A Suitable Boy, Page 51

  ‘What’s the matter, Tasneem, tell me,’ she said—somewhat indistinctly, because of the paan.

  ‘Apa,’ said Tasneem nervously, ‘it’s about Ishaq.’

  ‘Has he been teasing you?’ said Saeeda Bai a little sharply, misinterpreting Tasneem’s nervousness. ‘I’ll speak to him. Send him here.’

  ‘No, no, Apa, it’s this,’ said Tasneem, and handed her sister Ishaq’s poem.

  After reading it through Saeeda Bai set it down, and started toying with the only lipstick on the dressing table. She never used lipstick, as her lips had a natural redness which was enhanced by paan, but it had been given to her a long time ago by the guest who would be coming this evening, and to whom she was, in a mild sort of way, sentimentally attached.

  ‘What do you think, Apa?’ said Tasneem. ‘Say something.’

  ‘It’s well expressed and badly written,’ said Saeeda Bai, ‘but what does it mean? He’s not going on about his hands, is he?’

  ‘They are giving him a lot of pain,’ said Tasneem, ‘and he’s afraid that if he speaks to you, you’ll ask him to leave.’

  Saeeda Bai, remembering with a smile how she had got Maan to leave, was silent. She was about to apply a drop of perfume to her wrist when Bibbo came in with a great bustle.

  ‘Oh-hoh, what is it now?’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘Go out, you wretched girl, can’t I have a moment of peace? Have you fed the parakeet?’

  ‘Yes, Begum Sahiba,’ said Bibbo impertinently. ‘But what shall I tell the cook to feed you and your guest this evening?’

  Saeeda Bai addressed Bibbo’s reflection in the mirror sternly:

  ‘Wretched girl, you will never amount to anything—even after having stayed here so long you have not acquired the slightest sense of etiquette or discrimination.’

  Bibbo looked unconvincingly penitent. Saeeda Bai went on: ‘Find out what is growing in the kitchen garden and come back after five minutes.’

  When Bibbo had disappeared, Saeeda Bai said to Tasneem:

  ‘So he’s sent you to speak to me, has he?’

  ‘No,’ said Tasneem. ‘I came myself. I thought he needed help.’

  ‘You’re sure he hasn’t been misbehaving?’

  Tasneem shook her head.

  ‘Maybe he can write a ghazal or two for me to sing,’ said Saeeda Bai after a pause. ‘I’ll have to put him to some sort of work. Provisionally, at least.’ She applied a drop of perfume. ‘I suppose his hand works well enough to allow him to write?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tasneem happily.

  ‘Then let’s leave it at that,’ said Saeeda Bai.

  But in her mind she was thinking about a permanent replacement. She knew she couldn’t support Ishaq endlessly—or till some indefinite time when his hands decided to behave.

  ‘Thank you, Apa,’ said Tasneem, smiling.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ said Saeeda Bai crossly. ‘I am used to taking all the world’s troubles on to my own head. Now I’ll have to find a sarangi player till your Ishaq Bhai is capable of wrestling with his sarangi again, and I also have to find someone to teach you Arabic—’

  ‘Oh, no, no,’ said Tasneem quickly, ‘you needn’t do that.’

  ‘I needn’t do that?’ said Saeeda Bai, turning around to face not Tasneem’s image but Tasneem herself. ‘I thought you enjoyed your Arabic lessons.’

  Bibbo had bounced back into the room again. Saeeda Bai looked at her impatiently and cried, ‘Yes, yes, Bibbo? What is it? I told you to come back after five minutes.’

  ‘But I’ve found out what’s ripe in the back garden,’ said Bibbo enthusiastically.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Saeeda Bai, defeated. ‘What is there apart from ladies’ fingers? Has the karela begun?’

  ‘Yes, Begum Sahiba, and there is even a pumpkin.’

  ‘Well, then, tell the cook to make kababs as usual—shami kababs—and some vegetable of her choice—and let her make mutton with karela as well.’

  Tasneem made a slight grimace, which was not lost on Saeeda Bai.

  ‘If you find the karela too bitter, you don’t have to eat it,’ she said in an impatient voice. ‘No one is forcing you. I work my heart out to keep you in comfort, and you don’t appreciate it. And oh yes,’ she said, turning to Bibbo again, ‘let’s have some phirni afterwards.’

  ‘But there’s so little sugar left from our ration,’ cried Bibbo.

  ‘Get it on the black market,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘Bilgrami Sahib is very fond of phirni.’

  Then she dismissed both Tasneem and Bibbo, and continued with her toilette in peace.

  The guest whom she was expecting that evening was an old friend. He was a doctor, a general practitioner about ten years older than her, good-looking and cultivated. He was unmarried, and had proposed to her a number of times. Though at one stage he had been a client, he was now a friend. She felt no passion for him, but was grateful that he was always there when she needed him. She had not seen him for about three months now, and that was why she had invited him over this evening. He was bound to propose to her again, and this would cheer her up. Her refusal, being equally inevitable, would not upset him unduly.

  She looked around the room, and her eyes fell on the framed picture of the woman looking out through an archway into a mysterious garden.

  By now, she thought, Dagh Sahib will have reached his destination. I did not really want to send him off, but I did. He did not really want to go, but he did. Well, it is all for the best.

  Dagh Sahib, however, would not have agreed with this assessment.

  6.27

  Ishaq Khan waited for Ustad Majeed Khan not far from his house. When he came out, carrying a small string bag in his hand, walking gravely along, Ishaq followed him at a distance. He turned towards Tarbuz ka Bazaar, past the road leading to the mosque, then into the comparatively open area of the local vegetable market. He moved from stall to stall to see if there was something that interested him. It was good to see tomatoes still plentiful and at a tolerable price so late in the season. Besides, they made the market look more cheerful. It was a pity that the season for spinach was almost over; it was one of his favourite vegetables. And carrots, cauliflowers, cabbages, all were virtually gone till next winter. Even those few that were available were dry, dingy, and dear, and had none of the flavour of their peak.

  It was with thoughts such as these that the maestro was occupied that morning when he heard a voice say, respectfully:

  ‘Adaab arz, Ustad Sahib.’

  Ustad Majeed Khan turned to see Ishaq. A single glance at the young man was sufficient to remove the ease of his meditations and to remind him of the insults that he had had to face in the canteen. His face grew dark with the memory; he picked up two or three tomatoes from the stall, and asked their price.

  ‘I have a request to make of you.’ It was Ishaq Khan again.

  ‘Yes?’ The contempt in the great musician’s voice was unmistakable. As he recalled, it was after he had offered his help to the young man in some footling matter that the whole exchange had occurred.

  ‘I also have an apology to make.’

  ‘Please do not waste my time.’

  ‘I have followed you here from your house. I need your help. I am in trouble. I need work to support myself and my younger brothers, and I cannot get it. After that day, All India Radio has not called me even once to perform.’

  The maestro shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I beg of you, Ustad Sahib, whatever you think of me, do not ruin my family. You knew my father and grandfather. Excuse any mistake that I may have made for their sakes.’

  ‘That you may have made?’

  ‘That I have made. I do not know what came over me.’

  ‘I am not ruining you. Go in peace.’

  ‘Ustad Sahib, since that day I have had no work, and my sister’s husband has heard nothing about his transfer from Lucknow. I dare not approach the Director.’

  ‘But you dare approach me. You follow me from my house—’
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  ‘Only to get the chance to speak to you. You might understand—as a fellow-musician.’ The Ustad winced. ‘And of late my hands have been giving me trouble. I showed them to a doctor, but—’

  ‘I had heard,’ said the maestro dryly, but did not mention where.

  ‘My employer has made it clear to me that I cannot be supported for my own sake much longer.’

  ‘Your employer!’ The great singer was about to walk on in disgust when he added: ‘Go and thank God for that. Throw yourself on His mercy.’

  ‘I am throwing myself on yours,’ said Ishaq Khan desperately.

  ‘I have said nothing for or against you to the Station Director. What happened that morning I shall put down to an aberration in your brain. If your work has fallen off, that is not my doing. In any case, with your hands, what do you propose to do? You are very proud of your long hours of practice. My advice to you is to practise less.’

  This had been Tasneem’s advice as well. Ishaq Khan nodded miserably. There was no hope, and since his pride had already suffered through his desperation, he felt that he could lose nothing by completing the apology he had begun and that he had come to believe he should make.

  ‘On another matter,’ he said, ‘if I may presume on your further indulgence—I have been wishing for a long time to apologize for what I know is not forgivable. That morning, Ustad Sahib, the reason why I made so bold as to sit at your table in the canteen was because I had heard your Todi just a little earlier.’

  The maestro, who had been examining the vegetables, turned towards him slightly.

  ‘I had been sitting beneath the neem tree outside with those friends of mine. One of them had a radio. We were entranced, at least I was. I thought I would find some way of saying so to you. But then things went wrong, and other thoughts took over.’

  He could not say any more by way of apology without, he felt, bringing in other matters—such as the memory of his own father, which he felt that the Ustad had demeaned.

  Ustad Majeed Khan nodded his head almost imperceptibly by way of acknowledgement. He looked at the young man’s hands, noticing the worn groove in the fingernail, and for a second he also found himself wondering why he did not have a bag to carry his vegetables home in.

  ‘So—you liked my Todi,’ he said.

  ‘Yours—or God’s,’ said Ishaq Khan. ‘I felt that the great Tansen himself would have listened rapt to that rendering of his raag. But since then I have never been able to listen to you.’

  The maestro frowned, but did not deign to ask Ishaq what he meant by that last remark.

  ‘I will be practising Todi this morning,’ said Ustad Majeed Khan. ‘Follow me after this.’

  Ishaq’s face expressed complete disbelief; it was as if heaven had fallen into his hands. He forgot his hands, his pride, the financial desperation that had forced him to speak to Ustad Majeed Khan. He merely listened as if in a dream to the Ustad’s further conversation with the vegetable seller:

  ‘How much are these?’

  ‘Two and a half annas per pao,’ replied the vegetable seller.

  ‘Beyond Subzipur you can get them for one and a half annas.’

  ‘Bhai Sahib, these are not the prices of Subzipur but of Chowk.’

  ‘Very high, these prices of yours.’

  ‘Oh, we had a child last year—since then my prices have gone up.’ The vegetable seller, seated calmly on the ground on a bit of jute matting, looked up at the Ustad.

  Ustad Majeed Khan did not smile at the vendor’s quips. ‘Two annas per pao—that’s it.’

  ‘I have to earn my meals from you, Sir, not from the charity of a gurudwara.’

  ‘All right—all right—’ And Ustad Majeed Khan threw him a couple of coins.

  After buying a bit of ginger and some chillies, the Ustad decided to get a few tindas.

  ‘Mind that you give me small ones.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘And these tomatoes—they are soft.’

  ‘Soft, Sir?’

  ‘Yes, look—’ The Ustad took them off the scales. ‘Weigh these ones instead.’ He rummaged around among the selection.

  ‘They wouldn’t have gone soft in a week—but whatever you say, Sir.’

  ‘Weigh them properly,’ growled the Ustad. ‘If you keep putting weights on one pan, I can keep putting tomatoes on the other. My pan should sink in the balance.’

  Suddenly, the Ustad’s attention was caught by a couple of cauliflowers which looked comparatively fresh, not like the stunted outriders of the season. But when the vegetable seller named the price, he was appalled.

  ‘Don’t you fear God?’

  ‘For you, Sir, I have quoted a special price.’

  ‘What do you mean, for me? It’s what you charge everyone, you rogue, I am certain. Special price—’

  ‘Ah, but these cauliflowers are special—you don’t require oil to fry them.’

  Ishaq smiled slightly, but Ustad Majeed Khan simply said to the local wit:

  ‘Huh! Give me this one.’

  Ishaq said: ‘Let me carry them, Ustad Sahib.’

  Ustad Majeed Khan gave Ishaq the bag of vegetables to carry, forgetful of his hands. On the way home he did not say anything. Ishaq walked along quietly.

  At his door, Ustad Majeed Khan said in a loud voice: ‘There is someone with me.’ There was a sound of flustered female voices and then of people leaving the front room. They entered. The tanpura was in a corner. Ustad Majeed Khan told Ishaq to put the vegetables down and to wait for him. Ishaq remained standing, but looked about him. The room was full of cheap knick-knacks and tasteless furniture. There could not have been a greater contrast to Saeeda Bai’s immaculate outer chamber.

  Ustad Majeed Khan came back in, having washed his face and hands. He told Ishaq to sit down, and tuned the tanpura for a while. Finally, satisfied, he started to practise in Raag Todi.

  There was no tabla player, and Ustad Majeed Khan began to sense his way around the raag in a freer, less rhythmic but more intense manner than Ishaq Khan had ever heard from him before. He always began his public performances not with a free alaap such as this but with a very slow composition in a long rhythmic cycle which allowed him a liberty that was almost, but not quite, comparable. The flavour of these few minutes was so startlingly different from those other great performances that Ishaq was enraptured. He closed his eyes, and the room ceased to exist; and then, after a while, himself; and finally even the singer.

  He did not know how long he had been sitting there when he heard Ustad Majeed Khan saying:

  ‘Now, you strum it.’

  He opened his eyes. The maestro, sitting bolt upright, indicated the tanpura that was lying before him.

  Ishaq’s hands did not cause him any pain as he turned it towards himself and began to strum the four wires, tuned perfectly to the open and hypnotic combination of tonic and dominant. He assumed that the maestro was going to continue his practice.

  ‘Now, sing this after me.’ And the Ustad sang a phrase.

  Ishaq Khan was literally dumbstruck.

  ‘What is taking you so long?’ asked the Ustad sternly, in the tone known so well to his students at the Haridas College of Music.

  Ishaq Khan sang the phrase.

  The Ustad continued to offer him phrases, at first brief, and then increasingly long and complex. Ishaq repeated them to the best of his ability, at first with unmusical hesitancy but after a while entirely forgetting himself in the surge and ebb of the music.

  ‘Sarangi-wallahs are good at copying,’ said the Ustad thoughtfully. ‘But there is something in you that goes beyond that.’

  So astonished was Ishaq that his hands stopped strumming the tanpura.

  The Ustad was silent for a while. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a cheap clock. Ustad Majeed Khan looked at it, as if conscious for the first time of its presence, then turned his gaze towards Ishaq.

  It struck him that possibly, but only just possi
bly, he may have found in Ishaq that disciple whom he had looked for now for years—someone to whom he could pass on his art, someone who, unlike his own frog-voiced son, loved music with a passion, who had a grounding in performance, whose voice was not displeasing, whose sense of pitch and ornament was exceptional, and who had that additional element of indefinable expressivity, even when he copied his own phrases, which was the soul of music. But originality in composition—did he possess that—or at least the germ of such originality? Only time would tell—months, perhaps years, of time.

  ‘Come again tomorrow, but at seven in the morning,’ said the Ustad, dismissing him. Ishaq Khan nodded slowly, then stood up to leave.

  Part Seven

  7.1

  Lata saw the envelope on the salver. Arun’s servant had brought the mail in just before breakfast and laid it on the dining table. As soon as she saw the letter she took in her breath sharply. She even glanced around the dining room. No one else had yet entered. Breakfast was an erratic meal in this household.

  Lata knew Kabir’s handwriting from the note that he had scribbled to her during the meeting of the Brahmpur Literary Society. She had not expected him to write to her, and could not think how he had obtained her address in Calcutta. She had not wanted him to write. She did not want to hear from him or about him. Now that she looked back she saw that she had been happy before she had met him: anxious about her exams perhaps, worried about a few small differences she may have had with her mother or a friend, troubled about this constant talk of finding a suitable boy for her, but not miserable as she had been during this so-called holiday so suddenly enforced by her mother.

  There was a paperknife on the salver. Lata picked it up, then stood undecided. Her mother might come in at any moment, and—as she usually did—ask Lata whom the letter was from and what it said. She put the knife down and picked the letter up.

  Arun entered. He was wearing a red-and-black striped tie over his starched white shirt, and was carrying his jacket in one hand and holding the Statesman in the other. He draped the jacket across the back of his chair, folded the newspaper to give him convenient access to the crossword, greeted Lata affectionately, and riffled through the post.