A Suitable Boy

  Mr Justice Chatterji was not an orderly man, but he had produced five children in strict alternation of sex: Amit, Meenakshi (who was married to Arun Mehra), Dipankar, Kakoli, and Tapan. None of them worked, but each had an occupation. Amit wrote poetry, Meenakshi played canasta, Dipankar sought the Meaning of Life, Kakoli kept the telephone busy, and Tapan, who was only twelve or thirteen, and by far the youngest, went to the prestigious boarding school, Jheel.

  Amit, the poet, had studied Jurisprudence at Oxford, but having got his degree, had not completed, to his father’s exasperation, what should have been easy enough for him to complete: his studies for the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, his father’s old Inn. He had eaten most of his dinners and had even passed a paper or two, but had then lost interest in the law. Instead, on the strength of a couple of university prizes for poetry, some short fiction published here and there in literary magazines, and a book of poetry which had won him a prize in England (and therefore adulation in Calcutta), he was sitting pretty in his father’s house and doing nothing that counted as real work.

  At the moment he was talking to his two sisters and to Lata.

  ‘How many do we expect?’ asked Amit.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kakoli. ‘Fifty?’

  Amit looked amused. ‘Fifty would just about cover half your friends, Kuku. I’d say one hundred and fifty.’

  ‘I can’t abide these large parties,’ said Meenakshi in high excitement.

  ‘No, nor can I,’ said Kakoli, glancing at herself in the tall mirror in the hall.

  ‘I suppose the guest list consists entirely of those invited by Ma and Tapan and myself,’ said Amit, naming the three least sociable members of the family.

  ‘Vereeeee funneeeee,’ said (or, rather, sang) Kakoli, whose name implied the songbird that she was.

  ‘You should go up to your room, Amit,’ said Meenakshi, ‘and settle down on a sofa with Jane Austen. We’ll tell you when dinner is served. Or better still, we’ll send it up to you. That way you can avoid all your admirers.’

  ‘He’s very peculiar,’ said Kakoli to Lata. ‘Jane Austen is the only woman in his life.’

  ‘But half the bhadralok in Calcutta want him as a match for their daughters,’ added Meenakshi. ‘They believe he has brains.’

  Kakoli recited:

  ‘Amit Chatterji, what a catch!

  Is a highly suitable match.’

  Meenakshi added:

  ‘Why he has not married yet?

  Always playing hard to get.’

  Kakoli continued:

  ‘Famous poet, so they say.

  “Besh” decent in every way.’

  She giggled.

  Lata said to Amit: ‘Why do you let them get away with this?’

  ‘You mean with their doggerel?’ said Amit.

  ‘I mean with teasing you,’ said Lata.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. It runs off my back like duck’s water,’ said Amit.

  Lata looked surprised, but Kakoli said, ‘He’s doing a Biswas on you.’

  ‘A Biswas?’

  ‘Biswas Babu, my father’s old clerk. He still comes around a couple of times a week to help with this and that, and gives us advice on life. He advised Meenakshi against marrying your brother,’ said Kakoli.

  In fact the opposition to Meenakshi’s sudden affair and marriage had been wider and deeper. Meenakshi’s parents had not particularly cared for the fact that she had married outside the community. Arun Mehra was neither a Brahmo, nor of Brahmin stock, nor even a Bengali. He came from a family that was struggling financially. To give the Chatterjis credit, this last fact did not matter very much to them, though they themselves had been more than affluent for generations. They were only (with respect to this objection) concerned that their daughter might not be able to afford the comforts of life that she had grown up with. But again, they had not swamped their married daughter with gifts. Even though Mr Justice Chatterji did not have an instinctive rapport with his son-in-law, he did not think that that would be fair.

  ‘What does Biswas Babu have to do with duck’s water?’ asked Lata, who found Meenakshi’s family amusing but confusing.

  ‘Oh—that’s just one of his expressions. I don’t think it’s very kind of Amit not to explain family references to outsiders.’

  ‘She’s not an outsider,’ said Amit. ‘Or she shouldn’t be. Actually, we are all very fond of Biswas Babu, and he is very fond of us. He was my grandfather’s clerk originally.’

  ‘But he won’t be Amit’s—to his heart-deep regret,’ said Meenakshi. ‘In fact, Biswas Babu is even more upset than our father that Amit has deserted the Bar.’

  ‘I can still practise if I choose to,’ said Amit. ‘A university degree is enough in Calcutta.’

  ‘Ah, but you won’t be admitted to the Bar Library.’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Amit. ‘Actually, I’d be happy editing a small journal and writing a few good poems and a novel or two and passing gently into senility and posterity. May I offer you a drink? A sherry?’

  ‘I’ll have a sherry,’ said Kakoli.

  ‘Not you, Kuku, you can help yourself. I was offering Lata a drink.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Kakoli. She looked at Lata’s pale blue cotton sari with its fine chikan embroidery, and said: ‘Do you know, Lata—pink is what would really suit you.’

  Lata said: ‘I’d better not have anything as dangerous as a sherry. Could I have some—oh, why not? A small sherry, please.’

  Amit went to the bar with a smile and said: ‘Do you think I might have two glasses of sherry?’

  ‘Dry, medium or sweet, Sir?’ asked Tapan.

  Tapan was the baby of the family, whom everyone loved and fussed over, and who was even allowed an occasional sip of sherry himself. This evening he was helping at the bar.

  ‘One sweet and one dry, please,’ said Amit. ‘Where’s Dipankar?’ he asked Tapan.

  ‘I think he’s in his room, Dada,’ said Tapan. ‘Shall I call him down?’

  ‘No, no, you help with the bar,’ said Amit, patting his brother on the shoulder. ‘You’re doing a fine job. I’ll just see what he’s up to.’

  Dipankar, their middle brother, was a dreamer. He had studied economics, but spent most of his time reading about the poet and patriot Sri Aurobindo, whose flaccid mystical verse he was (to Amit’s disgust) at present deeply engrossed in. Dipankar was indecisive by nature. Amit knew that it would be best simply to bring him downstairs himself. Left to his own devices, Dipankar treated every decision like a spiritual crisis. Whether to have one spoon of sugar in his tea or two, whether to come down now or fifteen minutes later, whether to enjoy the good life of Ballygunge or to take up Sri Aurobindo’s path of renunciation, all these decisions caused him endless agony. A succession of strong women passed through his life and made most of his decisions for him, before they became impatient with his vacillation (‘Is she really the one for me?’) and moved on. His views moulded themselves to theirs while they lasted, then began to float freely again.

  Dipankar was fond of making remarks such as, ‘It is all the Void,’ at breakfast, thus casting a mystical aura over the scrambled eggs.

  Amit went up to Dipankar’s room, and found him sitting on a prayer mat at the harmonium, untunefully singing a song by Rabindranath Tagore.

  ‘You had better come down soon,’ Amit said in Bengali. ‘The guests have begun to arrive.’

  ‘Just coming, just coming,’ said Dipankar. ‘I’ll just finish this song, and then I’ll . . . I’ll come down. I will.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ said Amit.

  ‘You can go down, Dada. Don’t trouble yourself. Please.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ said Amit. After Dipankar had finished his song, unembarrassed by its tunelessness—for all pitches, no doubt, stood equal before the Void—Amit escorted him down the teak-balustraded marble stairs.

  7.8

  ‘Where’s Cuddles?’ asked Amit when they were halfway down.

  ‘Oh,’ said Dipan
kar vaguely, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He might bite someone.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Dipankar, not greatly troubled by the thought.

  Cuddles was not a hospitable dog. He had been with the Chatterji family for more than ten years, during which time he had bitten Biswas Babu, several schoolchildren (friends who had come to play), a number of lawyers (who had visited Mr Justice Chatterji’s chambers for conferences during his years as a barrister), a middle-level executive, a doctor on a house call, and the standard mixture of postmen and electricians.

  Cuddles’ most recent victim had been the man who had come to the door to take the decennial census.

  The only creature Cuddles treated with respect was Mr Justice Chatterji’s father’s cat Pillow, who lived in the next house, and who was so fierce that he was taken for walks on a leash.

  ‘You should have tied him up,’ said Amit.

  Dipankar frowned. His thoughts were with Sri Aurobindo. ‘I think I have,’ he said.

  ‘We’d better make sure,’ said Amit. ‘Just in case.’

  It was good that they did. Cuddles rarely growled to identify his position, and Dipankar could not remember where—if at all—he had put him. He might still be ranging the garden in order to savage any guests who wandered on to the verandah.

  They found Cuddles in the bedroom which had been set aside for people to leave their bags and other apparatus in. He was crouched quietly near a bedside table, watching them with shiny little black eyes. He was a small black dog, with some white on his chest and on his paws. When they had bought him the Chatterjis had been told he was an apso, but he had turned out to be a mutt with a large proportion of Tibetan terrier.

  In order to avoid trouble at the party, he had been fastened by a leash to a bedpost. Dipankar could not recall having done this, so it might have been someone else. He and Amit approached Cuddles. Cuddles normally loved the family, but today he was jittery.

  Cuddles surveyed them closely without growling, and when he judged that the moment was ripe, he flew intently and viciously through the air towards them until the sudden restraint of the leash jerked him back. He strained against it, but could not get into biting range. All the Chatterjis knew how to step back rapidly when instinct told them Cuddles was on the attack. But perhaps the guests would not react so swiftly.

  ‘I think we should move him out of this room,’ said Amit. Strictly speaking, Cuddles was Dipankar’s dog, and thus his responsibility, but he now in effect belonged to all of them—or, rather, was, accepted as one of them, like the sixth point of a regular hexagon.

  ‘He seems quite happy here,’ said Dipankar. ‘He’s a living being too. Naturally he gets nervous with all this coming and going in the house.’

  ‘Take it from me,’ said Amit, ‘he’s going to bite someone.’

  ‘Hmm. . . . Should I put a notice on the door: Beware of Dog?’ asked Dipankar.

  ‘No. I think you should get him out of here. Lock him up in your room.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ said Dipankar. ‘He hates being upstairs when everyone else is downstairs. He is a sort of lapdog, after all.’

  Amit reflected that Cuddles was the most psychotic lapdog he had known. He too blamed his temperament on the constant stream of visitors to the house. Kakoli’s friends of late had flooded the Chatterji mansion. Now, as it happened, Kakoli herself entered the room with a friend.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Dada, we were wondering what had happened to you. Have you met Neera? Neera, these are my berruthers Amit and Dipankar. Oh yes, put it down on the bed,’ said Kakoli. ‘It’ll be quite safe here. And the bathroom’s through there.’ Cuddles prepared for a lunge. ‘Watch out for the dog—he’s harmless but sometimes he has moods. We have moods, don’t we, Cuddlu? Poor Cuddlu, left all alone in the bedroom.

  Darling Cuddles, what to do

  When the house is such a zoo!’

  sang Kakoli, then disappeared.

  ‘We’d better take him upstairs,’ said Amit. ‘Come on.’

  Dipankar consented. Cuddles growled. They calmed him down and took him up. Then Dipankar played a few soothing chords on the harmonium to reassure him, and they returned downstairs.

  Many of the guests had arrived by now, and the party was in full swing. In the grand drawing room with its grand piano and grander chandelier milled scores of guests in full summer evening finery, the women fluttering and flattering and sizing each other up, the men engaging themselves in more self-important chatter. British and Indian, Bengali and non-Bengali, old and middle-aged and young, saris shimmering and necklaces glimmering, crisp Shantipuri dhotis edged with a fine line of gold and hand-creased to perfection, kurtas of raw off-white silk with gold buttons, chiffon saris of various pastel hues, white cotton saris with red borders, Dhakai saris with a white background and a pattern in the weave—or (still more elegant) a grey background with a white design, white dinner jackets with black trousers and black bow ties and black patent leather Derbys or Oxfords (each bearing a little reflected chandelier), long dresses of flowery-printed fine poplin chintz and finely polka-dotted white cotton organdy, even an off-the-shoulder silk dress or two in the lightest and most summery of silks: brilliant were the clothes, and glittering the people who filled them.

  Arun, who considered it too hot for a jacket, was wearing a stylish cummerbund instead—a maroon monochrome sash with a shimmering pattern through the weave—and a matching bow tie. He was talking rather gravely to Jock Mackay, a cheerful bachelor in his mid-forties who was one of the directors of the managing agency of McKibbin & Ross.

  Meenakshi was dressed in a striking orange French chiffon sari and an electric-blue backless choli tied on around her neck and waist with narrow cloth bands. Her midriff was gloriously exposed, around her long and fragrant neck was clasped a Jaipur enamel choker in blue and orange with matching bracelets on her arms, her already considerable height was enhanced by stiletto heels and a tall bun, large earrings dangled deliciously below her chin, the orange tika on her forehead was as huge as her eyes, and most striking and ornamental of all was her devastating smile.

  She advanced towards Amit, exuding a fragrance of Shocking Schiaparelli.

  But before Amit could greet her, he was accosted by a middle-aged, accusing-looking woman with large, popping eyes whom he did not recognize. She said to him:

  ‘I loved your last book but I can’t say I understood it.’ She waited for a response.

  ‘Oh—well, thank you,’ said Amit.

  ‘Surely that’s not all you’re going to say?’ said the woman, disappointed. ‘I thought poets were more articulate. I’m an old friend of your mother’s though we haven’t met for many years,’ she added, irrelevantly. ‘We go back to Shantiniketan.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Amit. Although he did not much care for this woman, he did not move away. He felt he ought to say something.

  ‘Well, I’m not so much of a poet now. I’m writing a novel,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s no excuse at all,’ said the woman. Then she added: ‘Tell me, what is it about? Or is that a trade secret of the famous Amit Chatterji?’

  ‘No, no, not really,’ said Amit, who hated to talk about his current work. ‘It’s about a moneylender at the time of the Bengal Famine. As you know, my mother’s family comes from East Bengal—’

  ‘How wonderful that you should want to write about your own country,’ said the woman. ‘Especially after winning all those prizes abroad. Tell me, are you in India a lot?’

  Amit noticed that both his sisters were standing near him now and listening in.

  ‘Oh yes, well, now that I’ve returned I am here most of the time. I’m, well, in and out—’

  ‘In and out,’ repeated the woman wonderingly.

  ‘Back and forth,’ said Meenakshi helpfully.

  ‘Off and on,’ said Kakoli, who was incapable of restraint.

  The woman frowned.

  ‘To and fro,’ said Meenakshi.

  ‘Here and there
,’ said Kakoli.

  She and Meenakshi started giggling. Then they waved to someone at the far side of the huge room, and instantly disappeared.

  Amit smiled apologetically. But the woman was looking at him angrily. Were the young Chatterjis trying to make fun of her?

  She said to Amit: ‘I am quite sick of reading about you.’

  Amit said mildly: ‘Mmm. Yes.’

  ‘And of hearing about you.’

  ‘If I weren’t me,’ said Amit, ‘I would be pretty sick of hearing about myself.’ The woman frowned. Then, recovering, she said: ‘I think my drink’s finished.’

  She noticed her husband hovering nearby, and handed him her empty glass, which was stained with crimson lipstick around the rim. ‘But tell me, how do you write?’

  ‘Do you mean—’ began Amit.

  ‘I mean, is it inspiration? Or is it hard work?’

  ‘Well,’ said Amit, ‘without inspiration one can’t—’

  ‘I knew, I just knew it was inspiration. But without being married, how did you write that poem about the young bride?’

  She sounded disapproving.

  Amit looked thoughtful, and said: ‘I just—’

  ‘And tell me,’ continued the woman, ‘does it take you long to think of a book? I’m dying to read your new book.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Amit.

  ‘I have some good ideas for books,’ said the woman. ‘When I was in Shantiniketan, the influence of Gurudeb on me was very deep . . . you know—our own Rabindranath. . . .’

  Amit said, ‘Ah.’

  ‘It could not take you long, I know . . . but the writing itself must be so difficult. I could never be a writer. I don’t have the gift. It is a gift from God.’