A Suitable Boy, Page 84

  Haresh was glad to hear it. Mrs Mason was bursting with curiosity, but refrained from asking questions while he ate his dinner. He had eaten nothing since morning.

  After dinner Mrs Mason turned to Haresh to speak.

  ‘How is Sophie?’ interposed Haresh deftly. Sophie was the Masons’ beloved Persian cat, an unfailing subject of animated discourse.

  After five minutes of the Sophie saga, Haresh yawned and said, ‘Well, goodnight, Mrs Mason. It was very kind of you to keep my dinner warm for me. I think I’ll turn in.’

  And before Mrs Mason could veer the conversation around to Simran or the two visitors, Haresh had gone to his room.

  He was very tired, but he kept awake long enough to write three letters. The rest he was forced to leave unwritten till the next day.

  He was about to write to Lata when, sensing Simran’s eyes on him, he turned to a shorter and easier letter—a postcard in fact.

  It was to Kedarnath Tandon’s son Bhaskar.

  Dear Bhaskar,

  I hope all is well with you. The words you want, according to a Chinese colleague of mine, are wan (to rhyme with ‘kaan’) and ee (to rhyme with ‘knee’). That will give you, in order of powers of ten: one, ten, hundred, thousand, wan, lakh, million, crore, ee, billion. A special word for ten to its own power you will have to invent for yourself. I suggest bhask.

  Please give my regards to Dr Durrani, to your parents, and to your grandmother. Also, ask your father to send me the second sample of brogues that I was promised by the man in Ravidaspur. They should have arrived more than a week ago. Perhaps they are already on their way.

  Affectionately,

  Haresh Chacha.

  Next he wrote a short letter of a page and a half to his father, in which he enclosed the small snapshot of Lata he had got off the Mehras. He had wanted to take a photograph of them himself, but they had felt a bit embarrassed, and he had not pressed the matter.

  To Lata he wrote a three-page letter on his blue writing pad. Though he had almost been at the point of telling her (or, more strictly, them) over the cold chocolate that he knew that she was the right wife for him, something had held him back. Now he was glad of it. Haresh knew that despite his pragmatism he was highly impulsive. When he had decided to leave home at fifteen it had taken him a minute to decide and ten minutes to leave; it had been months before he had returned. In the market the other day he had almost hired Mr Lee, the designer, on the spot, though he had no real authority to do so; he knew that he was the right man to help design the new orders that he felt sure he could bring in.

  So much for decisions that were (or would have been) if not laudable, at least admirable. The money that he once lent a friend of his in Patiala, however, was lent equally impulsively. It had been a good third of his assets, and he now knew that he would never get it back. But the decision that faced him at the present time dealt not with his assets but with himself. If he gave himself away he would not be able to retrieve himself.

  He looked at Simran’s photograph—nothing would induce him to turn it away even while writing his first letter to Lata. He wondered what she would have said, what advice she would have given him. Her kindness and purity of heart would have led him in the right direction, he knew. She wanted his good as much as he wanted hers.

  ‘Look at it this way, Simran,’ he said. ‘I am twenty-eight. There is no possibility of anything between us. I will have to settle down one day. If I have to marry I may as well go ahead and do it. They like me. At least I’m confident the mother does; and that makes a change.’

  Of the three pages of his letter to Lata, one and a half were about the Praha Shoe Company, the Czech-founded establishment with Indian headquarters in Calcutta and a huge factory at Prahapore fifteen miles away. Haresh wanted his name and copies of his certificates brought to the attention of someone whom Mrs Rupa Mehra had known socially over a period of years and who himself knew someone fairly high up in the company. Haresh saw three advantages in a job with Praha. He would have a better chance of rising to the top in a company that was professionally managed. He would be near Calcutta, which could be considered to be the Mehra home base, and where Lata, he had ascertained, would be spending her Christmas holidays. And finally, he thought his income would surely be larger than the one he was at present living on. The insulting offer of a weekly wage that he had previously received from Praha he was prepared to discount as their badgered response to a persistent series of letters from a man writing to them without any prior introduction. What he needed to do, Haresh believed, was to get the attention of someone at the top.

  This business being over [continued Haresh], let me hope in the usual way that you had a comfortable journey home and that you were missed by all who met you after such a long absence from Brahmpur. [. . .]

  I must thank you for your visit to Cawnpore and the nice time we spent together. There was none of that bashfulness or undue modesty and I am convinced that we can be very friendly if nothing else. I quite appreciate your frankness and the way of putting things. I must admit that I have met few English girls who could speak English quite as well as you do. These qualities coupled with your way of dressing and personality make you a person far above the average. I think Kalpana was right in her praise of you. These may all seem flattering remarks but I write as I feel.

  I have just today sent your photograph to my foster-father along with my impressions of you formed during our brief hours together. I shall let you know what he has to say.

  A couple of final paragraphs about generalities, and the letter was over. Haresh addressed the envelope. As he lay on his bed a few minutes later it struck him that the Mehras would certainly have seen Simran’s silver-framed portrait on his writing table. When he had invited them to Elm Villa he had not thought about the photograph at all. It was as much a part of the room as his bed. Between themselves, mother and daughter would doubtless have discussed it—and particularly the fact that he had let it remain there. He wondered what they must have thought, what they could have said. But he was asleep too soon to wonder long.

  9.22

  One morning, a few days later, Haresh arrived at the factory to find that Rao had assigned Lee to do some trivial work of his own.

  ‘I need Lee,’ said Haresh bluntly. ‘It’s for the HSH order.’

  Rao looked at him with distaste down his sharp nose. ‘You can have him when I’ve finished with him,’ he said. ‘He will be working with me this week.’

  Lee, who had witnessed the scene, was very embarrassed. He owed his position to Haresh, and he respected him. He did not respect Rao, but Rao was nominally Haresh’s senior in the company structure.

  The weekly meeting later that morning in Mukherji’s office produced a display of spectacular fireworks.

  Mukherji congratulated Haresh heartily for his work in obtaining the HSH order, which had recently been confirmed. The factory would have been in severe difficulties without it.

  ‘But the question of labour should be coordinated with Sen Gupta,’ he added.

  ‘Assuredly,’ said Sen Gupta. He looked pleased. He was supposed to be in charge of labour and personnel, but there was nothing that this lazy man enjoyed more than chewing his paan and delaying any work that needed desperately to be done. Waiting for Sen Gupta to do anything except stare with his bloodshot eyes at a red-stained file was like waiting for a stupa to disintegrate. Sen Gupta had looked sour when Mukherji had praised Haresh.

  ‘We will have to work a little harder all around, hn? Sen Gupta?’ continued the factory manager. ‘Now, Khanna,’ he continued, turning to Haresh, ‘Sen Gupta has been a bit unhappy of late about your interference in labour. Especially the construction job. He feels he could have hired better men more cheaply—and quicker.’

  Actually Sen Gupta was hopping mad—and envious.

  Quicker! Sen Gupta! was what Haresh was thinking.

  ‘Talking of personnel,’ he said aloud, deciding that this was the time to thrash matters out,
‘I’d like to have Lee put back to work on the HSH order.’ He looked at Rao.

  ‘Back?’ said Mukherji, looking from Haresh to Rao.

  ‘Yes. Mr Rao decided to—’

  Rao interrupted: ‘You will have him back in a week. There is no need to bring it up in this meeting. Mr Mukherji has more important matters to deal with.’

  ‘I need him now. If we fail in this order do you think they’ll come back to us cap in hand begging us to make more shoes for them? Can’t we get our priorities right? Lee cares about quality. I need him both for design and for the choice of leather.’

  ‘I care for quality too,’ said Rao with distaste.

  ‘Tell me another,’ said Haresh hotly. ‘You steal my workers when I most need them—just two days ago two of my clickers disappeared into your department, because your men did not turn up for work. You can’t keep discipline in your area, and you undermine it in mine. Quality is the last thing on your mind.’ Haresh turned to Mukherji. ‘Why do you let him get away with it? You are the factory manager.’

  This was rather too direct, but Haresh’s blood was up. ‘I cannot work if my men and my designer are pinched,’ he added.

  ‘Your designer?’ said Sen Gupta, staring redly at Haresh. ‘Your designer? You had no authority to hold out a job to Lee. Who were you to hire him?’

  ‘I did not. Mr Mukherji did, with a sanction from Mr Ghosh. I only found him. At least he’s a professional.’

  ‘And I am not? Before you were born I had learned how to shave,’ said Mr Sen Gupta with hot irrelevance.

  ‘Professional? Look at this place,’ said Haresh with barely muted scorn. ‘Compare it with Praha or James Hawley or Cooper Allen. How can we hope to keep our customers if we don’t fulfil our orders in time? Or if our quality is below par? They make better brogues in the slums of Brahmpur. The way things are run here is just not professional. You need people who know about shoes, not politics. Who work, and don’t just set up an adda wherever they are.’

  ‘Unprofessional?’ Sen Gupta seized on Haresh’s remark and gave it a tiny twist. ‘Mr Ghosh will hear of this! You call us unprofessional? You will see, you will see.’

  Something about Sen Gupta’s bluster and patent envy made Haresh say:

  ‘Yes, it is unprofessional.’

  ‘You heard? You heard?’ Sen Gupta looked at Rao and Mukherji, then turned back to Haresh, his red tongue curled a little at the end, his mouth open. ‘You are calling us unprofessional?’ He pushed his chair not forwards but backwards with rage and puffed out his cheeks. ‘You are getting too big for your boots, yes, for your boots.’ His red eyes half popped out.

  Haresh, having blundered in so far, blundered in a little further. ‘Yes, Mr Sen Gupta, that is exactly what I am saying. You are forcing me to be blunt, but it is true, certainly of you. You are unprofessional in every sense—and one of the worst manipulators I have known, not excluding Rao.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Mukherji, who was trying to act as peacemaker, but who was wounded by the use of the word that Sen Gupta had inveigled out of Haresh, and which he took in a sense that Haresh had not, at least in the first instance, intended. ‘Surely we must improve in any areas where we are deficient. But let us now talk calmly to one another.’ He turned to Rao. ‘You have been with the firm for many years, even before Mr Ghosh bought it and took it over. You are respected by everyone. Sen Gupta and I are comparative newcomers.’ He then said to Haresh: ‘And everyone admires the way you have obtained the HSH order.’ Finally he said to Sen Gupta: ‘Let us leave it at that.’ And he added a pacifying word or two in Bengali.

  But Sen Gupta turned towards Haresh, unpacifiable: ‘You have one success,’ he shouted, ‘and you want to take over the whole place.’ He was yelling and waving his hands about, and Haresh, incensed by this ludicrous display, cut in with disgust:

  ‘I’d run it a good deal better than you, that’s for certain. This thing is run like a Bengali fish-market.’

  The words were spoken in the heat of the moment, but were unretractable. The unsavoury Rao was furious; and he was not even a Bengali. Sen Gupta was triumphantly indignant. And the simultaneous insult to Bengal and fish did not go down well with Mukherji either.

  ‘You have been working too hard,’ he said to Haresh.

  That afternoon Haresh was told that Mr Mukherji wanted to see him in his office. Haresh thought it might be something to do with the HSH order, and he brought along a folder containing a week’s work and plans to the office. There Mr Mukherji told him that the HSH order would be handled by Rao, not by him.

  Haresh looked at him with a helpless sense of injustice. He shook his head as if to get rid of the last sentence he had heard.

  ‘I slogged my guts out to get that order, Mr Mukherji, and you know it. It has changed the fortunes of this factory. You virtually promised it would be handled in my department and under my supervision. I’ve told my workmen. What will I tell them now?’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Mr Mukherji shook his head. ‘It was felt that you had a lot on your plate. Let your new department start up slowly and iron out its problems; it will then be ready to undertake a big job like this. HSH will give us other orders. And I am impressed by the possibilities of this other scheme of yours as well. Everything in good time.’

  ‘The new department has no problems,’ said Haresh. ‘None. It is already running better than the others. And I’ve been working on the details of fulfilment ever since last week. Look!’ He opened the file. Mr Mukherji shook his head.

  Haresh went on, anger building up under his voice: ‘They won’t give us another order if we mess this one up. Give it to Rao and he will butcher the job. I have even worked out how we can fulfil the order almost a fortnight before it is due.’

  Mukherji sighed. ‘Khanna, you must learn to be calm.’

  ‘I shall go to Ghosh.’

  ‘This instruction has come from Mr Ghosh.’

  ‘It couldn’t have,’ said Haresh. ‘There wouldn’t have been time for that.’

  Mukherji looked pained. Haresh looked perplexed before continuing: ‘Unless Rao himself telephoned Ghosh in Bombay. He must have. Was this Ghosh’s idea? I can’t believe it came from you.’

  ‘I can’t discuss this, Khanna.’

  ‘This won’t be the end of the matter. I won’t leave it at this.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Mukherji liked Khanna.

  Haresh went back to his room. It was a bitter blow. He had banked on the order. He wanted more than anything to get to grips with something substantial that he himself had brought in, to show what he and his new department could do—and, yes, to do something first-rate for the company of which he was an officer. For a while he felt as if his spirit was broken. He conjured up Rao’s contempt, Sen Gupta’s glee. He would have to break the news to his workers. It was intolerable. And he would not tolerate it.

  Disheartened though he was, he refused to sit down and accept that these unfair dealings would form the future pattern of his working life. He had been ill-treated and used. It was true that Ghosh had given him his first job—and that too at short notice—and he was grateful for that. But such swift illogic and injustice shredded his sense of loyalty. It was as if he had rescued a child from a fire, and promptly been thrown into the fire himself as a reward. He would keep this job only as long as he needed to. If on a salary of three hundred and fifty rupees he had concerns about supporting a wife, with a salary of zero he could forget about it. He had heard nothing useful from anyone to whom he had applied for a job. But soon, he hoped very soon, something would come through. Something?—anything. He would take whatever came along.

  He closed the door to his office, which he almost always left open, and sat down once more to think.

  9.23

  It took Haresh ten minutes to decide on immediate action.

  He had wanted for some time to explore the possibility of a job at James Hawley. He now decided that he would try to get a job there as soon as he possibly could. He
admired the establishment; and it had its headquarters in Kanpur. The James Hawley plant was mechanized and fairly modern. The shoes they produced were of better quality than those that CLFC considered adequate. If Haresh had any god, it was Quality. He also felt in his bones that James Hawley would treat his abilities with more respect and less arbitrariness.

  But, as always, ingress was the problem. How could he get a foot in the door—or, to change metaphors, the ear of someone at the top. The Chairman of the Cromarty Group was Sir Neville Maclean; the Managing Director was Sir David Gower; and the manager of its subsidiary James Hawley with its large Kanpur factory (which produced as many as 30,000 pairs of shoes a day) was yet another Englishman. He could not simply march up to the headquarters of the establishment and ask to speak to someone there.

  After thinking matters over, he decided he would go to the legendary Pyare Lal Bhalla, who was a fellow-khatri, one of the first khatris to have entered the shoe business. How he entered this business and how he had risen to his present eminence was a story in itself.

  Pyare Lal Bhalla came from Lahore. He had originally been a sales agent for hats and children’s clothing from England, and had expanded into sportswear and paints and cloth. He was extremely good at what he did, and his business had expanded both through his own efforts and through the recommendation of satisfied principals. One could imagine someone from James Hawley, for instance, on his way out to India being told by a fellow-clubman: ‘Well, if you’re in Lahore, and you’re not happy with your chap in the Punjab, you could do worse than to look up Peary Loll Buller. I don’t think he deals in footwear, but he’s a first-rate agent, and it might very well be worth his while. And yours too of course. I’ll drop him a line to say you might be coming to see him.’

  Considering that he was a vegetarian (mushrooms were the closest he approached anything even faintly resembling meat), it was interesting that Pyare Lal Bhalla had quickly agreed to act as agent for the whole of the undivided Punjab for James Hawley & Company. Leather was polluting, and, certainly, many of the animals whose skins continued their postmortem existence as an additional layer on human feet were not ‘fallen’; they had been slaughtered. Bhalla said that he had nothing to do with the killing. He was a mere agent. The line of demarcation was clear. The English did what they did, he did what he did.