Maan said simply, ‘It is just a few minutes away.’
‘Please – sit down.’
Maan sat cross-legged on the white-sheeted floor.
Saeeda Bai began to busy herself making paan. Maan looked at her wonderingly.
‘I came yesterday too, but was less fortunate.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘My fool of a watchman turned you away. What can I say? We are not all blessed with the faculty of discrimination ’
‘But I’m here today,’ said Maan, rather obviously.
‘Wherever Dagh has sat down, he has sat down?’ asked Saeeda Bai, with a smile. Her head was bent, and she was spreading a little white dab of lime on the paan leaves.
‘He may not quit your assembly at all this time,’ said Maan.
Since she was not looking directly at him, he could look at her without embarrassment. She had covered her head with her sari before he had come in. But the soft, smooth skin of her neck and shoulders was exposed, and Maan found the tilt of her neck as she bent over her task indescribably charming.
Having made a pair of paans she impaled them on a little silver toothpick with tassels, and offered them to him. He took them and put them in his mouth, pleasantly surprised at the taste of coconut, which was an ingredient Saeeda Bai was fond of adding to her paan.
‘I see you are wearing your own style of Gandhi cap,’ said Saeeda Bai, after popping a couple of paans into her mouth. She did not offer any to Ishaq Khan or Motu Chand, but then they seemed to have virtually melted into the background.
Maan touched the side of his embroidered white cap nervously, unsure of himself.
‘No, no, Dagh Sahib, don’t trouble yourself. This isn’t a church, you know.’ Saeeda Bai looked at him and said, ‘I was reminded of other white caps one sees floating around in Brahmpur. The heads that wear them have grown taller recently.’
‘I am afraid you are going to accuse me of the accident of my birth,’ said Maan.
‘No, no,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘Your father has been an old patron of the arts. It is the other Congress-wallahs I was thinking of.’
‘Perhaps I should wear a cap of a different colour the next time I come,’ said Maan.
Saeeda Bai raised an eyebrow.
‘Assuming I am ushered into your presence,’ Maan added humbly.
Saeeda Bai thought to herself: What a well-brought-up young man. She indicated to Motu Chand that he should bring the tablas and harmonium that were lying in the corner of the room.
To Maan she said, ‘And now what does Hazrat Dagh command us to sing?’
‘Why, anything,’ said Maan, throwing banter to the winds.
‘Not a ghazal, I hope,’ said Saeeda Bai, pressing down a key on the harmonium to help the tabla and sarangi tune up.
‘No?’ asked Maan, disappointed.
‘Ghazals are for open gatherings or the intimacy of lovers,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘I’ll sing what my family is best known for and what my Ustad best taught me.’
She began a thumri in Raag Pilu, ‘Why then are you not speaking to me?’ and Maan’s face brightened up. As she sang he floated off into a state of intoxication. The sight of her face, the sound of her voice, and the scent of her perfume were intertwined in his happiness.
After two or three thumris and a dadra, Saeeda Bai indicated that she was tired, and that Maan should leave.
He left reluctantly, showing, however, more good humour than reluctance. Downstairs, the watchman found a five-rupee note pressed into his hand.
Out on the street Maan trod on air.
She will sing a ghazal for me sometime, he promised himself. She will, she certainly will.
2.14
IT was Sunday morning. The sky was bright and clear. The weekly bird market near the Barsaat Mahal was in full swing. Thousands of birds – mynas, partridges, pigeons, parakeets, fighting birds, eating birds, racing birds, talking birds – sat or fluttered in iron or cane cages in little stalls from which rowdy hawkers cried out the excellence and cheapness of their wares. The pavement had been taken over by the bird market, and buyers or passers-by like Ishaq had to walk on the road surface, bumping against rickshaws and bicycles and the occasional tonga.
There was even a pavement stall with books about birds. Ishaq picked up a flimsy, blunt-typed paperback about owls and spells, and looked idly through to see what uses this unlucky bird could be put to. It appeared to be a book of Hindu black magic, The Tantra of Owls, though it was printed in Urdu. He read:
Sovereign Remedy to Obtain Employment
Take the tail-feathers of an owl and a crow, and burn them together in a fire made from mango wood until they form ash. Place this ash on your forehead like a caste-mark when you go to seek employment, and you will most certainly obtain it.