‘And of music-makers?’
‘Naturally. Now she’s greeting Maheshji and his son Maan. He looks very pleased with himself. Is that the Governor he’s—’
‘Yes, yes, all these Congress-wallahs are the same. They talk about simplicity and plain living, and then they invite this kind of person to the house to entertain their friends.’
‘Well, she’s not a dancer or anything like that.’
‘No, but you can’t deny what she is!’
‘But your husband has come as well.’
‘My husband!’
The two ladies — one the wife of an ear, nose and throat specialist, one the wife of an important middleman in the shoe trade — looked at each other in exasperated resignation at the ways of men.
‘She’s exchanging greetings with the Governor now. Look at him grinning. What a fat little man — but they say he’s very capable.’
‘Aré, what does a Governor have to do except snip a few ribbons here and there and enjoy the luxuries of Government House? Can you hear what she’s saying?’
‘No.’
‘Every time she shakes her head the diamond on her nose-pin flashes. It’s like the headlight of a car.’
‘A car that has seen many passengers in its time.’
‘What time? She’s only thirty-five. She’s guaranteed for many more miles. And all those rings. No wonder she loves doing adaab to anyone she sees.’
‘Diamonds and sapphires mainly, though I can’t see clearly from here. What a large diamond that is on her right hand—’
‘No, that’s a white something — I was going to say a white sapphire, but it isn’t that — I was told it was even more expensive than a diamond, but I can’t remember what they call it.’
‘Why does she need to wear all those bright glass bangles among the gold ones. They look a bit cheap!’
‘Well, she’s not called Firozabadi for nothing. Even if her forefathers — her foremothers — don’t come from Firozabad, at least her glass bangles do. Oh-hoh, look at the eyes she’s making at the young men!’
‘Shameless.’
‘That poor young man doesn’t know where to look.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Dr Durrani’s younger son, Hashim. He’s just eighteen.’
‘Hmm. . ’
‘Very good-looking. Look at him blush.’
‘Blush! All these Muslim boys might look innocent, but they are lascivious in their hearts, let me tell you. When we used to live in Karachi—’
But at this point Saeeda Bai Firozabadi, having exchanged salutations with various members of the audience, having spoken to her musicians in a low tone, having placed a paan in the corner of her right cheek, and having coughed twice to clear her throat, began to sing.
2.4
Only a few words had emerged from that lovely throat when the ‘wah! wahs!’ and other appreciative comments of the audience elicited an acknowledging smile from Saeeda Bai. Lovely she certainly was, and yet in what did her loveliness lie? Most of the men there would have been hard-pressed to explain it; the women sitting above might have been more perceptive. She was no more than pleasing-looking, but she had all the airs of the distinguished courtesan — the small marks of favour, the tilt of the head, the flash of the nose-pin, a delightful mixture of directness and circuitousness in her attentions to those whom she was attracted by, a knowledge of Urdu poetry, especially of the ghazal, that was by no means viewed as shallow even in an audience of cognoscenti. But more than all this, and more than her clothes and jewels and even her exceptional natural talent and musical training, was a touch of heartache in her voice. Where it had come from, no one knew for sure, though rumours about her past were common enough in Brahmpur. Even the women could not say that this sadness was a device. She seemed somehow to be both bold and vulnerable, and it was this combination that was irresistible.
It being Holi, she began her recital with a few Holi songs. Saeeda Bai Firozabadi was Muslim, but sang these happy descriptions of young Krishna playing Holi with the milkmaids of his foster-father’s village with such charm and energy that one would have had to be convinced that she saw the scene before her own eyes. The little boys in the audience looked at her wonderingly. Even Savita, whose first Holi this was at her parents-in-law’s house, and who had come more out of duty than from the expectation of pleasure, began to enjoy herself.
Mrs Rupa Mehra, torn between the need to protect her younger daughter and the inappropriateness of one of her generation, particularly a widow, forming a part of the downstairs audience, had (with a strict admonition to Pran to keep an eye on Lata) disappeared upstairs. She was looking through a gap in the cane screen and saying to Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, ‘In my time, no women would have been allowed in the courtyard for such an evening.’ It was a little unfair of Mrs Rupa Mehra to make such an objection known to her quiet, much-put-upon hostess, who had in fact spoken about this very matter to her husband, and had been impatiently overruled by him on the grounds that the times were changing.
People came in and out of the courtyard during the recital, and, as Saeeda Bai’s eye caught a movement somewhere in the audience, she acknowledged the new guest with a gesture of her hand that broke the line of her self-accompaniment on the harmonium. But the mournful bowed strings of the sarangi were more than a sufficient shadow to her voice, and she often turned to the player with a look of appreciation for some particularly fine imitation or improvisation. Most of her attention, however, was devoted to young Hashim Durrani, who sat in the front row and blushed beetroot whenever she broke off singing to make some pointed remark or address some casual couplet towards him. Saeeda Bai was notorious for choosing a single person in the audience early in the evening and addressing all her songs to that one person — he would become for her the cruel one, the slayer, the hunter, the executioner and so on — the anchor, in fact, for her ghazals.
Saeeda Bai enjoyed most of all singing the ghazals of Mir and Ghalib, but she also had a taste for Vali Dakkani — and for Mast, whose poetry was not particularly distinguished, but who was a great local favourite because he had spent much of his unhappy life in Brahmpur, reciting many of his ghazals for the first time in the Barsaat Mahal for the culture-stricken Nawab of Brahmpur before his incompetent, bankrupt, and heirless kingdom was annexed by the British. So her first ghazal was one of Mast’s, and no sooner had the first phrase been sung than the enraptured audience burst into a roar of appreciation.
‘I do not stoop, yet find my collar torn. .’ she began, and half-closed her eyes.
‘I do not stoop, yet find my collar torn.
The thorns were here, beneath my feet, not there.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Justice Maheshwari helplessly, his head vibrating in ecstasy on his plump neck. Saeeda Bai continued:
‘Can I be blameless when no voice will blame
The hunter who has caught me in this snare?’
Here Saeeda Bai shot a half-melting, half-accusing look at the poor eighteen-year-old. He looked down immediately, and one of his friends nudged him and repeated delightedly, ‘Can you be blameless?’ which embarrassed him yet further.
Lata looked at the young fellow with sympathy, and at Saeeda Bai with fascination. How can she do this? she thought, admiring and slightly horrified — she’s just moulding their feelings like putty, and all those men can do is grin and groan! And Maan’s the worst of the lot! Lata liked more serious classical music as a rule. But now she — like her sister — found herself enjoying the ghazal too, and also — though it was strange to her — the transformed, romantic atmosphere of Prem Nivas. She was glad her mother was upstairs.