A Suitable Boy

  The onus of deciding the fate of others was exactly the sort of thing that Pran fretted a great deal over, and Savita could see how anxious this made him. He couldn’t concentrate on his breakfast newspapers. He hadn’t been feeling at all well lately—and Savita could sense that the pressure of having to dispense rough justice to these idiotic young men was going to do him no good. He couldn’t even work on his lectures on Shakespearian comedy, although he had set some time aside the previous evening.

  ‘I don’t see why you have to see them here,’ Savita said. ‘Ask them to go to the Proctor’s office.’

  ‘No, no, darling, that would only alarm them further. I just want to get their side of the story, and they’ll be more forthcoming if they’re less terrified—if they’re sitting with me in a drawing room rather than standing and shuffling in front of a desk. I hope you and Ma don’t mind. It’ll take half an hour at the most.’

  The culprits arrived at eleven o’clock, and Pran offered them tea.

  The Rajkumar of Marh was thoroughly ashamed of himself and kept staring at his palms, but his friends, mistaking Pran’s kindness for weakness, and knowing that he was popular with students, decided that they were in no danger, and smirked when Pran asked him what they had to say about the charges. They knew that Pran was Maan’s brother, and took his sympathy for granted.

  ‘We were minding our own business,’ one of them said. ‘He should have minded his.’

  ‘He asked you for your names, and you said—’ Pran looked down at the papers in his hand. ‘Well, you know what you said. I don’t need to repeat it. I don’t need to quote the regulations of the university to you, either. You seem to know them well enough. According to this, as you approached the hostel you began to sing: “Any student who is seen in an undesirable place shall be liable to immediate expulsion.”’

  The two main culprits looked at each other with a smile of unbothered complicity.

  The Rajkumar, fearing that if he was expelled, his infuriated father would castrate him or worse, mumbled: ‘But I didn’t even do anything.’ It was just his luck that he had decided to go along to be sociable.

  One of the other two said, rather contemptuously: ‘Yes, that’s true, we can vouch for that. He isn’t interested in that kind of thing—unlike your brother, who—’

  Pran cut the young man off sharply. ‘That is not the point. Let us keep non-students out of this. You do not realize, it seems to me, that you will very likely be expelled. A fine is pointless, it will have no effect on you.’ He looked from one face to the other, then went on: ‘The facts are clear, and your attitude isn’t helpful either. Your fathers are having a hard enough time already without being forced to add you to their worries.’

  Pran noticed the first look of vulnerability—not of repentance so much as of fear—on their faces. With the impending abolition of zamindari, their fathers had indeed been increasingly impatient with their wastrel sons. Sooner or later their allowances might even be reduced. They had no idea of what to do with themselves other than to have a good time as students, and if this was taken away from them, there was nothing but darkness ahead. They looked at Pran, but he said nothing further for a while. He appeared to be reading the sheaf of papers in front of him.

  It’s difficult for them, thought Pran. It’s sad, all this riotous high living; it’s all they know, and it won’t last long. They might even have to find work. It’s not easy for students these days, whatever their class. Employment’s hard to find, the country doesn’t seem to be going in any direction, and the example of their elders is pathetic. Images of the Raja of Marh, of Professor Mishra, and of bickering politicians came to his mind. He looked up and said:

  ‘I have to decide what to recommend to the Proctor. I tend to agree with the warden—’

  ‘No, please, Sir—’ said one of the students.

  The other kept quiet, but gave Pran a beseeching look.

  The Rajkumar was now wondering how he would face his grandmother, the Dowager Rani of Marh. Even his father’s rage would be easier to bear than the look of disappointment in her eyes.

  He began to sniffle.

  ‘We didn’t mean to do what we did,’ he said. ‘We were—’

  ‘Stop,’ said Pran. ‘And think about what you are saying before you say it.’

  ‘But we were drunk,’ said the luckless Rajkumar. ‘That’s why we behaved like that.’

  ‘So shamefully,’ said one of the others in a low voice.

  Pran closed his eyes.

  All of them reassured him that they would never do anything like this again. They swore it on their fathers’ honour, they pledged it in the names of several gods. They began to look repentant, and, indeed, they even began to feel repentant as a result of looking it.

  After a while, Pran had had enough, and stood up.

  ‘You’ll hear in due course from the authorities,’ he told them at the door. The bureaucratic, formulary words sounded strange to him even as he said them. They hesitated, wondering what else they could say in their own defence, then walked off forlornly.

  12.9

  After telling Savita he would be back for lunch, Pran went to Prem Nivas. It was a warm day, though overcast. By the time he got there he was somewhat out of breath. His mother was in the garden, giving instructions to the mali.

  She came forward to welcome him, then stopped. ‘Pran, are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You don’t look at all well to me.’

  ‘Yes, Ammaji, I’m fine. Thanks to Ramjap Baba,’ he couldn’t resist adding.

  ‘You should not make fun of that good man.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Pran. ‘How is Bhaskar?’

  ‘He’s talking quite well, and even walking around. He insists on going back to Misri Mandi. But the air here is so much fresher.’ She gestured towards the garden. ‘And Savita?’

  ‘She’s annoyed that I spend so little time with her. I had to promise to return for lunch. I really don’t like all this extra work on the committee, but if I don’t do it, someone else will have to.’ He paused. ‘Other than that, she’s very well. Ma fusses over her so much that she’s going to want to have a baby every year.’

  Mrs Mahesh Kapoor smiled to herself. Then an anxious look appeared on her face, and she said: ‘Where has Maan got to, do you know? He isn’t in the village, and he isn’t on the farm, and no one in Banaras knows where he is. He’s just disappeared. He hasn’t written for two weeks. I’m very worried about him. All your father says is that he can be in the underworld for all he cares so long as he’s not in Brahmpur.’

  Pran frowned at this second reference to his brother that morning, then assured his mother that Maan disappearing for two weeks or even ten should not be cause for alarm. He may have decided to go hunting or for a trek in the foothills or for a holiday at Baitar Fort. Firoz might know his whereabouts; he’d be meeting Firoz this afternoon, and he would ask him if he’d heard from his friend.

  His mother nodded unhappily. After a while she said:

  ‘Why don’t all of you come to Prem Nivas? It’ll be good for Savita in the last few days.’

  ‘No, Ammaji, she prefers to be where she’s used to living. And now that Baoji’s thinking of leaving the Congress Party the house will be full of politicians of every kind trying to persuade him or dissuade him. And you’re looking tired too. You take care of everyone, and don’t let anyone take care of you. You really look exhausted.’

  ‘Ah, that’s old age,’ said his mother.

  ‘Why don’t you call the mali into the house, where it’s cool, and give him his instructions there?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor. ‘That wouldn’t work at all. It would have a bad effect on the morale of the flowers.’

  12.10

  Pran went home, and rested in lieu of lunch. He met Firoz a little later in the Chief Justice’s courtroom at the Brahmpur High Court. Firoz was appearing for a student who had a grievance against the university. The student had been one of the brightest che
mistry students the university could remember, and was well liked by his teachers. In the April examination, however, at the end of the academic year, he had done something so surprising that it was virtually inexplicable. He had gone to the bathroom in the middle of a paper, and then, seeing a couple of his friends standing just outside the exam hall, had stopped to talk to them for a minute. He claimed that they had talked about the fact that it was too hot to think; and there was no reason to assume that he was not telling the truth. His friends were both philosophy students, and could not possibly have helped him in his exam; in any case, he was by far the best chemistry student of his year.

  But he was duly reported. It was clear that he had infringed the stringent rules for the examinations. On the grounds that an exception could not be made for him, his papers were cancelled and he was not allowed to appear for the remaining exams. In effect, he was to lose a year. He had appealed to the Vice-Chancellor to let him appear for the ‘compartmental’ exams; these exams, normally held in August for students who had failed in a single paper, would enable him to enter the next year if he took them as a set. His appeal had been turned down. In desperation he had turned to the possibility of a legal remedy. Firoz had agreed to be his lawyer.

  Pran, being the junior member of the student welfare committee, which had been consulted in the original decision, had been asked by the Proctor to sit in on the hearings. He greeted Firoz with a nod in the courtroom, and said: ‘Let’s meet outside after this is over.’ He was not used to seeing Firoz in a black gown with white bands round his neck, and he was pleasantly impressed even while he thought it looked rather silly.

  Firoz had filed a writ petition on the student’s behalf, claiming that his rights under the Constitution had been infringed. The Chief Justice made short work of his submission. He told him that hard cases made bad law; that the university could be trusted to act as its own overseeing authority unless the process of such oversight was blatantly unfair, as was not the case here; and that if the student insisted—unwisely, in his view—on recourse to the law, he should have been advised to file a suit with the local magistrate, not to come directly with a writ to the High Court. Writs to the High Court were a newfangled device that had come in under the recent Constitution, and the Chief Justice did not much care for them. He felt they were used far too often simply in order to jump the queue.

  He cocked his head to one side, and said, looking down at Firoz: ‘I see no reason for a writ at all, young man. Your client should have gone to a munsif magistrate. If he wasn’t satisfied with his decision he could have gone to the District Judge on appeal, and then come here on further appeal. You should spend a little time choosing the appropriate forum rather than wasting the time of this court. Writs and suits are two quite different things, young man, two quite different things.’

  Outside the court, Firoz was fuming. He had advised his client not to attend the hearing, and he was glad he had. He himself had been shaken by the injustice of it all. And for the Chief Justice to have rebuked him, to have implied that he had not considered the proper forum—that too was intolerable. He had helped argue the zamindari case before this very judge in this very courtroom; the Chief Justice must know that he was not given to flippant arguments and unconsidered recourse. Nor did Firoz like being called ‘young man’ unless it was imbedded in an approving remark.

  Pran, whose heart was on the student’s side, sympathized with Firoz. He patted him on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s the correct recourse,’ said Firoz, loosening the bands around his neck as if they were constraining the flow of blood to his head. ‘In a few years writs will be the accepted method in such cases. Suits are just too slow. August would have come and gone by the time we got a hearing.’ He paused, and added passionately: ‘I hope they’re flooded with writs soon.’ Then, with a slight smile, he remarked: ‘Of course, this old man will have retired by then. He and all his brethren.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Pran. ‘I know what I meant to ask you. Where’s Maan?’

  ‘Is he back?’ said Firoz with pleasure. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No, I’m asking you. I haven’t heard and I thought you might have.’

  ‘Am I your brother’s keeper?’ said Firoz. ‘Well, I suppose, after a fashion, I am,’ he went on, gently. ‘Or wouldn’t mind being. But no, I haven’t heard. I thought he might be here by now, what with his nephew and all that. But, as I said, I haven’t heard from him. Nothing to worry about, I hope?’

  ‘No, no, nothing. My mother’s worried. You know how mothers are.’

  Firoz smiled slightly ruefully, rather in the way his mother used to smile. He looked very handsome at that moment.

  ‘Well,’ said Pran, changing the subject. ‘Are you your own brother’s keeper? Why haven’t I seen Imtiaz for so many days? Perhaps you can let him take a stroll outside his cage.’

  ‘We hardly see him ourselves, you know. He’s out all the time visiting some patient or other. The only way to get his attention is to fall ill.’ And here Firoz quoted an Urdu couplet about how the beloved was both the illness and the medicine, not to mention the doctor whose visit made it all worthwhile. Had the Chief Justice been listening he could have been excused for saying, ‘I fail to see the relevance of this particular submission.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I’ll do just that,’ said Pran. ‘I’ve been feeling oddly exhausted lately, with a sort of strain around the heart—’

  Firoz laughed. ‘One of the best things about genuine illness is that it’s a licence for hypochondria.’ Then, cocking his head to one side he added: ‘The heart and the lungs are two quite different things, young man, two quite different things.’

  12.11

  The next day Pran was lecturing when he suddenly felt weak and breathless. His mind too began to wander, a most unusual thing for him. His students were puzzled and began to look at one another. Pran continued to speak, leaning on the lectern and staring at the far wall of the classroom.

  ‘Although these plays are permeated with images of the countryside, images of the chase, to the extent that the six words “Will you go hunt, my Lord?” lead you immediately—’ Pran paused, then continued: ‘lead you immediately to imagine that you are in the world of Shakespearian comedy, there is nevertheless no historical reason to believe that Shakespeare left Stratford for London because—because—’ Pran rested his head on the lectern, then looked up. Why was everyone looking at everyone else? And now his eye fell on the first rows, where the girls sat. That was Malati Trivedi sitting there. What was she doing in his lecture? She had not asked for ‘permission to attend’ in the standard way. He passed his hand over his forehead. He hadn’t noticed her when he was taking attendance. But then he never looked up from his ledger when taking attendance. Some of the boys were standing up. So was Malati. They were leading him back to the desk. Now they had sat him down. ‘Sir, are you all right?’ someone was saying. Malati was taking his pulse. And now there was someone at the door—Professor Mishra and a visitor passing by and looking in. Pran shook his head. As Professor Mishra retreated, Pran heard the words: ‘. . . fond of amateur dramatics . . . yes, popular with students, but—’

  ‘Please don’t crowd around,’ said Malati. ‘Mr Kapoor needs air.’

  The boys, startled at the authority in the voice of this strange girl, stood back a little.

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Pran.

  ‘You’d better come with us, Sir,’ said Malati.

  ‘I’m all right, Malati,’ said Pran impatiently.

  But they escorted him to the staff room and sat him down. A couple of his colleagues told the students that they would make sure that Mr Kapoor was all right. After a while things did return to normal for Pran, but he just couldn’t understand it. He had not been coughing or breathless. Perhaps it was the heat and humidity, he thought unconvincedly. Perhaps it was just overwork, as Savita insisted.

  Malati, meanwhile, had decided to go to Pran’s house. When Mrs Rupa Mehra saw her at the door
, her face lit up with pleasure. Then she remembered that it was probably Malati who had got Lata into the play, and she frowned. But Malati was looking worried, which was an unusual expression for her, and Mrs Rupa Mehra, in sympathetic concern, had hardly said, ‘Is something wrong?’ when Malati asked:

  ‘Where’s Savita?’

  ‘Inside. Come in. Savita, Malati’s here to see you.’

  ‘Hello, Malati,’ said Savita, smiling. Then, sensing that something was the matter, she said: ‘Are you all right? Is Lata all right?’

  Malati sat down, composed herself so as not to discompose Savita unduly, and said:

  ‘I was just attending a lecture by Pran—’

  ‘Why were you attending a lecture by Pran?’ Mrs Rupa Mehra could not refrain from asking.

  ‘It was on Shakespearian comedy, Ma,’ said Malati. ‘I thought it would help me to interpret my role in the play.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra’s mouth set, but she said nothing further, and Malati continued:

  ‘Now, Savita, don’t be alarmed, but he felt a bit faint while giving the lecture, and had to sit down. I had a word with some of the boys later and they said that a couple of days ago something similar had happened, but that it had only lasted a second, and he had insisted on continuing the lecture.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra, too anxious now to rebuke Malati even inwardly for talking so freely to boys, said: ‘Where is he? Is he all right?’

  Savita said, ‘Was he coughing? Breathless?’

  ‘No he wasn’t coughing, but he did seem a little breathless. I think he should see a doctor. And perhaps, if he insists on lecturing, he should sit down and lecture.’