Haresh Shah
Uncovering An Intimate Inheritance
I am in Bombay about a year after my Dad passed. Other than waiting for close friends and the family living within an hour or two’s distance, within the Indian tradition, the deceased is immediately cremated by the family members. So it wasn’t expected nor was it possible for me to be there for the cremation. There are some rituals that are performed within the first thirteen days of a person’s death, something akin to the wake, followed by a family feast to celebrate the person’s life. But the true tribute to honor my father’s memory was going to be Saptah. Saptah literally means a week, but it’s always understood as a weeklong reading of Shri Bhagwat by a scholar who most of the time is also an animated performer and the interpreter of the stories contained therein – the book by which the followers of Vaishnava faith are guided.
The reading happens all day long with appropriate breaks amidst a revolving crowd of attendees in an open house format. My brother Suresh and his wife Aruna are hosting the event and have set up a beautiful mandap in their backyard. It’s one of the most attended Saptahs, also because Shastriji, is not only a serious scholar and the interpreter of the holy book, but also because his crystal clear booming voice makes all those stories come alive in your imagination. He is a very close family friend and for him our Saptah is more than the ones he is hired to do. My father had always been one of this biggest fans and sponsors.
For our family, this is also a week long bonding, eating together, arguing and just be merry together, preceded and followed by big fanfares. It begins with our large family and friends taking the family Bhagwat from my parent’s house to Suresh’s. Something most every Vaishnava family would have passed down from generation to generation. For the day-to-day reading, there are modern volumes designed and produced in the fashion of a large encyclopedia, but the original version would be a stack of loose leaves in a horizontal landscape format – either in limited edition version or even handwritten in beautiful cursives. These volumes are normally wrapped in red silk and hold a special spot within the home. And they are brought out only for special occasions. So iconic and revered are they that you just don’t throw them in a bag or a suitcase to usher them from one place to another.
My family happens to have two such volumes of Shri Bhagwat, which are being reverentially carried atop the alternating heads of two of the women walking in a procession. The entire family is out on the street, dressed in their wedding best. Men in crisp white Kurtas or in their stylist western threads, women all dolled-up in their best silk saris, looking like wide eyed Kathakali dancers, studded from the head to toe in their precious jewelry. We are dancing to the tunes of the latest Bollywood hits being tooted by a group of old fashioned uniformed band leading us. Laughing and screaming, back slapping, the onlookers cheering us, we take an hour or more to cover the short distance of four to five blocks between the two houses.
In the backdrop of the Saptah and during my weeklong stay at home, one afternoon my three brothers ambush me and hurriedly shove me into my parent’s bedroom suite and lock the door behind us. They sit me down on the bed and the two younger brothers, Dinesh and Rajesh climb up the chairs and lift the heavy trunk off the top of the cupboard and gently slide it out. They delicately cradle the bottom of the heavy trunk, and lower it with a deft motion and gently place it on to the bed.
‘Baa wants us brothers to go through what’s in here and divvy up the contents among the four of us brothers. Since you were coming home, we thought we would wait to go through the stuff when all four of us are together.’ Suresh tells me.
So we open the trunk. It contains all sorts of men’s things, such as several bottles of expensive men’s colognes, some of which I had brought for him over the years. I smirk when I see his white billfold made of parachute material, from which I remember filching a few rupees now and then. My bothers wonder why I have that cat that swallowed the canary look on my face. Nothing! I say and they let it slide. Then there are old fountain pens, one of them I distinctly remember – the gold capped Schaffer. My father was what they called a shokhin manas – he liked good things of life. He had a large collection of wrist watches, one of them I had always wanted to have. The one with the large blue dial that contained slots not only for the days and the dates but also the one that showed the cycle of the moon, of course housed inside a pure gold case. Suresh has his eyes on that one too. Younger brothers want a couple of not so exclusive Playboy watches. And then there is a set of gold studs including a pair of cufflinks. enamel inlaid with beautiful modernistic burgundy, white and black pattern. An Elgin USA fob watch, also in pure gold casing and attached to a long gold chain, dangling from which is a charm – a gold coin dated 1917, bearing the engraved face of the king George V – and another watch, a Longines, also in the gold case with matching gold watch band. The old man really loved his gold.
Just before my youngest brother Rajesh died a couple of years ago, I was joking with him that they had to be naïve to let me make it out like a bandit.
‘We just let you have those things, because we knew you would appreciate them the most. So you got away with bit of gold!’ And then he gave me his characteristic baby brother smile. Because I got the two gold watches as well as the set of buttons and cufflinks. And he was right, not only do I cherish those things but I actually wear them. And I can’t even begin to imagine what would it have been like me having dressed up in my tuxedo and not have had those priceless studs?
But that’s not why they have ambushed me and locked us up behind the closed door. Suresh pulls out a pile of envelopes from the bottom of the trunk and hands them to me.
‘Put this away in your suitcase and lock it up. Take it to America with you. Because if Baa ever sees it, or one of the sisters gets a whiff of it, all hell will break lose.’
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘See for yourself.’
They are long legal sized mesh lined manila envelopes, carefully cut down at one end to the size of the content inside. I pull out what feels like a bunch of photographs. I quickly flip through some of them. My brothers’ eyes focused on me. While Suresh maintains his solemn demeanor, Dinesh and Rajesh are sheepishly smirking at me with that knowing but astonished look written all over their faces, ‘do you believe it?’
I am not exactly surprised. A bit amazed maybe. So Dad had a good collection of these pornographic images, line drawings of Indian royalties involved in every possible Kama Sutra positions and a whole bunch of French postcards – containing the nudes of wholesome beauties. Rest contained the explicit images of felatio and cunnilingus done by and to each other by men and women – some in threesome and also featuring multiple partners. There are women making love to women and some being pursued by their furry friends even. And there are several envelopes titled BELLE ARTE PLASTIC – Made in Germany, 3D images of the naked women, complete with the red and green 3D cardboard framed viewing glasses.
‘Put them away right now in your suitcase and lock it up before anyone barges in.’
So I do. Stash them away inside the inner pockets of my suitcase. And then I forget all about them until I get home to Chicago a few weeks later and am unpacking my stuff. Might as well, because had I remembered them, I don’t know how comfortable I would have felt going through the customs in Chicago in the knowledge of their existence. I could just imagine the headline: Playboy executive detained by Chicago’s O’Hare customs for attempting to import hard core pornography!!
At some point I did go through them. The collection also contained original negatives and glass plates and also a small wallet sized leather bound photo album with rounded slit corners, inserted in which were a similar collection of photographs. Majority of those were stuck to each other and were not salvageable. The prints of the line drawings on thinner paper were all curled up and some had turned sepia with age. The French postcards, as it turns out were actually made in Germany. They were printed on better quality paper and were in better shape.
All of the envelopes came from the same law firm, so the printed return address on them indicated. The space for recipient was blank, which meant they were hand delivered, but a couple of them had post marks, indicating they were mailed from Bombay 1 to Bombay 2, addressed in care of the trustees of Bada Mandir (Big Vaishnava Temple) in whose compound we lived. This also may mean that they were originally meant for one of the priests of the temple, of whom my father was a staunch devotee and either they were given to him for the safeguard, or they together and others who hung out together were partners in the crime. They were mailed in the year 1951.
In retrospect, when I think back, it should have been apparent to me that as religious as my dad was, in things socio-sexual, he was fairly liberal. Perhaps because the Indian classics are full of explicit descriptions of sex and the female anatomy. And the fact that the carvings on some of the Indian temples would put any pornographers to shame, also indicates the liberal attitude of the ancient Indian culture. This of course would have perfectly fit his belief system. Or in other words, good old dad was a cool cat!
I remembered what he wrote to me in response to my attempt at justifying my working for Playboy: So what’s the big deal? Haven’t you ever read Rasa Manjari? It also reminded me of some plain-covered Hindi pornographic books I had found under the mattress on his side of the bed and once also a copy of Nar Nari, the sex magazine of the days. And I remember clearly what my grandpa, my father’s father had blurted out with big explosion of exclamation when he saw for the first time my parents’ custom made elaborate bedroom furniture – containing of a sofa set, a three way folding mirror and the larger than king size bed, all beautifully hand crafted with the motif of louts petals. Looking at the bed, he growled to nobody in particular, what are they going to do there? Dance?
And to think that my mother didn’t know about those publications and the photos hidden away in the trunk? Aren’t we being a bit naïve, brothers? Certainly she wouldn’t have cherished my sisters and my brother’s wives seeing them. My mother was a clever woman, and must have imagined how my brothers would react to them and would want to protect her from the filth.
For even though, theirs was a conventionally arranged marriage, my father had to be the most romantic man of his days. I can totally imagine it having caused a minor scandal when instead of calling my mother by her given name, Prabha, he renamed her and started calling her Kanan, after Kanan Devi, the sultry Bengali actress and the singer. He must have admired and adored her enormously to name his own wife after her, and this in the days when actresses were looked down at and were seen as being only slightly above prostitutes. These were also the days when Indian spouses didn’t even address each other by names, but mere, hey, are you listening? please and such.
I could just imagine people whispering and rolling their eyes behind my parents’ backs. Especially the women, going: just imagine, he calls his wife after that slut Kanan in front of everybody. Baap re Baap. Doesn’t he have any shame? But he must have been strong of character and defiant to the boot, because we had never heard him calling my mother anything other than Kanan. I only had a slight notion of what she looked like. For the first time I just pulled up her photos and the bio off the IMDB. and I must confess, Kanan Devi was the beauty to be reckoned with. Big black kohl framed eyes, a sultry sensuous face and the long shiny dark tresses. Good taste Dad! And fortunately for my father, so was my Mom.
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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Next Friday, October 26, 2013
PERFECTLY UNBOUND
Does anyone remember why the Playmates are called centerfolds? When Playboy was saddle-stitched and not perfect bound as it is today?
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oh what a wonderful story haresh uncle! never understood why romance, love and sex were given a neg perception in our culture … all of it is sooo beautiful … makes me feel good to know that there were people of our older generation were defiant to the idiotic societal rules. wish I had an opportunity to meet your dad.