Novel - The Obsessions - Chapter - 14

The Holi Day

It was 12 midnight when the Madras - New Delhi Grand Trunk Express reached the railway junction of the fort city of my employment. Abdul Nassar brought his car to the railway station. Nassar garlanded both of us at the platform. We got inside the car. Tongas lined on both sides of the car and gave a Guard of Honour to us, in the land of the Stubborn Queen. Horses neighed while greeting us.

The new government quarter looked neat and clean. Bahadur and Ramcharan came running as the car entered the gate and stopped in front of the steps. The front garden displayed many flowers, roses of different colours and some other varieties. Bahadur and Ramcharan took our luggage inside as I paid some money to Nazar.

“No, sir. This time I will not receive any money. This is your first visit with memsahib (Madam)”. He left saying good bye to me.

The lights in all the rooms were burning, so also the ones in the backyard, including the beam lights at the poles of the badminton court. Hanif, who was transferred from the Executive Engineer’s office to my office, was standing at the back door with his wife.

“Namaste, huzur”. He garlanded us. Even though the time was past midnight, they were happy to receive us.

Bahadur rushed to the kitchen, as we freshened ourselves with a hot bath. Ramcharan placed dining plates on the dining table. Bahadur brought hot potato filled paranthas and egg curry, my favourites. They stood there for us to start the meal. I relished the food, but for my wife it was a strange kind of food. But when she started to eat, she too enjoyed it.

The double bed was spread with jasmine flowers. Ramcharan set it right, and vanished. The weather was still cold out there. The surroundings were very strange to my wife. I changed into my night dress and started to read the Screen I bought from the railway station. My wife was standing near the window and was looking out. The moon was crescent shaped and a few stars gave accompaniment to it, in the blue sky. It was our first night in North India. She was thinking about her parents whom she had parted with for the first time in her life. Her face was sad. I removed the pearls of tears from her cheeks with my fingers. I put my right arm on her shoulders and led her to the bed.

“I am with you, don’t worry” I said to her. Her smile returned to her face.

The satin finished rug was very warm and it was very cozy under it, but her body gave me more warmth than the rug as I fell into a deep sleep.

It was mid April, the previous year, when I went home on my annual leave. After staying a week with my mother and brothers, I planned to go south, mainly to meet my fiancée. We used to exchange regular letters and we had come closer through the letters. We used to write the lyrics of Malayalam songs to each other, to express our mutual love. As the days went by, an inseparable bond of love developed between us.

I wanted to meet her in person.

The house was not a new place to me. It was the same place where we had stayed for three years with my father, mother and brothers. The house owner and his family had recently shifted to that house from their ancestral home. It was 9 O’ clock when I reached the house. The gate was closed. I made some noise by lifting the aldrop of the gate from outside, and hitting it on the metallic sheet. The verandah lights suddenly went on and my future father in law came to the gate. Seeing me, he smiled and asked “Why are you so late?” By that time his wife also came out and was standing at the house entrance. I carried my air bag and I was directed to the portico room. He asked me about my job and enquired about the well being of my family. As I had taken my dinner at the bus stand restaurant, I washed up and retired to bed.

I got up early listening to the recorded hymns being played at the temple. To go to the bathroom, I had to cross the bedroom, the same bedroom where my parents used to sleep. While going inside the bath, I saw her in the room opposite to the bath on the side of the hall. As soon as she saw me, she hid behind the door. As I finished my bath, I looked through the key hole. She was standing in front of that room. She had grown taller. She was wearing a half sari, pink in colour and a black blouse. A red round bindi was on her forehead and a streak of sandal paste above the bindi. Her hair was done tied to both sides of her head. Her face looked a little oily. Her large eyes were lined with kajal which extended a little beyond the corner of the eyes. When I opened the bath door, I saw her blushing and running into the kitchen.

My mind grew restless as I was in a hurry to meet her and speak to her. The day passed. I was served lunch by her mother, very delicious lunch with aviyal and theeyal. Her father joined me for the lunch. I had a small nap, but could not sleep as I was excited to meet her. The evening bells rang at the temple at the time of the deeparadhana. I was leaning on to the pillow and was reading a book, as her mother came inside.

She said “You may talk to her if you wish”. She went out. My lady love entered the room with her eyes looking down. I closed the door. I asked her to sit on the cot. She was very shy. I held her hand and made her sit on the cot. She applied sandal paste on my forehead and as she finished I caught her hand and pulled her towards me. She was on my left side. My left hand circled her neck. I got closer to her. Our eyes met. The songs of love, the lyrics of which we wrote to each other, came alive in our hearts. I saw her very closely. I could hear her heartbeats; she must have heard mine, too. I drew her closer to me. My lips touched her cheeks. The aroma of Cuticura powder gave me an unknown pleasure. My lips moved slowly on her smooth cheeks to the corner of her lips. With great courage, I kissed full on her lips. I had read about various kinds of kisses in a book called Kamadarpanam, belonging to my grandfather, stealing it from his library. She did not respond, but as I continued my kisses, she held me close to her body and kissed me with uncontrollable passion. Two lovers exchanged their love in that room for the first time and with every passing moment; our souls were bonded more and more. Reluctantly, she left my room to retire to sleep. I tried to sleep, but could not. She was in front of me whenever I closed my eyes, in my arms, in my embrace.

I stayed in that house for three days. Each moment saw us getting closer. We used to part only for certain requirements. In the evenings, we took liberty of lying side by side in the bed. As our bodies met, the young man and woman in us lifted their heads. At certain moments, my passion went wild beyond imagination and I wanted to cross the limits. But God did not allow me. The blood running in my body, the blood of my parents, also did not permit me. My upbringing, thoughts of my mother, my father and grandfather, who had taught me to be a person of sanity, formed a wall in front of my manly desires. I would never have done that to my beloved girl who had surrendered and reciprocated to my relentless passion. I knew that she would be mine one day. I would wait for that day and every day I would worship her in my heart, I would worship her as the deity in the temple of my heart. I set aside all the past inglorious deeds of mine and sought pardon for my sinful mistakes to God.

The sound of percussions of an impending Kathakali at the temple was not new to me. They reminded me of my parents and my brothers with whom I had stayed in that house.

Her parents never objected to us being together. It was obvious that they wanted us to become closer and inseparable. The night previous to my departure, we sat out at night on the western side of the house. My father in law relaxed in his easy chair at the verandah. The jasmine flowers at the entrance near the main gate sprayed their fragrance into the air. The summer wind was not hot but it blew through the tree leaves and made them nod at us. The moonlight drew designs of light and shadow on the sand at the front yard, sneaking through tree leaves. We talked and wished that the night never ended and the morning never arrived. I told her. “Don’t worry. I will come soon to take you with me for ever. Have patience. I know you love me, but I love you more than you do”. Tears flowed from our eyes, it was a flood.

The next day, when I reached home I was impatient. I told my mother “I want to marry her immediately”.

She understood my urgency. She smiled and said “Look, your sister is little sick now. Let her regain her health. Wait patiently. The girl is for you only, why are you worrying?”

I opened my eyes. The rug had fallen off. It was colder as the morning was approaching. I set it right. My wife slept like a baby. I drew closer to her. I mused “I should have married her immediately after our first meeting” I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes.

The town was in the merriment of Holi, the festival of colours. On that day, all my staff visited me and we hugged each other with the application of gulal, the coloured powder made from flowers, on our foreheads. We visited Bansal saheb’s house. The daughters and wife of Bansal saheb were waiting for our arrival. They threw coloured water on us. “This is your first Holi, you should have more colours.” Bansal saheb’s wife said.

Each one of them threw colour at me and my wife who was getting a little nervous. I glanced at her and asked her to have patience as that was the custom in North India. We were served with sweets. We went out in Bansal saheb’s car to other friends. It was an occasion to remember.

We returned home. We laughed at each other at the condition of our faces and bodies, which were full of different colours. We closed the doors so that no one else visited us. My wife went straight to the bathroom and was about to bolt the door. I pushed it open, went inside and bolted the door.

“What are you doing?” My wife protested. I opened the shower and pulled her towards me and hugged her as the water sprayed on our heads and bodies. We undressed. The water from the shower washed down the gulal in different colours from our bodies. The water traversed down our bodies like a stream in a hilly contour with bushes. That sight made my blood boil with anticipation and my heart pumped all the blood to one point. We kissed with great passion. Our bodies yearned for each other. The pages of the book Kamadarpanam opened one by one in front of my mind’s eye. While I was an adolescent boy, when I first read the book, my fantasies had gone wild. But now it was not a fantasy, it was a reality wilder than the fantasies. Vatsyana, I thought, would have revised the Kamasutra that day, the Holi day.