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A Suitable Boy

Vikram Seth


  She was home in a few minutes. Mrs Rupa Mehra had not yet returned. When she did come back half an hour later she found Lata asleep. Lata appeared restless—her head was turning from side to side on her pillow.

  She was dreaming—of a kiss—but it was of Kabir that she was dreaming, the one who was absent, the one who above all others she should not meet, the most unsuitable boy of them all.

  16.20

  1952: the fresh and brilliant digits impressed themselves upon Pran’s eye as he opened the morning newspaper. All the past grew veiled by the first of January, and all the future glistened ahead of him, emerging mysteriously from its grubby chrysalis. He thought about his heart and his child and Bhaskar’s close brush with death, the mixed gifts of the previous year. And he wondered whether the coming year would bring him his readership—and a new brother-in-law—and possibly even see his father sworn in as the Chief Minister of Purva Pradesh. The last was by no means impossible. As for Maan, surely he would have to settle down sooner or later.

  Although no one other than himself and Mrs Rupa Mehra was awake at six o’clock, there was a sudden storm of activity at seven. The time allowed in the two bathrooms was strictly rationed, and everyone was completely ready—and even breakfasted—by eight thirty. The women had decided to spend the day at the Chatterjis’—perhaps they would go on to do a bit of shopping as well. Even Meenakshi, who at first appeared eager to come to the cricket match, decided against it at the last moment.

  Amit and Dipankar arrived in the Humber at nine, and Arun, Varun and Pran went off with them to Eden Gardens to watch the third day of the Third Test. Just outside the stadium they met Haresh, as previously arranged, and the six of them made their way to the tier where their seats were located.

  It was a wonderful morning. There was a clear blue sky, and dew still glistened on the outfield. Eden Gardens, with its emerald grass and surrounding trees, its huge scoreboard and new Ranji Stadium block, was a magnificent sight. It was packed solid, but luckily one of Arun’s English colleagues at Bentsen Pryce, who had bought a bunch of season tickets for his family, was out sightseeing, and had offered his seats to Arun for the day. They were placed just next to the pavilion section, where VIPs and members of the Cricket Association of Bengal sat, and they had a fine view of the field.

  India’s opening batsmen were still at the crease. Since India had scored 418 and 485 in two previous innings in the series, and since England were all out for 342 in their first innings, there was a good chance that the hosts would be able to make something of the match. The Calcutta crowd—more knowledgeable and appreciative than any other in India—was looking forward to it with eager anticipation.

  The chatter, which increased between overs, was reduced, but not quite to silence, every time the bowler came in to bowl. Leadbeater opened the bowling to Roy with a maiden, and Ridgway supported the attack from the other end, bowling to Mankad. Then, for the next over, instead of continuing with Leadbeater, the English skipper Howard brought Statham on.

  This provoked a good deal of discussion among the group of six. Everyone started speculating as to why Leadbeater had been brought on for a single over. Amit alone said that it meant nothing at all. Perhaps, because Indian time was several hours ahead of England, Leadbeater had wanted to bowl the first English ball of 1952 and Howard had let him.

  ‘Really, Amit,’ said Pran with a laugh. ‘Cricket isn’t governed by poetical whims of that kind.’

  ‘A pity,’ said Amit. ‘Reading old reports by Cardus always makes me think that it’s just a variant of poetry—in six-line stanzas.’

  ‘I wonder where Billy is,’ said Arun in rather a hangover-ish voice. ‘Can’t see him anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, he’s bound to be here,’ said Amit. ‘I can’t imagine him missing a day of a Test.’

  ‘We’re off to a rather slow start,’ said Dipankar. ‘I hope this isn’t going to be another awful draw like the last two Tests.’

  ‘I think we’re going to teach them a lesson.’ This was Haresh’s optimistic assessment.

  ‘We might,’ said Pran. ‘But we should be careful on this wicket. It’s a bowler’s delight.’

  And so it proved to be.

  The quick loss of three of the best Indian wickets—including that of the captain—cast a chill on the stadium. When Amarnath—who had hardly had time to pad up—came on to the field to face Tattersall, there was complete silence. Even the women spectators stopped their winter knitting for a second.

  He was bowled for a duck in that same fatal over.

  The Indian side was collapsing like skittles. If the mayhem continued, India might be all out before lunch. High visions of a victory turned to the dread of an ignominious follow-on.

  ‘Just like us,’ said Varun morosely. ‘We are a failure as a country. We can always snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. I’m going to watch the racing in the afternoon,’ he added disgustedly. He would have to watch his horses through the palings around the course rather than sit in these forty-rupee season-ticket seats, but at least there was a chance that his horse might win.

  ‘I’m getting up to stretch my legs,’ said Amit.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Haresh, who was annoyed by the poor show that India was putting on. ‘Oh—who’s that man there—the one in the navy-blue blazer with the maroon scarf—do any of you know? I seem to recognize him from somewhere.’

  Pran looked across at the pavilion section and was completely taken aback.

  ‘Oh, Malvolio!’ he said, as if he had seen Banquo instead.

  ‘What was that?’ said Haresh.

  ‘Nothing. I suddenly remembered something I have to teach next term. Cricket balls, my liege. Something just struck me. No, I—I can’t say for sure that I recognize him—I think you’d better ask the Calcutta people.’ Pran was not good at deception, but the last thing he wanted to encourage was a meeting between Haresh and Kabir. Any number of complications might ensue, including a visit by Kabir to Sunny Park.

  Luckily, no one else recognized him.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere,’ Haresh persisted. ‘I’m bound to remember sometime. Good-looking fellow. You know, the same thing happened to me with Lata. I felt I’d seen her before—and—I’m sure I’m not mistaken. I’ll go and say hello.’

  Pran could do nothing further. Amit and Haresh wandered over between overs, and Haresh said to Kabir: ‘Good morning. Haven’t we met somewhere before?’

  Kabir looked at them and smiled. He stood up. ‘I don’t think we have,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps at work—or in Cawnpore?’ said Haresh. ‘I have the feeling—well, anyway, I’m Haresh Khanna, from Praha.’

  ‘Glad to meet you, Sir.’ Kabir shook his hand and smiled. ‘Perhaps we’ve met in Brahmpur, that is if you come to Brahmpur on work.’

  Haresh shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Are you from Brahmpur?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kabir. ‘I’m a student at Brahmpur University. I’m keen on cricket, so I’ve come down for a while to watch what I can of the Test. A pretty miserable show.’

  ‘Well, it’s a dewy wicket,’ said Amit in mitigation.

  ‘Dewy wicket my foot,’ said Kabir with good-natured combativeness. ‘We are always making excuses for ourselves. Roy had no business to cut that ball. And Umrigar did the same. And for Hazare and Amarnath to be bowled neck and crop in the same over—it’s really too bad. They send over a team that doesn’t include Hutton or Bedser or Compton or Laker or May—and we manage to disgrace ourselves anyway. We’ve never had a Test victory against the MCC, and if we lose this one, we don’t ever deserve to win. I’m beginning to think it’s a good thing I’m leaving Calcutta tomorrow morning. Anyway, tomorrow’s a rest day.’

  ‘Why, where are you going?’ laughed Haresh, who liked the young man’s spirit. ‘Back to Brahmpur?’

  ‘No—I’ve got to go to Allahabad for the Inter-’Varsity.’

  ‘Are you on the university team?’ />
  ‘Yes.’ Kabir frowned. ‘But I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name’s Kabir. Kabir Durrani.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Haresh, his eyes disappearing. ‘You’re the son of Professor Durrani.’

  Kabir looked at Haresh in amazement.

  ‘We met for just a minute,’ said Haresh. ‘I brought young Bhaskar Tandon over to your house one day to meet your father. In fact, now I come to think of it, you were wearing cricket clothes.’

  Kabir said: ‘Good heavens. I think I do remember now. I’m terribly sorry. But won’t you sit down? These two chairs are free—my friends have gone off to get some coffee.’

  Haresh introduced Amit, and they all sat down.

  After the next over Kabir turned to Haresh and said: ‘I suppose you know what happened to Bhaskar at the Pul Mela?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I’m glad to hear he’s all right now.’

  ‘If he had been here, we wouldn’t have needed that fancy Australian-style scoreboard.’

  ‘No,’ said Haresh with a smile. ‘Pran’s nephew,’ he said to Amit by way of incomplete explanation.

  ‘I do wish women wouldn’t bring their knitting to the match,’ said Kabir intolerantly. ‘Hazare out. Plain. Umrigar out. Purl. It’s like A Tale of Two Cities.’

  Amit laughed at this pleasant young fellow’s analogy, but was forced to come to the defence of his own city. ‘Well, apart from our sections of the stadium, where people come to be seen as much as to see, Calcutta’s a good place for cricket,’ he said. ‘In the four-rupee seats the crowd knows its stuff all right. And they start queueing up for day tickets from nine o’clock the previous night.’

  Kabir nodded. ‘Well, you’re right. And it’s a lovely stadium. The greenness of the field almost hurts the eyes.’

  Haresh thought back for a moment to his mistake about colours, and wondered whether it had done him any harm.

  The bowling changed over once again from the Maidan end to the High Court end.

  ‘Whenever I think of the High Court end I feel guilty,’ said Amit to Haresh. Making conversation with his rival was one way of sizing him up.

  Haresh, who had no sense at all that he had any rival anywhere, answered innocently: ‘Why? Have you done anything against the law? Oh, I’m forgetting, your father’s a judge.’

  ‘And I’m a lawyer, that’s my problem. I should be working, according to him—writing opinions, not poems.’

  Kabir half turned towards Amit in astonishment.

  ‘You’re not the Amit Chatterji?’

  Amit had discovered that coyness made things worse once he was recognized. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘The.’

  ‘Why—I’m—how amazing—I like your stuff—a lot of it—I can’t say I understand it all.’

  ‘No, nor do I.’

  A sudden thought struck Kabir. ‘Why don’t you come to Brahmpur to read? You have a lot of fans there in the Brahmpur Literary Society. But I hear you never give readings.’

  ‘Well, not never,’ said Amit thoughtfully. ‘I don’t normally—but if I’m asked to come to Brahmpur, and can get leave of absence from my Muse, I might well come. I’ve often wondered what the town is like: the Barsaat Mahal, you know, and, of course, the Fort—and, well, other objects of beauty and interest. I’ve never been there before.’ He paused. ‘Well, would you care to join us there among the season-ticket holders? But I suppose these are better seats.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Kabir. ‘It’s just that I’m with friends—they’ve invited me—and it’s my last day in town. I’d better not. But I’m very honoured to meet you. And—well—you’re sure you wouldn’t take it amiss if you were invited to Brahmpur? It wouldn’t interfere too much with your writing?’

  ‘No,’ said Amit mildly. ‘Not Brahmpur. Just write to my publishers. It’ll be forwarded to me.’

  The game was continuing, a little more steadily than before. It would soon be lunchtime. No more wickets had fallen, which was a blessing, but India was still in perilous straits.

  ‘It’s a real pity about Hazare. His form seems to have deserted him after that knock on the head in Bombay,’ said Amit.

  ‘Well,’ said Kabir, ‘you can’t blame him entirely. Ridgway’s bouncers can be vicious—and he’d scored a century, after all. He was pretty badly stunned. I don’t think he should have been forced back out from the pavilion by the Chairman of Selectors. It’s demeaning for a skipper to be ordered back—and bad for morale all around.’ He went on, almost in a dream: ‘I suppose Hazare is indecisive—it took him fifteen minutes to decide whether to bat or to field in the last Test. But, well, I’m discovering that I’m quite indecisive myself, so I sympathize. I’ve been thinking of visiting someone ever since I arrived in Calcutta, but I can’t. I find I just can’t. I don’t know what kind of bowling I’d have to face,’ he added with a rather bitter laugh. ‘They say he’s lost his nerve, and I think I’ve lost mine!’ Kabir’s remarks were not addressed to anyone in particular, but Amit felt—for no very good reason—a strong sense of sympathy for him.

  Had Amit identified him as the ‘Akbar from As You Like It’ of Meenakshi’s imaginative description, he may not have felt quite so sympathetic.

  16.21

  Pran did not question either Amit or Haresh about their meeting with Kabir. He waited for one or the other of them to mention that Kabir knew or had heard of either him or Arun; but since neither name had come up in their conversation, there was nothing as such to tell. He breathed a sigh of relief. Clearly Kabir would not be visiting Sunny Park and upsetting well-laid plans.

  After a quick lunch of sandwiches and coffee the group of six—still dazed by India’s sudden collapse and not optimistic about the afternoon’s play—dispersed in cars and taxis. They had to thread their way through huge crowds that had begun to gather on the Maidan to hear Pandit Nehru speak. The Prime Minister—or, in this role, the President of Congress—was on one of his lightning election tours. Just the previous day he had spoken at Kharagpur, Asansol, Burdwan, Chinsurah and Serampore; and just before that he had been canvassing in Assam.

  Varun asked to be put down near the smaller—but equally eager—crowds surrounding the racetrack, and started to look around for his friends. After a while he began to wonder whether he shouldn’t listen to Nehru’s speech instead. But after a brief struggle, My Lady Jean and Windy Wold defeated Freedom Fighter by several lengths. I can always read about it in the newspapers, he told himself.

  Haresh had meanwhile gone to visit distant relatives whom his foster-father had told him to look up in Calcutta. So involved had he been with production in Prahapore that he hadn’t found the time to do so; but now he had a couple of hours to spare. When he got to his relatives’ place he found them all glued to the radio listening to the cricket commentary. They tried to be hospitable, but their minds were clearly elsewhere. Haresh too joined them by the radio.

  India was 257 for 6 at close of play. Disgrace at least had been miraculously averted.

  Haresh was therefore in a good mood when he arrived at Sunny Park in time for tea. He was introduced to Aparna, whom he tried to humour and who treated him distantly as a result, and to Uma, who gave him an undiscriminating smile which delighted him.

  ‘Are you being polite, Haresh?’ asked Savita warmly. ‘You’re not eating anything at all. Politeness doesn’t pay in this family. Pass the pastries, Arun.’

  ‘I must apologize,’ said Arun to Haresh. ‘I should have mentioned it this morning but it slipped my mind entirely. Meenakshi and I will be out for dinner tonight.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Haresh, puzzled. He glanced at Mrs Rupa Mehra. She was looking flushed and upset.

  ‘Yes. Well, we were invited three weeks ago, and couldn’t cancel it at the last moment. But Ma and the rest will be here, of course. And Varun will do the honours. Both Meenakshi and I were looking forward to it, needless to say, but when we got home from Prahapore that day, we looked at our diary and—well, there it is.’

  ‘We f
eel awful,’ said Meenakshi gaily. ‘Do have a cheese straw.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Haresh, a little dampened. But after a few minutes he bounced back. Lata at least looked pleased to see him. She was indeed wearing a pink sari. Either that or she was very cruel! Today he’d certainly get a chance to talk to her. And Savita, he felt, was kind and warm and encouraging. Perhaps it was no bad thing that Arun wouldn’t be there for dinner, though it would be odd to sit down at his table—and that too for the first time—in his host’s absence. Haresh could feel muted pulses of antagonism emanating from his direction, and to some extent from the darkly radiant Meenakshi too, and he would not have felt entirely relaxed in their company. But it was certainly an odd response to the hospitality he had offered them.

  Varun was looking unusually cheerful. He had won eight rupees at the races.

  ‘Well, we didn’t do so badly after all,’ said Haresh to him.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘After this morning, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, yes, cricket. What was the closing score?’ asked Varun, who had got up.

  ‘257 for 6,’ said Pran, astonished that Varun hadn’t been following it.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Varun, and went over to the gramophone.

  ‘Don’t!’ thundered Arun.

  ‘Don’t what, Arun Bhai?’

  ‘Don’t put on that damn machine. Unless you want me to box your two intoxicated ears.’

  Varun recoiled with murderous timidity. Haresh looked startled at the exchange between the brothers. Varun had hardly said a thing that day in Prahapore.

  ‘Aparna likes it,’ he said in a resentful tone, not daring to look at Arun. ‘And so does Uma.’ Unlikely though this was, it was true. Savita, whenever she found that legal Latin did not put Uma to sleep, would sing this song to her while rocking her to and fro.

  ‘I do not care who likes what,’ said Arun, his face reddening. ‘You will turn it off. And at once.’

  ‘I haven’t turned it on in the first place,’ said Varun in creeping triumph.