Gulab

It was a warm day. Too warm for me, at any rate. I was sweating all over.

I sweat a lot, especially when I walk; my face and head are soaked, as if I’ve just stepped out of a shower fully clothed. That morning, I had been walking for less than five minutes and my shirt was already damp. For one faithless moment, I stopped and allowed myself to think – what was I was doing here? What was the point?

But I shook off the thought at once, palming away a rivulet of sweat from my nose. It was disloyal to even think such a thought. After all these years, when the last page had finally been turned, now I had to go in and bury the book. I gritted my teeth, shook my head defiantly and I swore to say a proper goodbye to Saira; it was long overdue.

With the telegram in my pocket and a bunch of rajnigandha flowers in my hands, I walked towards our much-awaited rendezvous. I remember thinking that it was a pity the day was this hot. The flowers would never open up in the soft dewy morning as I had imagined. The delicate white buds would start to shrivel up and die before they even reached her. Then the thought crossed my mind that perhaps this was how it was meant to be.

I also felt foolish for coming dressed in a formal black suit. I could have worn a white kurta-pajama. That would have made it tolerable and the funeral was already over. But somehow, it seemed right to wear black, to make it clear that I was also in mourning. Now I was at the graveyard, but I had to take off the black coat. It was an unbelievably hot afternoon. It wasn’t yet March but the sun was blazing away as if it was May already.

Not that I remember much about being out in the afternoons during May. I have not spent much time outdoors, at least not for the last ten years. There was no longer any need for me to step out in the sun. Money. It makes you soft, doesn’t it?

Some people say the opposite, that money makes you hard. It did make her father hard. Things would have been so different if he had been a softer man. Or if he had had a little less money. Then he wouldn’t have been able to afford that overpriced girls’ boarding school. They ran it like a maximum-security jail. If only Saira hadn’t left our co-ed school, we would have had a few more years together. Maybe I would have found the courage to run away with her as soon as she turned eighteen. Maybe we would have run away to my village. We would have gotten married the day I turned twenty-one. Maybe.

I’ve lived with these ‘maybes’ for fifteen years. All this time, I never lost faith. Not once. I can swear to that. I lived in hope. Even after I let Mamma persuade me to meet Sucheta. Even after I agreed to the wedding. Even after the children were born. I kept thinking, it isn’t too late. If I could find Saira, I would also find a way. It didn’t matter if she was also married or had children of her own. We would have found a way somehow. I would have made her happy again. I used to imagine myself travelling, going somewhere in a train. Suddenly, Saira would board the train; in fact, she would enter that very compartment! We would get down at a station, some place where nobody knew us and begin a new life together.

Other times, I imagined that I was at home. The doorbell would start ringing like mad one evening, and when I answered the door, Saira would be standing there. I would invite her in and that would be it. She would begin living with us – me, her, Sucheta, the kids. All of us.

Or, I would imagine, I was re-visiting our old haunts. Taking a long walk, late one night, I would stop to rest for a minute. Just then, a woman would walk past. A woman who looked familiar. I would begin to follow her. She would keep walking, twisting and turning through narrow streets, until she reached a building. Then I would softly call out ‘Saira!’ and she would freeze. Slowly, she would turn around. We would stand there looking at each other, the sound of our beating hearts so loud it drowned out every other sound.

Over and over, these imaginary encounters played inside my head, like a set of favourite movie clips. I had worked out all the possibilities that might possibly lead me to her. In every instance, I had worked out what to do afterwards, how to keep her with me.

If we ever met again, though, life would not have turned out as planned. I knew this. Could I have abandoned my own family? Would she be content living with me without a proper marriage? Could I have married twice? What if Sucheta’s family went to the police?

I had no answer to these questions. Yet, I promised myself that if I met Saira again, I would never let her go. Inside my own heart, I repeated this over and over, like a prayer. But for fifteen years, there was no news. It was as if she had literally been swallowed up by the earth. And now this telegram. A postman at the door with this funeral announcement.

It was not even a proper announcement. It was more like an order to attend a meeting – a time, a place, an assignment. No phone number. The sender’s name was just Hasnain, which could be anybody in her family.

I wished I had one of her relatives’ phone number, so I could at least call and ask for directions. I knew it was not a wedding invitation where you print RSVP etcetera, but still. For them, it may have been just a formality, sending me a telegram. Who knows? Maybe Saira had insisted on it. Perhaps it was her last wish. But they should have considered the fact that I would be coming from another town.

I wondered what her relatives would think. What was I going to do if I found a lot of people standing at her grave? I did not even know to whom my condolences were due.

There was another problem. I had never been to a Muslim graveyard before and I knew nothing about how to pay final respects. Once, I had gone to a Christian graveyard. It was right next to a church. That was when we went to the UK, three years ago – Sucheta, me, the kids. It was a very old graveyard, a tourist point. Sucheta insisted on going inside because she was attracted by those huge tomb-like graves. They looked almost like mini-temples. I remember what I had said then. ‘What is there to see here once you have seen the Taj Mahal?’

Honestly, I don’t like to be in places associated with death. Graveyards, shamshaan ghats, morgues – I avoid them all. The only reason I could stand spending the whole day at the Taj Mahal was because it is so easy to forget that it is actually a tomb. Sprawling green lawns, rivers of filigree, neat walkways and even a mosque nearby, honeymooners, backpackers and shouting children. That place seemed to throb with life.

Life, and longing. I had sat on a bench and looked at the Taj Mahal for a long time. It struck me that this monument stood at an intersection of fulfilment and eternal craving, despair and denial. It is truly a unique monument. After that visit, I even went on the internet to vote for the new Seven Wonders of the World. The Taj Mahal simply has to be on the list, I decided. I voted three times.

But that’s the only tomb I have ever visited. I avoid even hospitals. Once, I went to a hospital to get an X-ray done. I was still in school at the time. There was a stretcher on the ground, just outside the building. A white sheet covering someone, head to toe. A small stream of blood ran out from under the stretcher towards my feet. I was standing near the parking lot, I still remember that. Since then, I have not set foot in a large hospital. Except, of course, that year.

That was the year the whole city seemed to have become a place of the dead and the almost dead. Whoever survived was numb with mourning. There was no avoiding hospitals or morgues that year. But it was such a strange time that the reality of death hardly touched my mind, even after I started to see the bodies. Endless heaps of broken limbs, reams of white bed-sheets, personal relics that collided with my feet no matter which street I chose – broken toys, half a book, a shiny hair-clip, a shoe, a string of fake pearls, a sealed bottle of Pepsi, an entire collapsed clothesline with the washed clothes neatly pegged on.

I remember those objects, their colour and shape, even today. Each thing stinking of death so ferociously, I could hardly breathe. And yet, I was so busy looking for Saira that I neither gagged nor felt any grief for strangers. I could only feel fear. Anxiety about not having found Saira, and relief that they hadn’t found her body.

There was one other time I had to go to a funeral. I had been forced to go to the shamshaan ghat after my grandfather died, twelve years ago. I was nauseous the whole time I was there. Those strong smells of ash and ghee. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was watching the havan we have at home every year, just before Dussehra.

Perhaps, it is the smell of death that makes me nervous. I feel a rising panic, a threat of nausea in places associated with death. I feel sick whenever I get nervous.

Even as I entered the graveyard, I could feel my stomach churning. What would I do when I found her? She would need different rituals. I needed to be told what to say, how to sit, where to stand. She had never told me these things. But we were so young. Young people are not concerned about the rites and rituals of death.

Still, this was inevitable. Even if things had worked out and we had gotten married and lived together happily, she would have wanted to be buried eventually, I thought. I would have had to bring her to a Muslim burial ground.

Not this one though. This particular graveyard seemed to be deader than the dead. I was a little irritated, honestly. They did not even have a man sitting at the gate to help visitors. They should have set up an enquiry or ‘Help’ counter. These are basic things. Minimum standards ought to be maintained everywhere, I thought, as I looked for a signboard.

As I walked further