Latitudes of longing, p.3
Latitudes of Longing, page 3
“But I’m not bitten.”
She returns to picking tomatoes, unruffled. Why must he talk about killing all the time, she wonders.
He stands still, shocked. She definitely looked like she was in trouble when she fell. He couldn’t have imagined it, for he had been staring at her all the while. He returns to the porch, confused. He gives up on the idea of sunning his toes and heads inside. The ship that arrived this morning has brought him important mail—a journal that carries the map of the hypothetical Pangaea, an apparition he is eager to see.
But the master illusionist, the Indian Postal Department, has been up to its tricks again. Seated at his Andaman padauk table, he finds all the pages of the journal stuck together, bark-like in texture. He picks it up to sniff out the culprit. Someone, it seems, has literally spilled milk over his parcel. A can of condensed milk, to be precise. On a milk-less island like this, such cans are worth their weight in gold. Adamant and armed with a paper knife, Girija Prasad attempts to peel the pages apart one by one, a tedious and delicate task that could swallow up his entire morning.
Even in the inexplicable world of his wife, what happened outside doesn’t make sense. Perhaps she is too embarrassed to show him where she was bitten, he suspects. Perhaps it was just an insect, not a centipede. Perhaps the trauma of picking the vegetables, of murdering what could be plants and trees one day, gets to her at times. It isn’t something to fret over, he tells himself. Most women are oversensitive, which makes his wife just a faithful representative of her species.
The more he observes the female species from a distance, the more this hypothesis gains credence. As an adolescent growing up in Allahabad, Girija Prasad would keenly note the moments when the audience wept the most during the retellings of Tulsidas’s Ramayana. The men were forced to disguise their tears as sneezes and other discomforts, while the women were encouraged to turn their tears into a theatrical display of faith, though he never quite understood the timing of it. While it made sense to feel overwhelmed when Sita was reunited with her husband, Lord Rama, after her gentlemanly abduction by the ten-headed Ravana, or when she was banished from the kingdom by the very same husband only to prove an incidental point to a washerwoman, nothing could explain the timing of their biggest outburst. It would be after the book had been closed and the discourse had ended for the day. The women cried for no rhyme or reason.
Outdoors, Chanda Devi is relieved to be alone again. It was a close call for her. She used her umbrella to fend off the emaciated ghost wrapped in a flag, who has been following her through the patch, pointing out snails and playing dumb charades. Using twigs as chopsticks, he gestures to her to break the shell and gouge the soft flesh out for him, rubbing his belly emphatically. Death, the soldier had hoped, would rescue him from his weeklong hunger. Instead, it stalks him in the afterlife. Though surrounded by fat snails, the Japanese soldier cannot break a single shell and scoop the flesh out with his faint limbs and brittle, glass-like nails. He implores Mrs. Varma to help him. As does the Punjabi mutineer, sitting on the dining table beside her husband, insisting on his right to be served the hot malpuas first, before the “traitor who dresses and talks like the British.”
It isn’t she who is crazy. The place her husband has brought her to is a madhouse. But she is afraid to share her predicament with him. Men aren’t comfortable with their wives interacting with other men, especially naked, desperate strangers.
The time Chanda Devi takes to handpick, wash, chop, cook, and serve the vegetables for lunch along with freshly made rotis is the time Girija Prasad takes to unpeel all the pages of the journal from one another and confront the new hypothesis of his existence: Pangaea, under the influence of milk and salt-laden winds, has turned into a giant multicolored blot that resembles the female genitalia.
* * *
—
Chanda Devi knows she distracts him. It is evident in the way he fidgets in her presence, the way he restlessly shakes his leg. She knows she makes him nervous. She can smell it in his sweat, for she sniffs his laundry daily. His socks smell of hooves. His shirts have a heavy, earthy fragrance, like that of leaves, grass, and fruits crushed into the dark earth by the movement of animals, rains, and wind. Even in his smells, she senses no respite. Despite the pleasantly cool nights, the bedsheets smell of nervous sweat mixed with tropical humidity.
Added to the mix today is a new, lethal fragrance emanating from a single drop of mango that dripped onto his sleeve last evening. A ship from the mainland had arrived with a crate of the finest mangoes for Chanda Devi, ordered by her husband from the opposite end of India, the red soils of the west coast. The entire nation is up in mangoes in the month of June, from the southernmost tip to the edges of the plains. And Girija Prasad is eager to taste the royal variety of mangoes, especially after the rechristening. Previously called Alphonso mangoes after a Portuguese general, the newly elected representatives of the free nation renamed them Shivaji mangoes after the regional hero who valiantly fought off all invaders. Chanda Devi is touched. She washes and wipes the mangoes and displays them in glass bowls like a centerpiece.
She watches him tuck in a napkin like a bib, roll up his sleeves, and work through the mango with a knife and fork, dexterously dividing it into cubes. Still, an errant drop slides down his fork to his little finger and then to his sleeve. Left to herself, she would have bitten the stem off, used her fingers to peel the skin and sunk her teeth into the naked fruit, all without staining her sari. But she feels self-conscious in his presence, so she picks at the cubes her husband has cut instead.
“When I ate it last, it was Alphonso. Now it is Shivaji,” he says. “Who would have thought that even mangoes would change their identity after independence.”
Chanda Devi, trained in the straightforward ways of Sanskrit literature, is oblivious to the English obsession with wit as a higher form of intellect. She interprets her husband’s remark in earnestness.
“We are the children of the soil, but they are the fruit,” she says. “They are more sensitive. Changes in government, affronts to their faith, it all affects them deeply, even more than locusts or worms.” She senses his surprise. “When I eat Hindu vegetables, fruits, and pulses, I don’t feel as bad,” she goes on. “Unlike Muslims or Christians, who only live once.”
“But all beings must die, irrespective of their religious beliefs,” replies Girija Prasad. “Muslim mangoes can hope for resurrection on Judgment Day, just as Christian mangoes can look forward to heaven. In all theological discourses, man can only speculate, never judge. Only the subject of the study—the formless, genderless almighty—bears that privilege.”
By defending Muslim mangoes, Girija Prasad is making a case for himself, especially the dietary habits he was forced to abandon.
Though she sits perfectly composed, a tidal wave of emotions has hit Chanda Devi, refusing to let her surface. He may not see the ghosts that sit beside him, he may not recollect the other times the two have shared a mango in their various lives, but he too sees things she doesn’t.
* * *
—
Later in the day, when her husband leaves her alone with the ghosts of Goodenough Bungalow, Chanda Devi closes the door to their bedroom for privacy. Old-fashioned in their ways, the ghosts will never enter a room when the door is closed or peep in when the curtains are drawn.
Alone, she retrieves the mango skin her husband had so carefully peeled half an hour ago. It reminds her of the bright-orange flesh the two had shared, the thoughts they had exchanged. She caresses the skin with her fingers, rubbing it and sniffing it in turn. Fibrous and wet on the inside, smooth, glistening, and fragrant on the outside. Is this what human skin is like? she wonders.
* * *
—
As an eight-year-old child, Chanda Devi once asked her mother, “Ma, how are babies born?” Her mother turned red. She reprimanded her daughter and told her never to repeat the question, least of all to her father.
Lost and alone in her worries, Chanda Devi’s mother visited the riverbank baba for guidance. This was a time when he was still considered young, only 102 years old.
“Baba,” she said, after offering him fruits and flowers, “my little daughter asks me shocking questions. The other day…How can I tell you? I feel embarrassed to even repeat her question.” She adjusted her sari to cover her hair and turned around to ensure no one was eavesdropping. “How are children born, she asked me. As a mother, I cannot give up on her. But who will marry her, baba, if she continues to ask such questions?”
The baba was engrossed in arranging the flowers and fruits in order of size. One marigold turned out to be bigger than an apple. It made him smile.
“Beti,” he replied, “this is Kali Yuga, the age of evil and immorality. All men and women must do is hold hands to bear children, such is the blinding power of Kama! A time will come”—his eyes widened, and his voice vibrated with the power of prophecy—“when boys and girls will hold hands before marriage. They will hold the hands of many boys and girls in plain sight. For everyone to see!”
Though it didn’t really ease her plight, Chanda Devi’s mother returned to instruct her children to never, ever hold hands with the opposite sex before marriage.
Exhausted by the enterprise of raising six children, she was secretly relieved by the baba’s words. What had rattled her the most about her daughter’s question was her own ignorance. She herself didn’t know how children were born. But now there was hope. She avoided holding her husband’s hands, especially when he lay over her.
* * *
—
Though much has changed in Chanda Devi’s life since she asked her mother that question, she hasn’t found the answer yet. There is more to it than holding hands, she suspects after three months of marriage. Why else would her entire body erupt into goosebumps in his presence, and not just the skin on her hands?
For her husband, an accomplished scientist, it is the bigger, un-researched questions of the time that trouble him. Though there is no evidence to suggest that Homo sapiens have a mating season, there is not enough evidence to suggest its nonexistence either. The lack of clarity on the subject has put him in a spot. The tropical climate heightens the ambiguity. Even tigers, with their clearly designated mating rituals—which begin with a tigress roaring to attract attention and sometimes end with her punching the partner—find the tropical heat confusing. A study showed that, in temperate regions, Panthera tigris went into heat seasonally, but in tropical climes they were documented to mate throughout the year.
If only human beings went into heat like other mammals, displaying specific behavior, colors, or sounds to signify readiness, Girija Prasad wouldn’t have to spend his days twiddling his thumbs, pontificating on theology and mangoes.
IN THE EXCRUCIATINGLY limited social life of the islands, Mrs. Varma’s presence has created a storm. She is a popular subject of speculation in gatherings, much to the relief of the officers and their wives. Before her arrival, the biggest scandal to hit the islands was when the postal department secretary’s dog ran away to pursue the doctor’s pet mongrel. The secretary accused the doctor of luring away his handsome Labrador in a bid to gain another pet, and the doctor retorted by accusing him of torturing his pet, for why else would he escape? As salacious as the entire episode was, with elements of elopement, torture, the mail, and a standoff, how long could it sustain their gossipy evenings?
Mrs. Varma is a blessing to their bored lives. She perplexes them. She may not have been to Oxford like her husband, but she’s far more learned in their eyes. She has studied Sanskrit, the language of the gods, and is an expert on Hindu scripture. Such is her divine prowess, they say, that she can calculate the astrological positions of planets while buying groceries in the market. Once, she even caught an errant vendor overcharging her by two paisa. “The moon in the house of Cancer makes people vulnerable,” she was overheard saying, “but that does not mean you can cheat them.” Her aura of conviction tempts some to bow down in her presence and exclaim, “The goddess, she’s arrived!” But they are afraid she might shoo them away like dogs.
The couple’s presence in social events is marked by a dramatic entrance, side by side. She doesn’t leave him when he joins a group of men and discusses serious topics like inflation affecting the islands’ subsidized rations, or the weather. Nor does he leave her when she exchanges culinary tips with the ladies. In fact, he always has something useful to add, like the scientific name of the herb they speak of and how best to cultivate it.
If Girija Prasad is accused of displaying feminine traits for suggesting alternative ingredients in recipes, his wife is accused of being a man by virtue of her knowledge. Their oddities complement each other. If only they could peer into the Varma household to see how a marriage of equals thrives in a world of unequals. For now they must satisfy themselves with observations from a distance and wonder: When they eat, does she serve him before she sits down, or are they brazen enough to serve themselves? Who decides the menu? It is whispered that Girija Prasad turned vegetarian to please his wife. Though it is Girija Prasad who posts the letters to their families, is it Chanda Devi who writes them? What about the curtains they recently put up? Who decided their pattern and why were they put up? Is it to hide what the soon-to-come-into-effect Indian Constitution will term “unnatural sexual acts”? Born of generations interlocked in the missionary, it seems impossible to imagine sex among equals.
* * *
—
The life of an equal couple in the latitudes of longing and the longitudes of trepidation has hitherto been a rare, undocumented phenomenon—like a whale giving birth in Antarctica or white elephants mating in south Asia.
Both Girija Prasad and Chanda Devi are quick to realize that the phrase “falling in love” is a euphemism. Romance isn’t as straightforward as diving into cool waters on a hot afternoon, nor is it instinctive, like learning to walk. It’s not a treasure trove of superlatives like Sanskrit poetry or the “sweet sorrow” the Romantics spoke of.
The struggle of an equal couple isn’t just the subject of ethnography. It is multidisciplinary. Intimacy and distance operate like the tide—high during the day, peaking at mealtimes. The moon is a cup of tea; it pulls them to the zenith of their interaction. The nights are parched. Unconquered land separates their beds.
Communication among birds relies heavily on unintelligible sounds and tilts of the head, displays of plumage, and actions like dances or formations. So do the exchanges between the Varmas. He clears his throat to signal his entrance into a room. Since he doesn’t make demands, she has learned to read his desires by his actions. When he looks at the horizon with vacant eyes, he yearns for tea. If he is famished, his belly emits cub-like growls. If his forehead is wrinkled and he has a mild frown on his face, he is deep in thought. His head droops when he is tired. It tilts to one side when he is sleepy. If he sits or stands upright, his attention is on his surroundings, observing perhaps the call of a bird, a shift in the winds, or an increased smell of chlorophyll. A scientist studying the environment looks very much like an animal on the alert, alive to potential predators and prey. Long visits to the loo imply that the meal she cooked was too spicy for his delicate constitution. Though she has never seen him sketching, she often finds her husband returning from work with a lining of lead in his nails and pencil shavings on his clothes. It is the equivalent of a man coming home whistling away to himself in a cheery mood.
Chanda Devi, her husband has discovered, is a complex study that demands the skills of a botanist, an ornithologist, and an astronomer combined. She moves around in her cotton sari like leaves rustling in the breeze. She breathes as imperceptibly as a tree, sucking in all the room’s air and spilling it back, fragrant. Like a bird, her gaze is intense, unblinking. With a single nod, it shifts from the metallic blue eyes of a fly perched on her wrist to an Andaman padauk trunk toppling somewhere on the archipelago, to a pod of dolphins entering the bay. Though Chanda Devi sits in the same room, Girija Prasad often suspects she is constellations apart. He wonders if she finds herself alone in that different time and universe. But he is hopeful. One day, he too will travel across time to reach the end of Chanda Devi’s gaze.
There is not a single straight line in her being, a sinuous landscape. At work, he tries to capture her in the margins of office files. Her curves, her eyes, the geometrically precise division of the sari pleats fanning out from her navel, all impossible to sketch. It is in the relentless exercise of sharpening, drawing, erasing, and reworking that Girija Prasad experiences something no sonnet or ode can convey.
* * *
—
Only the dead can sympathize with the couple’s plight. Ever since her arrival in the month of centipedes, in the season of the monsoon, the ghosts of Goodenough Bungalow have been alive to their predicament. Like the invertebrates, the couple fear their desires may be misunderstood.
It is difficult for the ghosts to just sit and watch. Had the Varmas been in their north Indian homeland instead of the Andamans, the Punjabi mutineer claims, Chanda Devi would have conceived by now. He blames Girija Prasad’s sissy ways on his British education, especially the Raj-era clothes he wears. Like a concerned mother-in-law, the mutineer advises Chanda Devi to serve Girija Prasad hot milk with almonds at bedtime to strengthen his libido.
Lord Goodenough has studied love in its extremes, with hindsight afforded only to ghosts. Among the isolated peoples of the Pacific Islands, he’d chanced upon a cannibalistic ritual where the mourning lover consumes the heart of the deceased beloved—the ultimate act of union. But with his own heart, the lord had exercised typical Victorian restraint. He would admire his muse—his brother-in-law—from a distance. He could only caress the engraving on a Grecian urn with his fingertips: the image of an older, bearded man entering an adolescent boy. If only he could, he would tell the young Mrs. Varma that when some men are in love, they doubt themselves. They fear they are not good enough.
