Page 95 - Train to Pakistan

‘Yes, many,’ answered Iqbal, vainly trying to evade the inevitable.

‘Then, Babuji,’ asked Jugga lowering his voice further, ‘you must have slept
with many memsahibs. Yes?’
Iqbal felt irritated. It was not possible to keep Indians off the subject of sex for

long. It obsessed their minds. It came out in their art, literature and religion. One
saw it on the hoardings in the cities advertising aphrodisiacs and curatives for ill
effects of masturbation. One saw it in the law courts and marketplaces, where

hawkers did a thriving trade selling oil made of the skin of sand lizards to put
life into tired groins and increase the size of the phallus. One read it in the
advertisements of quacks who claimed to possess remedies for barrenness and

medicines to induce wombs to yield male children. One heard about it all the
time. No people used incestuous abuse quite as casually as did the Indians.
Terms like sala, wife’s brother (‘I would like to sleep with your sister’), and

susra, father-in-law (‘I would like to sleep with your daughter’) were as often
terms of affection for one’s friends and relatives as expressions of anger to insult
one’s enemies. Conversation on any topic—politics, philosophy, sport—soon

came down to sex, which everyone enjoyed with a lot of giggling and hand-
slapping.
‘Yes, I have,’ Iqbal said, casually. ‘With many.’

‘Wah, wah,’ exclaimed Jugga with enthusiasm and vigorous pressing of
Iqbal’s feet. ‘Wah, Babuji—great. You must have had lots of fun. The
memsahibs are like houris from paradise—white and soft, like silk. All we have

here are black buffaloes.’
‘There is no difference between women. As a matter of fact, white women are

not very exciting. Are you married?’
‘No, Babuji. Who will give his daughter to a badmash? I have to get my
pleasure where I can get it.’
‘Do you get much of it?’

‘Sometimes … When I go to Ferozepur for a hearing and if I save money
from lawyers and their clerks, I have a good time. I make a bargain for the whole

night. Women think, as with other men, that means two, or at the most three
times.’ He twirled his moustache. ‘But when Juggut Singh leaves them, they cry
“hai, hai”, touch their ears, say “toba, toba” and beg me in the name of God to
leave them and take the money back.’

Iqbal knew it was a lie. Most young men talked like that.
‘When you get married, you will find your wife a match for you,’ Iqbal said.