A Suitable Boy, Page 58

  Robi Babu, R. Tagore, O, he’s such a bore!

  O, he’s su-uch a bore.

  Such a, such a bore.

  Such a, such a bore,

  O, he’s such a, O, he’s such a, O, he’s such a bore.

  Robi Babu, R. Tagore, O, he’s such a bore!’

  ‘Stop! Stop it at once! Kakoli, do you hear me?’ cried Mrs Chatterji, appalled. ‘Stop it! How dare you! You stupid, shameless, shallow girl.’

  ‘Really, Ma,’ continued Kakoli, ‘reading him is like trying to swim breaststroke through treacle. You should hear Ila Chattopadhyay on your Robi Babu. Flowers and moonlight and nuptial beds. . . .’

  ‘Ma,’ said Dipankar, ‘why do you let them get to you? You should take the best in the words and mould them to your own spirit. That way, you can attain stillness.’

  Mrs Chatterji was unsoothed. Stillness was very far from her.

  ‘May I get up? I’ve finished my breakfast,’ said Tapan.

  ‘Of course, Tapan,’ said his father, ‘I’ll see about the car.’

  ‘Ila Chattopadhyay is a very ignorant girl, I’ve always thought so,’ burst out Mrs Chatterji. ‘As for her books—I think that the more people write, the less they think. And she was dressed in a completely crushed sari last night.’

  ‘She’s hardly a girl any more, dear,’ said her husband. ‘She’s quite an elderly woman—must be at least fifty-five.’

  Mrs Chatterji glanced with annoyance at her husband. Fifty-five was hardly elderly.

  ‘And one should heed her opinions,’ added Amit. ‘She’s quite hard-headed. She was advising Dipankar yesterday that there was no future in economics. She appeared to know.’

  ‘She always appears to know,’ said Mrs Chatterji. ‘Anyway, she’s from your father’s side of the family,’ she added irrelevantly. ‘And if she doesn’t appreciate Gurudeb she must have a heart of stone.’

  ‘You can’t blame her,’ said Amit. ‘After a life so full of tragedy anyone would become hard.’

  ‘What tragedy?’ asked Mrs Chatterji.

  ‘Well, when she was four,’ said Amit, ‘her mother slapped her—it was quite traumatic—and then things went on in that vein. When she was twelve she came second in an exam. . . . It hardens you.’

  ‘Where did you get such mad children?’ Mrs Chatterji asked her husband.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied.

  ‘If you had spent more time with them instead of going to the club every day, they wouldn’t have turned out this way,’ said Mrs Chatterji in a rare rebuke; but she was overwrought.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Ten to one it’s for Kuku,’ said Amit.

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘I suppose you can tell from the kind of ring, hunh, Kuku?’

  ‘It’s for Kuku,’ cried Tapan from the door.

  ‘Oh. Who’s it from?’ asked Kuku, and poked her tongue out at Amit.

  ‘Krishnan.’

  ‘Tell him I can’t come to the phone. I’ll call back later,’ said Kuku.

  ‘Shall I tell him you’re having a bath? Or sleeping? Or out in the car? Or all three?’ Tapan grinned.

  ‘Please, Tapan,’ said Kuku, ‘be a sweet boy and make some excuse. Yes, say I’ve gone out.’

  Mrs Chatterji was shocked into exclaiming: ‘But, Kuku, that’s a barefaced lie.’

  ‘I know, Ma,’ said Kuku, ‘but he’s so tedious, what can I do?’

  ‘Yes, what can one do when one has a hundred best friends?’ muttered Amit, looking mournful.

  ‘Just because nobody loves you—’ cried Kuku, stung to fierceness.

  ‘Lots of people love me,’ said Amit, ‘don’t you, Dipankar?’

  ‘Yes, Dada,’ said Dipankar, who thought it best to be simply factual.

  ‘And all my fans love me,’ added Amit.

  ‘That’s because they don’t know you,’ said Kakoli.

  ‘I won’t contest that point,’ said Amit; ‘and, talking of unseen fans, I’d better get ready for His Excellency. Excuse me.’

  Amit got up to go, and so did Dipankar; and Mr Justice Chatterji settled the use of the car between the two main claimants, while keeping Tapan’s interests in mind as well.

  7.17

  About fifteen minutes after the Ambassador was due to arrive at the house for their one-hour talk, Amit was informed by telephone that he would be ‘a little late’. That would be fine, said Amit.

  About half an hour after he was due to arrive, Amit was told that he might be a little later still. This annoyed him somewhat, as he could have done some writing in the meantime. ‘Has the Ambassador arrived in Calcutta?’ he asked the man on the phone. ‘Oh, yes,’ said the voice. ‘He arrived yesterday afternoon. He is just running a little late. But he left for your house ten minutes ago. He should be there in the next five minutes.’

  Since Biswas Babu was due to arrive soon and Amit did not want to keep the family’s old clerk waiting, he was irritated. But he swallowed his irritation, and muttered something polite.

  Fifteen minutes later, Señor Bernardo Lopez arrived at the door in a great black car. He came with a lively young woman whose first name was Anna-Maria. He was extremely apologetic and full of cultural goodwill; she on the other hand was brisk and energetic and extracted a pocketbook from her handbag the moment they sat down.

  During the flow of his ponderous and gentle words, all slowly weighed, deliberated and qualified before they could be expressed, the Ambassador looked everywhere but at Amit: he looked at his teacup, at his own flexed or drumming fingers, at Anna-Maria (to whom he nodded reassuringly), and at a globe in a corner of the room. From time to time he would smile. He pronounced ‘very’ with a ‘b’.

  Caressing his pointed bald head nervously and gravely, and conscious of the fact that he was an inexcusable forty-five minutes late, he attempted to come straight to the point:

  ‘Well, Mr Chatterji, Mr Amit Chatterji, if I may make so bold, I am often called upon in my official duties, as you know, being Ambassador and so on, which I have been for about a year now—unfortunately, with us it is not permanent, or indeed definite; there is an element of, I might even say, or it would perhaps not be unfair to say (yes, that is better put, if I might be allowed to praise myself for a locution in another language) that there is an element of arbitrariness in it, in our stay in a particular place, I mean; unlike you writers who . . . but anyway, what I meant was that I would like to put to you one question directly, which is to say, forgive me, but as you know I have arrived here forty-five minutes in tardiness and have taken up forty-five minutes of your good time (of your good self, as I notice some say here), partly because I set out very tardily (I came here directly from a friend’s home here in this remarkable city, to which I hope you will come sometime when you are more at leisure—or to Delhi needlessly—by which I mean rather, needless to say, to our own home—though you must of course tell me if I am imposing myself on you) but I asked my secretary to inform you of that (I hope he did, yes?), but partly because our driver led us to Hazra Road, a, I understand, very natural mistake, because the streets are almost parallel and close to each other, where we met a gentleman who was kind enough to redirect us to this beautiful house—I speak as an appreciator of not just the architecture but the way you have preserved its atmosphere, its perhaps ingenuity, no, ingenuousness, even virginity—but as I said I am (to come to the point) late, and indeed forty-five, well, what I must now ask you as I have asked others in the course of my official duties, although this is by no means an official duty but one entirely of pleasure (though I indeed do have something to ask of you, or rather, ask you about), I have to ask you as I ask other officials who have schedules to keep, not that you are official, but, well, a busy man: do you have any appointment after this hour that you have allotted me, or can we perhaps exceed . . . yes? Do I make myself clear?’

  Amit, terrified that he might have to face more of this, said hastily: ‘Alas, Your Excellency will forgive me, but I have a pressing enga
gement in fifteen minutes, no, forgive me, five minutes now, with an old colleague of my father’s.’

  ‘Tomorrow then?’ asked Anna-Maria.

  ‘No, alas, I am going to Palashnagar tomorrow,’ said Amit, naming the fictitious town in which his novel was set. He reflected that this was no more than the truth.

  ‘A pity, a pity,’ said Bernardo Lopez. ‘But we still have five minutes, so let me ask simply this, a long puzzlement to me: What is all this about “being” and birds and boats and the river of life—that we find in Indian poetry, the great Tagore unexcluded? But let me say in qualification that by “we” I mean merely we of the West, if the South may be subsumed in the West, and by “find” I mean that which is as if to say that Columbus found America which we know needed no finding, for there were those there for whom “finding” would be more insulting than superfluous, and of course by Indian poetry, I mean such poetry as has been made accessible to us, which is to say, such as has been traduced by translation. In that light, can you enlighten me? Us?’

  ‘I will try,’ said Amit.

  ‘You see?’ said Bernardo Lopez with mild triumph to Anna-Maria, who had put down her notebook. ‘The unanswerables are not unanswerable in the lands of the East. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, and when it is true of a whole nation, it makes one marvel the more. Truly when I came here one year ago I had a sense—’

  But Bahadur now entered, and informed Amit that Biswas Babu was waiting for him in his father’s study.

  ‘Forgive me, Your Excellency,’ said Amit, getting up, ‘it appears as though my father’s colleague has arrived. But I shall give earnest thought to what you have said. And I am deeply honoured and grateful.’

  ‘And I, young man, though young here is merely to say that the earth has gone around the sun less often since your inception, er, conception, than mine (and is that to say anything at all?), I too will bear in mind the result of this confabulation, and consider it “in vacant or in pensive mood”, as the Poet of the Lake has chosen to express it. Its intensity, the urgings I have felt during this brief interview, which have led me upwards from nescience to science—yet is that in truth an upward movement? Will time even tell us that? Does time tell us anything at all?—such I will cherish.’

  ‘Yes, we are indebted,’ said Anna-Maria, picking up her notebook.

  As the great black car spirited them away, no longer running behind time, Amit stood on the porch step waving slowly.

  Though the fluffy white cat Pillow, led on a leash by his grandfather’s servant, crossed his field of vision, Amit did not follow it with his eyes, as he normally did.

  He had a headache, and was in no mood to talk to anyone. But Biswas Babu had come specially to see him, probably to make him see sense and take up the law again, and Amit felt that his father’s old clerk, whom everyone treated with great affection and respect, should not be required to sit and cool his heels longer than necessary—or rather, shake his knees, which was a habit with him.

  7.18

  What made matters slightly uncomfortable was that though Amit’s Bengali was fine and Biswas Babu’s spoken English was not, he had insisted—ever since Amit had returned from England ‘laden with laurels’ as he put it—on speaking to him almost exclusively in English. For the others, this privilege was only occasional; Amit had always been Biswas Babu’s favourite, and he deserved a special effort.

  Though it was summer, Biswas Babu was dressed in a coat and dhoti. He had an umbrella with him and a black bag. Bahadur had given him a cup of tea, which he was stirring thoughtfully while looking around at the room in which he had worked for so many years—both for Amit’s father and for his grandfather. When Amit entered, he stood up.

  After respectful greetings to Biswas Babu, Amit sat down at his father’s large mahogany desk. Biswas Babu was sitting on the other side of it. After the usual questions about how everyone was doing and whether either could perform any service for the other, the conversation petered out.

  Biswas Babu then helped himself to a small amount of snuff. He placed a bit in each nostril and sniffed. There was clearly something weighing on his mind but he was reluctant to bring it up.

  ‘Now, Biswas Babu, I have an idea of what has brought you here,’ said Amit.

  ‘You have?’ said Biswas Babu, startled, and looking rather guilty.

  ‘But I have to tell you that I don’t think that even your advocacy is going to work.’

  ‘No?’ said Biswas Babu, leaning forward. His knees started vibrating rapidly in and out.

  ‘You see, Biswas Babu, I know you feel I have let the family down.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Biswas Babu.

  ‘You see, my grandfather went in for it, and my father, but I haven’t. And you probably think it is very peculiar. I know you are disappointed in me.’

  ‘It is not peculiar, it is just late. But you are probably making hail while the sun shines, and sowing oats. That is why I have come.’

  ‘Sowing oats?’ Amit was puzzled.

  ‘But Meenakshi has rolled the ball, now you must follow it.’

  It suddenly struck Amit that Biswas Babu was talking not about the law but about marriage. He began to laugh.

  ‘So it is about this, Biswas Babu, that you have come to talk to me?’ he said. ‘And you are speaking to me about the matter, not to my father.’

  ‘I also spoke to your father. But that was one year ago, and where is the progress?’

  Amit, despite his headache, was smiling.

  Biswas Babu was not offended. He told Amit:

  ‘Man without life companion is either god or beast. Now you can decide where to place yourself. Unless you are above such thoughts. . . .’

  Amit confessed that he wasn’t.

  Very few were, said Biswas Babu. Perhaps only people like Dipankar, with his spiritual leanings, were able to renounce such yearnings. That made it all the more imperative that Amit should continue the family line.

  ‘Don’t believe it, Biswas Babu,’ said Amit. ‘It is all Scotch and sannyaas with Dipankar.’

  But Biswas Babu was not to be distracted from his purpose. ‘I was thinking about you three days ago,’ he said. ‘You are so old—twenty-nine or more—and are still issueless. How can you give joy to your parents? You owe to them. Even Mrs Biswas agrees. They are so proud of your achievement.’

  ‘But Meenakshi has given them Aparna.’

  Obviously a non-Chatterji like Aparna, and a girl at that, did not count for much in Biswas Babu’s eyes. He shook his head and pursed his lips in disagreement.

  ‘In my heart-deep opinion—’ he began, and stopped, so that Amit could encourage him to continue.

  ‘What do you advise me to do, Biswas Babu?’ asked Amit obligingly. ‘When my parents were keen that I should meet that girl Shormishtha, you made your objections known to my father, and he passed them on to me.’

  ‘Sorry to say, she had tinted reputation,’ said Biswas Babu, frowning at the corner of the desk. This conversation was proving more difficult than he had imagined it would. ‘I did not want trouble for you. Inquiries were necessary.’

  ‘And so you made them.’

  ‘Yes, Amit Babu. Now maybe about law you know best. But I know about early life and youth. It is hard to restrain, and then there is danger.’

  ‘I am not sure I understand.’

  After a pause Biswas Babu went on. He seemed a little embarrassed, but the consciousness of his duty as an adviser to the family kept him going.

  ‘Of course it is dangerous business but any lady who cohabits with more than one man increases risks. It is but natural,’ he added.

  Amit did not know what to say, as he had not got Biswas Babu’s drift.

  ‘Indeed, any lady who has the opportunity to go to second man will know no limits,’ Biswas Babu remarked gravely, even sadly, as if admonishing Amit in a muted way.

  ‘In fact,’ he ruminated, ‘though not admitted in our Hindu society, lady is more excited than man as a r
ule, I will have to say. That is why there should not be too much difference. So that lady can cool down with man.’

  Amit looked startled.

  ‘I mean,’ continued Biswas Babu, ‘difference in age of course. That way they are commenstruate. Otherwise of course an older man is cool in later years when his wife is in the prime of lusty life and there is scope for mischief.’

  ‘Mischief,’ echoed Amit. Biswas Babu had never talked in this vein to him before.

  ‘Of course,’ thought Biswas Babu aloud, glancing in a melancholy way at the rows of law-books around him, ‘that is not true in all cases. But you must not leave it till you are more than thirty. Do you have headache?’ he asked, concerned, for Amit looked as if he was in pain.

  ‘A slight headache,’ said Amit. ‘Nothing serious.’

  ‘An arranged marriage with a sober girl, that is the solution. And I will also think about a helpmeet for Dipankar.’

  They were both quiet for a minute. Amit broke the silence.

  ‘Nowadays people say that you should choose your own life partner, Biswas Babu. Certainly, poets like myself say that.’

  ‘What people think, what people say, and what people do are two different things,’ said Biswas Babu. ‘Now I and Mrs Biswas are happily married for thirty-four years. Where is the harm in an arrangement like that? Nobody asked me. One day my father said it is fixed.’

  ‘But if I find someone myself—’

  Biswas Babu was willing to compromise. ‘Good. But then there should be inquiries also. She should be a sober girl from—’

  ‘—from a good family?’ prompted Amit.

  ‘From a good family.’

  ‘Well educated?’

  ‘Well educated. Saraswati gives better blessings in long run than Lakshmi.’

  ‘Well, now I have heard the whole case, I will reserve judgement.’

  ‘Do not reserve it too long, Amit Babu,’ said Biswas Babu with an anxious, almost paternal, smile. ‘Sooner or later you will have to cut Gordon’s knot.’

  ‘And tie it?’

  ‘Tie it?’

  ‘Tie the knot, I mean,’ said Amit.