A Suitable Boy

  Pran’s face became completely impassive. Does he believe this? he thought. Does he really believe what he is implying? Aloud he said, ‘If Fletcher—Flecker—is indispensable, I suggest we include Joyce as our twenty-second writer. I would be pleased to put it to the committee for a vote.’ Surely, thought Pran, the ignominy of being known to have turned Joyce down (as opposed to merely having deferred the decision indefinitely) would be something that the committee would not be willing to face.

  ‘Ah, Dr Kapoor, you are angry. Do not get angry. You want to pin us down,’ said Professor Mishra playfully. He turned his palms up on the table to display his own helplessness. ‘But we did not agree to decide the matter at this meeting, only to decide whether to decide it.’

  This was too much for Pran in his present mood, though he knew it was true.

  ‘Please do not misunderstand me, Professor Mishra,’ he said, ‘but that line of argument may be taken by those of us not well versed in the finer forms of parliamentary byplay to be a species of quibbling.’

  ‘A species of quibbling . . . a species of quibbling.’ Professor Mishra appeared delighted by the phrase, while both his colleagues looked appalled at Pran’s insubordination. (This is like playing bridge with two dummies, thought Pran.) Professor Mishra continued: ‘I will now order coffee, and we will collect ourselves and approach the issues calmly, as it were.’

  Dr Narayanan perked up at the prospect of coffee. Professor Mishra clapped his hands, and a lean peon in a threadbare green uniform came in.

  ‘Is coffee ready?’ asked Professor Mishra in Hindi.

  ‘Yes, Sahib.’

  ‘Good.’ Professor Mishra indicated that it should be served.

  The peon brought in a tray with a coffee pot, a small jug of hot milk, a bowl of sugar, and four cups. Professor Mishra indicated that he should serve the others first. The peon did so in the usual manner. Then Professor Mishra was offered coffee. As Professor Mishra poured coffee into his cup, the peon moved the tray deferentially backwards. Professor Mishra made to set down the coffee pot, and the peon moved the tray forward. Professor Mishra picked up the milk jug and began to add milk to his coffee, and the peon moved the tray backwards. And so on for each of three spoons of sugar. It was like a comic ballet. It would have been merely ridiculous, thought Pran, this display of the naked gradient of power and obsequiousness between the department head and the department peon, if it had only been some other department at some other university. But it was the English Department of Brahmpur University—and it was through this man that Pran had to apply to the selection committee for the readership he both wanted and needed.

  This same man whom in my first term I considered jovial, bluff, expansive, charming, why have I transformed him in my mind into such a caricature of a villain? thought Pran looking into his cup. Does he loathe me? No, that is his strength: he doesn’t. He just wants his own way. In effective politics hatred is just not useful. For him all this is like a game of chess—on a slightly vibrating board. He is fifty-eight—he has two more years until he retires. How will I be able to put up with him for so long? A sudden murderous impulse seized Pran, whom murderous impulses never seized, and he realized his hands were trembling slightly. And all this over Joyce, he said to himself. At least I haven’t had a bronchial attack. He looked down at the pad on which he, as the junior member of the committee, was taking the minutes of the meeting. It read simply:

  Present: Professor O.P. Mishra (head); Dr R.B. Gupta;

  Dr T.R. Narayanan; Dr P. Kapoor.

  1. The Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

  We have got nowhere, and we will get nowhere, he thought.

  A few well-known lines from Tagore came into his head in Tagore’s own English translation:

  Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

  dreary desert sand of dead habit;

  Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening

  thought and action—

  Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

  At least his own mortal father had given him principles, thought Pran, even if he had given him almost no time or company when he was younger. His mind wandered back home, to the small whitewashed house, to Savita, her sister, her mother—the family that he had taken into his heart and that had taken him into theirs; and then to the Ganges flowing close by the house. (When he thought in English, it was the Ganges, rather than the Ganga, to him.) He followed it first downstream to Patna and Calcutta, then upstream past Banaras till it divided at Allahabad; there he chose the Yamuna and followed it to Delhi. Are things as closed-minded in the capital? he asked himself. As mad, as mean, as silly, as rigid? How will I be able to live in Brahmpur all my life? And Mishra will doubtless give me an excellent report just to see the back of me.

  1.17

  But now Dr Gupta was laughing at a remark of Dr Narayanan’s, and Professor Mishra was saying, ‘Consensus—consensus is the goal, the civilized goal—how can we vote when we might be divided two votes against two? There were five Pandavas, they could have voted if they chose, but even they did everything by consensus. They even took a wife by consensus, ha, ha, ha! And Dr Varma is indisposed as usual, so we are only four.’

  Pran looked at the twinkling eyes, the great nose, the sweetly pursed lips with reluctant admiration. University statutes required that the syllabus committee, like departmental committees of any kind, should consist of an odd number of members. But Professor Mishra, as head of the department, appointed the members of each committee within his purview in such a way as always to include someone who for reasons of health or research was likely to be indisposed or absent. With an even number of members present, committees were more reluctant than ever to bring things to the climax of a vote. And the head, with his control over the agenda and the pacing of a meeting, could in the circumstances gather even more effective power into his hands.

  ‘I think we have, as it were, expended enough time on item two,’ said Professor Mishra. ‘Shall we go on to chiasmus and anacoluthia?’ He was referring to a proposal, put forward by himself, that they eliminate too detailed a study of traditional figures of speech for the paper in Literary Theory and Criticism. ‘And then we have the question of symmetrical auxiliaries proposed by the junior member of the committee. Though this will, of course, depend upon other departments agreeing to our proposals. And finally, since the shades of night are falling,’ continued Professor Mishra, ‘I think we should, without prejudice to items five, six, and seven, wind up the meeting. We can take up those items next month.’

  But Pran was unwilling to be dissuaded from pressing on with the unresolved question of Joyce. ‘I think we have now collected ourselves,’ he said, ‘and can approach the issue under discussion quite calmly. If I were willing to accept that Ulysses might be a bit, well, difficult for B.A. students, would the committee agree to include Dubliners on the syllabus as a first step? Dr Gupta, what do you think?’

  Dr Gupta looked up at the slowly circulating fan. His ability to get speakers on Old and Middle English invited to the departmental seminar depended upon Professor Mishra’s goodwill: outside speakers entailed incidental expenses, and funds had to be approved by the head of the department. Dr Gupta knew as well as anyone what ‘as a first step’ implied. He looked up at Pran and said, ‘I would be willing—’

  But he was swiftly interrupted in his sentence, whatever that might have been. ‘We are forgetting,’ Professor Mishra cut in, ‘something that even I, I must admit, did not bear in mind earlier in this discussion. I mean that, by tradition, the Modern British Literature paper does not include writers who were living at the time of the Second World War.’ This was news to Pran, who must have looked astonished, because Professor Mishra felt compelled to explain: ‘This is not altogether a matter for surprise. We need the distance of time objectively to appraise the stature of modern writers, to include them in our canon, as it were. Do remind me, Dr Kapoor
. . . when did Joyce die?’

  ‘1941,’ said Pran sharply. It was clear that the great white whale had known this all along.

  ‘Well, there you are . . .’ said Professor Mishra helplessly. His finger moved down the agenda.

  ‘Eliot, of course, is still alive,’ said Pran quietly, looking at the list of prescribed authors.

  The head of the department looked as if he had been slapped across the face. He opened his mouth slightly, then pursed his lips together. The jolly twinkle appeared again in his eyes. ‘But Eliot, Eliot, surely—we have objective criteria enough in his case—why, even Dr Leavis—’

  Professor Mishra clearly responded to a different drummer from the Americans, reflected Pran. Aloud he said, ‘Dr Leavis, as we know, greatly approves of Lawrence too. . . .’

  ‘We have agreed to discuss Lawrence next time,’ Professor Mishra expostulated.

  Pran gazed out of the window. It was getting dark and the leaves of the laburnum now looked cool, not dusty. He went on, not looking at Professor Mishra: ‘. . . and, besides, Joyce has a better claim as a British writer in Modern British Literature than Eliot. So if we—’

  ‘That, my young friend, if I may say so,’ cut in Professor Mishra, ‘could be considered a species of quibbling.’ He was recovering quickly from his shock. In a minute he would be quoting Prufrock.

  What is it about Eliot, thought Pran irrelevantly, his mind wandering from the subject at hand, that makes him such a sacred cow for us Indian intellectuals? Aloud he said: ‘Let us hope that T.S. Eliot has many more years of life, of productive life. I am glad that, unlike Joyce, he did not die in 1941. But we are now living in 1951, which implies that the pre-war rule you mentioned, even if it is a tradition, could not be a very ancient one. If we can’t do away with it, why not update it? Surely its purpose is that we should revere the dead above the living—or, to be less sceptical, appraise the dead before the living. Eliot, who is alive, has been granted a waiver. I propose we grant Joyce one. A friendly compromise.’ Pran paused, then added: ‘As it were.’ He smiled. ‘Dr Narayanan, are you for “The Dead”?’

  ‘Yes, well, I think so,’ said Dr Narayanan with the faintest of responding smiles, before Professor Mishra could interrupt.

  ‘Dr Gupta?’ asked Pran.

  Dr Gupta could not look Professor Mishra in the eye.

  ‘I agree with Dr Narayanan,’ said Professor Gupta.

  There was silence for a few seconds. Pran thought, I can’t believe it. I’ve won. I’ve won. I can’t believe it.

  And indeed, it seemed that he had. Everyone knew that the approval of the Academic Council of the university was usually a formality once the syllabus committee of a department had decided matters.

  As if nothing in the least untoward had occurred, the head of the department gathered together the reins of the meeting. The great soft hands scuttled across the cyclostyled sheets. ‘The next item . . .’ said Professor Mishra with a smile, then paused and began again: ‘but before we go on to the next item, I should say that I personally have always greatly admired James Joyce as a writer. I am delighted, needless to say—’

  A couple of lines of poetry came terrifyingly unbidden to Pran’s mind:

  Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,

  Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?

  and he burst into a fit of sudden laughter, incomprehensible even to himself, which went on for twenty seconds and ended in a spasm of coughing. He bent his head and tears streamed down his cheeks. Professor Mishra rewarded him with a look of unfeigned fury and hatred.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ muttered Pran as he recovered. Dr Gupta was thumping him vigorously on the back, which was not helpful. ‘Please continue—I was overcome—it sometimes happens. . . .’ But to offer any further explanation was impossible.

  The meeting was resumed and the next two points discussed quickly. There was no real disagreement. It was dark now; the meeting was adjourned. As Pran left the room Professor Mishra put a friendly arm around his shoulder. ‘My dear boy, that was a fine performance.’ Pran shuddered at the memory. ‘You are clearly a man of great integrity, intellectual and otherwise.’ Oh, oh, what is he up to now? thought Pran. Professor Mishra continued: ‘The Proctor has been badgering me since last Tuesday to submit a member of my department—it’s our turn, you know—to join the student welfare committee of the university. . . .’ Oh no, thought Pran, there goes one day every week. ‘. . . and I have decided to volunteer you.’ I didn’t know the verb was transitive, thought Pran. In the darkness—they were now walking across the campus—it was difficult for Professor Mishra entirely to disguise the active dislike in his high voice. Pran could almost see the pursed lips, the specious twinkle. He was silent, and that, to the head of the English Department, implied acceptance.

  ‘I realize you are busy, my dear Dr Kapoor, what with your extra tutorials, the Debating Society, the Colloquium, putting on plays and so on. . . .’ said Professor Mishra. ‘The sort of thing that makes one deservedly popular with students. But you are comparatively new here, my dear fellow—five years is not a long time from the perspective of an old fogey like me—and you must allow me to give you a word of advice. Cut down on your unacademic activities. Don’t tire yourself out unnecessarily. Don’t take things so seriously. What were those wonderful lines of Yeats?

  She bid me take life easy as the leaves grown on the tree,

  But I being young and foolish with her did not agree.

  I’m sure your charming wife would endorse that. Don’t drive yourself so hard—your health depends on it. And your future, I dare say. . . . In some ways you are your own worst enemy.’

  But I am only my metaphorical enemy, thought Pran. And obstinacy on my part has earned me the actual enmity of the formidable Professor Mishra. But was Professor Mishra more dangerous or less dangerous to him—in this matter of the readership, for instance, now that Pran had won his hatred?

  What was Professor Mishra thinking, wondered Pran. He imagined his thoughts went something like this: I should never have got this uppity young lecturer on to the syllabus committee. It’s too late, however, to regret all that. But at least his presence here has kept him from working mischief in, say, the admissions committee; there he could have brought up all kinds of objections to students I wanted to bring in if they weren’t selected entirely on the basis of merit. As for the university’s selection committee for the readership in English, I must rig this somehow before I allow it to meet—

  But Pran got no further clues to the inner working of that mysterious intelligence. For at this point the paths of the two colleagues diverged and, with expressions of great mutual respect, they parted from each other.

  1.18

  Meenakshi, Arun’s wife, was feeling utterly bored, so she decided to have her daughter Aparna brought to her. Aparna was looking even more pretty than usual: round and fair and black-haired with gorgeous eyes, as sharp as those of her mother. Meenakshi pressed the electric buzzer twice (the signal for the child’s ayah) and looked at the book in her lap. It was Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, and it was unutterably dull. She didn’t know how she was going to get through another five pages of it. Arun, delighted though he normally was with her, had the irksome habit of throwing an improving book her way now and then, and Meenakshi felt his suggestions were more in the way of subtle commands. ‘A wonderful book. . . .’ Arun would say some evening, laughing, in the company of the oddly flippant crowd they mixed with, a crowd that Meenakshi felt convinced could not possibly be more interested than she was in Buddenbrooks or any other such clotted Germanic construct. ‘. . . I have been reading this marvellous book by Mann, and I’m now getting Meenakshi involved in it.’ Some of the others, especially the languid Billy Irani, would look from Arun to Meenakshi in momentary wonderment, and the topic would pass to office matters or the social world or racing or dancing or golf or the Calcutta Club or complaints about ‘these bloody politicians’ or ‘these brainless bureaucrats’, a
nd Thomas Mann would be quite forgotten. But Meenakshi would now feel obliged to read enough of the book to convey an acquaintance with its contents, and it seemed to make Arun happy to see her do so.

  How wonderful Arun was, thought Meenakshi, and how pleasant it was to live in this nice flat in Sunny Park, not far from her father’s house on Ballygunge Circular Road, and why did they have to have all these furious tiffs? Arun was incredibly hotheaded and jealous, and she had only to look languidly at the languid Billy for Arun to start smouldering somewhere deep inside. It might be wonderful to have a smouldering husband in bed later, Meenakshi reflected, but such advantages did not come unadulterated. Sometimes Arun would go off into a smouldering sulk, and was quite spoilt for love-making. Billy Irani had a girlfriend, Shireen, but that made no difference to Arun, who suspected Meenakshi (quite correctly) of harbouring a casual lust for his friend. Shireen for her part occasionally sighed amidst her cocktails and announced that Billy was incorrigible.

  When the ayah arrived in answer to the bell, Meenakshi said, ‘Baby lao!’ in a kind of pidgin Hindi. The aged ayah, most of whose reactions were slow, turned creakingly to fulfil her mistress’s behest. Aparna was fetched. She had been having her afternoon nap, and yawned as she was brought in to her mother. Her small fists were rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Mummy!’ said Aparna in English. ‘I’m sleepy, and Miriam woke me up.’ Miriam, the ayah, upon hearing her name spoken, although she could understand no English, grinned at the child with toothless goodwill.

  ‘I know, precious baby doll,’ said Meenakshi, ‘but Mummy had to see you, she was so bored. Come and give—yes—and now on the other side.’

  Aparna was wearing a mauve dress of flouncy fluffy stuff and was looking, thought her mother, inexcusably enchanting. Meenakshi’s eyes went to her dressing-table mirror and she noticed with a surge of joy what a wonderful mother-and-child pair they made. ‘You are looking so lovely,’ she informed Aparna, ‘that I think I will have a whole line of little girls . . . Aparna, and Bibeka, and Charulata, and—’