But despite all her pleading Maan poured three or four mugs of cold pink water over her head, and rubbed the moist powder on to her kameez over her breasts, laughing all the while.
Lata was looking out of the window too, amazed by Maan’s bold, licentious attack — the licence presumably being provided by the day. She could almost feel Maan’s hands on her and then the cold shock of the water. To her surprise, and to that of her mother, who was standing next to her, she gave a gasp and a shiver. But nothing would induce her to go outside, where Maan was continuing his polychrome pleasures.
‘Stop—’ cried Savita, outraged. ‘What kind of cowards are you? Why don’t you help me? He’s had bhang, I can see it — just look at his eyes—’
Firoz and Pran managed to distract Maan by squirting several syringes full of coloured water at him, and he fled into the garden. He was not very steady on his feet as it was, and he stumbled and fell into the bed of yellow cannas. He raised his head among the flowers long enough to sing the single line: ‘Oh revellers, it’s Holi in the land of Braj!’ and sat down again, disappearing from view. A minute later, like a cuckoo clock, he got up to repeat the same line and sat down once more. Savita, bent on revenge, filled a small brass pot with coloured water and came down the steps into the garden. She made her way stealthily to the bed of cannas. Just at that moment Maan got up once again to sing. As his head appeared above the cannas he saw Savita and the lota of water. But it was too late. Savita, fierce and determined, threw the entire contents on his face and chest. Looking at Maan’s astonished expression she began to giggle. But Maan had sat down once again and was now crying, ‘Bhabhi doesn’t love me, my bhabhi doesn’t love me.’
‘Of course, I don’t,’ said Savita. ‘Why should I?’
Tears rolled down Maan’s cheeks and he was inconsolable. When Firoz tried to get him on to his feet he clung to him. ‘You’re my only real friend,’ he wept. ‘Where are the sweets?’
Now that Maan had neutralized himself, Lata ventured out and played a little mild Holi with Pran, Firoz and Savita. Mrs Rupa Mehra got smeared with a bit of colour too.
But all the while Lata kept wondering what it would have felt like to be rubbed and smeared by the cheerful Maan in such a public and intimate way. And this was a man who was engaged! She had never seen anyone behave even remotely like Maan — and Pran was very far from furious. A strange family, the Kapoors, she thought.
Meanwhile Imtiaz, like Maan, had got fairly stoned on the bhang in his thandai and was sitting on the steps, smiling at the world and murmuring repeatedly to himself a word that sounded like ‘myocardial’. Sometimes he murmured it, sometimes he sang it, at other times it seemed to be a question both profound and unanswerable. Occasionally he would touch the small mole on his cheek in a thoughtful manner.
A group of about twenty students — multicoloured and almost unrecognizable — appeared along the road. There were even a few girls in the group — and one of them was the now purple-skinned (but still green-eyed) Malati. They had induced Professor Mishra to join them; he lived just a few houses away. His whale-like bulk was unmistakable, and besides, he had very little colour on him.
‘What an honour, what an honour,’ said Pran, ‘but I should have come to your house, Sir, not you to mine.’
‘Oh, I don’t stand on ceremony in such matters,’ said Professor Mishra, pursing his lips and twinkling his eyes. ‘Now, do tell me, where is the charming Mrs Kapoor?’
‘Hello, Professor Mishra, how nice of you to have come to play Holi with us,’ Savita said, advancing with a little powder in her hand. ‘Welcome, all of you. Hello, Malati, we were wondering what had happened to you. It’s almost noon. Welcome, welcome—’
A little colour was applied to the Professor’s broad forehead as he bent downwards.
But Maan, who had been leaning, downcast, on Firoz’s shoulder, now dropped a canna he had been toying with and advanced with an open-hearted smile towards Professor Mishra. ‘So you are the notorious Professor Mishra,’ he said in delighted welcome. ‘How wonderful to meet so infamous a man.’ He embraced him warmly. ‘Tell me, are you really an Enemy of the People?’ he asked encouragingly. ‘What a remarkable face, what a mobile expression!’ he murmured in awed appreciation as Professor Mishra’s jaw dropped.
‘Maan,’ said Pran, startled.
‘So nefarious!’ said Maan, in wholehearted approval.
Professor Mishra stared at him.
‘My brother calls you Moby-Dick, the great white whale,’ continued Maan in a friendly way. ‘Now I see why. Come for a swim,’ he invited Professor Mishra generously, indicating the tub full of pink water.
‘No, no, I don’t think—’ began Professor Mishra weakly.
‘Imtiaz, give me a hand,’ said Maan.
‘Myocardial,’ said Imtiaz to indicate his willingness. They lifted Professor Mishra by the shoulders and led him physically to the tub.
‘No, no, I’ll get pneumonia!’ cried Professor Mishra in anger and bewilderment.
‘Stop it, Maan!’ said Pran sharply.
‘What do you say, Doctor Sahib?’ Maan asked Imtiaz.
‘No contraindications,’ said Imtiaz, and the two pushed the unprepared professor into the tub. He splashed around, wet to the bone, submerged in pinkness, wild with rage and confusion. Maan looked on, helpless with happy laughter, while Imtiaz grinned beneficently. Pran sat down on a step with his head in his hands. Everyone else looked on horrified.
When Professor Mishra got out of the tub he stood on the verandah for a second, trembling with wetness and emotion. Then he looked around the company like a bull at bay, and walked dripping down the steps and out of the garden. Pran was too taken aback even to apologize. With indignant dignity the great pink figure made its way out of the gate and disappeared along the road.
Maan looked around at the assembled company for approval. Savita avoided looking at him, and everyone else was quiet and subdued, and Maan felt that for some reason he was in the doghouse again.
2.2
Dressed in a fresh, clean kurta-pyjama after a long bath, happy under the influence of bhang and a warm afternoon, Maan had gone to sleep back in Prem Nivas. He dreamed an unusual dream: he was about to catch a train to Banaras to meet his fiancée. He realized that if he did not catch this train he would be imprisoned, but under what charge he did not know. A large body of policemen, from the Inspector-General of Purva Pradesh down to a dozen constables, had formed a cordon around him, and he, together with a number of mud-spattered villagers and about twenty festively dressed women students, was being herded into a compartment. But he had left something behind and was pleading for permission to go and get it. No one was listening to him and he was becoming more and more vehement and upset. And he was falling at the feet of the policemen and the ticket examiner and pleading that he be allowed to go out: he had left something somewhere else, perhaps at home, perhaps on another platform, and it was imperative that he be allowed to go and get it. But now the whistle was blowing and he had been forced on to the train. Some of the women were laughing at him as he got more and more desperate. ‘Please let me out,’ he kept insisting, but the train had left the station and was picking up speed. He looked up and saw a small red-and-white sign: To Stop Train Pull Chain. Penalty for Improper Use Rupees 50. He leapt on to a berth. The villagers tried to stop him as they saw what he was about to do, but he struggled against them and grabbed hold of the chain and pulled it down with all his might. But it had no effect. The train kept gathering speed, and now the women were laughing even more openly at him. ‘I’ve left something there,’ he kept repeating, pointing in the general direction from which they had come, as if somehow the train would listen to his explanation and consent to stop. He took out his wallet and begged the ticket examiner: ‘Here is fifty rupees. Just stop the train. I beg you — turn it back. I don’t mind going to jail.’ But the man kept examining everyone else’s ticket and shrugging off Maan as if he was a harmless madman.