Company of Women Read online

  Khushwant Singh

  The Company of Women

  Contents

  About the Author

  The Secret Life of Mohan Kumar

  One: A New Beginning

  Two: Dhanno

  Three: Letter From Rewari

  Four: Sarojini

  Five: After Sarojini

  The Memoirs of Mohan Kumar

  Six: I, Mohan Kumar

  Seven: Jessica Browne

  Eight: Yasmeen

  Nine: Homecoming

  Ten: Getting Married

  Eleven: Honeymoon in the Shivaliks

  Twelve: Mary Joseph

  Thirteen: How the Marriage Died

  Fourteen: Molly Gomes

  Fifteen: Susanthika

  The Last Days of Mohan Kumar

  Sixteen: A Bai in Bombay

  Seventeen: A Fatal Illness

  Eighteen: The Death of Mohan Kumar

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

  Khushwant Singh was India’s best-known writer and columnist. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and Hindustan Times. He authored classics such as Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (retitled as The Lost Victory) and Delhi. His last novel, The Sunset Club, written when he was ninety-five, was published by Penguin Books in 2010. His non-fiction includes the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, a number of translations and works on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published by Penguin Books in 2002.

  Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian Army. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.

  Among the other awards he received were the Punjab Ratan, the Sulabh International award for the most honest Indian of the year, and honorary doctorates from several universities.

  Khushwant Singh passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety-nine.

  I

  The Secret Life of

  Mohan Kumar

  For Mohan Kumar, it should have been a day of rejoicing. It was not.

  He had looked forward to it for twelve years. His wife had at long last decided to leave him: despite the months of bitter acrimony that had preceded it, she agreed to give him a divorce provided she had custody of their two children. He was so anxious to get his freedom, that besides the children he agreed to give her whatever else she wanted in the way of alimony: jewellery that he and his father had given her, furniture, pictures—anything she named. She wanted nothing. She seemed as eager to get rid of him as he was to get rid of her. That afternoon she had packed her things and driven away with the children to her parents’ home. She had not bothered to say goodbye. The children sensed that this was not just another visit to their grandparents. They embraced and kissed him before running out to get into their mother’s black Mercedes. The car had shot out of the gate with unnecessary speed; she had made sure the children would have no time to turn around and wave goodbye.

  Mohan should have been celebrating his newly won freedom from his nagging, ill-tempered wife. But as he sat in the balcony of his double-storied bungalow, his feet resting on the railing, smoking a Havana cigar, he felt empty inside and shrouded in loneliness. There was an all-pervading silence. No screaming of children fighting with each other; his six-year-old daughter rushing to him complaining of her elder brother’s bullying and he gruffly ordering them to behave and not disturb him. Their squabbles had often irritated him. Now he missed them. The house suddenly had far too many rooms, and the night too many hours. He was weary.

  He thought of his relations with his wife. It was what people described as a love-cum-arranged marriage. But of course it was nothing of the sort. The day after he had returned from the States thirteen years ago with degrees in computers and business management, his proud father, a retired middle-level government servant with middle-class dreams for his only son, had gone round newspaper offices with his photographs and biodata. The next morning some national dailies carried Mohan’s picture in their matrimonial pages, with captions extolling his academic achievements. Enquiries from parents of unmarried girls followed. He and his father were invited to tea, introduced to nubile girls, tempted with large dowries and offers of partnerships in business. Even after all these years Mohan was amazed at how easily he had allowed himself to be offered for sale, finally agreeing to marry Sonu.

  Her father, Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram, had made the highest bid. He owned a couple of sugar mills and considerable real estate in Delhi. Mohan succumbed to the offer more to please his father than out of any wish to settle down with a wife. Sonu was passably fair, high-spirited and convent-educated. Also a virgin eager to opt out of virginity. They had a lavish wedding and moved into a large furnished flat provided by her father. Mohan’s father moved in with them. The honeymoon went well, as it usually does with newly married couples who desire little besides the freedom to discover and devour each other’s bodies. Their first child, a son, was conceived during those early days of amatory exploration.

  Differences in temperament began to surface soon afterwards. Sonu was quick-tempered, possessive and wanted attention all the time. She was jealous, though she herself had no love to give him. And she began to resent his father’s presence in their home—her home, for it was, after all, a gift from her father. ‘Will your old man live with us all his life?’ she once asked in disgust. He did not like her calling his father ‘old man’ and told her so. ‘I married you, not both of you,’ she shot back. He realized soon enough that their living arrangements had to change. The garment export business he had started soon after returning from the States was bringing him good money, and he also had enough dollars saved up. Within two months of that unpleasant exchange with Sonu he was able to buy himself a bungalow with a garden in Maharani Bagh, an upper class neighbourhood of Delhi. There was enough space in the new house, and Mohan thought Sonu and his father would be able to keep out of each other’s way. But he was wrong. His father, sad and diminished, finally moved to Haridwar. This was not how Mohan had wanted it, but at least there might now be peace. He was relieved to be out of the premises provided by his father-in-law.

  In less than two years, Mohan had added semi-precious stones and leather goods to the list of items he exported. His profits more than trebled, and soon he was part of the charmed circle of Delhi’s super rich.

  None of this improved his relationship with his wife. She was, he realized with some horror, a bitter woman, incapable of happiness and determined to make him unhappy. She had made up her mind to condemn him in everything he did. If he paid the slightest attention to another woman, she would call him a randy bastard. At first he thought they were going through a period of adjustment and hoped that relations would settle down to normal. In the seventh year of their marriage, they had a daughter. But even this child did not bring them any closer. Quarrels became endemic. Hardly an evening passed without their going for each other, leaving them both utterly exhausted. For many days following a spat they would barely exchange a word. Then bodily compulsions would resolve the dispute. They would have sex, usually loveless sex, and resume talking to each other. Only for a few days.

  One evening remained etched in his memory. She overheard him talking to one of his women friends on the phone. She accused him of having a liaison with ‘that whore’. She called him a lecher. He lost his temper and slapped her across the face. For a while she was stunn
ed into silence, then hissed, ‘You dared to hit me. I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.’ And then she walked out of the house. An hour later she was back with her cousin, an inspector of police, and two constables. Mohan was taken to the police station like a common criminal. His statement was recorded. A couple of hours later the inspector drove him back home. It had cost Mohan Rs 5000 to get the inspector to record that it was a ghareloo maamla—a domestic affair—and ‘rafaa dafaa’ the complaint in the police file. That time Sonu had stayed with her parents for over a month.

  Mohan thought over the relationships he had had with various women before he married Sonu. Most were with Americans or Europeans—and one Pakistani. They were not meant to be enduring; no strings attached. Great fun while they lasted. He felt they were better than being caught in the vice of one demanding woman who deprived him of the company of others. All said and done, a man or a woman had only one life to live; neither should waste the best years of their lives with someone with whom they had little to share besides occasional, loveless sex. It would be a relief for them both to end their marriage. The only ones to be hurt were the children, but even they would do better in a peaceful home run by a single parent than one where the parents were always bickering with each other. They would grow up and understand why the divorce was good for everyone concerned.

  Mohan was not given to introspection. But his stormy marriage had made him an amateur philosopher of marriage and love. Marriages, he concluded, are not made in heaven; they are made on earth by earthlings for earthly reasons. The first priority is money: it may be property, a profitable business or a well-paid job. The couple concerned fall into line without bothering to find out whether or not the person they are committing themselves to will make a good lifelong companion. At the time they are asked to give their consent they are adolescents: their sex urges are of explosive dimensions, and they are eagerly looking forward to exploring each other’s bodies. So pass the first few months. In that time the bride of yesterday finds she is pregnant. Then the sex urge begins to abate. Even if they use contraceptives, sex-when-you-want-it begins to lose its urgency. It becomes a routine affair. People they had ignored during their frenetic physical involvement with each other start becoming subjects of sexual fantasies. No matter how close and intimately involved a married couple may be, the possibility of a pleasant diversion in an adulterous relationship is never far from their minds. When an opportunity guaranteeing secrecy presents itself, they succumb to it.

  Occasional adultery, Mohan was convinced, did not destroy a marriage; quite often it proved to be a cementing factor, as in cases where the husband could not give his wife as much sex as she needed, or where the wife was frigid. It was silly to condemn adultery as sinful; it often saved marriages from collapsing. It could have saved his.

  What bothered Mohan most was the gossip in his large circle of friends. Most of them knew that his marriage was not going smoothly. He had often suffered snide remarks at the club bar when he had gone there alone. ‘How’s Sonu? Is she not in town?’ the bitch Usha Malhotra had said, a little too loud, barely suppressing a leer. He knew what she was driving at, and hit back savagely: ‘And how are your husband and your boyfriend getting along?’ That would silence her. And her types. He knew that not one of his circle was really happy in his or her marriage. They just got along. And grumbled. Not one of them had the courage to call it off. To hell with the bloody lot! He could feel his temples throb with anger.

  Mohan continued sitting in the balcony till well after sunset. His servant switched on the lights in the sitting room and laid out his whisky, glass, soda, and ice bucket. Mohan was reluctant to go into the empty house without the children shouting to each other and his sullen wife pottering about.

  He smoked his cigar till there was little left of it and tossed the stub into the garden where the crickets chirred monotonously. He dragged his feet to his silent sitting room and switched on the TV to listen to the news. He poured himself a large Scotch in his favourite cut-glass tumbler and sat facing the screen. His eyes registered the images on the box; his ears did not take in what was being said.

  He helped himself to a second and then a third drink. He fiddled with the remote control, tried one channel after another: song and dance, quiz contests, cheetah overtaking a gazelle, politicians lying brazenly and abusing each other, film starlets flirting with fat heroes, and children singing patriotic songs. Nothing held his attention. He poured himself a fourth Scotch—he rarely drank more than three. He felt somewhat drunk. He ordered the bearer to leave his dinner on the table and gave him and the cook leave to go back to their quarters. He drew a chair in front of him and stretched his legs on it. He dozed off in his armchair without switching off the TV or the room lights. In the early hours of the morning a stiffness in his neck woke him up. He switched off the TV and the house lights. He left his dinner untouched and staggered into bed. He fell asleep with his face buried in his pillow.

  The next morning Mohan resolved to come to terms with his new situation. He had enough going for him in life: his company brought him over twenty lakhs every month; he had the looks and the sophistication to charm women; he was a member of three elite Clubs—the Delhi Golf Club, the Gymkhana Club, and the India International Centre. All he lacked was a woman to keep him company and share his bed without being over- possessive or demanding.

  He was determined to have as little to do with Sonu as he could and yet be able to keep contact with his children. He knew that he could not do without a woman companion for too long. Having affairs with friends’ wives was not what he was looking for. Nor unmarried girls, because they would expect matrimony to follow—which ruled out young widows as well. What he hoped to find was a woman about his own age, early forties or a little younger, sophisticated and willing to stay with him for a few weeks or months. He could afford to provide for her: a chauffeur-driven car, money for shopping, the comforts of his home, clubs, cinemas, and restaurants. What more could any woman want? It was not whoring, it was not concubinage; it was respectable companionship with sex thrown in.

  How and where would he find takers for what he was willing to offer? For the next few Sundays he scanned the matrimonial columns of the national dailies: The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Tribune. He found nothing close to what he was looking for. The matrimonials were caste-obsessed, fair-skin-obsessed, money-obsessed and, with the exception of widows and divorcees, virginity-obsessed. And they were all, of course, matrimony-obsessed. It occurred to him that he should insert an advertisement spelling out his needs. It might not fit the parameters of the matrimonial columns and might be turned down by the advertisement departments, but there was no harm in trying. Some paper might accept it for the money it brought.

  One morning, less than a month after his wife left him, Mohan got down to drafting his ad:

  Forty-year-old product of an Ivy League College (USA) living separately from his wife and two children. Divorce petition filed. Seeks a live-in companion for a mutually agreed time-duration. Willing to pay air fare to Delhi and back and Rs 10,000 per month for expenses. Free board and lodging in comfortable home with three servants and chauffeur-driven car. Religion no bar. Relationship to be without strings attached on either side. If interested, enclose photograph and biodata. Correspond box no.——.

  He went over the draft a couple of times and counted the number of words to calculate what each insertion might cost. It came to a tidy sum with The Hindustan Times, which was the most expensive, but he did not expect any readers of that newspaper to respond. The Times of India had a larger circulation with readers spread all over the country and its advertisement rates were lower. So also The Indian Express. He ruled out The Hindu for the same reasons he ruled out The Hindustan Times: rates too high, readership too conservative. He decided to start with the two all-India dailies. He would take the ads himself to the newspaper offices, where no one knew him, rather than entrust his lady secre
tary with the task.

  Mohan went to the office at the usual time: 9 a.m. He was known to be punctual and expected every one of his staff of twelve clerks and accountants to be at their desks when he arrived. He had no doubt that the gossip about his broken marriage would soon reach their ears, if it hadn’t already. But no one would dare to bring up his personal affairs in the office. He paid his staff higher wages than other firms. They were happy with him.

  He made out a cheque to himself and asked his plump middle-aged secretary, Vimla Sharma, to get it encashed. He looked through the mail-orders received from Germany, USA and Russia and sent his agents to the tailoring firms. He went over the previous day’s accounts and examined the goods ready for dispatch. Everything was in order. By 11 a.m. he had cleared his desk of pending business. The canteen bearer brought him his mid-morning cup of coffee. He waved him aside, ‘I’m going out for coffee. I will be back in the afternoon.’

  He went down to the street where his Mercedes was parked. He told the chauffeur he would drive himself and gave him the afternoon off till office closing time.

  It was a long drive from Nehru Place, where he had his office, to Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, Delhi’s Fleet Street, where many newspaper offices were located. It was close to noon but the roads were still congested. It took him over half an hour to reach The Times of India building and another ten minutes to find a place to park. He walked in to the reception desk and asked for the advertisement department. The man pointed to a counter. At the counter Mohan handed over the envelope with his draft. ‘Matrimonial?’ asked the clerk. Mohan nodded his head. The clerk counted the number of words without making any comment on the contents and mentioned the price. Mohan put the required cash on the counter and took the receipt. It went more smoothly than he had anticipated. He walked over to the The Indian Express building. Here too the money was accepted without any objection. Mohan felt relieved and triumphant. He gave a five-rupee tip to the parking attendant and drove back to his office.