My Name Is Radha Read online

  Kirpal Kaur and her entire family lived in a mohalla teeming with Muslim fanatics. Several houses had been torched and many lives lost already. He might have brought them out to safety, but a curfew was on and there was no telling how long it would last—forty-eight hours perhaps. There were Muslims of the awfully dangerous kind everywhere. And to make matters worse, news of Sikhs making short work of Muslims and subjecting them to all manner of atrocities were filtering in from the Punjab. Trilochan felt totally helpless. Any Muslim hand could easily grab Kirpal Kaur’s arm and send her to her death.

  Kirpal’s mother was blind and her father disabled. She did have a brother, but Niranjan had been living in the Devlali area for some time now, supervising a construction contract he had recently taken on.

  Trilochan found Niranjan’s attitude thoroughly annoying. He read the newspaper regularly and had warned Niranjan a week or so ago about the speed and ferocity with which riots were erupting everywhere. He’d told him quite plainly, ‘Forget about the contract for now. These are treacherous times. And even if you stay with your family, it would still be better if you brought them over to my house. I know it isn’t large enough, but in these days of such uncertainty . . . well, we’ll manage somehow.’

  But would Niranjan listen! He just stroked his bushy moustache and smiled. ‘Yaar, you’re worrying your head over nothing. Riots . . . I’ve seen many such riots here. This is Bombay, not any old place like Amritsar or Lahore. How long since you moved here? Four years, right? Well, I’ve been living here for twelve.’

  God knows what Niranjan took Bombay for. Probably a city where, even if riots did break out, they would die down on their own, as if it possessed some magical power to quell them, or was perhaps a fairy-tale castle impervious to calamity. But in the fresh morning air Trilochan could see clearly that the mohalla wasn’t quite as safe as all that. In fact, he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he read in the newspaper one of these days that Kirpal and her family had been murdered.

  He didn’t much care about her blind mother or her disabled father. As far as he was concerned, it would be fine if she was saved and they were killed, and even better still if her brother was also killed for then there would be nothing standing in his way. Niranjan, especially, was proving to be the biggest hurdle, a khingar, a veritable brick wall in his path. When he and Kirpal Kaur talked, he referred to her brother as ‘Khingar Singh’ instead of his real name ‘Niranjan Singh.’

  The morning breeze was stirring gently around him. His head, now bereft of his kes, felt the refreshing coolness. But his mind, that was something else entirely—countless misgivings were colliding there.

  Kirpal Kaur had come into his life only recently. Unlike her brother Khingar Singh, who was a burly young man, she was extremely delicate and nimble. Despite growing up in a village and experiencing its pastoral way of life, she displayed none of the coarse masculinity usually found in Sikh girls from rural areas who are accustomed to hard, physical labour. Her features were still evolving and her tiny breasts still needed many more layers of fat to fill out. Her complexion was fair and her body was as smooth as mercerized cotton. She was also very shy.

  Although Trilochan was from the same village, he hadn’t spent much time there. After finishing his primary education in the village school, he had left for the city to study in high school and, afterwards, college, and kind of just stayed on there. He returned to the village on many occasions but he never heard of anyone called Kirpal Kaur at any point, perhaps because he was always in a big rush to return to the city.

  His college days were long gone. Easily ten years separated the terrace at Advani Chambers from college. During that period, Trilochan’s life was filled with unusual experiences: Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong and, finally, Bombay, where he’d been living for the past four years.

  Tonight was the first time he’d looked up at the sky and found the sight agreeable: countless little lamps glimmering in the grey canopy overhead and a light, cool refreshing breeze.

  While thinking about Kirpal Kaur his thoughts drifted off to Mozel, the Jewish girl who rented a flat in Advani Chambers. Trilochan had fallen deeply in love with her—‘up to his knees’, as the Sikhs would say. He’d never experienced such crazy love before in all his thirty-five years.

  He had bumped into Mozel on the very first day he moved into a second-floor flat in the building, which he’d acquired with the help of a Christian friend of his. His first impression was that she was a mad woman, dangerously mad. She wore her brown hair short and quite dishevelled, and a thick coat of lipstick that was dried up, cracking here and there on her lips, reminding him of a clot of blood. Her lips were not as thick as they appeared. It was the thick, reddish-brown lipstick that made them look beefy. A long tunic hung loosely on her body, its open collar exposing a generous expanse of her bulging breasts with their web of thin, blue veins. Her bare arms were covered with a layer of fine fuzz that gave the impression that she’d just emerged from a beauty parlour with wispy clippings of hair still sticking to her.

  Trilochan’s flat was right across from hers with only a narrow corridor in between. Just as he approached his door, Mozel came barging out of hers. The noise of her wooden clogs stopped him. She gaped at him from under her unruly hair and tittered, which threw him off balance. He quickly pulled the key out of his pocket and turned towards his door, but just then one of her clogs slipped on the glossy cement floor and her whole body collided with him.

  When he attempted to collect himself, he found her sprawled on top of him with her long loose tunic pushed all the way up and her bare, stout legs on either side of him. He tried to rise, but got even more entangled with her, as if he was a blanket covering her body.

  Gasping, he apologized to her profusely. She straightened her dress and smiled. ‘These clogs—they’re atrocious,’ she said as she slipped her big toe and the one next to it into the clog and strode down the hallway.

  Trilochan had thought it would be hard to befriend her, but within a short period she herself was drawn to him. She was a very headstrong woman, however, and didn’t show him much regard. She made him take her out to dinner, buy her drinks, take her to movies, and spent whole days with him splashing on the beach at Juhu, but when he tried to go further than just hugging and kissing, she told him to lay off so sternly that all of his fervent desires just crumbled.

  He’d never been in love before. Whether in Lahore, Burma or Singapore, whenever he had needed a woman he just picked one up and paid for her services. Not even in his dreams had he ever imagined that he would fall ‘up to the knees’ in love with a wilful Jewish girl soon after arriving in Bombay. She treated him with the utmost indifference and lack of civility. If he invited her for a movie, she would immediately spring to her feet and get ready, but the minute they were seated, she would let her eyes wander. If she spotted an acquaintance, she would wave at him vigorously and, without excusing herself, get up and go sit with the other fellow.

  It was no different in restaurants. He would order special dishes for her, but the instant she saw an old friend, she would get up abruptly, abandon her meal and go over to sit by his side, leaving Trilochan to fume by himself.

  Her indifference really got to him at times. If he grumbled about it, she would stop seeing him for days, complaining now of a headache, now about her stomach, which Trilochan well knew was solid steel and impervious to any kind of ailment.

  The next time they met she told him, ‘You’re a Sikh. How would you understand anything delicate!’

  ‘What’s delicate about your old lovers?’ Trilochan fired back in a rage.

  Standing with arms akimbo and feet apart, she retorted, ‘Why do you keep taunting me? Yes, they are my lovers and I do love them dearly. If that bugs you, so be it. I couldn’t care less.’

  ‘Well then, how can we carry on like this?’ he said, attempting to reason with her.

  She burst out laughing. ‘You really are a Sikh—no doubt about it! And an idiot t
o boot. Whoever said anything about carrying on with me? If that’s what you’re looking for, go back to your village and find some Sikhni to marry. If you want to hang out with me, this is how it will be.’

  In the end Trilochan always capitulated. He couldn’t help it. Mozel had become his greatest weakness. He wanted to be around her at any cost. She often humiliated him, sometimes even in front of ill-bred ‘Kristan’* boys, but he resolutely suffered all the belittlement because of his heart.

  When belittled and humiliated thus, it is revenge that one seeks, but not so Trilochan. He had firmly closed his mind’s eye and plugged his ears. He not only liked her, he was, as he often described his obsession to his friends, ‘up to his knees’ in love. All he could do now was submerge the rest of him in the bog and be done with it.

  He steadfastly endured this wretched state of affairs for two years. Finally one day, when Mozel seemed to be in a good mood, he gathered her in his arms and asked, ‘Mozel, don’t you love me?’

  She pulled away from his tight embrace, sat down in a chair and started staring vacuously at the hem of her tunic. After some time she raised her large Jewish eyes, batted her thick eyelashes and said, ‘Me love a Sikh? No way.’

  It was as if someone had shoved red-hot coals inside Trilochan’s turban. His entire body sizzled with rage. ‘Mozel, you always make fun of me,’ he blurted out. ‘But it’s my love that you deride.’

  Mozel quickly got up from the chair, toyed with her short brown hair seductively and said, ‘If you shave off your beard and let down your hair, I promise many young men will come on to you. You’re quite handsome, really.’

  Trilochan felt as if more burning coals had been shoved into his kes. He took a few steps towards Mozel, dragged her into his arms and pasted his moustachioed lips on her mouth.

  She pushed him away. ‘Phew!’ she said. ‘Don’t bother! I already brushed my teeth this morning.’

  ‘Mozel!’ Trilochan screamed.

  She withdrew a small mirror from her bag and started examining her lips where the thick layer of lipstick had cracked. ‘By God, you don’t know how to use your bristles properly. They’re perfect for brushing my navy-blue skirt; just a bit of petrol is needed along with them.’

  Trilochan’s anger had risen to the point where it lost all its vehemence. He calmly sat down on the couch. Mozel sat beside him and started to unravel his beard, removing the hairpins one by one and holding them between her teeth.

  He really was handsome. Before hair appeared on his face, people had often mistaken him for a beautiful young girl. But this shag of hair had obscured his fine features. And he was aware of it. Being a dutiful young man who held his religion in high regard, he loathed the idea of eliminating any of the things that were an outward expression of his faith.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, after Mozel had completely undone his beard and left it to hang down over his chest.

  She smiled despite the pins clenched in her teeth and said, ‘Your hair is too soft. I was wrong to think it could brush my skirt clean. Triloch, give your hair to me. I’ll make myself an exquisite woven handbag.’

  Trilochan was furious. ‘Have I ever made fun of your religion?’ he asked in dead seriousness. ‘Why then do you mock mine? It’s not nice to ridicule a person’s religious feelings. I would never have tolerated it, but I’ve looked the other way because I love you. I love you very much. Don’t you know that?’

  She stopped playing with his beard. ‘I know,’ she muttered.

  ‘So?’ he asked, deftly folding his hair and pulling the pins out of her mouth. ‘You know perfectly well that my love isn’t some kind of claptrap. I want to marry you.’

  She got up, shaking her hair softly. ‘I know,’ she said, and looked intently at the picture hanging on the wall. ‘In fact, I’ve nearly made up my mind to marry you.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’ He jumped up with elation.

  Her reddish-brown lips parted in a broad smile and her strong white teeth glimmered for an instant. ‘I do—I really do!’

  His beard only half folded, he embraced her passionately and asked, ‘When . . . when?’

  Mozel pulled away and announced, ‘When you get rid of this mop of hair.’

  ‘I will, tomorrow,’ he said without thinking. He was so overcome that he would have agreed to anything.

  Mozel began to tap-dance. ‘Rubbish, Triloch! You don’t have the spunk!’

  This had driven every single thought of religion flying out of his mind. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘So I will,’ she said, darting towards him and kissing him on his moustache. Then with another ‘Phew!’ she breezed out.

  It would be useless to recount here what all went through his mind that night and the torment Trilochan suffered. The next day he went to a barber in the Fort area and had him cut off his hair and shave off his beard. Trilochan kept his eyes tightly closed and let it happen. After it was over he opened his eyes and contemplated his face in the mirror for the longest time—even the most beautiful woman in Bombay would have found this face irresistible.

  Trilochan was now feeling the same eerie chill he had felt when he stepped out of the barbershop. He quickened his steps across the terrace that was crowded with a network of water tanks and pipes. He wanted to avoid the rest of the story but it proved impossible.

  He remained in his flat the whole day. The next day he sent his servant with a note for Mozel saying that he wasn’t feeling well. She came to see him. The sight of his head without its shag of hair threw her off for a moment. Then she exclaimed, ‘My darling Triloch!’ and began hugging him and painting his whole face a deep red with her kisses.

  She ran her hand over his smooth cheeks, combed her fingers through his hair, now trimmed short in the English style, and kept exclaiming loudly in Arabic. She shouted so much that her nose began to run. When she realized it, she just lifted the hem of her skirt and wiped her nose. Trilochan blushed. He quickly lowered her skirt and admonished her, ‘You should at least wear something underneath.’

  Mozel only smiled and said, ‘It bothers me. Makes me feel cooped up, strangely. It’s fine this way.’

  Trilochan remembered their first encounter, when the two had collided in the hallway and their bodies had become entangled in a strange way. He smiled and took her in his arms. ‘We’ll marry tomorrow!’

  ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ she agreed, caressing his smooth chin with the back of her hand.

  They chose Puna for the wedding. Since it would be a civil marriage conducted before the court, a fortnight’s notice was required. So Puna seemed quite feasible. Not only was it close, Trilochan also had some friends there. According to the plan, they would leave the next day.

  Mozel worked as a salesgirl in one of the Fort area stores. She had asked him to meet her at a taxi stand not far from her workplace. Trilochan arrived at the appointed time and waited a whole hour and a half, but she never came. The next day he heard that she had left for an indefinite stay in Devlali with an old friend who had just bought a new car.

  How Trilochan bore his agony is a fairly long story. Briefly, he inured himself to this calamity and eventually got over it. Not long afterwards he met Kirpal Kaur and fell for her. It didn’t take him long to realize that Mozel was a heartless coquette who kept hopping from tree to tree like a bird. The thought that he had been saved from making the terrible mistake of marrying her eased his heart a little. But there were times when the memory of her returned like an old pain. He liked her even though she didn’t much care about people’s feelings. He couldn’t resist wondering now and then about what she might be up to in Devlali with this other man who had bought himself a new car. Was she still with him or had she ditched him for yet another man? Given his knowledge of her true character, Trilochan couldn’t bear the thought of her being with any man other than himself.

  He’d spent a fortune on her, quite willingly though. Most of the time Mozel wasn’t hard to please. She frequently went for the cheap stuff. Once, he w
anted to buy her a fairly expensive pair of gold earrings, but she was so taken by the sight of some cheap, gaudy ones in the same store that she begged him to buy those instead.

  He still hadn’t quite figured her out. What substance was she made of—really? She let him kiss her for hours, spread himself all over her like a blanket, but never anything beyond that. ‘You’re a Sikh—I hate you!’ she would say playfully.

  He knew she didn’t mean it. Had she really hated him, she wouldn’t have spent so much time with him. Her impatience wouldn’t have allowed her to put up with him for two full years and would have settled the matter in two minutes flat instead. She didn’t like to wear undergarments because they bothered her. He often tried to knock some sense into her about the necessity for them, to instil some regard for propriety, even tried to appeal to her sense of modesty, but she refused to budge.

  Whenever he brought up ‘modesty’ and ‘propriety’ it always raised her hackles. ‘Modesty—what’s that? Just close your eyes if you care so much for it. Name one piece of clothing that can hide a person’s nakedness or that your eyes can’t see through. Spare me such nonsense. You’re Sikh—I know you guys wear some silly shorts under your pants. They are also part of your religious trappings, like your beard and long hair. You should be ashamed of yourself—a grown man who still believes his religion resides in his underpants.’

  At first, this sort of talk greatly infuriated him, but later, after he thought about it, he didn’t feel quite so sure about it himself. Perhaps what she said wasn’t completely preposterous after all. In the end, after getting rid of his hair and beard, he was convinced that he’d been carrying this excess baggage all along for no sane reason at all.