Travelers Read online

  By the Same Author

  Novels

  TO WHOM SHE WILL (US AMRITA)

  THE NATURE OF PASSION

  ESMOND IN INDIA

  HEAT AND DUST

  THE HOUSEHOLDER

  GET READY FOR BATTLE

  A BACKWARD PLACE

  A NEW DOMINION (US TRAVELERS)

  IN SEARCH OF LOVE AND BEAUTY

  THREE CONTINENTS

  POET AND DANCER

  SHARDS OF MEMORY

  Stories

  LIKE BIRDS, LIKE FISHES

  A STRONGER CLIMATE

  AN EXPERIENCE IN INDIA

  HOW I BECAME A HOLY MOTHER

  OUT OF INDIA (SELECTED STORIES)

  EAST INTO UPPER EAST (SELECTED STORIES)

  Copyright © 1973 by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  First Counterpoint paperback edition 1999

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, 1927–

  Travelers.

  First published in England in 1973 under title: A new dominion

  [1. India—Social life and customs—Fiction]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.J573Tr3[Fic]72–9765

  Jacket design by Caroline McEver

  COUNTERPOINT

  1919 Fifth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  1098765432

  e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-821-0

  Contents

  Part I: Delhi

  Part II: The Holy City

  Part III: Maupur

  part I

  DELHI

  Lee Travels

  Lee spent a good deal of time on buses and trains. She liked traveling though she wasn’t much of a sightseer. She sat and looked out of the window. It was always the same countryside. Intrinsically it was boring, but to such an extent that the boredom became interesting. It was always the same and one could see that it had always been the same. The land was usually parched and ugly except where there were fields. When there were fields, there were peasants in them and these too were always the same: drab bodies in drab loincloths. They drew water from wells or guided bullocks drawing plowshares. The wells, the bullocks, the plowshares, the dry land, the everlasting sun: they continued mile after mile, day after day, while the train traveled on.

  Inside the buses or trains it was also always the same. But whereas outside it was empty and silent, inside it was just the opposite. The public transport was always overcrowded. Crammed to bursting point. Everyone was traveling. They went to attend weddings, join pilgrimages, visit relatives in distant places. They brought many children with them, and some livestock, and a variety of shabby bundles. Many of these bundles held food: much eating had to be done in the course of the journey. Journeys were always long, for, in order to get from one place to another, great distances had to be traversed. Everyone accepted the overcrowding and the ensuing heat, smells, and discomfort without question.

  Lee also accepted them. She was happy traveling this way. She felt she was no longer Lee but part of the mass of travelers huddled and squashed together. And when she looked out of the window, and the hours passed, and nothing ever changed out there, then too it was easy to forget about being Lee. That suited her very well. It was what she had come for: to lose herself in order—as she liked to put it—to find herself.

  Raymond Writes to His Mother

  Raymond had come for different reasons. Here he is writing to his mother; he writes to her about three or four times a week. They had always shared everything.

  “. . . Bought another handloom rug. I know I’m overdoing the handicrafts and I’m sure I shall soon be quite sick of them but in the meantime they’re nice. It’s getting very snug in here. Actually, I feel as if I’ve been living in this flat for ages. I’m already familiar with the exact daily routine of my neighbors. E.g.: at seven every morning the householder from downstairs sits in his courtyard to be shaved. He sits on a chair like a king and the barber scrapes at his cheeks with some great cutlass—a murderous-looking instrument which, however, he wields very tenderly. In the next courtyard regularly at the same time two women fight with their servant, a pock-marked old man who fights back, and in the courtyard next to that another woman fights with her servant, who doesn’t fight back. He is an undernourished boy who looks eight but is probably twelve.

  “Yesterday I looked up another of my New Delhi contacts (uncle of Surinder who is a friend of David Manse, who was at Cambridge with me). They asked me to dinner. I’m getting quite blasé about accepting sumptuous hospitality from strangers for no merit of my own except that I happen to know someone who knows someone they know. The food, as always, was superb and excessive. Everyone here eats excessively—those that do eat, I mean. There were the usual questions which I’m getting adept at answering though never to anyone’s satisfaction. They’re all sure I’m hiding something. I notice that people find it hard to believe that anyone should want to come here of their own free will and on no particular business. Certainly, all the Indians I meet seem, most of them, intent on getting out. Quite a few of them have recently been. I’m shown the ice-cream mixers and tape recorders they’ve brought back with them.

  “But now I too am entertaining. Great excitement: Shyam keeps popping in and out to show me dishes and trying to decide which will do for sandwiches, which for cakes. It seems none of them will do for anything and we shall have to acquire an entirely new set. Shyam also thinks it might be necessary to outfit him with a new uniform consisting of a high-collared coat with gold buttons. He points out that some American ladies equip their bearers with white gloves for the purpose of serving guests. I retort that my guest may not have as high standards as the guests entertained by the American ladies. Then Shyam becomes suspicious and, pressing inquiries, discovers that my guest is in fact an Indian, and a mere student at that. I’m afraid this entirely destroys Shyam’s pleasure. But I continue to look forward to my guest. He seems a pleasant boy. I met him at that wedding I wrote you about. His name is Gopi.”

  Asha Is Bored

  Asha lived in an apartment in Bombay. It was a beautiful apartment in a very modern block and she lived right on top, from where she had a wonderful view over the sea. It was the rainy season and the sea was in turmoil and huge waves rose up like sea monsters and flung their spray far over the land. Usually Asha loved this sight—she adored things fierce and passionate because she herself was so—but now she was bored with everything. She moved from one room to the other and out onto the terrace where she leaned on the parapet to look with moody eyes over the heaving sea. This palled quite soon and she was back inside, fiercely kicking at things that got in her way and quarreling with Bulbul, her old woman servant. Bulbul retreated into the kitchen where she winked at the other servants and told them that it was going to be a rough day today.

  But she was wrong. Instead of tempests, there was an unnatural silence shot through with Asha’s heavy sighs. She drank some vodka, which, however, made her feel worse. Then she began to telephone various friends, hoping that they would come and visit her and cheer her up. But either they were not at home or they were not free to come. This made her feel she had no friends. No friends, no lovers, nothing, no one: only Bulbul and the other servants who would have left her tomorrow if they got a better chance elsewhere. Especially Bulbul, who pretended to be so devoted, just because she had seen Asha born: she would be the first to run off if
there were anyone else to give her money the way Asha did and saris and blouse-pieces. Just as Asha had reached this point in her thoughts, Bulbul came up behind her and began to massage her temples in the way Asha usually loved. But today Asha flung her off and told her to keep out of her way for the rest of the day and preferably forever; that would be the best, if she could pack up and leave and not show her ugly old face here again. Bulbul took it all quite calmly and said her baby, her sweetheart, was out of sorts today, and then she went off into the kitchen and made a nice meal off some leftover fish curry and a piece of pickle.

  The way a finger probes a wound, the tongue a hollow tooth, so Asha sought to aggravate her aching soul. She did this by looking at herself in the mirror. Yes, then indeed she had cause for pain. However, as she looked—fascinated in spite of herself, drawing back from the mirror and looking from the best vantage point from over a shoulder proudly turned—she began to find that there was after all still something left to admire. Her eyes burned with fire, her bosom heaved; her hair was still as black as ever, and what did it matter that this effect was achieved with the help of a tiny bit of art. Not a young woman but, she found, a handsome one: and she was about to cheer up when it struck her that, however handsome she might be, who was there to admire and appreciate her the way she needed? She took up the framed photograph of her husband that stood among the gold and crystal vials on her dressing table; she pressed her face against the cold glass. But that too was no satisfaction: not only was he dead, but the memory of him alive was not all that pleasant. She had had a lot of trouble with him.

  The telephone rang and she pounced on it greedily. With what joy she greeted her friend Tara Bai! They talked and soon Asha was quite cheered up. Tara Bai had rung up to tell her about a dinner dance she had attended the night before and what a scandal had been created there by one of those new little starlets. Only she couldn’t tell Asha over the phone because—well, it was so dirty, said Tara Bai giggling madly, she would have to wait till they met. At once! Asha commanded, they must meet at once, they would have lunch together, perhaps drive out to the restaurant on the beach and eat steak and watch the waves. But Tara Bai was busy for lunch, she was going to meet—guess who, and she giggled again in a sly way so that Asha knew it was one of those young men she was always taking up with. “Wish me luck,” said Tara Bai and smacked loving kisses into Asha’s ear before ringing off.

  Asha felt disgusted. It was disgusting, the way Tara Bai carried on; at her age. But then, what could you expect from someone like Tara Bai, a film actress, and everyone of course knew what to expect from film actresses. What were they but glorified prostitutes? In some cases, Asha thought, turning down her mouth corners, not even glorified. Asha’s family were quite right when they told her not to take up with such people. They weren’t worthy of her. She went back to the mirror and looked at herself again with pride; and now it was pride not only in her looks but in her birth too, for whereas Tara Bai sprang from an unrelieved line of prostitutes, Asha had royal blood in her. She was a princess and that still counted for something.

  Gopi Comes to Tea

  “Is it imported?”

  Gopi asked this question several times and was each time disappointed. Raymond had brought nothing with him but had furnished his flat with local handicrafts. Nevertheless there was a foreign atmosphere which simultaneously thrilled and intimidated Gopi. He sat stiffly with his arms pressed to his sides and his eyes lowered.

  Instead of relieving his guest’s discomfort, Raymond aggravated it by a certain tea-table formality that came instinctively to him. He loved teatime, especially he loved guests at teatime, and he loved to have everything just so. He poured the tea and heard himself say in the rather fluting voice his mother adopted on such occasions, “Milk? Sugar? How’s that for you?” Raymond had always lived with his mother and an aunt, and both these ladies had enjoyed having other ladies and elderly bachelor gentlemen to tea.

  Shyam, the servant, was being uncooperative. He made it clear that he was not used to serving people like Gopi. Gopi felt this and resented it and sometimes he raised his modest eyes and resentment flashed out of them. At the same time, he was as afraid of being seen to do something wrong by Shyam as by Raymond. He was usually a graceful boy but his fear made him clumsy. He crushed the delicate bread and butter in his hand and dropped a spoon and finally even, in setting his cup and saucer on the table with an unsteady hand, spilled tea on the tablecloth. Shyam stood and sneered.

  At last the tea ceremony was over and Raymond could relax and attempt to make his guest relax too. But the first question he asked him, which was about the college Gopi attended, was not a welcome one. Gopi’s college was not very good—in fact it was distinctly third-rate; it was run by private enterprise in some outlying suburb for boys like Gopi who had not scored high enough marks to get admission into a better place. Gopi was ashamed of going there and he replied to Raymond in an indistinct mutter.

  “Oh, yes?” said Raymond with encouragement. He waited for Gopi to say more, and when he didn’t, continued. “And what course are you doing?”

  Gopi muttered again. Raymond remained bright, smiling, and encouraging, but he did not succeed in making Gopi easy. He was saddened to see his guest sitting there, opposite him, hunched up in the tall canework chair with his gaze obstinately lowered. He was also saddened by the way Gopi had dressed himself up so carefully for the occasion, thereby almost obscuring his good looks. He wore a transparent shirt of some thick synthetic material, and overtight trousers, and his hair was smothered in oil.

  Shyam was clearing away the tea things. He did it with maddening slowness. When he came to removing the tablecloth, he bent over the stain caused by Gopi’s spilled tea; he shook his head over it, then pointed his finger at it.

  “It won’t come out,” he prophesied.

  “Never mind,” Raymond said.

  “Our new cloth.”

  “Never mind.”

  Raymond was a friendly and indulgent employer but he could be sharp. Shyam saw it was time to remove himself and he did so, though with a superior air.

  Gopi raised his eyes and looked after him with the same smoldering glance as before. But then, instead of concentrating on the floor again, he looked for the first time directly at Raymond and his eyes were still smoldering. He said, “You have a very bad servant.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Raymond said. Actually, he didn’t feel like defending Shyam, who had behaved badly, but he didn’t want to drop the subject either because at last here was Gopi showing some spirit. “Shyam’s not such a bad chap really. He just has moods.”

  “No,” said Gopi, “he is a bad chap. We would not keep such a person in our home.”

  He was still looking at Raymond. Gopi’s eyes were full and dark and at this time they were burning with a splendid fire. There was a cake crumb on his upper lip, and Raymond wished he knew him well enough to point this out and perhaps even wipe it away for him with his handkerchief.

  “He is only a servant,” Gopi said. “He should not be allowed to behave in any way he pleases.”

  Raymond began to protest, but in the mildest manner possible. Perhaps it was this mildness that inflamed Gopi—at any rate, his anger mounted, he said many things. He said that Shyam was of a very low caste, that such people could never get employment in a Hindu family, and that was the reason they fastened themselves on to foreigners whom they fleeced mercilessly and behaved with them in the shabbiest manner and insulted their guests. . . .

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Raymond said in the middle of this. Gopi was brought up short: he stared at Raymond in surprise.

  “Why?” Gopi asked. He laughed. “Why are you sorry?”

  He laughed more: in surprise but also not unflattered to be apologized to by this Englishman who was so much older than he was—Raymond was at least thirty—and well educated and cultured and probably rich. Suddenly he relaxed. Still laughing, he bounded up from the chair into which he had been hunched
ever since he came, and sat on the floor. He began to ease himself out of his shoes. Evidently they were hurting him and had been doing so all this time; they were ugly, tight, black shoes. His socks followed and he wriggled his toes and breathed “Ah” in relief. Raymond watched with pleasure. Gopi’s feet were narrow and had delicate bones.

  “You see, I’m quite at home,” he said, smiling up at Raymond who said, “Good,” and then added, “Lovely,” he was so pleased. Gopi patted the floor so that Raymond slid off his chair and sat beside him. Gopi nodded in approval. “It’s our Indian way,” he said. “We don’t care for chairs—all this furniture, what use is it when we can be most comfortable on the floor itself?”

  “Quite,” agreed Raymond though he did not look comfortable. His joints were not as flexible as Gopi’s, and his knees stuck up into the air.

  “You didn’t bring any with you?”

  “What?”

  “Furniture from England.”

  Raymond explained how he had brought nothing because he wanted to be quite free and also he didn’t know how long he was going to stay, though he hoped it would be for some time. Gopi was a little disappointed that Raymond didn’t belong to an embassy or some international organization, but he was intrigued by Raymond’s reasons for coming at all. He didn’t quite believe him and felt there was something more which Raymond was hiding.

  Raymond was already used to this reaction but with Gopi he took more trouble than usual to explain himself. He said, “My family has always had connections with India. One of them was in Delhi in 1835, the year when William Fraser was murdered here. He was a friend of Fraser’s and wrote long letters home about the case. We still have them. And there’s a great-uncle buried somewhere near Meerut, he was killed while he was out pig-sticking. . . .”

  Raymond saw that Gopi’s attention was beginning to wander and guessed at once that he would be more interested in practical matters; so he told him how he had taken a year’s leave from his job—which was in a publishing firm owned by his uncle—and that he intended to spend that time living in India.