. It concerns us. I would like to talk to you about it.” The note of formality in his short, complete sentences sounded reassuringly in his ears. “This is the first time you’ve been alone at home,” he ventured with an echo of her accusing tone.
“You didn’t come since last weekend. Maybe my parents think we’ve broken up, and they didn’t need to stick around to guard my virginity.”
Jehangir turned away to look outside the window. He felt very uncomfortable when she talked like this. The flat was on the ground floor at an elevation that raised it above the compound, and he could see the volleyball in its flight over the net but not the boys who smacked it. A few minutes of daylight remained. When the room began edging towards darkness she reached out to switch on the table-lamp. Her movement caused the skirt to rise a little more.
“They’ve gone to a wedding at Albless Baag. Won’t be back till eleven o’clock,” she said.
“And Shanti?”
“Gone to visit her family. Has the weekend off.”
“I could not come last Sunday, I went with my parents to Bhagwan Baba—”
“Your string is showing again,” she interrupted. He reached behind, thinking his kusti had slipped out over the waistband of his trousers.
She laughed scornfully. “Not your kusti, I meant your mother’s extra-long apron string. Anyway, tell me about your Baba. This should be good.”
“If you’re going to mock me even before I…”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
Jehangir described the visit to Bhagwan Baba and the pronouncement. He paused before announcing his own decision about them. She adjusted her skirt properly over the knee and said, “But does that make any difference? Surely you don’t believe all that mumbo-jumbo.”
“But that’s not the reason —”
“Your parents will try anything, you know they hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” he started, and stopped. His well-tempered sentences wrought for the occasion now seemed silly — he realized he had known it all along, even as he rehearsed the words in the Hanging Gardens. He looked outside. The volleyball no longer flew over the net, and the boys had either gone home or down to the bhelpuriwalla for a snack. The sudden gloom was due to the sky’s fierce clouding, which had overtaken the gradual change from dusk to night. In the window the curtains flapped, violently at times.
The decision made in the Hanging Gardens was no comfort. No comfort at all. Refused to buoy him up. Instead, it suddenly started to dissolve. Where was the peace and serenity he experienced that night in the Hanging Gardens? How could it come and go so quickly? To recapture his elusive confidence he imagined himself in the Gardens amidst the community of exercising men, sculpted hedges, chirping sparrows. But they swam pointlessly through his mind now. It was all meaningless.
Drawn by his anguished face, she came and sat beside him on the sofa. She slipped her hand in his; the scorn had gone out of her eyes, leaving them soft and brown. She moved closer, and he put his arm around her. His confusion and anxiety started to evaporate. He remembered the other time on the overhang bench: what would have been their first kiss had been interrupted by the unrestrained, coarse, unabashed passion of the other couple. Today there would be no interruptions. She switched off the lamp. Outside, there was the first rumbling of thunder, very distant, and the first drops of rain. The fresh, wholesome smell of earth was soon in the air. It was still raining when Jehangir was racing homeward. People waited, huddled under awnings of shops or overhangs of buildings, under whatever shelter was afforded till the shower passed. There was gladness on all faces at the rain which had at long last arrived.
Outside a jhopadpatti, where even at the best of times a hundred and twenty residents depended on one water tap or the fortuity of a malfunctioning fire-hydrant, the joy of celebration was the most intense. Children and grownups soaped their bodies, tattered clothes and all, and stood gratefully under the cleansing waters from heaven. Mothers washed naked babies to the accompaniment of gleeful squeals. Some women were scouring their grimy, greasy pots and pans. Little rivulets of soapy water were soon running down the pavements leading from the jhopadpatti into the main street.