Bollywood Story — Chapter 13. Travel
By: Nate Briggs
Tags: India, Bollywood, Dalits, Jaipur, Expat

Travel

As time went on in my quiet household in Jaipur, we continued to do all the routine things we had done before. But now I had offered up the information that I might be a murderer, and it seemed that Kiran and I were, suddenly, at a very great distance.

She began speaking to me only in Hindi: pretending that she knew no English at all, putting me at quite a disadvantage.

And it was about now that I started to feel the power of Routine — that same time-absorbing mechanism that had been part of the purgatory of my first marriage — starting to make its presence felt.

I had students in the house, after all: and part of being a successful student is getting into a routine. Kiran dutifully went to class, each day, with Reshmi as her companion — and they both hit the books each night, since I wouldn’t allow any movie watching until they had done their homework. Both girls studied diligently when there was a Bollywood love story at stake.

They did not start out as close friends. But they were close in age. The same scenes prompted tears from each of them. The same actors made them swoon. The same actresses pissed them off.

In the meantime, Chatterjee was just along for the ride: happy to have a roof over his head, and be living more of a normal married life.

And I had work to do. The e-mails kept coming. People kept trying to do illicit things with company funds. And I kept catching them at it.

~

One evening, in their never-ending search for an exotic setting, the producers of the epic on the high-def screen in my living room had set a drama in, and around, the Taj Mahal: the world famous building that the government of India uses endlessly to lure tourists.

I happened to be in the room when it appeared, and was instantly curious, so — firing up the map function on my phone — I confirmed what I already knew. The tomb was in Agra. Practically within walking distance of where we were in Jaipur. A quick train trip. No transfers.

When the building came on the screen again, I gestured toward it: “I’ve been meaning to go there.”

Mrs Chatterjee didn’t have enough English to understand what was being said, so it was Kiran (suddenly forgetting that she didn’t speak English, either) who corrected me.

“That is not a real place. That is a set for movies only. I have seen it before, in movies.”

Chatterjee gently corrected her. “No, madam. It is a real place. It is the tomb of a ruler’s dead wife.”

Kiran turned back to me: “That is a tomb? For a single person?”

Chatterjee chimed in again: “A gesture of undying love.”

“Yet look at the people walking. A tomb? It must be huge.”

“And took many years to build.”

She looked from Chatterjee to me.

“And all for one person?”

I made kind of a helpless gesture. India was full of aristocratic building projects like that: from British rule, and before.

Chatterjee continued bravely on.

“Undying love. She was his favorite wife. She bore him 13 children, I believe.”

Kiran shrugged: “Other women have had many children. They do not have buildings of their own.”

I wanted to bring the conversation back to where I had started.

“I’ve been meaning to go there during my time here. Turns out that it’s only about 3 hours from here by train. There, and back, in a day. Although overnight would be more reasonable.”

She pretended not to hear me, and clicked the remote to start the movie again. After which, no one cared what I thought. But that planted an idea in my mind: that maybe time together away from home would be good for us. Kiran had told me, several times, that she had never set foot outside Jaipur, so it seemed that Agra might be an easy first journey. Her confidence was visibly growing. Now I wondered how well it would survive, traveling in public.

It seemed possible that people would believe that I was traveling with a personal assistant. I saw mixed groups of executives traveling all the time. It was a more or less accepted practice: since women were working their way into corporate culture through jobs as personal assistants, and trainers, and software support.

Kiran had the clothes for the part. Sethi had picked out things that would make her look very Corporate. The bad news was that, even with her hair in its most formal style, there would always be questions about her age.

In the end, I decided it was worth a try.

Now that the Chatterjees were living with us, we had our most personal conversations in bed. Which is where I explained my plan. As I laid out what I thought was a chance to deepen our relationship, Kiran seemed alternately interested — and alarmed.

How fast would the train be going?

What if she was asked to leave?

What if someone asked about her caste?

Where would we stay?

Wouldn’t it be better just to stay at home, with our friendly routine?

Would we travel separately on the train, or together?

What if we got lost?

Once we got to Agra, we might not be able to find the building. What if it was hidden?

It was like talking to a toddler.

But, after I finished my insistent sales job, she finally signed on.

~

Then, once we embarked, I was careful that our external impression met Indian expectations. Pushing through the mob on the train platform, I was in business casual: bringing along a small suitcase for the overnight.

In keeping with her lowly status as my Executive Assistant, Kiran was loaded down with a briefcase, her own suitcase, and a laptop bag, which had my computer in it.

She was made up as severely as possible, with her abundant hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head. Someone not looking too closely might have mistaken her for a graduate of a technical college. Or more probably an intern: taking a break from classes to get some job experience.

Everything was by the book. We rode in an AC Chair car: befitting someone traveling on expense account. Separate seats on the train, with just a professional level of interaction. She kept my laptop open in front of her, but just tapped a key from time to time to make it seem realistic.

There were separate rooms at the hotel: where I checked in while she stood well behind me, loaded down like a patient burro.

After getting into the rooms, we changed for dinner: a little more casual than the train clothes. But not much. We kept up a professional front during the meal, and then returned to our rooms until it got dark.

I had discovered that the grounds of the building were open on nights when the moon was full, and had deliberately scheduled our visit to see the gleaming dome and delicate towers in that caressing, and cooler, light.

Of course, a perfect visit would have had us on the grounds by ourselves. Instead, it was another Indian mob scene. Visitors, like us, who seemed to be ambitious for a “once in a lifetime” experience. Folks who just seemed to have wandered in. Whole families: with children awake well past their bedtimes. A million distractions, and absolutely no privacy.

Indians are used to crowds, however. Among the strolling couples, I’m sure there were lovers who wondered if their feelings could ever reach the devotion of Shah Jahan.

I saw many visitors who seemed to be finding the moonlight experience deep and meaningful.

My companion, on the other hand, seemed to find the spectacle to be spectacularly depressing. By some miracle, we found an empty bench, and — as we sat there, watching all the cooing couples pass by — I saw her overtaken by a gloom that had nothing to do with the time of night. When she tried to put her thoughts into words, it seemed as though she was talking more to herself, than to me.

“How many? Indeed, how many, in the end?”

“You mean: how much did it cost?”

“How many lives ruined! How many lives ended!”

“Some of the workers must have been killed. That was common for the time.”

“Lives ruined. Many, many lives ruined. Workers working, who were killed. But money dragged out of people who had almost no money at all!”

“He was an emperor. He taxed his subjects I’m sure.”

“Taxed them to death, I am sure. Where are they, Eli?”

“Where are who?”

“The people that no one sees. The people that no one ever has seen. People working themselves to death. People who must turn all their money — all their pride — all their hope — over to someone like this. People who do not belong to any wonderful story. Who have no building like this and never will!”

“How can you be a communist? We’ve never even talked about politics.”

“I do not know what a communist is. I only know that I live in a country of palaces, where uncounted people have died to build palaces. And no one ever speaks of them. No one! No one! This man loved a woman. The men who built this loved women, too! The men whose money was stolen to make this place. They loved women, too! Where are their stories?” She was so close to crying that I decided not to argue. I felt that I was stepping into a room whose door had been closed before now. And, filling my silence, Kiran went on. “I had a mother, well-loved by her husband, and her children. When she perished there was no building made of stone. No park. No pool of water. We kindled a fire under her, and she burned to ashes. Then my father, not long after. The same. And gone. And ignored. The same as the lowly people who gave everything to build this…thing….”

I wanted so much to take her hand. But it was a very public place, and that kind of gesture between two people like us would have attracted too much attention.

“Maybe we’d better go back to the hotel.”

“Yes. Anywhere but here! Please! This place is making me feel ill.”

Out of sight of the crowd, I did take her hand. But that didn’t bring her back from where she was. She stayed distant, and distressed.

The magnificent, shining building sank back into the trees, and — just as we were in sight of the hotel — she stopped.

“Your plans are clear for tonight. After the vision of this great injustice. But no! Please do not ask me to join you in your room. Even just to be together. Even just to sleep in the same bed, as we usually do.”

“All right.”

“And promise not to knock on my door. Let me be alone for one night, please. My heart is full, and I am having such difficulty.”

“Then talk about it with me.”

“That will accomplish nothing. You have nothing to say that I have not already heard.”

“Have you been as unhappy as all that?”

She looked off into the distance.

“I feel the weight of all these people — ”

“All what people?”

“All the people sacrificed! All the unfairness! All of the injustice! All of the evil that people have done to each other! And myself most of all!”

“You couldn’t have done anything — ”

“That is exactly what I mean! All that I should do, and have not done! Not even knowing what should be done! Or when I should do it. It cannot go on! It cannot go on! I have had enough of this! Enough! Enough!”

She walked quickly away, and I let her go.

~

It was impossible to refuse her request to be by herself: even though it destroyed any romantic notion I might have had about sitting on my very expensive terrace, with its direct view of the distant dome, and savoring some warm companionship.

The money I had spent on getting those premium rooms seemed to be completely wasted: although, in the end, I did spend some time out on the terrace that same night. But only in the company of a carafe of strong coffee: which made for a late evening, and a late morning.

There was no answer when I knocked on her door the next day.

I knew she was in there. It was impossible that she had left the hotel on her own.

So she was just refusing to acknowledge my presence at her door.

Left to myself, I joined the crowds of visitors again: to walk the grounds in the early afternoon, and absorb the contrast of so many different kinds of people from all over the world being disgorged by the busload: trying to keep track of what their guides were saying as they jostled through the grounds like flocks of picture-snapping sheep.

In the course of a couple of hours, I’m sure that I heard snatches of most of the languages of the world. And I was nominated to take around a dozen photographs of couples, and families, while trying to make sure that none of the minarets at the corners of the building appeared to stick out of anyone’s head.

Leaving the crowds behind, I didn’t see my companion at tea, her favorite meal of the day. When I knocked on her door to ask about dinner, she did join me at the restaurant: but dressed in a long tunic, and flowing pants, which made her look much younger than her business attire. Which prompted some searching looks from the surrounding tables.

I’m sure she didn’t notice. She seemed to be looking inward. Thinking through some sort of very complex problem.

I probably didn’t help by trying to distract her: “You look nice.”

“I doubt that anyone was deceived by my business suit. They know what I am.”

“They do? What do they think you are?”

“Not the person I am pretending to be.”

“Everyone presents an image. We all want to control how other people see us. That’s just human nature.”

“What a calm way to describe deceit. Just because it is done by all does not mean it is correct. I am finding it a great effort. And I find myself very much alone, since I — I alone — know the truth of everything. The burden of everything. I alone!”

“That was the life before. I can see that it would be painful to be detested. To always make way for people. To always feel the contempt of others.”

“But I had a family. And friends. I had a circle I could move in: where I felt I could be myself. Now I am not sure who I am. I am frightened every moment. Every moment waiting for someone to say ‘She does not belong here! Get her out!’”

“If it hasn’t happened by now, then it will never happen.”

I couldn’t risk taking her hand in public, so I went under the tablecloth: resting my hand on her leg.

“One part of your life is ending. Another part is beginning. If you don’t already believe it, I hope to persuade you that this new life is much better than the old one.”

“The old life would have had me married, and settled, had my parents lived.”

“But that didn’t happen. Here, right now, is what’s happening. It’s tragic that they’re gone. That they didn’t have the time to do the things they would have wanted to do.”

“And doubly tragic: since I know that you will not marry me. You will do nothing for me but wait to have relations with me that no decent woman would want!”

That was loud enough so that the neighboring tables heard it. Which was what she intended.

And, of course, I was paying to be embarrassed in that place in the same way I was paying for everything else.

Her conversation, and her attitude, filled me with a sudden gust of such impatience that — even though dinner wasn’t done — I stood up to leave. But, before leaving, I leaned over the table, close enough so I could talk to her without the other tables hearing.

“You seem undecided, so maybe I’ll just insist that you decide! If you wish to go, then go! Remembering where I found you. And remembering what you had, then.” She refused to look at me, which made me even angrier. “You’ll find it all very familiar, if you just go. Get the money for the train fare at the station. In the way that you already know how to do. Then you can board a train to anywhere. Don’t feel you have to get permission from me. You have the freedom to be hungry, and dirty, and degraded. Don’t let me stop you, if that’s what you think you want.”

I located the waiter, and made arrangements for the meal to be billed to the room.

Then it was off to the Taj by moonlight again. I was determined to get my money’s worth from the trip: at least in terms of sightseeing. But, once there, I was too restless to watch the passing throng: so I spent the whole time walking up and down the grounds, reflecting on how badly the trip had failed.

What had been intended as a reward for Kiran, and myself, had rewarded no one.

What I had seen as a way to accomplish something important, had accomplished nothing.

A lot of well-worn doubts started to re-appear in my mind. Was my encounter with her, that rainy night, the best thing that had ever happened to her? From my point of view, it was obvious. Still: she wanted tradition, and commitment. Wanting those things even if it meant living in the most grinding poverty.

Before Sethi left for Switzerland (I did manage to find her a job in Zurich), we had talked more, in a candid way, about Indian culture. After living a Western kind of life during her college years she found it irritating and unfair that she could be back in a society so hostile to intimacy. A culture pivoting around the concept of “shame”, and the almost infinite number of ways that “shame” could be achieved. She felt that traditional Indian culture could never stop thinking about sex. Never stop imagining how it could happen. How it would feel. How disaster would strike afterward. How families would feel. How legacies would be affected. How revenge might be pursued.

She wanted to live in a society where she could have a lot of sex.

So she wouldn’t have to think about sex so much.

Now Kiran and I were caught up in the same kind of trap. She couldn’t stop thinking about sex: because she wanted deep structure around it. I couldn’t stop thinking about sex — just because I wanted it.

I didn’t know if Kiran would still be at the hotel when I got back that second night. I had contingency plans, either way. If she was gone, she was gone. A Big Mistake. But not terminal. And I could stop the weekly payments to The Pimp. If she went back, with me, to Jaipur she could be married off to some shopkeeper (in time), and maybe someone else would turn up to share my life and my bed. Maybe even an expat from the U.S. (those people were coming and going all the time).

Until Real Romance finally found me, I had an excellent quality of life and little to complain about. I had solid people in the Chatterjees, so I could consider my household complete. I still had a job I liked, prospects for promotion, and a comfortable place to stay.

None of that was under threat from any direction.

I went back the hotel, and wondered if I should start planning the rest of my life: since it seemed probable that Kiran was out of the game.

~

The clouds that had been gathering through the afternoon finally achieved critical mass just as I was getting back into the hotel, and I voted for the companionship of a bottle of Indian single malt which room service cheerfully brought up, along with some Western style snacks.

My terrace was well-protected from the weather — and the wind was taking the rain in the other direction anyway — so my very simple, very masculine intention was just to park in one of the wicker chairs outside, with its dramatic view of the Taj Mahal silhouette, and drink myself to sleep.

I found it comfortably warm outside, and the rain was consistently entertaining. It arrived in surges over the next half hour: cascading down like a fire hose, for a few minutes — then tailing off — then almost stopping — before starting up again. It created a heavy kind of static sound: so I barely heard the knock on my door when it came, sometime between eleven and midnight.

I was expecting to see a member of the hotel staff.

Instead, I found myself looking down, through the security peephole, at Kiran. Looking up at me. Then looking, anxiously, left and right: as though worried someone might catch sight of her in the hallway.

Naturally, I was tempted to leave her out there, since I wasn’t all that eager to hear what she might have to say. And my special evening of drunken stupor, with a side of self-pity, had already been planned, after all.

I hesitated. Then let her in.

She hustled through the door, making a visible effort not to brush up against me.

None of the room lights were on, but the moonlight drifting through the terrace window was enough for me to see that she was wearing the black silk robe I had given her for our “romantic getaway”. It was tightly belted, wrapped right up to the neck. She was barefoot, and her hair was unbound: hanging to her waist in the back.

I noticed that a very odd energy came with her into the room. To my surprise, she wasn’t crying. Or screaming. She actually didn’t seem to be upset at all. But there was an aggressive edge to the way she moved: the way she was looking at me, and our surroundings.

Which meant that her visit was interesting to me. But I couldn’t appear to be too interested. After a couple of glasses of whiskey, I thought it was important for me to be “cool”.

I walked back to the terrace, where the hard rain of a few minutes before had given way to a lazy drizzle. Deliberately turning my back on her.

Still, I remembered my manners: “Care for a drink?”

I gestured toward the bottle. Then accepted my own invitation: pouring myself another before sitting down.

“This stuff is pretty good. Plus we’ve got the mini bar.”

I sat in a chair, and stared at the Taj Mahal through the trees: the dome seeming to gleam from within.

We were both staring at something. I could feel Kiran standing in the terrace doorway: staring at me, as I stared off into the night.

There was the sound of fabric on fabric as she slipped out of the robe — and then walked, naked, out onto the terrace: coming to a stop right next to where I was sitting.

This made it more difficult for me to be “cool”.

“What are you doing? People will see you out here!”

She gestured toward all the empty terraces on our side of the building: “I see no one who might see me.”

Looming over me, she carefully took the tumbler from my hand, and placed it on the side table. Her pubic hair had remained dense and free during all the time I had known her, and now that mysterious triangle was just to the left of my nose.

As if she was reading my mind, she took my hand, and guided it to her vagina.

“Here we are — all alone in the world — are we not? No one will see us.”

“I’m just worried about you. You’re the one who’s normally so modest.”

“Look at where your hand is now.”

“I can see it.”

“Tell me truthfully: is that all the world to you?” Her huge, dark eyes were watching me — unblinking. I had never heard this tone of voice from her before. I was slow in answering her question. So she asked me again. “Is this all the world to you? This part of me that you are touching now?”

“Of course not — ”

I didn’t get to finish.

“There are many, many women in the world. Many, many of these private places, since we are all constructed in a similar way. Yet this is the one that you want. This one….”

“I — ”

“Why this one? Why not any others?”

“If that’s the way you think I feel — ”

She unfolded two of my fingers. “Take your fingers. And push up inside me.” I didn’t need to do that. She did it for me. “Now is it special? Now is it truly special to you?”

“I’m not sure — ”

“Now is it something that you must have?”

A heavier rain started up again. The wind shifted. And we were getting some splashes. Kiran didn’t seem notice. But I used that as an excuse to slip my hand back out of her, and escape nervously back into the room.

She followed me, and — without warning — pushed me from behind: knocking me on the bed, where she rolled me over on my back — and, kneeling next to me, undid my pants — pulling them off, along with my underwear.

None of this was playfully done. She wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t joking. She wasn’t smiling. She just seemed offended that my clothes were still on.

I had nothing to say at this point. I was waiting to see what came next — when she began stroking my penis.

“You have touched me privately several times. But I have never touched you. Does it feel good to you?”

I stuttered lamely: “Sure.”

“And this is another center of your world? Another something very important?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. She seemed to be speaking in a kind of code.

“All this time, you have thought of the places that belong to me — and the part that makes you a man. Month upon month, you have dreamed of doing things to me. Am I right? Things you have thought about? Dreams you have dreamed?”

“Kiran. You just need to tell — ”

“You have brought me far from my home. You have made….” She looked skeptically around the room. “…arrangements. Given me everything you thought I wanted. All because you wish to do things to me. So here: a small gift from me to you!” With an expression on her face impossible for me to describe, she lowered her head and just caressed my cock with her tongue. After about 15 breathtaking seconds, she turned that unblinking gaze back to me. “And is that it? The center of your world? What you wish for? Correct? Not correct? Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know if you’re trying to torture me — ”

She leaned closer to me: her hair falling forward to make a curtain around our faces, our faces only inches apart. Suddenly, all I could see were those huge, dark eyes. And her voice became more like the hiss of a snake.

“I will become the woman you want, if you become the man that I want — ”

“And what does that mean?”

“I have had no rest. No peace. I have been suffering in my room. This place has brought me to despair. But I have made my decision. A decision you have forced on me. Enough is enough. Just as you said in the restaurant. Enough is enough.”

“I’m not sure what the answer to this riddle is — ”

“Eli! I must have justice! I must have justice in the end!”

She said this as if I might know what she meant.

”Justice? What kind of justice?”

“I cannot be one of the people sacrificed. I cannot be one of those nameless ones: who are helpless. When there is evil in the world, something must be done. I must have justice. Justice is what you must give me.”

The rain slackened off, and moonlight, again, rushed into the room as the little girl straightened up — lifting the curtain of her hair — and started stroking my penis in a rough and crude way that wasn’t designed to make me feel good. The intention seemed to be just the opposite.

The moon put an eerie light in her eyes, the cool light sculpting her skin, and — with her abundant hair all in disarray — the unnerving thought flashed through my mind that, if I went into the next room just then, I would find the real Kiran asleep in that other bed.

In that other room.

Innocent of everything that was happening to me.

Meaning that this naked form, challenging me, was supernatural.

A demon of some kind.

Even Kali herself — Hindu goddess of death and destruction — arriving at the stroke of midnight — taking on human form. I could be face to face with something much darker than any human understanding.

In just a few seconds, though, the insistent spirit of Western rationality pushed back against all that. It wasn’t a demon on the bed with me. I knew this person. I was just seeing a different side of her than I’d ever seen before.

I pushed her hand away. Getting me aroused wasn’t going to do any good if she wasn’t going to finish the job. And she still hadn’t gotten to the point of why she had come to visit.

“What kind of man is the man you say you want?”

“The kind who will seek justice for me.”

“You keep talking about justice. What does that mean?”

“You must help me kill my brother. Kill him in cold blood. Send him away: into the dark Karma that awaits him!”