A Suitable Boy

  6.7

  The reference to neem blossoms reminded Pran that he had not visited his mother in several days. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had been even more badly affected this year by the pollen of the neem trees than she usually was. Some days she could hardly breathe. Even her husband, who treated all allergies as if they were wilfully inflicted by the victims upon themselves, was forced to take some notice of his wife. As for Pran, who knew from experience what it felt like to struggle for breath, he thought of his mother with a feeling of sad helplessness—and with some anger towards his father who insisted that she remain in town in order to manage the household.

  ‘Where should she go where there are no neem trees?’ Mahesh Kapoor had said. ‘Abroad?’

  ‘Well, Baoji, perhaps to the south somewhere—or to the hills.’

  ‘Don’t be unrealistic. Who will take care of her there? Or do you think I should give up my work?’

  There was no obvious answer to this. Mahesh Kapoor had always been dismissive of other people’s illnesses and bodily pain, and had disappeared from town whenever his wife had been about to give birth. He could not stand ‘the mess and the fuss and so on’.

  Lately, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had been much exercised by one issue which seemed to aggravate her condition. This was Maan’s involvement with Saeeda Bai, and his loitering around in Brahmpur when he had work and other obligations in Banaras. When his fiancée’s family sent an indirect inquiry through a relative about fixing a date for the marriage, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had begged Pran to speak to him. Pran had told her that he had very little control over his younger brother. ‘He only listens to Veena,’ he had said, ‘and even then he goes and does exactly as he pleases.’ But his mother had looked so unhappy that he had agreed to talk to Maan. He had, however, put it off now for several days.

  Right, said Pran to himself. I’ll talk to him today. And it’ll be a good opportunity to visit Prem Nivas.

  It was already too hot to walk, so they went by tonga. Savita sat smiling silently and—Pran thought—quite mysteriously. In fact she was merely pleased to be visiting her mother-in-law, whom she liked, and with whom she enjoyed discussing neem trees and vultures and lawns and lilies.

  When they got to Prem Nivas they found that Maan was still asleep. Leaving Savita with Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, who looked a little better than before, Pran went off to wake his brother up. Maan was lying in his room with his face buried in his pillow. A ceiling fan was going round and round, but the room was still quite warm.

  ‘Get up! Get up!’ said Pran.

  ‘Oh!’ said Maan, trying to ward off the light of day.

  ‘Get up! I have to talk to you.’

  ‘What? Oh! Why? All right, let me wash my face.’

  Maan got up, shook his head several times, examined his face in the mirror quite carefully, did a respectful adaab to himself when his brother was not watching and, after splashing some water upon himself, came back and lay down flat on the bed once more—but on his back.

  ‘Who’s told you to speak to me?’ said Maan. Then, remembering what he had been dreaming about, he said, regretfully: ‘I was having the most wonderful dream. I was walking near the Barsaat Mahal with a young woman—not so young really, but her face was unlined still—’

  Pran started smiling. Maan looked a little hurt.

  ‘Aren’t you interested?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, why have you come, Bhai Sahib? Why don’t you sit down on the bed—it’s much more comfortable. Oh yes,’ he said, remembering: ‘you’ve come to speak to me. Who has put you up to it?’

  ‘Does someone have to have put me up to it?’

  ‘Yes. You never proffer brotherly advice as a rule, and I can tell from your face that I am in for some proffering. All right, all right, go ahead. It’s about Saeeda Bai, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right.’

  ‘Well, what’s there to say?’ said Maan, with a sort of happy hangdog look. ‘I’m terribly in love with her. But I don’t know if she cares for me at all.’

  ‘Oh, you idiot,’ said Pran affectionately.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me. I can’t bear it. I’m feeling very low,’ said Maan, gradually convincing himself of his romantic depression. ‘But no one believes me. Even Firoz says—’

  ‘And he’s quite right. You’re feeling nothing of the kind. Now tell me, do you really think that that kind of person is capable of loving?’

  ‘Oh?’ asked Maan. ‘Why not?’

  He thought back to the last evening that he had spent in Saeeda Bai’s arms, and began to feel fuzzily amorous once more.

  ‘Because it’s her job not to,’ replied Pran. ‘If she fell in love with you it wouldn’t be at all good for her work—or her reputation! So she won’t. She’s too hard-headed. Anyone with one good eye can see that, and I’ve seen her for three Holis in succession.’

  ‘You just don’t know her, Pran,’ said his brother ardently.

  This was the second time in a few hours that someone had told Pran that he just didn’t understand someone else, and he reacted impatiently.

  ‘Now listen, Maan, you’re making a complete fool of yourself. Women like that are brought up to pretend they’re in love with gullible men—to make their hearts light and their purses even lighter. You know that Saeeda Bai is notorious for this sort of thing.’

  Maan just turned over on to his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow.

  Pran found it very difficult to be righteous with his idiot of a brother. Well, I’ve done my duty, he thought. If I say anything further it’ll have just the opposite reaction to what Ammaji wants.

  He tousled his brother’s hair and said: ‘Maan—are you in difficulties with money?’

  Maan’s voice, slightly muffled by the pillow, said: ‘Well, it isn’t easy, you know. I’m not a client or anything, but I can’t just go empty-handed. So, well, I’ve given her a few gifts. You know.’

  Pran was silent. He did not know. Then he said: ‘You haven’t eaten into the money you came to Brahmpur to do business with, have you, Maan? You know how Baoji would react if he came to know of that.’

  ‘No,’ said Maan, frowning. He had turned around again, and was looking up at the fan. ‘Baoji, you know, said something sharp to me a few days ago—but I’m sure he doesn’t really mind at all about Saeeda Bai. After all, he’s had quite a lively youth himself—and, besides, he’s invited her several times to sing at Prem Nivas.’

  Pran said nothing. He was quite certain that his father was very displeased.

  Maan went on: ‘And just a few days ago I asked him for money—“for this and for that”—and he gave me quite a generous amount.’

  Pran reflected that whenever his father was occupied with a piece of legislation or some other project, he hated being disturbed, and almost paid people off so as to be able to get on with his own work.

  ‘So you see,’ said Maan, ‘there isn’t a problem at all.’ Having made the problem disappear, he went on: ‘But where is my lovely bhabhi? I’d much rather be scolded by her.’

  ‘She’s downstairs.’

  ‘Is she angry with me too?’

  ‘I’m not exactly angry with you, Maan,’ said Pran. ‘All right, get ready and come down. She’s looking forward to seeing you.’

  ‘What’s happening about your job?’ asked Maan.

  Pran made a gesture with his right hand which was the equivalent of a shrug.

  ‘Oh, yes, and is Professor Mishra still furious with you?’

  Pran frowned. ‘He’s not the sort of man who forgets little acts of kindness such as yours. Do you know, if you had been a student and did what you did at Holi, I might, as a member of the student welfare committee, have had to recommend your expulsion.’

  ‘Your students sound a very lively lot,’ said Maan approvingly.

  After a while he added, with a happy smile on his face:

  ‘Do you know that she calls me Dagh Sahib?’

  ‘Oh, really?’ s
aid Pran. ‘Very charming. I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes.’

  6.8

  One evening after a longish day in the High Court, Firoz was on his way to the cantonment for some polo and a ride when he noticed his father’s secretary, Murtaza Ali, bicycling down the road with a white envelope in his hand. Firoz halted the car and called out, and Murtaza Ali stopped.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ asked Firoz.

  ‘Oh, nowhere, just within Pasand Bagh.’

  ‘Who’s that envelope for?’

  ‘Saeeda Bai Firozabadi,’ said Murtaza Ali rather reluctantly.

  ‘Well, that’s on my way. I’ll drop it off.’ Firoz looked at his watch. ‘It shouldn’t make me late.’

  He reached out of the window to take the packet, but Murtaza Ali held back.

  ‘It isn’t any trouble at all, Chhoté Sahib,’ he said, smiling. ‘I must not palm off my duties on others. You are looking very well turned out in those new jodhpurs.’

  ‘It’s not a duty for me. Here—’ And Firoz reached out once again for the packet. He reflected that it would provide him with the ostensibly innocent means to see that lovely girl Tasneem once more.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chhoté Sahib, the Nawab Sahib was quite explicit that I deliver it.’

  ‘That makes no sense to me,’ said Firoz, now speaking in a somewhat patrician manner. ‘I delivered the packet before—you let me take it to save you trouble when it was on my way—and I am capable of taking it again.’

  ‘Chhoté Sahib, it is such a small matter, please let it be.’

  ‘Now, good fellow, let me have the packet.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Cannot?’ Firoz’s voice became commandingly aloof.

  ‘You see, Chhoté Sahib, the last time I did, the Nawab Sahib was extremely annoyed. He told me very firmly that this was never to happen again. I must ask your forgiveness for my rudeness, but your father was so vehement that I dare not risk his displeasure again.’

  ‘I see.’ Firoz was perplexed. He could not understand his father’s inordinate annoyance about this harmless matter. He had been looking forward to his game, but now his mood was spoilt. Why was his father behaving in this excessively puritanical way? He knew that it was not the done thing to socialize with singing girls, but what harm was there in simply delivering a letter? But perhaps that was not the problem at all.

  ‘Let me get this clear,’ he went on after a moment’s thought. ‘Was my father displeased that you had not delivered the packet or that I had delivered it?’

  ‘That I could not say, Chhoté Sahib. I wish I understood it myself.’ Murtaza Ali continued to stand politely beside his bicycle, holding the envelope firmly in one hand, as if he feared that Firoz might, on a sudden impulse, snatch it away from him after all.

  ‘All right,’ said Firoz and, with a curt nod at Murtaza Ali, drove on towards the cantonment.

  It was a slightly cloudy day. Though it was only early evening, it was comparatively cool. On both sides of Kitchener Road stood tall gulmohur trees in full orange bloom. The peculiar scent of the flowers, not sweet as such but as evocative as that of geraniums, was heavy in the air, and the light, fan-shaped petals were strewn across the road. Firoz decided to talk to his father when he got back to Baitar House, and this resolution helped him put the incident out of his mind.

  He recalled his first glimpse of Tasneem and remembered the sudden and disturbing attraction he had felt for her—a sense that he had seen her before, somewhere ‘if not in this life then in some earlier one’. But after a while, as he came closer to the polo grounds and smelt the familiar scent of horse dung and passed by the familiar buildings and waved to the familiar people, the game reasserted itself and Tasneem too faded into the background.

  Firoz had promised to teach Maan a bit of polo this evening, and now he looked around for him at the club. In fact it would be more accurate to say that he had compelled a reluctant Maan to learn a little about the game. ‘It’s the best game in the world,’ he had told him. ‘You’ll be an addict soon enough. And you have too much time on your hands.’ Firoz had gripped Maan’s hands in his own and had said: ‘They’re going soft from too much pampering.’

  But Maan was nowhere to be seen at this moment, and Firoz glanced a little impatiently at his watch and at the lessening light.

  6.9

  A few minutes later, Maan came riding up towards him, doffed his riding cap in a cheerful gesture of greeting, and dismounted.

  ‘Where were you?’ asked Firoz. ‘They’re quite strict here about timing, and if we don’t get to the wooden horse within ten minutes of the time for which we’ve reserved it, well, someone else will take it. Anyway, how did you manage to persuade them to allow you to ride one of their horses without being accompanied by a member?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Maan. ‘I just walked over and talked to one of the grooms for a few minutes, and he saddled up this bay for me.’

  Firoz reflected that he should not have been too surprised: his friend had the knack of winging it in all kinds of unlikely situations through sheer insouciance. The groom must have taken it for granted that Maan was a fully-fledged member of the club.

  With Maan uncomfortably astride the wooden horse, Firoz began his education. The light bamboo polo stick was put in Maan’s right hand, and he was asked to point and swing it a few times for good measure.

  ‘But this is no fun at all,’ said Maan, after about five minutes.

  ‘Nothing is fun in the first five minutes,’ replied Firoz calmly. ‘No, don’t hold the stick that way—keep your arm straight—no, completely straight—that’s right—yes, now swing it—just a half swing—good!—your arm should act like an extension of the stick itself.’

  ‘I can think of one thing at least that’s fun in the first five minutes,’ said Maan with a slightly idiotic grin, heaving the stick around and losing his balance slightly.

  Firoz surveyed Maan’s posture coolly. ‘I’m talking about anything requiring skill and practice,’ he said.

  ‘That requires a lot of skill and practice,’ said Maan.

  ‘Don’t be flippant,’ said Firoz, who took his polo seriously. ‘Now just stay exactly as you are, and look at me. Notice that the line between my shoulders runs parallel to the spine of the horse. Aim for that position.’

  Maan tried, but found it even more uncomfortable. ‘Do you really think that everything that requires skill is painful at the beginning?’ he asked. ‘My Urdu teacher appears to take exactly the same view.’ He rested the polo stick between his legs and wiped his forehead with the back of his right hand.

  ‘Come now, Maan,’ said Firoz, ‘you can’t say you’re tired after just five minutes of this. I’m going to try you out with the ball now.’

  ‘I am rather tired, actually,’ said Maan. ‘My wrist’s hurting a little. And my elbow, and my shoulder.’

  Firoz flashed him an encouraging smile and placed the ball on the ground. Maan swung his stick towards it and missed it entirely. He tried again and missed again.

  ‘You know,’ said Maan, ‘I’m not at all in the mood for this. I’d rather be somewhere else.’

  Firoz, ignoring him, said: ‘Don’t look at anything, just at the ball—just at the ball—nothing else—not at me—not at where the ball is going to go—not even at a distant image of Saeeda Bai.’

  This last comment, instead of making Maan lose his swing entirely, actually resulted in a small impact as the mallet skimmed the top of the ball.

  ‘Things aren’t going all that well with Saeeda Bai, you know, Firoz,’ said Maan. ‘She got very annoyed with me yesterday, and I don’t know what it was I did.’

  ‘What brought it on?’ said Firoz, not very sympathetically.

  ‘Well, her sister came in while we were talking and said something about the parrot looking as if he was exhausted. Well, it’s a parakeet actually, but that’s a sort of parrot, isn’t it? So I smiled at her and mentioned our Urdu teacher and said that th
e two of us had something in common. Meaning, of course, that Tasneem and I did. And Saeeda Bai just flared up. She just flared up. It was half an hour before she would talk to me affectionately again.’ Maan looked as abstracted as it was possible for him to look.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Firoz, thinking of how sharp Saeeda Bai had been with Tasneem when he had visited the house to deliver the envelope.

  ‘It almost seemed as if she was jealous,’ Maan went on after a pause and a few more shots. ‘But why would someone as amazingly beautiful as her need to be jealous of anyone else? Especially her sister.’

  Firoz reflected that he would never have used the words ‘amazingly beautiful’ of Saeeda Bai. It was her sister who had amazed him with her beauty. He could well imagine that Saeeda Bai might envy her freshness and youth.

  ‘Well,’ he said to Maan, a smile playing on his own fresh and handsome features, ‘I wouldn’t take it as a bad sign at all. I don’t see why you’re depressed about it. You should know by now that women are like that.’

  ‘So you think jealousy is a healthy sign?’ demanded Maan, who was quite prone to jealousy himself. ‘But there must be something to feel jealous about, don’t you think? Have you ever seen the younger sister? How could she even compare with Saeeda Bai?’

  Firoz said nothing for a while, then made the brief comment: ‘Yes, I’ve seen her. She’s a pretty girl.’ He didn’t volunteer anything else.

  But Maan, while hitting the ball ineffectually across the top, had his mind on Saeeda Bai again. ‘I sometimes think she cares more for that parakeet than for me,’ he said, frowning. ‘She’s never angry with him. I can’t go on like this—I’m exhausted.’

  The last sentence referred not to his heart but to his arm. Maan was expending a great deal of energy playing his shots, and Firoz appeared to enjoy seeing him huff and puff a little.