remembered today, on
Behram roje
, in his easy chair with the
Times of India
. He hoped Gajra would arrive before Mehroo finished using Hirabai’s telephone. He could then ogle brazenly, unhindered.
But even as Rustomji thought his impure thoughts and relished them all, Mehroo returned; the office had promised to send the plumber right away. “I told him
‘Bawa
, you are a Parsi too, you know how very important
Behram roje
is’ and he said he understands, he will have the WC repaired today.”
“The bloody swine understands? Hah! Now he knows it, he will purposely delay, to make you miserable. Go, be frank with the whole world; go, be unhappy.” And Mehroo went, to make his tea.
The doorbell rang. Rustomji knew it must be Gajra. But even as he hurried to answer it, he sensed he was walking towards another zone of frustration, that his concupiscence would be thwarted as rudely as his bowels.
His instinct proved accurate. Mehroo rushed out from the kitchen as fast as her flopping slippers would allow, scolding and shooing Gajra away to do only the sweeping – the rest could wait till tomorrow – and leave. Sulking, Rustomji returned to the
Times of India
.
Mehroo then hurriedly made chalk designs at the entrance, not half as elaborate or colourful as planned. Time was running out; she had to get to the fire-temple by eleven. Dreading the inauspiciousness of a delay, she hung a
tohrun
over each doorway (the flowers, languishing since six A.M ., luckily retained a spark of life) and went to dress.
When she was ready to leave, Rustomji was still coaxing his bowels with tea. Disgruntled over Gajra’s abrupt departure, he nursed his loss silently, blaming Mehroo. “You go ahead,” he said, “I will meet you at the fire-temple.”
Mehroo took the H route bus. She looked radiant in her white sari, worn the Parsi way, across the right shoulder and over the forehead. The H route bus meandered through narrow streets of squalor once it left the Firozsha Baag neighbourhood. It went via Bhindi Bazaar, through Lohar Chawl and Crawford Market, crawling painfully amidst the traffic of cars and people, handcarts and trucks.
Usually, during a bus ride to the fire-temple, Mehroo attentively watched the scenes unfolding as the bus made its creeping way, wondering at the resilient ingenuity with which life was made liveable inside dingy little holes and inhospitable, frightful structures. Now, however, Mehroo sat oblivious to the bustle and meanness of lives on these narrow streets. None of it pierced the serenity with which she anticipated the perfect peace and calm she would soon be a part of inside the fire-temple.
She looked with pleasure at the white sari draping her person, and adjusted the border over her forehead. When she returned home, the sari would be full of the fragrance of sandalwood, absorbed from the smoke of the sacred fire. She would hang it up beside her bed instead of washing it, to savour the fragrance as long as it lasted. She remembered how, as a child, she would wait for her mother to return from the fire-temple so she could bury her face in her lap and breathe in the sandalwood smell. Her father’s
dugli
gave off the same perfume, but her mother’s white sari was better, it felt so soft. Then there was the ritual of
chasni:
all the brothers and sisters wearing their prayer caps would eagerly sit around the dining-table to partake of the fruit and sweets blessed during the day’s prayer ceremonies.
Mehroo was a little saddened when she thought of her own children, who did not give a second thought to these things; she had to coax them to finish the
chasni
or it would sit for days, unnoticed and untouched.
Even as a child, Mehroo had adored going to the fire-temple. Sheloved its smells, its tranquillity, its priests in white performing their elegant, mystical rituals. Best of all she loved the inner sanctuary, the sanctum sanctorum, dark and mysterious, with marble floor and marble walls, which only