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MEMORIES OF LIGHT AND SHADE, Part 3
The party was in full swing at Professor Lambert's house when I arrived
with Paul Engle. I wasn’t invited, but that was alright and
normal there. Gate crashing was quite common at those parties.
There were lots of unknown faces conversing and partying throughout
different rooms. The party was going full blast, I must say.
Paul searched the room and dug out Professor Lambert from a corner and
said, "Philip, this is Sunil. I think he needs to ask some
delicate questions about his life. Please spare him a few
moments.”
I really didn’t understand whether or not Professor Lambert recognized
me from Paul Engle's party. But very cordially he said, "Yes,
welcome. Join the party and start having fun. I’ll
come find you soon." Paul went off to mingle and I headed
into the crowd looking for at least one recognizable face.
Often some words, some accents lodge themselves in your
memory. Paul always called Philip Fill-eep. He knew French,
so Philip became Fill-eep. In written French there are so
many silent letters. Hs are silent in so many of the common
words. Hotel is ’Otel, Henry is ’Enry. They don't
use the sound of the letter H, so why do they then care to write
down? So much paper and so many trees would be
saved if the French would take those silent letters out of their
writing. "Ha! Ha! Ha!!"
I loved the prose poetry of Henry Misho. I used to refer him
as Henry Misho before Marguerite taught me to pronounce it in French as
’Enry. I remember one day she made me say ’Enry at least twenty times,
correcting my pronunciation every time to achieve perfection.
Yet with my Indian intonations I never could mimic Marguerite’s accent.
The bar was full of different drinks and glasses for the invitees so
they could choose and serve themselves. On the side counter
there was a pile of sandwiches as well as jam, boiled eggs, and some
more bread.
I made a drink for myself and went out to the deck. This
house was in the middle of a forest. As you looked outside
into the darkness you felt as if you were surely at the core of a deep
forest. The last time I visited—during the day—I saw two
deer. In the United States, there are too many
deer. I’ve seen deer knocked down on the highway in New
Jersey. I remember when Marguerite saw those deer
there she was so happy and excited she clapped her hands for joy.
On one corner of the deck I could see a cluster of seven or eight
people. A few called out my name, "Sunil!
Sunil! Come here!"
There’s a thrill to it when, at a party, someone sees you and calls out
your name. I recognized Anna as I approached the
crowd. She was wearing a deep blue, long dress and holding a
glass of red wine in her hand. She had long dark hair which
flowed down her back. She always left her hair down; I’ve
never seen it tied into a knot or a bun. Anna said, "Come and
join us!"
That year, amongst all the writers who joined the International Writing
program, Anna was the most beautiful. And everyone had seen
that. She was a Hungarian and wrote short stories
mostly. Her husband was also there and looked much older than
I did. I was thirty-three or thirty-four and he seemed to be
past sixty. He too was a famous Hungarian writer.
Anna asked, "Swati, didn’t come?"
"No, she’s gone somewhere else."
"Swati told me she was going to treat me to authentic Indian food, but
why haven’t you invited me?"
I said, "That can happen any day. Tomorrow?"
Immediately, few more people shouted out, "What about us? We
too want Indian food."
Anna declared, "No. No you guys can come any other day, not
tomorrow. I want to meet Swati and Sunil
exclusively. I need to talk to them about
something. I’m planning to visit Rajasthan soon."
Both Swati and I had a special friendship with Anna. It was
for a strange reason altogether. Anna was Caucasian by her
skin color no doubt, but had long black hair and dark black
eyes. Most Hungarian women have blue eyes, unlike
her. So Anna strongly believed that she was from a Gypsy
lineage, and many believe that all the Gypsies who came to Europe were
originally from India. That's why she felt so attached to an Indian
couple like us. Her husband was György. In English,
George.
Anna told us her life's story.
Ever since childhood she wanted to be a writer, so she studied
literature and then married a writer who was probably twice her
age. Her only obstacle to being a writer was her
beauty. All the editors instead of praising her writing
praised her beauty. Many wanted to date her. A few
famous writers who were her husband's friends advised her to leave
writing and join the film industry.
I told Anna, "In ancient Indian writing, in Buddhist script there is a
saying that goes something like this, ‘Apna Maanse, Harina Bairi,’
which means, ‘For deer, its own flesh is its main enemy.’
It's true for many women, don't you think?"
The crowd was discussing the American divorce rate. An
Argentinean writer said, "I used to think that divorce rate was quite
high in the US, but now I see that's quite not right."
A writer from Sweden jumped in, "From all the Hollywood movies you kind
of get that idea, but in reality, the divorce rate is much higher in
the Soviet Union."
And the Polish writer Maria, who was about fifty and still single,
replied, "You’re in the Midwest. Don't compare the rest of
the US with Iowa. The Midwest is quite conservative. They
don't even drink that much. Some don't even touch alcohol."
I said, "Compared to the Polish, all Americans drink less.
That's why the French say, ‘Drunk like a Pole.’"
Maria: "That's very nasty of the French. We have a saying
too, ‘If you want to see all the drunkards, better go to France.’"
I didn’t continue the discussion for long, as someone came and said
that Monsieur Lambert was looking for me.
I found the handsome Professor Lambert sitting in a corner with all the
pretty women around him. He was still quite attractive even
at his age. I first saw him a long seventeen years
ago. I remember, even then, all his students were in love and
attracted to this handsome professor.
Professor Lambert said, "You asked for the telephone number of Dori
Gleaves. That's why I couldn't get in touch with you."
"Actually, I wanted to know about Marguerite Matieu, the French
student, who was your PhD student at that time. Do you happen
to know where she is now or otherwise where Dori Gleaves—"
The professor said, "I have no idea where Marguerite is. She
just vanished and didn’t keep in touch with me. I know about
Dori—she had an accident in Mexico and injured her legs pretty
badly. She’s still in Mexico City actually. Do you
know Octavio Paz?"
I said, "Oh ya! The famous poet! I’ve read few of
his poems but don't know him personally."
Professor said, "He went to India recently. He’d know about
Dori definitely. She was his secretary for a while.
Call him up and find it out."
He wrote down Octavio Paz's phone number on a party napkin.
But that definitely didn’t help me in any way.
Was it possible to call up a famous poet just like that? And
ask for the phone number of somebody else? This, I
presume, lacks courtesy.
At that time, he was already short listed as potential Nobel winner and
was probably a really busy person. I couldn’t just disturb
him with such an insignificant matter.
His phone number remained with me but the call was never made.
Even though Iowa was not amongst the famous Ivy League schools still
there was no dearth of activities or programs. One day we attended Ella
Fitzgerald’s concert. It was simply an out of this world
experience. We saw the famous Broadway show A Chorus Line. Then we
began preparing for Allen Ginsberg's poetry session, though the date
was not yet fixed. I heard Dylan Thomas also came to Iowa for
a poetry session. Dylan was as famous for his poetry as well
as for all the stories about his drunkenness. He totally
blacked out while boarding a train from Iowa, and the story goes that
he was in the state of unconsciousness for next forty-eight hours.
Dylan was very sick and was barred from alcohol by the
doctors. He quietly slipped into a bar in the West Village,
New York and ordered eighteen shots and then built a pyramid with the
glasses. The crowd gathered around to see the fun. He started
to drink one after another and said "Is it not a world record?” until
he was knocked out and was taken to a hospital. He never woke
up.
The last time I came there was a Broadway show running, called
Dylan. Richard Burton was playing Dylan. Elizabeth
Taylor was still his wife then. Paul went to New York and
brought me along and we stayed in the famous Plaza Hotel near Central
Park. Burton and Liz Taylor were also the guests at the Plaza
at that time. We encountered them a few times in the
elevators on our way out and in. People may laugh out loud,
but honestly I didn't find her to be that beautiful or
attractive. She looked like a rubber doll to me.
Interestingly enough, at that same time we saw there was lot of
attention and sensation around four young boys who were staying at this
same Plaza Hotel. Young men women shouted, cheered, and gathered in
front of the hotel as these four boys came in and out of the hotel.
These guys had to hurdle the crowd and had to get into cars in the
quickest possible time. It was 1964, and I hadn't even heard
their names before. That was the first that I ever heard
about The Beatles. I saw them but didn’t hear them.
One day I went with Swati to her rehearsal. The play was
written by a Japanese playwright. There was full
international casting. The play was about these actors who
were in deep thought about the future of human civilization. The
storyline was not well-formed, I would say, but the dialogue was
definitely very engaging.
Eric was the director as well as the lead of this play. The
play was in English but the accents of the actors were
international. Swati was playing the role of an Indian woman,
so her Indian accent was well- suited for the play.
Eric came to me and was praising Swati's acting with much enthusiasm.
"Oh, she’s a born actor. Her expressions are quite genuine, and she’s
simply superb in her role!" and so on. And who’s not happy to
listen to his wife's praise? I sat there with a
smile like all the credits of my wife's performance went right to me.
But after a while, Eric kind of led me into an embarrassing
situation. He called me aside with the excuse of having a
smoke and said, "Sunil, can I ask you something, if you really don't
mind? I really don't know how to start. But I
really need to clarify this issue."
"What's the big deal? Just say it," I replied to him with
curiosity.
Eric: "There’s a scene in the play... it's almost
uneditable. I’ll have to kiss Swati. I really don't
know whether we can do this realistically or if we’ll have to edit it
out, though... I mean, would you allow it? Just
once onstage?"
This really put me in to a perplexed frame of mind. I’d never
played the role of such a husband ever in my life. If a
person wants to kiss his wife, what does he do? Does he get
angry? Or stare at the person with a real crashing
smile? Or would he say, "O definitely, go ahead, why only
once on stage? Kiss her as many times as you want during
rehearsals..."
But I quickly collected myself and said, "Eric, if it's needed for the
play, why are you asking me? Ask Swati. If she’s comfortable,
then I have nothing to say."
Eric, as before said, "Yes, definitely I’ll ask her. But I
thought, ‘first I should seek the permission from the husband.’"
"See, even if I say something, then also it would sound as if I’m
trying to exercise my role as a husband. It's absolutely up
to her..."
Rehearsals would go one for some time more, so I just came out.
Maybe because, just now, I played the role of an open-minded, liberal
husband!
The previous installments of Memories of Light and Shade were published in our May and July 2009 issues. To read them, click here.
