A Suitable Boy, Page 76

  To make sure of this, however, he went the next morning after breakfast to visit the village patwari, the petty government functionary who acted as record-keeper and accountant of the village and who each year painstakingly updated the land records, noting down in detail the ownership and use of every plot. Rasheed estimated that a good third of the land in the village was let out by the landlords; in his own family’s case, almost two-thirds of it was. He was confident that in the patwari’s thick, cloth-bound ledgers would lie irrefutable proof of Kachheru’s continuous tenancy.

  The lean old patwari greeted Rasheed politely, with a tired smile. He had heard of Rasheed’s social rounds of the village, and felt pleased to have merited a separate visit. Shading his eyes against the sun with his hand, he asked him how his studies were going and how long he planned to stay in the village. And he offered Rasheed some sherbet. It was some time before the patwari realized that the visit was not entirely social, but this did not displease him. His government salary was low, and it was widely accepted that he needed to augment it informally. He expected that Rasheed wished to see how his family’s holdings stood. He had no doubt been sent by his grandfather to check the status of their lands. And he was going to be pleased by what he saw.

  The patwari went inside to bring out three ledgers, a few field-books, and two large cloth maps, about three feet by five, which covered all the land in the village. He lovingly unrolled one of them upon the wooden seating platform in his small courtyard. He stroked a corner of it gently with the side of his hand. He also fetched his spectacles, which he now placed carefully on his nose.

  ‘Well, Khan Sahib,’ he said to Rasheed, ‘in a year or two these books, which I have tended as carefully as a garden, will pass into other hands. If the government has its way it will rotate us from village to village every three years. Our lives will not be worth living. And how can some outsider understand the life of the village, its history, the reality of things? Just settling down will take him at least three years.’

  Rasheed made sympathetic sounds. He had put down his glass of sherbet and was trying to locate Kachheru’s field on the map, which was of fine silk, slightly yellowed.

  ‘And the people of this village have always been very good to this sinful man,’ continued the patwari, with a slightly more energetic laugh. ‘Ghee, grain, milk, wood . . . even a few rupees now and then—the Khan Sahib’s family has been particularly munificent. . . . What are you looking for?’

  ‘Our chamar Kachheru’s field.’

  The patwari’s finger went unerringly to the spot, and came to rest in the air half an inch above it.

  ‘But don’t worry, Khan Sahib, it has all been taken care of,’ he said.

  Rasheed looked at him questioningly.

  The patwari was a little surprised that his competence or industry was being called into doubt. He wordlessly rolled up the silken map and unfurled the map of cruder cloth. This, his working map, which he took with him on his recording rounds, was slightly mud-stained, and displayed a denser patchwork of fields, covered with names and numbers and notations of various kinds in black and in red, all in Urdu. For a while he gazed at it, then went to the ledgers and the cracked and battered field-books, opened a few of them to the appropriate pages, consulted them alternately a few times, and with a serious and slightly injured look, nodded at Rasheed. ‘See for yourself,’ he said.

  Rasheed looked at the columns and entries and measurements, landholding numbers and plot numbers and serial numbers, records of land type and land condition and land use; but, as the patwari well suspected, he could make nothing out of the esoteric jumble.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Khan Sahib,’ said the mollified patwari, turning his palms upwards in a gesture of openness. ‘It would appear from my records that the person who has been cultivating that field and those around it for the last several years has been yourself.’

  ‘What?’ cried Rasheed, staring first at the patwari’s smiling face, and then at the entry at which his finger was now pointing; again it rested a little above the surface of the page, like the body of a water insect.

  ‘Name of cultivator as given in khatauni register: Abdur Rasheed Khan,’ read out the patwari.

  ‘How long has this been the case?’ asked Rasheed with difficulty, his mind racing almost too fast for his tongue. He looked painfully agitated and distressed.

  Even now the patwari, who was not by any means a stupid man, suspected nothing. He said simply: ‘Ever since the land reform legislation became a possible threat, and your esteemed grandfather and father expressed their concern about eventualities, your servant has been diligently safeguarding your family’s interests. The lands of the family have been nominally subdivided among the various members, and all of you are down in my records as owner-cultivators. It is the safest way. Large individual landholdings look too suspicious. Of course, you have been away in Brahmpur studying, and these small matters are not of interest to a scholar of history—’

  ‘They are,’ said Rasheed grimly. ‘How much of our land is let out to tenants?’ he asked.

  ‘None,’ said the patwari, indicating his ledgers with a casual gesture.

  ‘None?’ said Rasheed. ‘But everyone knows we have both sharecroppers and rent-paying tenants—’

  ‘Hired employees,’ corrected the patwari. ‘And in the future they will very wisely be rotated from field to field.’

  ‘But Kachheru, for example’—burst out Rasheed—‘everyone knows that he’s had that field for years. You yourself understood immediately what I meant by Kachheru’s field.’

  ‘It’s a manner of speaking,’ said the patwari, amused by Rasheed’s attempt to play the devil’s advocate. ‘If I were to refer to Khan Sahib’s university, it would not mean that Brahmpur University belonged to you—or that you had been there for five years.’ He gave a short laugh, inviting participation; but when Rasheed did not respond, he continued: ‘From my records it appears that, yes, Kachheru, son of Mangalu chamar, did sharecrop the field on occasion, but never for a period of five years without a break. There has always been an interruption—’

  ‘You say the field is now nominally mine?’ said Rasheed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want you to register a change of ownership to Kachheru.’

  It was the patwari’s turn to look shocked. He looked at Rasheed as if he had taken leave of his senses. He was about to say that the Khan Sahib was, of course, joking, when he realized with a start that he was not.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Rasheed. ‘I’ll pay you your standard—what should I say?—your standard fee.’

  The patwari licked his lips with anxiety.

  ‘But your family? Are they all—’

  ‘Are you questioning my credentials in this matter?’

  ‘Oh no, Khan Sahib, heaven forbid—’

  ‘Our family has discussed this matter at length,’ said Rasheed carefully. ‘And that is why I am here.’ He paused. ‘If the mutation of ownership cannot be performed quickly or involves other legal documents, it would be good if the tenancy records for this plot were made to reflect, well, the reality of things. Yes, that is a better method and will cause less disturbance. Make it clear, please, that the chamar has been a continuous tenant.’

  The patwari nodded obediently. ‘As Huzoor commands,’ he said quietly.

  Rasheed tried to hide his contempt as he took out some money.

  ‘Here is a little something in advance to express my appreciation. As a student of history, I have been most impressed by the meticulousness of these records. And, as a landlord, I must agree with you that the government’s policy of rotating patwaris is a great pity.’

  ‘Some more sherbet, Khan Sahib? Or may I offer you something a little more substantial? Life in the city has worn you down . . . you are looking very thin. . . .’

  ‘No thank you,’ said Rasheed. ‘I must go. But I will call again in a couple of weeks. That should be sufficient time, shouldn’t it?�
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  ‘It should,’ agreed the patwari.

  ‘Good, then. Khuda haafiz.’

  ‘Khuda haafiz, Khan Sahib,’ said the patwari softly. And indeed God would have to protect Rasheed from the trouble he had just plunged himself—and not just himself—into.

  Part Nine

  9.1

  ‘You’re looking very thin, darling,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra to Kalpana Gaur—who was large-boned and vivacious, but less substantial than usual. Mrs Rupa Mehra had just arrived in Delhi in search of a prospective husband for Lata. Since her sons had proven hopeless, she would get Kalpana Gaur, who was ‘like a daughter’ to her, to deliver the goods.

  ‘Yes, the silly girl has been ill,’ said her father, who was impatient with illness. ‘God knows how at such a young age she manages to contract all these illnesses. It is some kind of flu this time: flu at the height of summer—very silly. No one goes for walks nowadays. My niece never walked; too lazy. She got appendicitis, had to be operated on, and, naturally, took a long time to recover. When I was in Lahore we would get up every morning at five, and all of us—from my father down to my six-year-old brother—would go walking for an hour. That was how we kept up our health.’

  Kalpana Gaur turned to Mrs Rupa Mehra: ‘Now you will need tea and rest.’ Snuffling a bit, she got busy with the servants and the luggage, and paid off the tonga-wallah. Mrs Rupa Mehra protested, then submitted. ‘You must stay with us for a month,’ continued Kalpana. ‘How can you go travelling in this heat? How is Savita? When is the baby due exactly? And Lata? Arun? Varun? I haven’t heard from you in months. We keep reading about the floods in Calcutta, but in Delhi there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Everyone is praying that the monsoons will come on time. Let me just tell the servants to get things ready, then you must tell us all your news. Fried tomatoes as usual for breakfast tomorrow? Daddy hasn’t been too well, you know. Heart.’ She looked indulgently at her father, who frowned back.

  ‘I have been perfectly well,’ said the old man dismissively. ‘Raghubir was five years younger than me and I’m still going strong. Now you sit down. You must be tired. And give us everyone’s news. There’s nothing of interest in this.’ He indicated the newspaper. ‘Just the usual warmongering with Pakistan, flood havoc in Assam, leaders leaving the Congress Party, gas workers on strike in Calcutta . . . and as a result they can’t even hold the chemistry practical exams in the university! Oh, but you’ve just come from Calcutta, so you know all that. And so on and so on. Do you know, if I ran a newspaper with nothing but good news—so-and-so gave birth to a healthy baby, such-and-such a country remained at peace with its neighbour, this river behaved well and that crop refused to be eaten by locusts—I believe people would buy it just to put themselves in good spirits.’

  ‘No, Daddy, they wouldn’t.’ Kalpana turned her full but pretty face towards Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Now why didn’t you tell us you were coming? We would have come to fetch you from the station.’

  ‘But I did. I sent a telegram.’

  ‘Oh—it’ll probably come today. Things have got so bad with the postal service even though they’ve just put up the rates.’

  ‘It’ll take time. They have a reasonable Minister in charge,’ said her father. ‘The young are always so impatient.’

  ‘Anyway, why didn’t you send us a letter?’ asked Kalpana.

  ‘I decided to come suddenly. It’s Lata,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in a rush. ‘I want you to find her a boy at once. A suitable boy. She is getting involved with unsuitable boys, and I cannot have that.’

  Kalpana reflected on her own attachments to unsuitable boys: on an engagement that had broken up because her friend had suddenly changed his mind; on her father’s opposition to another. She was still unmarried, which made her rather sad whenever she thought about it. She said: ‘Khatri, of course? One or two?’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra gave Kalpana a worried smile. ‘Two, please. I will stir it myself. Actually, I should have this saccharine but after a journey one can always make an exception. Of course khatri would be best. I think that one’s own community creates a sense of comfort. But proper khatris: Seth, Khanna, Kapoor, Mehra—no, not Mehra preferably—’

  Kalpana was virtually but not quite out of marriageable range herself; it was perhaps a measure of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s desperation that she had decided to entrust such an enterprise to her. Her decision, however, was not unbased on reason. Kalpana knew young people, and Mrs Rupa Mehra knew no one else in Delhi who did. Kalpana was very fond of Lata, who was several years younger than her. And since it was only the khatri community that was to be dredged for prospective candidates, it was not likely that Kalpana herself heaven forbid, should perceive a conflict of interest—especially since she was not a khatri but a brahmin.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma, I don’t know any Mehras except you,’ said Kalpana Gaur. She beamed broadly and continued:

  ‘I do know some Khannas and Kapoors in Delhi, though. I’ll introduce them to you. Once they see you, they’ll know that your daughter’s bound to be good-looking.’

  ‘I was much more good-looking before the car accident,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, stirring her tea and looking through the window—towards a gardenia bush, dry with summer dust.

  ‘Do you have a photograph of Lata? A recent one?’

  ‘Of course.’ There was very little that Mrs Rupa Mehra’s black bag did not contain. She had a very simple black-and-white photograph of Lata with no jewellery or make-up; there were some flowers—a few phlox—in her hair. There was even a photograph of Lata as a baby, though it was unlikely that this would have impressed the family of a potential groom. ‘But first you must get well, darling,’ she said to Kalpana. ‘I came with no warning at all. You asked me to come at Divali or Christmas but time and tide wait for no man.’

  ‘I’m perfectly well,’ said Kalpana Gaur, blowing her nose. ‘And this problem will make me better.’

  ‘She’s quite right,’ said her father. ‘Half her illness is laziness. If she isn’t careful, she’ll die young, like her mother.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra smiled weakly.

  ‘Or your husband,’ added Mr Gaur. ‘He was a foolish man if ever there was one. Climbing the mountains of Bhutan with a weak heart—and overworking—for whom? For the British and their railways.’ He sounded resentful, as he missed his old friend.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra reflected that they were everyone’s railways, and that what the late Raghubir Mehra was keen on was the work as such and not who his paymasters were. Everyone who was a government servant could be said to have served the British.

  ‘He worked hard, but for the action, not for the fruits of the action. He was a true karma-yogi,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra sadly. The late Raghubir Mehra, though he did work excessively hard, would have been amused at this elevated description of himself.

  ‘Go in and see to the guest room,’ said Mr Gaur. ‘And make sure that there are flowers in it.’

  The days passed pleasantly. When Mr Gaur returned from his general store, they talked of old times. At night, with the jackals howling behind the house, and the scent of gardenias in her room, Mrs Rupa Mehra would think back anxiously on the day’s events. She could not summon Lata to Delhi and out of harm’s way without having something tangible in hand. So far, for all Kalpana’s efforts, she had found no one suitable. She often thought of her husband, who would have allayed her fears—either by getting angry with her or by teasing her and then making up. Before she went to sleep she looked at the photograph of him she kept in her bag, and that night she dreamed of him playing rummy with the children in their saloon car.

  In the morning Mrs Rupa Mehra woke up even before the Gaurs to chant in a soft voice her verses from the Bhagavad Gita:

  ‘You grieve for those beyond grief,

  and you speak words of insight;

  but learned men do not grieve

  for the dead or the living.

  Never have I not existed

  nor you, nor these kings;

  and never
in the future

  shall we cease to exist.

  Just as the embodied self

  enters childhood, youth, and old age,

  so does it enter another body;

  this does not confound a steadfast man.

  Contacts with matter make us feel

  heat and cold, pleasure and pain.

  Arjuna, you must learn to endure

  fleeting things—they come and go!

  When these cannot torment a man,

  when suffering and joy are equal

  for him and he has courage,

  he is fit for immortality.

  Nothing of nonbeing comes to be,

  nor does being cease to exist;

  the boundary between these two

  is seen by men who see reality.

  Indestructible is this presence

  that pervades all this;

  no one can destroy

  this unchanging reality. . . .’

  But it was not the all-pervading essence of reality that clutched at Mrs Rupa Mehra’s consciousness but the loved particularities that she had lost or that were losable. What body was her husband in now? If he was born again in human form would she even recognize him if he passed by her in the street? What did it mean when they said of the sacrament of marriage that they would be bound together for seven lives? If they had no memory of who they had been, what use was such knowledge? For all she knew, this last marriage might have been her seventh one. Emotion made her literal; she longed for tangible assurance. The soothing Sanskrit of the small, green, cloth-bound volume passed through her lips, but, while it gave her peace—tears rarely came to her eyes while she was reciting the Gita—it answered none of her questions. And while ancient wisdom so often proved unconsoling, photography, that cruel modern art, helped to ensure that even the image of her husband’s face would not grow dim with time.