A Suitable Boy, Page 50

  ‘Go back to Banaras, work hard, behave responsibly, win back your father’s heart.’

  None of these four clauses appealed particularly to Maan, but he assured his mother that he would not cause trouble at Prem Nivas any longer. He ordered a servant to pack his things. He decided that he would go and stay with Firoz; or, failing that, with Pran; or, failing that, with the Rajkumar and his friends; or, failing that, somewhere else in Brahmpur. He would not leave this beautiful city or forgo the chance to meet the woman he loved because his disapproving, desiccated father told him so.

  ‘Shall I get your father’s PA to arrange your ticket to Banaras?’ asked Mrs Mahesh Kapoor.

  ‘No. If I need to, I’ll do that at the station.’

  After shaving and bathing he donned a crisp white kurta-pyjama and made his way a little shamefacedly towards Saeeda Bai’s house. If he had been as drunk as his mother seemed to think he had been, he supposed that he must have been equally so outside Saeeda Bai’s gate, where he had a vague sense of having gone.

  He arrived at Saeeda Bai’s house. He was admitted. Apparently, he was expected.

  On the way up the stairs, he glanced at himself in the mirror. Unlike before, he now looked at himself quite critically. A white, embroidered cap covered his head; he took it off and surveyed his prematurely balding temples before putting it on again, thinking ruefully that perhaps it was his baldness that Saeeda Bai did not like. But what can I do about it? he thought.

  When she heard his step on the corridor, Saeeda Bai called out in a welcoming voice, ‘Come in, come in, Dagh Sahib. Your footsteps sound regular today. Let us hope that your heart is beating as regularly.’

  Saeeda Bai had slept over the question of Maan and had concluded that something had to be done. Though she had to admit to herself that he was good for her, he was getting to be too demanding of her time and energy, too obsessively attached, for her to handle easily.

  When Maan told her about his scene with his father, and that he had been thrown out of the house, she was very upset. Prem Nivas, where she sang regularly at Holi and had once sung at Dussehra, had become a regular fixture of her annual calendar. She had to consider the question of her income. Equally importantly, she did not want her young friend to remain in trouble with his father. ‘Where do you plan to go?’ she asked him.

  ‘Why, nowhere!’ exclaimed Maan. ‘My father has delusions of grandeur. He thinks that because he can strip a million landlords of their inheritance, he can equally easily order his son about. I am going to stay in Brahmpur—with friends.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘Why not here?’ he asked.

  ‘Toba, toba!’ cried Saeeda Bai, putting her hands to her shocked ears.

  ‘Why should I be separated from you? From the town where you live?’ He leaned towards her and began to embrace her. ‘And your cook makes such delicious shami kababs,’ he added.

  Saeeda Bai might have been pleased by Maan’s ardour, but she was thinking hard. ‘I know,’ she said, disengaging herself. ‘I know what you must do.’

  ‘Mmh,’ said Maan, attempting to engage himself again.

  ‘Do sit still and listen, Dagh Sahib,’ said Saeeda Bai in a coquettish voice. ‘You want to be close to me, to understand me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘Why, Dagh Sahib?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Maan incredulously.

  ‘Why?’ persisted Saeeda Bai.

  ‘Because I love you.’

  ‘What is love—this ill-natured thing that makes enemies even of friends?’

  This was too much for Maan, who was in no mood to get involved in abstract speculations. A sudden, horrible thought struck him: ‘Do you want me to go as well?’

  Saeeda Bai was silent, then she tugged her sari, which had slipped down slightly, back over her head. Her kohl-blackened eyes seemed to look into Maan’s very soul.

  ‘Dagh Sahib, Dagh Sahib!’ she rebuked him.

  Maan was instantly repentant, and hung his head. ‘I just feared that you might want to test our love by distance,’ he said.

  ‘That would cause me as much pain as you,’ she told him sadly. ‘But what I was thinking was quite different.’

  She was silent, then played a few notes on the harmonium and said:

  ‘Your Urdu teacher, Rasheed, is leaving for his village in a few days. He will be gone for a month. I don’t know how to arrange for an Arabic teacher for Tasneem or an Urdu teacher for you in his absence. And I feel that in order to understand me truly, to appreciate my art, to resonate to my passion, you must learn my language, the language of the poetry I recite, the ghazals I sing, the very thoughts I think.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ whispered Maan, enraptured.

  ‘So you must go to the village with your Urdu teacher for a while—for a month.’

  ‘What?’ cried Maan, who felt that another glass of water had been flung in his face.

  Saeeda Bai was apparently so upset by her own solution to the problem—it was the obvious solution, she murmured, biting her lower lip sadly, but she did not know how she could bear being separated from him, etc.—that in a few minutes it was Maan who was consoling her rather than she him. It was the only way out of the problem, he assured her: even if he had nowhere to live in the village, he would sleep in the open, he would speak—think—write—the language of her soul, he would send her letters written in the Urdu of an angel. Even his father would be proud of him.

  ‘You have made me see that there is no other way,’ said Saeeda Bai at length, letting herself be convinced gradually.

  Maan noticed that the parakeet, who was in the room with them, was giving him a cynical look. He frowned.

  ‘When is Rasheed leaving?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Maan went pale. ‘But that only leaves tonight!’ he cried, his heart sinking. His courage failed him. ‘No—I can’t go—I can’t leave you.’

  ‘Dagh Sahib, if you are faithless to your own logic, how can I believe you will be faithful to me?’

  ‘Then I must spend this evening here. It will be our last night together in a—in a month.’

  A month? Even as he said the word, his mind rebelled at the thought. He refused to accept it.

  ‘It will not work this evening,’ said Saeeda Bai in a practical tone, thinking of her commitments.

  ‘Then I won’t go,’ cried Maan. ‘I can’t. How can I? Anyway, we haven’t consulted Rasheed.’

  ‘Rasheed will be honoured to give you hospitality. He respects your father very much—no doubt because of his skill as a woodcutter—and, of course, he respects you very much—no doubt because of your skill as a calligrapher.’

  ‘I must see you tonight,’ insisted Maan. ‘I must. What woodcutter?’ he added, frowning.

  Saeeda Bai sighed. ‘It is very difficult to cut down a banyan tree, Dagh Sahib, especially one that has been rooted so long in the soil of this province. But I can hear your father’s impatient axe on the last of its trunks. Soon it will be torn from the earth. The snakes will be driven from its roots and the termites burned with its rotten wood. But what will happen to the birds and monkeys who sang or chattered in its branches? Tell me that, Dagh Sahib. This is how things stand with us today.’ Then, seeing Maan look crestfallen, she added, with another sigh: ‘Come at one o’clock in the morning. I will tell your friend the watchman to make the Shahenshah’s entry a triumphal one.’

  Maan felt that she might be laughing at him. But the thought of seeing her tonight cheered him up instantly, even if he knew she was merely sweetening a bitter pill.

  ‘Of course, I can’t promise anything,’ Saeeda Bai went on. ‘If he tells you I am asleep, you must not make a scene or wake up the neighbourhood.’

  It was Maan’s turn to sigh:

  ‘If Mir so loudly goes on weeping,

  How can his neighbour go on sleeping?’

  But, as it happened, everything worked out well. Abdur Rasheed agreed to house Maan in his village and to continue to teach
him Urdu. Mahesh Kapoor, who had been afraid that Maan might attempt to defy him by staying in Brahmpur, was not altogether displeased that he would not be going to Banaras, for he knew what Maan did not—that the cloth business was doing pretty well without him. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor (though she would miss him) was glad that he would be in the charge of a strict and sober teacher and away from ‘that’. Maan did at least receive the ecstatic sop of a last passionate night with Saeeda Bai. And Saeeda Bai heaved a sigh of relief tinged only slightly with regret when morning came.

  A few hours later a glum Maan, fretting and exasperated at being so neatly pincered by his father and his beloved, together with Rasheed, who was conscious for the moment only of the pleasure of getting out of congested Brahmpur into the openness of the countryside, were on board a narrow-gauge train that swung in a painfully slow and halting arc towards Rudhia District and Rasheed’s home village.

  6.25

  Tasneem did not realize till Rasheed had gone how much she had enjoyed her Arabic lessons. Everything else she did was related to the household, and opened no windows on to a larger world. But her serious young teacher, with his insistence on the importance of grammar and his refusal to compromise with her tendency to take flight when faced with difficulties, had made her aware that she had within herself an ability for application that she had not known. She admired him, too, because he was making his own way in the world without support from his family. And when he refused to answer her sister’s summons because he was explaining a passage from the Quran to her, she had greatly approved of his sense of principle.

  All this admiration was silent. Rasheed had never once indicated that he was interested in her in any way other than as a teacher. Their hands had never touched accidentally over a book. That this should not have happened over a span of weeks spoke of deliberateness on his part, for in the ordinary innocent course of things it was bound to have occurred by chance, even if they had instantly drawn back afterwards.

  Now he would be out of Brahmpur for a month, and Tasneem found herself feeling sad, far sadder than the loss of Arabic lessons would have accounted for. Ishaq Khan, sensing her mood, and the cause for it as well, tried to cheer her up.

  ‘Listen, Tasneem.’

  ‘Yes, Ishaq Bhai?’ Tasneem replied, a little listlessly.

  ‘Why do you insist on that “Bhai”?’ said Ishaq.

  Tasneem was silent.

  ‘All right, call me brother if you wish—just get out of that tearful mood.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Tasneem. ‘I’m feeling sad.’

  ‘Poor Tasneem. He’ll be back,’ said Ishaq, trying not to sound anything but sympathetic.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of him,’ said Tasneem quickly. ‘I was thinking that I’ll have nothing useful to do now except read novels and cut vegetables. Nothing useful to learn—’

  ‘Well, you could teach, even if not learn,’ said Ishaq Khan, attempting to sound bright.

  ‘Teach?’

  ‘Teach Miya Mitthu how to speak. The first few months of life are very important in the education of a parakeet.’

  Tasneem brightened up for a second. Then she said: ‘Apa has appropriated my parakeet. The cage is always in her room, seldom in mine.’ She sighed. ‘It seems,’ she added under her breath, ‘that everything of mine becomes hers.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Ishaq Khan gallantly.

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t,’ said Tasneem. ‘Your hands—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not as crippled as all that.’

  ‘But it must be bad. Whenever I see you practising, I can see how painful it is from your face.’

  ‘What if it is?’ said Ishaq Khan. ‘I have to play and I have to practise.’

  ‘Why don’t you show it to a doctor?’

  ‘It’ll go away.’

  ‘Still—there’s no harm in having it seen.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ishaq with a smile. ‘I will, because you’ve asked me to.’

  Sometimes when Ishaq accompanied Saeeda Bai these days it was all he could do not to cry out in pain. This trouble in his wrists had grown worse. What was strange was that it now affected both his wrists, despite the fact that his two hands—the right on the bow and the left on the strings—performed very different functions.

  Since his livelihood and that of the younger brothers whom he supported depended on his hands, he was extremely anxious. As for the transfer of his brother-in-law: Ishaq had not dared to try to get an interview with the Station Director—who would certainly have heard about what had happened in the canteen and who would have been very unfavourably disposed towards him, especially if the great Ustad himself had made it a point to express his displeasure.

  Ishaq Khan remembered his father saying to him, ‘Practise at least four hours every day. Clerks push their pens in offices for longer than that, and you cannot insult your art by offering less.’ Ishaq’s father would sometimes—in the middle of a conversation—take Ishaq’s left hand and look at it carefully; if the string-abraded grooves in the fingernails showed signs of recent wear, he would say, ‘Good.’ Otherwise he would merely continue with the conversation, not visibly but palpably disappointed. Of late, because of the sometimes unbearable pain in the tendons of his wrists, Ishaq Khan had been unable to practise for more than an hour or two a day. But the moment the pain let up he increased the regimen.

  Sometimes it was difficult to concentrate on other matters. Lifting a cage, stirring his tea, opening a door, every action reminded him of his hands. He could turn to no one for help. If he told Saeeda Bai how painful it had become to accompany her, especially in fast passages, would he be able to blame her if she looked for someone else?

  ‘It is not sensible to practise so much. You should rest—and use some balm,’ murmured Tasneem.

  ‘Do you think I don’t want to rest—do you think it’s easier for me to practise—’

  ‘But you must use proper medicine: it is very unwise not to,’ said Tasneem.

  ‘Go and get some for me, then—’ said Ishaq Khan with sudden and uncharacteristic sharpness. ‘Everyone sympathizes, everyone advises, no one helps. Go—go—’

  He stopped dead, and covered his eyes with his right hand. He did not want to open them.

  He imagined Tasneem’s startled face, her deer-like eyes starting with tears. If pain has made me so selfish, he thought, I will have to rest and restore myself, even if it means risking my work.

  Aloud, after he had collected himself, he said: ‘Tasneem, you will have to help me. Talk to your sister and tell her what I can’t.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll speak to her later. I cannot find other work in my present state. She will have to keep me on even if I cannot play for a while.’

  Tasneem said, ‘Yes.’ Her voice betrayed that she was, as he had thought, crying silently.

  ‘Please don’t take what I said badly,’ continued Ishaq. ‘I’m not myself. I will rest.’ He shook his head from side to side.

  Tasneem put her hand on his shoulder. He became very still, and remained so even when she took it away.

  ‘I’ll talk to Apa,’ she said. ‘Should I go now?’

  ‘Yes. No, stay here for a while.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ said Tasneem.

  ‘I don’t want to talk,’ said Ishaq. After a pause he looked up and saw her face. It was tear-stained.

  He looked down again, then said: ‘May I use that pen?’

  Tasneem handed him the wooden pen with its broad split bamboo nib that Rasheed made her use for her calligraphy. The letters it wrote were large, almost childishly so; the dots above the letters came out like little rhombuses.

  Ishaq Khan thought for a minute while she watched him. Then, drawing to himself a large sheet of lined paper—which she used for her exercises—he wrote a few lines with some effort, and handed them to her wordlessly even before the ink was dry:

  Dear hands, that cause me so much pain,

  When can I gain your use again?

  When can we once a
gain be friends?

  Forgive me, and I’ll make amends.

  Never again will I enforce

  My fiat, disciplined and coarse

  Without consulting both of you

  On any work we need to do,

  Nor cause you seizure or distress

  But win your trust through gentleness.

  He looked at her while her lovely, liquid eyes moved from right to left, noticing with a kind of painful pleasure the flush that came to her face as they rested on the final couplet.

  6.26

  When Tasneem entered her sister’s bedroom, she found her sitting in front of the mirror applying kajal to her eyelids.

  Most people have an expression that they reserve exclusively for looking at themselves in the mirror. Some pout, others arch their eyebrows, still others look superciliously down their noses at themselves. Saeeda Bai had a whole range of mirror faces. Just as her comments to her parakeet ran the gamut of emotions from passion to annoyance, so too did these expressions. When Tasneem entered, she was moving her head slowly from side to side with a dreamy air. It would have been difficult to guess that her thick black hair had just revealed a single white one, and that she was looking around for others.

  A silver paan container was resting among the vials and phials on her dressing table and Saeeda Bai was eating a couple of paans laced with the fragrant, semi-solid tobacco known as kimam. When Tasneem appeared in the mirror and their eyes met, the first thought that struck Saeeda Bai was that she, Saeeda, was getting old and that in five years she would be forty. Her expression changed to one of melancholy, and she turned back to her own face in the mirror, looking at herself in the iris, first of one eye, then of the other. Then, recalling the guest whom she had invited to the house in the evening, she smiled at herself in affectionate welcome.