Paro , livre ebook
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English
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2011
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68
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English
Ebook
2011
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Publié par
Date de parution
09 juin 2011
Nombre de lectures
1
EAN13
9789351184140
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
09 juin 2011
Nombre de lectures
1
EAN13
9789351184140
Langue
English
Namita Gokhale
Paro Dreams of Passion
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Paro
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
PARO
Namita Gokhale is a writer, publisher and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival. Her books include the novels Priya: In Incredible Indyaa, A Himalayan Love Story, Gods, Graves and Grandmother, The Book of Shadows and Shakuntala: The Play of Memory , and the non-fiction works The Book of Shiva and Mountain Echoes: Reminiscences of Kumaoni Women. She has also retold the Mahabharata for young readers and co-edited In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology with Dr Malashri Lal.
To AAI
Paro
I am writing about them because I saw myself in her.
I was B.R. s secretary at that time; all of us at the office thought he was a real dreamboat. He looked straight into our eyes - he knew all our first names - he was a compulsive nymphomaniac. The dictionary says that a male nymphomaniac is properly described as a victim of satyriasis, but I think that he was a nymphomaniac; and I think it was related to his compulsive need to sell himself.
He was short, but he hadn t begun to go bald - and he was our boss. Ivy, Mary and I loved him madly; and all of us hated Paro. She would breeze into the office every now and then, and appraise us through narrowed green-grey eyes. Her eyes mocked us and they mocked our devotion to B.R.
B.R. had decorated the office himself. It was like the temple of Pallas Athene for us. The clear white lines of Formica, the immaculate swivel chairs, the perfectly tended potted plants, as perfectly tended as the oyster-pale nails of his personal secretary. (It was only her bouffant that was a little ruffled, that and her expression, when she emerged from the sanctum sanctorum after taking private dictation.)
B.R. s company manufactured the famous Sita Sewing Machines, and associated household goods. The company s motto of The Housewife s Friend reverberated like an echo through its offices and corridors. In splendid Gothic lettering, it was accompanied by a gigantic colour blow-up of our consumer, The Housewife, as envisaged by B.R. and the whiz-kids from the publicity dept. The Housewife was a blowsy, voluptuous woman who bestowed come-hitherish looks on a resplendent sewing machine while her husband stood timidly searching his pockets for his hanky in the middle foreground.
I see him as he is now - and he is very different. His hair, which to my besotted eyes had as much vitality in its every black root as in his every magical gesture or action, is now plastered vainly over his balding forehead. He is prematurely grey at forty-six, and the salt-and-pepper hair on his hirsute, softly undulating chest is always exposed all the way to the bulging belly-button. The cool, calculated poise of his mannerisms seem unreal, as indeed it is, hiding as it does an almost phobic terror and insecurity. His voice, so musical then in its masculine timbre, sounds a little fruity now - he is, I must confess, a much diminished man.
And I think of Paro, as I saw her last, flushed with drink and anger. And I think of the sea at Marine Drive, the first time that he kissed me - vast, ugly and compulsive. I yielded almost immediately to the pressure of his plastic lips; but a part of me held back, observant and detachedly clinical. I stared instead at the coy moon hiding behind the white clouds, and watched the restless ocean regurgitate its teeming refuse back on to the black sullen rocks.
I remember the touch of his hands, and his suddenly gentle tongue, and the overpowering smell of his cologne, and the hardness between his legs, and the murmured words of love. My heart was pounding wildly, and I quite forgot there was a world outside.
But a narielpani-wala disturbed us, insistently holding out two obscene looking coconuts. The evening papers were full of some mass-murderer those days, and I could glimpse a madness and hatred in his obsessive staring eyes as he insisted that we buy one.
Still B.R. s hands continued tender, yet insistent, in their proficient ministrations to my breasts, and eternity lay before us.
For days I lay swooning in a lush romantic haze. My insides would bump against my heart every time I even thought of him. My life changed completely. I cannot really remember those days, except that every second was bathed in grace. Then, one Friday, I saw Anita, his private secretary. Her bouffant and her expression were both in a familiar state of disarray.
A month later, he was married to Paro. It took all of us at the office completely by surprise. I have never forgotten, nor forgiven, a hurt. This book, too, is a vindication.
My favourite author, when I was nineteen, was Daphne du Maurier. My favourite novel was, of course, Rebecca . B.R. s flat lay like a jewel in the palm of Bombay, and in our dreams we often traipsed wraithlike through its gracious environs.
The first time I went there was on a weekend when B.R. s father was out of town. I had never seen so much beauty before. I was spellbound by the opulence and the quietude. The azure carpeting, the dazzling white of the walls, the Ajanta fresco painted on the drawing-room wall, all held me in incredulous thrall.
I stopped to examine a convoluted sculpture in wood and metal that stood majestically in a corner. What s that? I asked curiously.
It s by Haaden, he said proudly. He was heavily influenced by Henry Moore. Very phallic, you know.
I looked up phallic in my dictionary that night, and was shocked to discover what it meant, and that people could use the word so casually, or indeed so display such sculptures in their drawing-rooms.
He led me like a princess into his bedroom. Gently, he poured me some wine in a stemmed glass. It was my first taste of alcohol. It tasted heady and strange, as did everything else in the incredible new world that was unfolding bravely about me.
Do you like classical Western compositions, love? he asked me gravely. Mutely, I agreed that I did. He glided across to the built-in stereo system and pondered for a while over the records. Stravinsky, he intoned dreamly. The Rites of Spring. A strange beatification, a feeling of utter lassitude, overtook me. I forgot that my nails were as chewed and bitten as a schoolgirl s pencils, and that my sandals had gaping mouths in them. I felt beautiful. And beloved. Very gently, he stroked my hair. He undid my plait and let it lie loose about my shoulders. His soft white hands caressed my neck. His fingers were long and slim. Perfect half-moons rose mystically from each cuticle. I was mesmerised by his presence and the music. His hand slid softly down the front of my blouse and began stroking my breast. I pretended to be so lost in the music as not to have noticed. After some time the hand withdrew. One eyebrow rose quizzically over his magical eyes. Come with me to the balcony, he commanded.
Marine Drive lay below us. His voice was as insistent, and as insinuating, as the rhythmic sea. It was high tide. Priya . . . he breathed. The moonlight shone on a ghost-like jungle of cacti, crotons, bougainvillea, and all kinds of plants I did not recognise. The humid seabreeze was laden with floral nightsmells. A single pubic hair began itching beneath my blue nylon panties. The feeling spread. He led me back to the bedroom and took me there.
Later he read me some poetry which I did not understand.
B.R. had been making frequent business trips to Delhi. None of us suspected anything out of the ordinary.
Then, one afternoon, the office grapevine began buzzing with the astounding news that he was to be married in a week. Anita was put to work on the invitation list, and the typists pool was told to dump everything else and start typing envelopes. Everyone was quite breathless with excitement, and an air of frenetic gaiety percolated through to everybody in the office. We, the staff, were all invited to bless the newly-weds at the wedding ceremony, and to the reception thereafter.
Ivy, Mary and Anita were all heartbroken. I wasn t. I listened coldly to all their excited chatter about the continuing search for the Right Gift. We, the staff, were to give them a joint present. All of us pooled together with a contribution of Rs. 25 each. I do not know what they bought because I did not go to the wedding, or to the reception either.
The day after, the girls at the office were all agog with tales of her beauty and B.R. s obvious infatuation with her. My curiosity was aroused, and soon got the better of my pride. I wanted to see her beauty with my own eyes, and decided to attend the party the office staff was hosting for them the next evening. I took the day off, and spent the morning, and most of the afternoon, at the beautician s.
My eyebrows sometimes stand up straight at odd angles. The Chinese girl who tried to coax them into shape got a little carried away and left the right side a little off-centre, giving my face a faintly comical expression. The fashionably thin line of the eyebrows also made me look very strained. Then they bleached my upper lip; the peroxide gave me a painful and very pink rash, and it looked as if I had drunkenly gashed the lipstick a few inches above target. I even decided to get my hair permed. It was a painful decision, and cost sixty rupees, which was one-tenth of my monthly salary.
The hairdresser s assistant could, with unerring instinct, smell out my somewhat dubious social status and did his best to knot the curlers and nets into the most uncomfortable configuration possible. When I emerged from the cocoon of the dryer I had not, to my intense disappointment, turned into any butterfly. The assistant presented the mirror with a malicious flourish, and I found myself face-to-face with a stranger, and a decidedly unattractive stranger at that. My everyday face had, as I can see in retrospect, a certain robust charm, but I was certainly not looking my best the day I first met Paro.
I took a bus back,
