Aatish Taseer - The Temple-Goers

‘What is it, man?’ I asked when we were out of earshot of the others.

‘Are we going to take them both or what?’ Aakash said with fresh zeal.

I laughed out loud, then saw he was serious. ‘Aakash, one of “them” is my girlfriend!’

‘So what, man? I’m not saying -’

‘No, Aakash. I know what you’re saying and we’re not doing it.’

I walked back to the others, leaving Aakash with some words still on his lips. He looked incredulous, then his face showed a hurt, dazed expression.

Ra pranced up to him. ‘Come on, lover boy, stop being such a kebab me haddi.’

Aakash looked down at him, and his face clearing, he put one hand on Ra’s stomach and said, ‘I’m going to make you fit, man.’ They began to walk up the street. Aakash spoke to Ra with the same energy and interest with which he had spoken to me. Ra shed his cynicism and was slowly seduced. His eyes turned from playful and flirtatious to hungry; I heard him invite Aakash to a party while we were away. He kept prodding his chest and stomach with a single finger, and saying, ‘Hash-man, oh gawd, how disgusting, all veins and muscles.’ They spoke about Delhi being quiet and peaceful in the summer and how it was possible to do things one didn’t ordinarily do, like have breakfast in the old city. I heard all this and was jealous, miserably jealous. I knew now that Aakash wanted me to feel that way.

The rain, not being genuine monsoon rain, was sucked up by the atmosphere. An uneasy peace held between dry and humid heat, and the air, with its varying temperature, felt like a lake in spring. The drains clogged, and puddles heavy with dust and petals formed on the sides of the street. The double line of laburnums, prematurely stripped of their petals, the remainder discoloured, were like a regiment that had suffered a terrible defeat.

Ra’s chauffeur-driven car, which had followed us, making our run in the rain seem even more of a pretence, now nosed its way down Amrita Shergill Marg. Mandira who had grown tired of Aakash’s neglect jumped in.

‘Ra, come on, no? Drop me home. Back to hubbie.’

He seemed reluctant to leave, offering to drop us all back.

‘No, don’t worry about it,’ Sanyogita said. ‘I want to walk back.’

I would have liked the ride home, but something in Sanyogita’s mood made me feel it was better to stay. Aakash looked between the car and us, then specifically at me.

Sanyogita, with strange bloody-mindedness, intervened. ‘Stay, Aakash. It’ll be so nice. We’ll walk back together.’

Aakash, not to be outdone in this perverse show of strength, agreed. The car drove away, leaving us alone on Amrita Shergill Marg.

Having been a different man to each of us that night, Aakash now became in those final moments a friend of the relationship. He walked between us, in his soaked red shirt, his heavy arms sprawling over both our shoulders. His smell, deodorant thinly holding back a damp stench from his armpits, lingered, now rising up when he rested his head on Sanyogita’s shoulder, now meeting me as he leaned in to kiss my neck and tell me how much he loved both of us.

For those moments, he seemed to believe that even Sanyogita’s and my relationship was only possible because of him. He spoke of trips we would take together in the hills; he said he would make every effort to come and see us in Europe in the summer, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to get away this year. I knew he didn’t have a passport, but he spoke as if he travelled all the time. He insinuated himself into our lives and we didn’t stop him because it seemed harmless. But all the time, a mistaken idea of his importance was forming in his mind. When he slipped away a few moments later to take a pee, he went with the knowledge that the world turned on his axis. He peed brazenly, standing on the pavement, facing the street. Looking to see where he’d gone, we caught sight of him under a lamp post. He laughed joyfully, leaning back on his heels and pushing his black uncircumcised penis forward into the light. A smooth yellow sheen struck it and from its wrinkled nozzle, urine spirals fell to a puddle of spinning petals. His blackish-pink lips whistled the shrill tune of a film song.

His contentment was so deep and his exhibitionism so self-assured that the expression of fatigue it brought to Sanyogita’s face would have come as a shock. And before I turned away, before he masked it with playful rowdiness, I saw in his eyes the rage of an Indian man insulted by a woman. His next action came so suddenly that later I thought I had seen it before it happened, the way one feels one might have saved a falling glass. I had barely looked forward again when I felt solid muscle smash against the back of my neck and a hand wrench my shoulder down. The street zoomed up in front of me as I was pulled to the floor, managing to squat just before I fell; Sanyogita crumpled.

The moment I saw her strong body thrown on to the tarmac, my mind flashed to the image of the skiing accident that had broken her thigh and given her the caterpillar scar. As she lifted herself from the street, I saw her pricked palms and a four-inch graze on her elbow. The long, colourful Rajasthani dress, with its mirrors and tinsel, was torn at the knees. Seeing her childlike face, mystified at the injury done to her, and Aakash retreating in horror, I did something for which Sanyogita never forgave me. Instead of attending to her, I jumped up and yelled at Aakash, telling him to apologize and help her up. I did it because I thought that if in that instant he begged her forgiveness, it might come; later it would be harder, much harder. But seeing her wounds and her eyes now full of tears, he hesitated; and in those seconds of hesitation, there was no one to help her up. By the time I gave up on him, it was too late. Sanyogita’s pain had turned to anger. She slapped my hand away as I tried to help her up. Then she stood rooted in one place, the hem of her skirt hanging into the street, the crook of her arm exposed and softly bent where hurt. She stood perfectly still, breathing heavily, staring at me through her glistening eyes, wanting me to see what Aakash had done to her. Her head was cocked to one side and her long wavy hair glued in places to her face. She wiped it away furiously, looking still harder at me. There was an expression almost of curiosity in her eyes; it was as if she was trying to understand how I could have betrayed her. Then pushing me back, she turned around and ran. Despite her injuries and her flimsy slippers, she ran fast in the direction of Jorbagh. In seconds, she was swallowed up by the darkness and the steam now rising from the street. Aakash had gone too.

I left Delhi on a Virgin flight. The airport was in a state of great confusion. It had always had a makeshift quality: passages with tinted windows in peeling frames, grey stone floors coated in a fine layer of dust, idle men in olive-green uniforms. But now a private company, promising an airport of the future, had begun a renovation that left it barely standing. Cement and water dripped through the slats of a dented, white metal ceiling; a brown water stain crept across a wall hanging of a plump horseman; coloured wires grew out of their sockets. The warm, sweet Indian air infused here with government office damp, there with urine, now also smelt of chemicals.

On the flight, blonde air hostesses with jarring accents went past in red suits. Sanyogita sat next to me in a maroon velvet and white lace skirt. It hid the scabs that were forming on her knees. The grazes on her elbows were raw and visible. She made no display of them as she went about the small tasks of settling down for a long flight. She took down her magazines, rummaged in her handbag for lip balm, then reopened the overhead compartment and brought out an old toosh. Wrapping herself in it, she curled into her seat and slipped her long arms into mine. She had spent a miserable night, but she wasn’t angry any more.