‘That pagal!’ she dismisses him with a wave of her hand. ‘He lied to me. He said you would not be back for fifteen days. But something in my heart told me you were back.’ She stubs the half-smoked cigarette on my table and sticks it behind her ear. With the thumb and finger of the hand she makes a circle. She inserts the index finger of the other hand in and out of the circle and asks: ‘How was it?’

I told you she is the coarsest whore in Delhi.

‘Must you be so vulgar?’

‘Uffo!’ she exclaims, ‘Today you call us vulgar; God knows what you will be saying tomorrow!’ She comes and sits on the floor, takes off my shoes and socks and begins to massage my feet. It is very pleasant. She massages my ankles, my calf muscles and the insides of my thigh. Every now and then her hands wander up for a spot-check. Very casually she undoes my fly-buttons, plants a soft kiss on my middle and comes over me. I don’t have to do a thing except lie back and enjoy myself. I told you Bhagmati knows exactly what anyone wants at any time.

How did Bhagmati come into my life? That’s in the past tense—three years ago.

At the time I was engaged in writing the biography of an industrialist. I was provided with a staff of research assistants to sift through his correspondence. We were allotted a few rooms in one of the newer suburbs called Patel Nagar across the Ridge which had at one time marked the western extremity of the two cities of Delhi, the Old and the New.

It took me some time to discover that the shortest way to my office was along a road which ran atop the Ridge. It was also the most picturesque; from many places you could get a view of the two cities. On either side of the road were bushes of sesbania, vasicka and camel thorn; huge boulders of red sandstone were strewn about everywhere. There were flowering trees, flame, coral and the flamboyant gulmohar. Ridge Road as it was known had earned a bad name.

A car or two had been held up, there had been a case of assault or robbery. The newspapers did the rest. Pedestrians and cyclists avoided it now and cars sped by without stopping. It was usually deserted. It was on this road that I first met Bhagmati.

It is curious how the first encounter remains so indelibly printed on the mind while the affair that follows is soon blurred.

I can recall every detail of our first meeting.