Nita gives a hollow laugh. 'Because my beauty became a bane. My mother had the right to decide which of her two daughters would marry and which one would become a prostitute. She chose me to become the Bedni. Perhaps if I had been plain looking, like my sister, I would not have been sent here. I might have gone to school, married and had children. Now I am in this brothel. This is the price I have to pay for beauty. So don't call me beautiful.'
'And how long have you been doing this?'
'Ever since puberty. Once the nathni utherna ceremony for the removal of the nose ring and the sar dhakwana ritual for covering the head are over, you are deemed to have become a woman.
So at the age of twelve, my virginity was auctioned to the highest bidder and I was put on sale inside this brothel.'
'But surely if you want to you can quit this profession and get married, can't you?'
She spreads her hands. 'Who will marry a prostitute? We are supposed to work till our bodies start to sag or till we die of disease, whichever is sooner.'
'I know you will find your prince one day,' I declare, with tears in my eyes. She doesn't accept any tip from me that day.
* * *
I reflect later on my conversation with Nita and wonder why I had lied to her. I didn't really want her to find any other prince. Without even realizing it, I had fallen in love with her.
Till now, my conception of love has been based entirely on what I have seen in Hindi films, where the hero and the heroine make eye contact and whoosh, some strange chemistry sets their hearts beating and their vocal chords tingling, and the next you see of them they are off singing songs in Swiss villages and American shopping malls. I thought I had experienced that blinding flash of love when I met the girl in the blue salwar kameez in that train compartment. But real love visited me only that winter in Agra. And I realized again that real life is very different from reel life. Love doesn't happen in an instant. It creeps up on you and then it turns your life upside-down. It colours your waking moments and fills your dreams. You begin to walk on air and see life in brilliant new shades. But it also brings with it a sweet agony, a delicious torture. My life was reduced to feverish meetings with Nita and pining for her in between. She visited me in the oddest places and at the oddest moments. I visualized her beautiful face even when lecturing a haggard, eighty-year-old day-tripper. I smelt the fragrance of her hair even when sitting on my toilet seat. I got goose bumps thinking of our lovemaking even when buying potatoes and tomatoes from the vegetable market. And I knew in my heart of hearts that she was my princess.
The burning ambition of my life was to marry her one day. The consuming worry of my life was whether she would agree.
* * *
A jeep with a flashing red light has come to the outhouse. An inspector and two constables alight from it. My heart lurches. A cold knot of fear forms in the pit of my stomach. My crimes have finally caught up with me. This is the pattern of my life. Just when I begin to feel on top of things, fate yanks the rug from under my feet. So it is to be expected that just when I have discovered true love, I should be taken away to a jail where, like Emperor Shahjahan, I will sit in solitary confinement and pine for Nita, my own Mumtaz Mahal.
The Inspector takes out a megaphone from the jeep to make an announcement. I expect him to say, 'Will Ram Mohammad Thomas, alias Raju Sharma, come out with his hands in the air?' But he says instead, 'Will all the residents of the outhouse come out? There has been a robbery in the Bank of Agra and we have reason to believe that the thief is here. I have to conduct a search of the premises.' When I hear this, I feel a heavy weight lift from my heart. I am so happy, I want to go out and hug the Inspector.
The constables enter each room in turn and conduct a thorough search. They come to my room and ask me for my name, my age, my occupation, whether I have seen any suspicious characters lurking about in the area. I don't tell them that I am an unauthorized guide. I say I am a student at the University and am new to the outhouse. This satisfies them.
They look under my bed. They peer into the kitchen, tap the pots and pans, overturn the mattress and then move on to the next room. The Inspector joins the constables.
They are now in Shankar's room. 'Yes, what is your name?' the Inspector asks Shankar gruffly.
'Hu Ixhz Qo Odxifxn,' Shankar replies, slightly confused.
'What? Can you repeat that?'
'Odxifxn.'
'Bloody bastard, you are making fun of me?' the Inspector says angrily, and raises his baton to hit Shankar. I quickly intervene. 'Inspector Sahib, Shankar has a mental problem. He cannot speak.'
'Then why didn't you say so before?' He turns to his constables. 'Let's go to the next room. We won't get anything out of a lunatic.'
