A Suitable Boy

‘Pillow?’ said Amit.

  ‘No, he looks pleased.’

  The front doorbell rang, and Dipankar walked in.

  ‘Dipankar!’

  ‘Dada! Welcome back.’

  ‘Hello, Kuku, hello, Dada—Oh, Cuddles!’

  ‘He knew you were back even before you rang the bell. Put that bag down.’

  ‘Clever dog. Clever, clever dog.’

  ‘So!’

  ‘So!’

  ‘Look at you—black and gaunt—and why have you shaved your head?’ said Kuku, stroking the top of it. ‘It feels like a mole.’

  ‘Have you ever stroked a mole, Kuku?’ asked Amit.

  ‘Oh, don’t be pedantic, Dada, you were so nice a moment ago. The prodigal returns, and—what does “prodigal” mean anyway?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ said Amit. ‘It’s like “lambent”, everyone uses it, no one knows what it means. Well, why have you shaved your head? Ma’s in for a shock.’

  ‘Because it was so hot—didn’t you get my postcards?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Kuku, ‘but you wrote in one of them that you were going to grow your hair long and that we would never see you again. We loved your postcards, didn’t we, Dada? All about the Quest for the Source and the whistles of the pregnant trains.’

  ‘What pregnant trains?’

  ‘That’s what it looked like in your handwriting. Welcome back. You must be ravishingly hungry.’

  ‘I am—’

  ‘Bring out the fatted marrow!’ said Amit.

  ‘Tell us, have you found another Ideal?’ demanded Kuku.

  Dipankar blinked.

  ‘Do you worship the Female Principle in her? Or is there more to it than that?’ asked Amit.

  ‘Oh, Dada,’ said Kuku reproachfully. ‘How can you!’ She became the Grande Dame of Culture, and pronounced with pontifical languor: ‘In our India, like the stupa, the breast nourishes, inflates . . . the breast is not an object of lust to our young men, it is a symbol of fecundity.’

  ‘Well—’ said Dipankar.

  ‘We were just floating away on the wings of song, when you came in, Dada,’ said Kuku:

  ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesanges . . .

  Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges

  and now you can keep us firmly on earth—’

  ‘Yes, we need you, Dipankar,’ said Amit. ‘All of us except you are helium balloons—’

  Kuku broke in.

  ‘Morning bathing in the Ganga,

  Guaranteed to make you younger,’

  she sang. ‘Was it really very filthy? Ila Kaki will be furious—’

  ‘Do you mind not interrupting me, Kuku, once I’ve interrupted you?’ said Amit. ‘I was saying that you, Dipankar, are the only one who keeps this family sane. Calm down, Cuddles! Now have some lunch and a bath and a rest—Ma’s out shopping, but she should be back in an hour. . . . Why didn’t you tell us when you were coming? Where have you been? One of your postcards was from Rishikesh! What have you decided about the family business? Won’t you handle all that and let me work on my wretched novel? How can I give it up or postpone it when all those characters are howling in my head? When I am pregnant and hungry and full of love and indignation?’

  Dipankar smiled. ‘I’ll have to let my Experiences merge with my Being, Dada, before I can come to an Answer.’

  Amit shook his head in exasperation.

  ‘Don’t bully him, Dada,’ said Kuku. ‘He’s just come back.’

  ‘I know I’m indecisive,’ said Amit, midway between despair and mock-despair, ‘but Dipankar really takes the cake. Or, rather, doesn’t even know whether to.’

  13.36

  The Chatterji parliament convened as usual at breakfast; apart from Tapan, who was back in boarding school, everyone was there; Aparna was attended by her ayah; and even old Mr Chatterji had joined them, as he sometimes did after walking his cat.

  ‘Where’s Cuddles?’ asked Kakoli, looking around.

  ‘Upstairs, in my room,’ said Dipankar. ‘Because of Pillow.’

  ‘Piddles and Cullow—like the Whalephant,’ said Kakoli, referring to her favourite Bengali book, Abol Tabol.

  ‘What’s that about Pillow?’ asked old Mr Chatterji.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Chatterji. ‘Dipankar was only saying that Cuddles is afraid of him.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said the old man, nodding. ‘Pillow can hold his own against any dog.’

  ‘Doesn’t Cuddles have to go to the vet today?’ asked Kakoli.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dipankar. ‘So I’ll need the car.’

  Kakoli made a long face. ‘But I need it too,’ she said. ‘Hans’s car is out of order.’

  ‘Kuku, you always need the car,’ said Dipankar. ‘If you’re willing to take Cuddles to the vet yourself, you can have it.’

  ‘I can’t do that, it’s terribly boring, and he snaps at whoever’s holding him.’

  ‘Well, then, take a taxi to meet Hans,’ said Amit, who always found this breakfast tussle over the car immensely irritating, and the worst way to begin the day. ‘Do stop bickering about it. Pass me the marmalade, please, Kuku.’

  ‘I’m afraid neither of you can have it,’ said Mrs Chatterji. ‘I am taking Meenakshi to see Dr Evans. She needs a check-up.’

  ‘I don’t really, Mago,’ said Meenakshi. ‘Stop fussing.’

  ‘You’ve had a very unpleasant shock, darling, and I’m taking no chances,’ said her mother.

  ‘Yes, Meenakshi, no harm in having a check-up,’ said her father, lowering the Statesman.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Aparna, spooning her quarter-boiled egg into her mouth with a great deal of energy. ‘No harm.’

  ‘Eat your food, darling,’ said Meenakshi to Aparna, a little annoyed.

  ‘The marmalade, Kuku, not the gooseberry jam,’ said Amit in a brittle voice. ‘Not the gazpacho, not the anchovies, not the sandesh, not the soufflé; the marmalade.’

  ‘What’s got into you?’ said Kakoli. ‘You’ve been very short-tempered of late. Worse than Cuddles. It must be sexual frustration.’

  ‘Something that you wouldn’t know about,’ said Amit.

  ‘Kuku! Amit!’ said Mrs Chatterji.

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Kakoli. ‘And he’s taken to chewing ice cubes, which I’ve read somewhere is an infallible sign of it.’

  ‘Kuku, I will not have you talking this way at breakfast—with A sitting here.’

  Aparna sat up with interest, setting her egg-coated spoon down on the embroidered tablecloth.

  ‘Mago, A doesn’t understand the first word we’re saying,’ said Kakoli.

  ‘Anyway, I’m not,’ said Amit.

  ‘I think you must be dreaming about her.’

  ‘Who?’ said Mrs Chatterji.

  ‘The heroine of your first book. The White Lady of your sonnets,’ said Kakoli, looking at Amit.

  ‘You should talk!’ said Amit.

  ‘Foreign woman is so shameless.

  Indian also is not blameless,’

  murmured Kakoli.

  She had tried to eschew couplets, but this one had simply presented itself and rolled off her tongue.

  Amit said: ‘Marmalade, please, Kuku, my toast is getting cold.’

  ‘Foreign woman is a vulture.

  Goes against our ancient culture—’

  blurted Kuku blindly. ‘It’s a good thing you made poetry out of that affair rather than little Chatterjis. Marry someone nice and Indian, Dada; don’t follow my example. Have you sent Luts that book yet? She told me you’d promised her one.’

  ‘Less wit. More marmalade,’ requested Amit.

  Kuku passed it to him at last and he spread it on his toast very carefully, covering every corner. ‘She told you that, did she?’ asked Amit.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Kakoli. ‘Meenakshi will vouch for me.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Meenakshi, looking intently at her tea. ‘Everything Kakoli says is true. And we’re concerned about you. You’re almost thirty now—’

  ‘Don’
t remind me,’ said Amit with dramatic melancholy. ‘Just pass me the sugar before I’m thirty-one. What else did she say?’

  Rather than invent something entirely implausible and thus risk undoing the effect of her previous statement, Meenakshi wisely refrained.

  ‘Nothing very specific,’ she said. ‘But with Lata, a small comment goes a long way. And she mentioned you several times.’

  ‘Quite wistfully, I thought,’ said Kakoli.

  ‘How is it,’ said Amit, ‘that Dipankar and I—and Tapan—have turned out to be so honest and decent, and you girls have learned to lie so brazenly? It’s amazing that we belong to the same family.’

  ‘How is it,’ countered Kakoli, ‘that Meenakshi and I, whatever our faults, can make important decisions and make them fast, when you refuse to make them and Dipankar can never decide which one to make?’

  ‘Don’t get annoyed, Dada,’ said Dipankar, ‘they’re just trying to bait you.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Amit. ‘They won’t succeed. I’m in too good a mood.’

  13.37

  Late, I admit, but better late than not, /never

  A gift to one who can appraise its worth, /need not spare its

  This book got ever lot /got /rot /hot /shot /over-shot /sot comes to you from a word-drunk sot, flaws

  A earth hackney bard and bachelor of laws laws.

  Amit paused in his scribbling and doodling. He was attempting an inscription for Lata. Now that he had run out of inspiration he began to wonder which of his two books of poems he should send her. Or should he send her both? Perhaps the first one was not such a good idea. The White Lady of his sonnets might give Lata the wrong idea. Besides, the second, though it too contained some love poems, had more of Calcutta in it, more of the places that reminded him of her, and might perhaps remind her of him.

  Resolving this problem helped Amit get on with his poem, and by lunchtime he was ready to write his dédicace on the flyleaf of The Fever Bird. His scrawled draft was legible only to himself, but what he wrote for Lata was easy enough to read. He wrote it out slowly, using the sterling silver fountain pen which his grandfather had given him on his twenty-first birthday, and he wrote in the comparatively handsome British edition of his poems, of which he had only three copies left.

  Late, I admit, but better late than not,

  A gift to one who need not spare its flaws,

  This book comes to you from a verbal sot,

  A babu bard and bachelor of laws.

  Lest you should think the man you meet here seems

  A lesser cynic than the one you knew,

  The truth is that apart from wine and dreams

  And children, truth inheres in poems too.

  Lies too lie here, and words I do not say

  Aloud for fear they savour of despair.

  Thus, passionless, I wing my even way

  And beat a soundless tattoo on the air.

  Love and remembrance, mystery and tears,

  A surfeit of pineapples or of bliss,

  The swerve of empires and the curve of years,

  Accept these in the hand that carves you this.

  He signed his name at the bottom, wrote the date, reread the poem while the ink dried, closed the dark-blue-and-gold cover of the book, packed it, sealed it, and had it sent off by registered post to Brahmpur that same afternoon.

  13.38

  It would have been too much to hope that Mrs Rupa Mehra would not have been at home when the post arrived two days later at Pran’s house. She hardly ever went out these days, what with Savita and the baby. Even Dr Kishen Chand Seth, if he wanted to see her, had to come to the university.

  When Amit’s parcel arrived, Lata was at a rehearsal. Mrs Rupa Mehra signed for it. Since the mail from Calcutta carried nothing but disaster these days, and her curiosity about the contents was unassuageable (especially when she saw the sender’s name), she almost opened the parcel herself. Only the fear of being condemned jointly by Lata, Savita and Pran restrained her.

  When Lata returned, it was almost dark.

  ‘Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you get back earlier? I’ve been going mad with anxiety,’ said her mother.

  ‘I’ve been at rehearsal, Ma, you know that. I’m not much later than usual. How’s everyone? Baby’s sleeping, by the sound of it.’

  ‘This package arrived two hours ago—from Calcutta. Open it at once.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra was about to burst.

  Lata was going to protest, but then, noticing the anxiety on her mother’s face and thinking of her volatility and tearfulness ever since she had received the news about the second medal, she decided that it was not worth asserting her right to privacy if it meant causing her mother further pain. She opened the package.

  ‘It’s Amit’s book,’ she said with pleasure: ‘The Fever Bird by Amit Chatterji. Very handsome—what a beautiful cover.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra, forgetting for a second the threat that Amit had once posed, picked up the book and was enchanted. The plain blue-and-gold cover, the paper, which appeared to be far superior to the stock they had seen during the war, the wide margins, the clear, spacious print, the luxury of it all delighted her. She had seen the smaller and shabbier Indian edition of the book in a bookstore once; the poems, which she had glanced through, had not seemed to her to be very edifying, and she had put it down. Mrs Rupa Mehra could not help wishing that the handsome book that she was now holding had been blank: it would have made a wonderful vehicle for the poems and thoughts that she often copied down.

  ‘How lovely. In England they really make such beautiful things,’ she said.

  She opened the book and began to read the inscription. Her frown grew deeper as she reached the bottom.

  ‘Lata, what does this poem mean?’ she asked.

  ‘How can I tell, Ma? You haven’t given me a chance to read it myself. Let me have a look at it.’

  ‘But what are all these pineapples doing here?’

  ‘Oh, that’s probably Rose Aylmer,’ said Lata. ‘She ate too many and died.’

  ‘You mean, “A night of memories and sighs”? That Rose Aylmer?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘How painful it must have been!’ Mrs Rupa Mehra’s nose began to redden in sympathy. Then a sudden alarming thought struck her: ‘Lata, this is not a love poem, is it? I can’t even understand it, it could be anything. What does he mean by Rose Aylmer? Those Chatterjis are very clever.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra had just had a renewed attack of resentment against the Chatterjis. She attributed the theft of the jewellery to Meenakshi’s carelessness. She was always opening the trunk in the presence of the servants, and putting temptation in people’s way. Not that Mrs Rupa Mehra wasn’t worried about Meenakshi too (who must have been very upset after this shock)—and about her third grandchild, assuredly a grandson this time. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Savita’s baby, she might well have rushed off to Calcutta, to busy herself with help and commiseration. Besides, there were several things she wanted to check in Calcutta in the wake of Arun’s letter, particularly how Haresh was faring—and what exactly it was he was doing. Haresh had said that he was working ‘in a supervisory capacity, and living in the European colony at Prahapore’. He had not mentioned that he was a mere foreman.

  ‘I doubt it’s a love poem, Ma,’ said Lata.

  ‘And he hasn’t written “Love” or anything at the bottom, just his name,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, reassuring herself.

  ‘I like it, but I’ll have to reread it,’ Lata mused aloud.

  ‘It’s too clever for my liking,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Tattoo and sot and whatnot. These modern poets are like this. And he hasn’t even had the politeness to write your name,’ she added, further reassured.

  ‘Well, it’s on the envelope, and I can’t imagine he talks about pineapples to everyone,’ said Lata. But she too thought it a little strange.

  Later, lying on her bed, she read the poem again at her leisure. She was secretly very pleased to have a po
em written for her, but much in it was not immediately clear. When he said that he winged his even and passionless way, did he mean that the temperature of his poems was cool? That he was speaking in the voice of the bird of the title but was not fevered? Or did it mean something private to his imagination? Or anything at all?

  After a while, Lata began to read the book, partly for itself, partly as a clue to the inscription. The poems were, by and large, no more unclear than their complexity required; they made grammatical sense, and Lata was grateful for that. And some of them were poems of deep feeling, by no means passionless, though their diction was at times formal. There was an eight-line love poem that she liked, and a longer one, a bit like an ode, about walking alone through the Park Street Cemetery. There was even a humorous one about buying books on College Street. Lata liked most of the poems that she read, and was moved by the fact that when she had been lonely and unoccupied in Calcutta Amit had taken her to places that had meant so much to him and that he was used to visiting alone.

  For all their feeling, the tenor of the poems was muted—and sometimes self-deprecating. But the title poem was anything but muted, and the self that it presented appeared to be gripped almost by mania. Lata herself had often been kept awake on summer nights by the papiha, the brainfever bird, and the poem, partly for this reason, disturbed her profoundly.

  THE FEVER BIRD

  The fever bird sang out last night.

  I could not sleep, try as I might.

  My brain was split, my spirit raw.

  I looked into the garden, saw

  The shadow of the amaltas

  Shake slightly on the moonlit grass.

  Unseen, the bird cried out its grief,

  Its lunacy, without relief:

  Three notes repeated closer, higher,

  Soaring, then sinking down like fire

  Only to breathe the night and soar,

  As crazed, as desperate, as before.

  I shivered in the midnight heat

  And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet.

  And now tonight I hear again

  The call that skewers through my brain,

  The call, the brainsick triple note—

  A bone of pain stuck in its throat.