Delhi Read Free Page B

what’s your Qutub Minar been up to?’ I ask the journalist. He’s a big fellow with pubic-sized growth on his face. He also replies in verse. ‘When I get a woman I copulate. When I don’t, I masturbate. No complaints. The great Guru is in His Heaven and the
mashooka
in my bed!’ He plucks a hair out of his beard and examines it with philosophic detachment. A third friend joins us. He is an Upper Division Clerk in the Ministry of Defence. He is utilizing his unutilized sick leave. He disapproves of this kind of talk! ‘Five million Indians are dying of hunger in Bihar and all you fellows can think of is women.’ He shakes his foot, then jerks his legs like the arms of a nutcracker. He puts his feet on the chair and continues to amuse himself. A fart escapes his fat arse:
poonh
. He is embarrassed. He puts his feet down and apologizes: ‘Sorry, it was a slip of the tongue.’
    Another of our cronies comes along. He is a politician of sorts and our political expert. He made a name during the last famine by organizing a ‘miss-a-
chappati
-a-week’ movement. Now he is contemplating a similar campaign for family planning based on the slogan ‘If you want good luck: In one week only one...’ The slogan hasn’t got off the bed yet. We return to sex and corruption and inefficiency and five million starving in Bihar. We drink many cups of coffee and nibble many plates of cashewnuts. So passes the morning.
    A heavy depression overtakes me. I take leave of my coffeehouse friends and drive along the Ring Road which skirts the old city. I pass along the Mughal city wall and Zeenat Mahal’s mosque. I slow down at the electric crematorium. No customers, no smoke. I move on through the arches of three bridges to Nigambodh Ghat cremation ground on the Jamna. I park my car and go in.
    What’s happened to the Delhiwallas? They are not even dying as they used to! Only one pyre burning and three heaps of smouldering ashes. No mourners. I walk up to the edge of the bank to see if there is any life there. Quite a scene!
    Down the steps running into the river is a corpse draped in a red shroud. A dozen men and women are screaming and beating their breasts. A Brahmin priest pushes them aside, chants Sanskrit mumbo-jumbo and sprinkles water on the body. A middle-aged man uncovers its face. It’s a young girl—very waxen and in deep slumber. The man stares at her face, moans and shakes his head in disbelief. A woman on the other side of the corpse smacks her forehead many times and clasps the dead girl in her arms. Other people gently remove the wailing couple and cover up the face of the corpse. The priest puts out his palm. Somebody gives him a rupee. He looks at the silver coin with disdain, then clip-clops up the stairs in his wooden sandals. The mourners lift the bier and follow him. They put the corpse on the ground and begin to make a platform of logs. The middle-aged couple resume their mourning. The woman throws dust in her hair and smacks her head with both her hands screaming.
‘Hai! Hai!
Hai!’
The man again uncovers the dead girl’s face, gazes intently for a minute and then groans,
‘Hai Rabba!’
He cannot take his eyes off the dead child. He presses her arms and legs, massages the soles of her feet. The pyre is ready. The corpse is lifted and placed on it. More wood and pampas stalks are placed over the body and a brass
lota
full of clarified butter emptied on it. A man lights a stick with a bundle of rags soaked in kerosene and takes the torch round the pyre. It bursts into flames. Another man takes a sharp-pointed bamboo pole, prods the flaring, crackling pyre to locate the dead girl’s head and then lunges into her skull.
    The parents bury their faces in the dust, slap the ground and wail. The Toofan Mail from Calcutta rumbles over Jamna’s iron bridge towards Delhi railway station.
    I leave Nigambodh Ghat with the heat of the flames on my face and the helpless cry of the stricken parents ringing in my ears.