Rohinton Mistry - Tales From Firozsha Baag

Later, in college, Jehangir stopped going to the Hanging Gardens. He was suddenly very conscious of his aloneness, and felt silly wandering around amidst ayahs with children or couples looking for solitude. Hiding and watching the exercisers did not seem right, either.

The cinema became his new haunt. In the dark movie theatres it did not matter that he was alone. If he sat next to a girl, he would fantasize that she had come with him and was throbbing just like him. He let his elbow touch her arm as if by accident on the armrest they shared. When she edged past him during intermission or after the movie, he gently grazed the back of her thighs with his knees, almost like a light caress. He would manoeuvre to make a show of allowing her maximum room, but made sure to get the most feel. Those were moments of pure ecstasy, moments which he re-lived in bed at night. Sometimes, if there was a particularly active couple next to him, he spent more time watching them than the screen, employing the contortions of a head trained in school under desks and benches. But a stiff neck and an ache at his centre were his only companions when he emerged from the theatre.

Several choir practices later, she went with him to the cinema, and Jehangir found it hard to believe that he had not come alone again to the darkened hall of possibilities. After the intermission she was gently massaging her right wrist, having sprained it the day before. He asked if it was hurting terribly, and later remembered the moment with pride, that he had had the courage and presence of mind to stroke the wrist without a word when she held it out for him over his lap. The stirring which began at his centre swelled with each stroke; after a while their fingers entwined, clumsily, until the index, middle, and ring found their proper places, and interlocked in a tight clasp. He was tremendously aroused but did not dare do anything else. Much too soon the flag appeared on the screen and the audience rose for Jana Gana Mana . His tremendous arousal was quickly doused. All that remained was a nasty ache, the unpleasant residue of lust unreleased, as though he had been kneed in the groin.

It was a while since the train had stopped at a station. Jehangir crossed his legs. He was disgusted with himself. Getting excited again at the mere memory of holding hands. He had read in various magazines and books that boys of fifteen in America enjoyed regular sex, and had the privacy to do it, while he at nineteen was still a virgin, worked up just at the thought of holding her hand, and it was all very unfair and frustrating.

The train was passing by farmland. The fields were sere, brown and bare, and the little vegetation persisting tenaciously was parched yellow. The monsoons were late again, and here, outside the city, the delay was writ harsh across the landscape.

In the city, too, there were hardships. The quota of tap water had been curtailed, and Jehangir had been waking up at five A.M. for the past month to help Mother fill up storage drums for bathing and cleaning and cooking, before the supply was cut off at six A.M.

Scrawny cattle foraged amidst the stubble in the fields. Telegraph poles whizzed by, menacingly close. Poles which periodically cracked open the skulls of commuters who travelled hanging from doors and windows, and provided fodder for the death toll faithfully recorded by city newspapers. A death toll sharing the inconspicuity of inside pages. Side by side with assaults on scheduled castes in one village and murders of harijans by brahmins in another.

When he had brought her home the first time, it had been for a very short visit. He had warned his parents beforehand, praying that Mother would take the hint and remove the mathoobanoo from her head; the white mulmul square made her look like a backward village Parsi from Navsari, he had recently decided. But he was not spared what he thought was a moment of shame and embarrassment. There were quick introductions and several awkward silences, then they left for choir practice.

Later, when Jehangir returned, Mother said during dinner that he should not be seeing so much of the girl. “This is not the time for going out with girls anyway. The proper time will come after finishing college, when you are earning your own living and can afford it.” In the meantime, if he did go out occasionally after asking for permission, he would have to continue to be home by eight o’clock. It would not do to stay out later than that and let things get too serious.

Jehangir said that he would be home by eight if she did not wear that mathoobanoo .

“I am not going to tolerate your ifs-bifs,” said Mrs. Bulsara, covering her hurt with brusqueness, “what I am saying is for your own good.” It was obvious, she said, that the girl came from a family better off than they were, her life-style would make him uncomfortable. “Trust a mother’s instinct. It is only your happiness I think of. Besides, she is the first girl you have gone out with, you might meet someone you like more. Then what?”

“Then I’ll stop going out with her.”

“But what of her feelings? You might be giving her serious hopes.”

“No one has any serious hopes. It’s so silly, all these objections.”

“It is always a serious matter where a girl is involved. You will not understand that at your age.”

Dinner finished without any real unpleasantry. But not for many nights after that. The dinner-table talk grew sharper as days passed. At first, words were chosen carefully in an effort to preserve a semblance of democratic discussion. Soon, however, the tensions outgrew all such efforts, and a nightly routine of debilitating sarcasm established itself. Every dinner saw the same denunciations brought forth, sometimes with a new barb twisted through them.

“There’s something about the way she talks. Without proper respect.”

“Saw what she was wearing? Such a short skirt. And too much makeup.”

“Because you are going out with her you think electricity is free of charge? Ironing shirt and pant from morning till evening.” The ancient dented serving-spoon, descended through hands of foremothers, struck the pot of brinjal with a plangency denoting more to come.

“Why must a girl wear so much makeup unless she is hiding something underneath.”

“Shines his shoes till I can see my unhappy face. More shoe polish has been used after meeting her than in all the years before.”

“If she does not respect your parents, how will she respect you? Your whole life will be unhappy.”

Father said only one thing. “Trust your mother’s instincts. I always do, they are never wrong.”

Things rapidly became worse. Not a day passed without quarrelling. They said things to each other which they would not have dreamt of saying at one time; bitter, vindictive things. Every few days there was a reconciliation at Father’s insistence, with sincere hugs and tears of remorse which sprang from the depths of their beings, so fervent was the desire to let peace and understanding reign again. But this would last for a short time only. The strange new emotions and forces which had taken hold, indecipherable and inscrutable, would soon be manifest again; then the quarrels and hurtful words would resume.

After the first few visits Jehangir did not bring her home any more. Besides, she always refused to come under some pretext — she had felt the antagonism that silently burgeoned on her arrival. There was no outward sign of it, on the surface all was decorum and grace, welcome and kindness. But to sense what lay underneath did not take much. She also picked up the unintentional hints he dropped during those evenings when they met after an excessively trying time at home. Then she would try to help him, and before they parted he would agree to stand up to his parents, become independent, and many more promises.