Mrs Verma shook her head.
But, please, do remember, Dr Mishra went on, that your audiences will be made up of your own Algerian colleagues, who are rational, scientifically trained people. I, for one, wouldn’t like to give them the impression that the whole of India is still in the Middle Ages, still wallowing in ghosts and ghouls and demonology. I’d like them to know that some of us at least are in the modern mainstream.
Mrs Verma smiled secretly across the room at Hem Narain Mathur’s dusty old bookcase. She had her answer ready.
Mrs Verma settled back in her chair and rested her hands demurely on the rim of her plate. Please, forgive me, Doctor-sahb, she said. I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that.
He watched her suspiciously: Yes?
The fact is, she said, looking at her nails, that I do have a plan.
Wonderful! Dr Mishra exclaimed. He broke a matchstick in half and began to pick nervously at his teeth. A village masque, I suppose. Some kind of Ram Li la. Why, we can clear out a stage on a sand-dune and put up a few idols and images and give them a full-scale puja with chanting Brahmans, mantras and all the rest of it. I’m sure your fellow rural socialists will be delighted by a nice, gaudy spectacle of medieval superstition flaunting itself on a sand-dune. But, please, Mrs Verma, you’re welcome to dance about on the sand scattering holy water on the date palms, but don’t ask me to do it. I’m too old.
I wasn’t really thinking of anything like that, Mishra-sahb, she said. I was thinking of something else.
What? He was suddenly wary.
Well, she paused for a moment. What do you think of Tagore? I know you don’t much care for medieval villagers, but you can’t have any objection to Rabindranath Tagore. Apart from everything else, he got all the most modern literary awards in all the most modern cities, you know.
Dr Mishra laughed: Very good, Mrs Verma; you’re learning. Go on.
Well, people here do sometimes ask about Tagore. Surely it would be appropriate to give them a glimpse of his work? You can’t object to that, after all.
What exactly did you have in mind?
Chitrangada. Mrs Verma allowed herself to smile: My father did a translation from the Bengali. I still have it.
Dr Mishra reached into his pocket, though his hands were still unwashed after the meal, and pulled out his pipe. Chitrangada? he said, twisting the stem. Could you just remind me what it’s about?
It’s a dance drama.
That’s nice, said Dr Mishra. A dance drama. Of course there’s no shortage of dancing girls here — you and old Miss K. and my own bouncy young wife. Go on.
To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember it very well myself now. My father read it to me when I was a girl. It’s based on a legend from the Mahabharata I think. Chitrangada is the king of Manipur’s daughter; she’s been brought up like a man, and she’s a great hunter and warrior and all that, but she’s not — well, very pretty. Then one day Arjuna goes to Manipur and she sees him — handsome, a great hero and warrior — so naturally she falls in love with him. She goes to him and declares her love, but he turns her away. Then she gets very depressed because she thinks he can’t possibly love a woman who looks like her. So ugly, you know. So she goes to the gods and asks them to give her the gift of beauty for just one year. They do, and Arjuna falls in love with her, and they sort of get married, I think, but she doesn’t tell him who she is. But as the year passes Arjuna hears more and more about the heroism of Chitrangada, and he longs to meet her and is half in love with her, though he doesn’t even know who she is. Chitrangada sees all this and she learns finally that appearances don’t matter, so at the end of the year, when her beauty is gone, she stands before him and says something like: I’m no beautiful flower, I’m not perfect, my clothes are torn and my feet are scarred and so on, but I can give you the heart of a true woman. Then Arjuna, too, sees that beauty is only deception, an illusion of the senses.
Well, said Dr Mishra sardonically, that makes it much clearer. I can see now why you want to play Chitrangada, but who did you have in mind for Arjuna? Verma? Do you really think it would suit him to dress up as a hero, in a sort of mini-dhoti, and dance around with bows and arrows? He’s short-sighted, you know; he might hit Chitrangada with those arrows.
Mrs Verma turned quickly away, blushing furiously. Of course I wasn’t going to play Chitrangada, she said. We could ask some of the younger doctors and their wives to come up from Ouargla or Ghardaia.
She looked him over appraisingly. Actually, Mishra-sahb, she said, there’s a part that’ll be perfect for you.
Which?
Madana, the God of Love. I can just see you — hovering above the dunes, showering love on the Sahara.
Dr Mishra rose and paced the floor while she watched apprehensively. All right, Mrs Verma, he said at last. I’ll take up your challenge. I’ll play Madana if you can fill the other roles. But there’s a condition: since it’s we who are putting it on for our Algerian colleagues, you’ll have to find Indians to play the parts.
Mrs Verma nodded.
Have you thought of the other problems? Who’s going to sing? Who’s going to dance? Where are you going to get the music? And it must be a very long play — are you going to stage the whole of it?
That’s easy, said Mrs Verma. We won’t do the whole thing; just a few scenes. And don’t worry about the music; that’s an advantage with this play really. My father gave me a record years ago. We can just play that — we won’t even have to talk. We don’t have to dance, either; we can just mime the scenes. We can explain the plot beforehand through an interpreter. I’m sure Miss K. and Mrs Mishra will help me make the costumes. Even you could do something; you could help me choose the right scenes. I’ll give you the script.
You mean your father’s Hindi translation?
Yes, she said. I’ll lend it to you, but you must be very careful with it. To me that’s the most precious of all the things he left me.
Tell me, Mrs Verma, Dr Mishra said curiously, how did your father learn Bengali?
Oh, he learnt when he was in college in Calcutta. He loved Tagore’s poetry.
Dr Mishra gestured to his wife to get up. When they were at the door, he turned to Mrs Verma, smiling grimly. All right, he said, the bet’s on, then. If you do somehow manage to put it together, I’ll admit defeat and you can give a speech instead of me. But if you don’t you’ll have to apologize in public for everything you’ve said tonight.
Yes, I accept, Mrs Verma said at once, looking directly into his eyes. I have nothing to worry about.
But soon she was very worried; it didn’t seem as though she would ever be able to find a cast. And every morning at the hospital there was Dr Mishra, solicitously asking after the progress of her plan, grinning, like a school bully gloating over the break-up of a rival gang. She had come perilously close to accepting defeat simply to put an end to those questions and those grins.
Then one morning there was Arjuna, lying unheroically on a hospital bed, his oddly irregular eyebrows raised at her in surprised inquiry.
That was encouraging enough to hold a rehearsal and start work on the costumes. But, as Dr Mishra had said while he was being measured for his halo, it’s no use without a Chitrangada.
She had had no answer.
And then, like a gift from Madana …
So do you think, Mrs Verma asked Kulfi anxiously, you’ll be able to do Chitrangada? It won’t be difficult at all really — all you’ll have to do is dress up in a nice sari and pose on stage. You won’t have to say anything because the record will be playing off-stage. It’ll just be a set of tableaux really.