A Suitable Boy

  ‘True,’ said the other two.

  Old Mrs Tandon continued: ‘At least in our neighbourhood we will have our own Ramlila in six months’ time. Bhaskar is too young to be one of the main characters, but he can certainly be a monkey-warrior.’

  ‘Lata used to be very fond of monkeys,’ reflected Mrs Rupa Mehra vaguely.

  Old Mrs Tandon and Mrs Mahesh Kapoor exchanged glances.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra snapped out of her vagueness and looked at the others. ‘Why—is something the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Before you came we were just talking—you know, just like that,’ said old Mrs Tandon soothingly.

  ‘Is it about Lata?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, reading her tone as accurately as she had read her glance.

  The two ladies looked at each other and nodded seriously.

  ‘Tell me, tell me quick,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, thoroughly alarmed.

  ‘You see, it is like this,’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor gently, ‘please look after your daughter, because someone saw her walking with a boy on the bank of the Ganga near the dhobi-ghat yesterday morning.’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘That I don’t know. But they were walking hand in hand.’

  ‘Who saw them?’

  ‘What should I hide from you?’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor sympathetically. ‘It was Avtar Bhai’s brother-in-law. He recognized Lata but he didn’t recognize the boy. I told him it must have been one of your sons, but I know from Savita that they are in Calcutta.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra’s nose started to redden with unhappiness and shame. Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and she reached into her capacious handbag for an embroidered handkerchief.

  ‘Yesterday morning?’ she said in a trembling voice.

  She tried to remember where Lata had said she’d gone. This was what happened when you trusted your children, when you let them roam around, taking walks everywhere. Nowhere was safe.

  ‘That’s what he said,’ said Mrs Mahesh Kapoor gently. ‘Have some tea. Don’t get too alarmed. All these girls see these modern love films and it has an effect on them, but Lata is a good girl. Only talk to her.’

  But Mrs Rupa Mehra was very alarmed, gulped down her tea, even sweetening it with sugar by mistake, and went home as soon as she politely could.

  3.18

  Mrs Rupa Mehra came breathlessly through the door.

  She had been crying in the tonga. The tonga-wallah, concerned that such a decently dressed lady should be weeping so openly, had tried to keep up a monologue in order to pretend that he hadn’t noticed, but she had now gone through not only her embroidered handkerchief but her reserve handkerchief as well.

  ‘Oh my daughter!’ she said, ‘oh, my daughter.’

  Savita said, ‘Yes, Ma?’ She was shocked to see her mother’s tear-streaked face.

  ‘Not you,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Where is that shameless Lata?’

  Savita sensed that their mother had discovered something. But what? And how much? She moved instinctively towards her to calm her down.

  ‘Ma, sit down, calm down, have some tea,’ said Savita, guiding Mrs Rupa Mehra, who seemed quite distracted, to her favourite armchair.

  ‘Tea! Tea! More and more tea!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in resistant misery.

  Savita went and told Mateen to get some tea for the two of them.

  ‘Where is she? What will become of us all? Who will marry her now?’

  ‘Ma, don’t over-dramatize things,’ said Savita soothingly. ‘It will blow over.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra sat up abruptly. ‘So you knew! You knew! And you didn’t tell me. And I had to learn this from strangers.’ This new betrayal engendered a new bout of sobbing. Savita squeezed her mother’s shoulders, and offered her another handkerchief. After a few minutes of this, Savita said:

  ‘Don’t cry, Ma, don’t cry. What did you hear?’

  ‘Oh, my poor Lata—is he from a good family? I had a sense something was going on. Oh God! What would her father have said if he had been alive? Oh, my daughter.’

  ‘Ma, his father teaches mathematics at the university. He’s a decent boy. And Lata’s a sensible girl.’

  Mateen brought the tea in, registered the scene with deferential interest, and went back towards the kitchen.

  Lata walked in a few seconds later. She had taken a book to the banyan grove, where she had sat down undisturbed for a while, lost in Wodehouse and her own enchanted thoughts. Two more days, one more day, and she would see Kabir again.

  She was unprepared for the scene before her, and stopped in the doorway.

  ‘Where have you been, young lady?’ demanded Mrs Rupa Mehra, her voice quivering with anger.

  ‘For a walk,’ faltered Lata.

  ‘Walk? Walk?’ Mrs Rupa Mehra’s voice rose to a crescendo. ‘I’ll give you walk.’

  Lata’s mouth flew open, and she looked at Savita. Savita shook both her head and her right hand slightly, as if to say that it was not she who had given her away.

  ‘Who is he?’ demanded Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Come here. Come here at once.’

  Lata looked at Savita. Savita nodded.

  ‘Just a friend,’ said Lata, approaching her mother.

  ‘Just a friend! A friend! And friends are for holding hands with? Is this what I brought you up for? All of you—and is this—’

  ‘Ma, sit down,’ said Savita, for Mrs Rupa Mehra had half risen out of her chair.

  ‘Who told you?’ asked Lata. ‘Hema’s Taiji?’

  ‘Hema’s Taiji? Hema’s Taiji? Is she in this too?’ exclaimed Mrs Rupa Mehra with new indignation. ‘She lets those girls run around all over the place with flowers in their hair in the evening. Who told me? The wretched girl asks me who told me. No one told me. It’s the talk of the town, everyone knows about it. Everyone thought you were a good girl with a good reputation—and now it is too late. Too late,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Ma, you always say Malati is such a nice girl,’ said Lata by way of self-defence. ‘And she has friends like that—you know that—everyone knows that.’

  ‘Be quiet! Don’t answer me back! I’ll give you two tight slaps. Roaming around shamelessly near the dhobi-ghat and having a gala time.’

  ‘But Malati—’

  ‘Malati! Malati! I’m talking about you, not about Malati. Studying medicine and cutting up frogs—’ Mrs Rupa Mehra’s voice rose once more. ‘Do you want to be like her? And lying to your mother. I’ll never let you go for a walk again. You’ll stay in this house, do you hear? Do you hear?’ Mrs Rupa Mehra had stood up.

  ‘Yes, Ma,’ said Lata, remembering with a twinge of shame that she had had to lie to her mother in order to meet Kabir. The enchantment was being torn apart; she felt alarmed and miserable.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Kabir,’ said Lata, growing pale.

  ‘Kabir what?’

  Lata stood still and didn’t answer. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra was in no mood for sympathy. What were all these ridiculous tears? She caught hold of Lata’s ear and twisted it. Lata gasped.

  ‘He has a name, doesn’t he? What is he—Kabir Lal, Kabir Mehra—or what? Are you waiting for the tea to get cold? Or have you forgotten?’

  Lata closed her eyes.

  ‘Kabir Durrani,’ she said, and waited for the house to come tumbling down.

  The three deadly syllables had their effect. Mrs Rupa Mehra clutched at her heart, opened her mouth in silent horror, looked unseeingly around the room, and sat down.

  Savita rushed to her immediately. Her own heart was beating far too fast.

  One last faint possibility struck Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Is he a Parsi?’ she asked weakly, almost pleadingly. The thought was odious but not so calamitously horrifying. But a look at Savita’s face told her the truth.

  ‘A Muslim!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra more to herself now than to anyone else. ‘What did I do in my past life that I have brought this upon my beloved daughter?’

  Savita was standing near her and held
her hand. Mrs Rupa Mehra’s hand was inert as she stared in front of her. Suddenly she became aware of the gentle curve of Savita’s stomach, and fresh horrors came to her mind.

  She stood up again. ‘Never, never, never—’ she said.

  By now Lata, having conjured up the image of Kabir in her mind, had gained a little strength. She opened her eyes. Her tears had stopped and there was a defiant set to her mouth.

  ‘Never, never, absolutely not—dirty, violent, cruel, lecherous—’

  ‘Like Talat Khala?’ demanded Lata. ‘Like Uncle Shafi? Like the Nawab Sahib of Baitar? Like Firoz and Imtiaz?’

  ‘Do you want to marry him?’ cried Mrs Rupa Mehra in a fury.

  ‘Yes!’ said Lata, carried away, and angrier by the second.

  ‘He’ll marry you—and next year he’ll say “Talaq talaq talaq” and you’ll be out on the streets. You obstinate, stupid girl! You should drown yourself in a handful of water for sheer shame.’

  ‘I will marry him,’ said Lata, unilaterally.

  ‘I’ll lock you up. Like when you said you wanted to become a nun.’

  Savita tried to intercede.

  ‘You go to your room!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘This isn’t good for you.’ She pointed her finger, and Savita, not used to being ordered about in her own home, meekly complied.

  ‘I wish I had become a nun,’ said Lata. ‘I remember Daddy used to tell us we should follow our own hearts.’

  ‘Still answering back?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, infuriated by the mention of Daddy. ‘I’ll give you two tight slaps.’

  She slapped her daughter hard, twice, and instantly burst into tears.

  3.19

  Mrs Rupa Mehra was not more prejudiced against Muslims than most upper-caste Hindu women of her age and background. As Lata had inopportunely pointed out, she even had friends who were Muslims, though almost all of them were not orthodox at all. The Nawab Sahib was, perhaps, quite orthodox, but then he was, for Mrs Rupa Mehra, more a social acquaintance than a friend.

  The more Mrs Rupa Mehra thought, the more agitated she became. Even marrying a non-khatri Hindu was bad enough. But this was unspeakable. It was one thing to mix socially with Muslims, entirely another to dream of polluting one’s blood and sacrificing one’s daughter.

  Whom could she turn to in her hour of darkness? When Pran came home for lunch and heard the story, he suggested mildly that they meet the boy. Mrs Rupa Mehra threw another fit. It was utterly out of the question. Pran then decided to stay out of things and to let them die down. He had not been hurt when he realized that Savita had kept her sister’s confidence from him, and Savita loved him still more for that. She tried to calm her mother down, console Lata, and keep them in separate rooms—at least during the day.

  Lata looked around the bedroom and wondered what she was doing in this house with her mother when her heart was entirely elsewhere, anywhere but here—a boat, a cricket field, a concert, a banyan grove, a cottage in the hills, Blandings Castle, anywhere, anywhere, so long as she was with Kabir. No matter what happened, she would meet him as planned, tomorrow. She told herself again and again that the path of true love never did run smooth.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra wrote a letter on an inland form to Arun in Calcutta. Her tears fell on the letter and blotched the ink. She added: ‘P.S. My tears have fallen on this letter, but what to do? My heart is broken and only God will show a way out. But His will be done.’ Because the postage had just gone up she had to stick an extra stamp on the prepaid form.

  In much bitterness of spirit, she went to see her father. It would be a humiliating visit. She would have to brave his temper in order to get his advice. Her father may have married a crass woman half his age, but that was a heaven-made match compared to what Lata was threatened with.

  As expected, Dr Kishen Chand Seth rebuked Mrs Rupa Mehra roundly in front of the dreadful Parvati and told her what a useless mother she was. But then, he added, everyone seemed to be brainless these days. Just last week he had told a patient whom he had seen at the hospital: ‘You are a stupid man. In ten to fifteen days you will be dead. Throw away money if you want to on an operation, it’ll only kill you quicker.’ The stupid patient had been quite upset. It was clear that no one knew how to take or to give advice these days. And no one knew how to discipline their children; that was where all the trouble in the world sprang from.

  ‘Look at Mahesh Kapoor!’ he added with satisfaction.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra nodded.

  ‘And you are worse.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra sobbed.

  ‘You spoiled the eldest’—he chuckled at the memory of Arun’s jaunt in his car—‘and now you have spoiled the youngest, and you have only yourself to blame. And you come to me for advice when it is too late.’

  His daughter said nothing.

  ‘And your beloved Chatterjis are just the same,’ he added with relish. ‘I hear from Calcutta circles that they have no control over their children. None.’ This thought gave him an idea.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra was now satisfactorily in tears, so he gave her some advice and told her to put it into effect immediately.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra went home, got out some money, and went straight to the Brahmpur Junction Railway Station. She bought two tickets for Calcutta by the next evening’s train.

  Instead of posting her letter to Arun, she sent him a telegram.

  Savita tried to dissuade her mother but to no effect. ‘At least wait till the beginning of May when the exam results come out,’ she said. ‘Lata will be needlessly worried about them.’

  Mrs Rupa Mehra told Savita that exam results meant nothing if a girl’s character was ruined, and that they could be transmitted by mail. She knew what Lata was worried about all right. She then turned the emotional tables on Savita by saying that any scenes between Lata and herself should take place elsewhere, not within earshot of Savita. Savita was pregnant and should stay calm. ‘Calm, that’s the word,’ repeated Mrs Rupa Mehra forcefully.

  As for Lata, she said nothing to her mother, simply remaining tight-lipped when she was told to pack her things for the journey. ‘We are going to Calcutta tomorrow evening by the 6.22 train—and that is that. Don’t you dare say anything,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

  Lata did not say anything. She refused to show any emotion to her mother. She packed carefully. She even ate something for dinner. The image of Kabir kept her company.

  After dinner she sat on the roof, thinking. When she came to bed, she did not say goodnight to Mrs Rupa Mehra, who was lying sleeplessly in the next bed. Mrs Rupa Mehra was heartbroken, but Lata was not feeling very charitable. She went to sleep quite soon, and dreamed, among other things, of a washerman’s donkey with the face of Dr Makhijani, chewing up Mrs Rupa Mehra’s black handbag and all her little silver stars.

  3.20

  She awoke, rested. It was still dark. She had agreed to meet Kabir at six. She went to the bathroom, locked it from the inside, then slipped out from the back into the garden. She did not dare to take a sweater with her, as this would have made her mother suspicious. Anyway, it was not too cold.

  But she was trembling. She walked down towards the mud cliffs, then down the path. Kabir was waiting for her, sitting on their root in the banyan grove. He got up when he heard her coming. His hair was ruffled, and he looked sleepy. He even yawned while she walked up towards him. In the dawn light his face looked even more handsome than when he had thrown his head back and laughed near the cricket field.

  She seemed to him to be very tense and excited, but not unhappy. They kissed. Then Kabir said:

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ said Lata. ‘I dreamed of a donkey.’

  ‘Oh, not of me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t remember what I dreamed of,’ said Kabir, ‘but I didn’t have a restful night.’

  ‘I love sleeping,’ said Lata. ‘I can sleep for nine or ten hours a
day.’

  ‘Ah . . . aren’t you cold? Why don’t you wear this?’ Kabir made to take off his sweater.

  ‘I’ve been longing to see you again,’ said Lata.

  ‘Lata?’ said Kabir. ‘What’s happened to upset you?’ Her eyes were unusually bright.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Lata, fighting back her tears. ‘I don’t know when I’ll see you again.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m going to Calcutta tonight. My mother’s found out about us. When she heard your name she threw a fit—I told you what my family was like.’

  Kabir sat down on the root and said, ‘Oh no.’

  Lata sat down too. ‘Do you still love me?’ she said after a while.

  ‘Still?’ Kabir laughed bitterly. ‘What is the matter with you?’

  ‘You remember what you said the last time: that we loved each other and that that was all that mattered?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kabir. ‘It is.’

  ‘Let’s go away—’

  ‘Away,’ said Kabir sadly. ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere—to the hills—anywhere, really.’

  ‘And leave everything?’

  ‘Everything. I don’t care. I’ve even packed some things.’

  This hint of practicality made him smile instead of alarming him. He said, ‘Lata, we don’t have a chance if we go away. Let’s wait and see how things work out. We’ll make them work out.’

  ‘I thought you lived from our one meeting to the next.’

  Kabir put an arm around her.

  ‘I do. But we can’t decide everything. I don’t want to disillusion you, but—’

  ‘You are, you are disillusioning me. How long will we have to wait?’

  ‘Two years, I think. First I have to finish my degree. After that I’m going to apply to get into Cambridge—or maybe take the exam for the Indian Foreign Service—’

  ‘Ah—’ It was a low cry of almost physical pain.

  He stopped, realizing how selfish he must have sounded.

  ‘I’ll be married off in two years,’ said Lata, covering her face in her hands. ‘You’re not a girl. You don’t understand. My mother might not even let me come back to Brahmpur—’