A Suitable Boy Read online

  ‘Don’t forget what I told you,’ she said in an admonitory voice.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Lata. ‘Ma, your handkerchief’s sticking out of your blouse.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, worriedly tucking it in. ‘And tell Arun to please take his duties seriously. He is just standing there in a corner talking to that Meenakshi and his silly friend from Calcutta. He should see that everyone is drinking and eating properly and having a gala time.’

  ‘That Meenakshi’ was Arun’s glamorous wife and her own disrespectful daughter-in-law. In four years of marriage Meenakshi’s only worthwhile act, in Mrs Rupa Mehra’s eyes, had been to give birth to her beloved granddaughter, Aparna, who even now had found her way to her grandmother’s brown silk sari and was tugging at it for attention. Mrs Rupa Mehra was delighted. She gave her a kiss and told her:

  ‘Aparna, you must stay with your Mummy or with Lata Bua, otherwise you will get lost. And then where would we be?’

  ‘Can’t I come with you?’ asked Aparna, who, at three, naturally had views and preferences of her own.

  ‘Sweetheart, I wish you could,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, ‘but I have to make sure that your Savita Bua is ready to be married. She is so late already.’ And Mrs Rupa Mehra looked once again at the little gold watch that had been her husband’s first gift to her and which had not missed a beat for two and a half decades.

  ‘I want to see Savita Bua!’ said Aparna, holding her ground.

  Mrs Rupa Mehra looked a little harassed and nodded vaguely at Aparna.

  Lata picked Aparna up. ‘When Savita Bua comes out, we’ll go over there together, shall we, and I’ll hold you up like this, and we’ll both get a good view. Meanwhile, should we go and see if we can get some ice-cream? I feel like some too.’

  Aparna approved of this, as of most of Lata’s suggestions. It was never too cold for ice-cream. They walked towards the buffet table together, three-year-old and nineteen-year-old hand in hand. A few rose petals wafted down on them from somewhere.

  ‘What is good enough for your sister is good enough for you,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra to Lata as a parting shot.

  ‘We can’t both marry Pran,’ said Lata, laughing.

  1.2

  The other chief host of the wedding was the groom’s father, Mr Mahesh Kapoor, who was the Minister of Revenue of the state of Purva Pradesh. It was in fact in his large, C-shaped, cream-coloured, two-storey family house, Prem Nivas, situated in the quietest, greenest residential area of the ancient, and—for the most part—over-populated city of Brahmpur, that the wedding was taking place.

  This was so unusual that the whole of Brahmpur had been buzzing about it for days. Mrs Rupa Mehra’s father, who was supposed to be the host, had taken sudden umbrage a fortnight before the wedding, had locked up his house, and had disappeared. Mrs Rupa Mehra had been distraught. The Minister Sahib had stepped in (‘Your honour is our honour’), and had insisted on putting on the wedding himself. As for the ensuing gossip, he ignored it.

  There was no question of Mrs Rupa Mehra helping to pay for the wedding. The Minister Sahib would not hear of it. Nor had he at any time asked for any dowry. He was an old friend and bridge partner of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s father and he had liked what he had seen of her daughter Savita (though he could never remember the girl’s name). He was sympathetic to economic hardship, for he too had tasted it. During the several years he had spent in British jails during the struggle for Independence, there had been no one to run his farm or his cloth business. As a result very little income had come in, and his wife and family had struggled along with great difficulty.

  Those unhappy times, however, were only a memory for the able, impatient, and powerful Minister. It was the early winter of 1950, and India had been free for over three years. But freedom for the country did not mean freedom for his younger son, Maan, who even now was being told by his father:

  ‘What is good enough for your brother is good enough for you.’

  ‘Yes, Baoji,’ said Maan, smiling.

  Mr Mahesh Kapoor frowned. His younger son, while succeeding to his own habit of fine dress, had not succeeded to his obsession with hard work. Nor did he appear to have any ambition to speak of.

  ‘It is no use being a good-looking young wastrel forever,’ said his father. ‘And marriage will force you to settle down and take things seriously. I have written to the Banaras people, and I expect a favourable answer any day.’

  Marriage was the last thing on Maan’s mind; he had caught a friend’s eye in the crowd and was waving at him. Hundreds of small coloured lights strung through the hedge came on all at once, and the silk saris and jewellery of the women glimmered and glinted even more brightly. The high, reedy shehnai music burst into a pattern of speed and brilliance. Maan was entranced. He noticed Lata making her way through the guests. Quite an attractive girl, Savita’s sister, he thought. Not very tall and not very fair, but attractive, with an oval face, a shy light in her dark eyes and an affectionate manner towards the child she was leading by the hand.

  ‘Yes, Baoji,’ said Maan obediently.

  ‘What did I say?’ demanded his father.

  ‘About marriage, Baoji,’ said Maan.

  ‘What about marriage?’

  Maan was nonplussed.

  ‘Don’t you listen?’ demanded Mahesh Kapoor, wanting to twist Maan’s ear. ‘You are as bad as the clerks in the Revenue Department. You were not paying attention, you were waving at Firoz.’

  Maan looked a little shamefaced. He knew what his father thought of him. But he had been enjoying himself until a couple of minutes ago, and it was just like Baoji to come and puncture his light spirits.

  ‘So that’s all fixed up,’ continued his father. ‘Don’t tell me later that I didn’t warn you. And don’t get that weak-willed woman, your mother, to change her mind and come telling me that you aren’t yet ready to take on the responsibilities of a man.’

  ‘No, Baoji,’ said Maan, getting the drift of things and looking a trifle glum.

  ‘We chose well for Veena, we have chosen well for Pran, and you are not to complain about our choice of a bride for you.’

  Maan said nothing. He was wondering how to repair the puncture. He had a bottle of Scotch upstairs in his room, and perhaps he and Firoz could escape for a few minutes before the ceremony—or even during it—for refreshment.

  His father paused to smile brusquely at a few well-wishers, then turned to Maan again.

  ‘I don’t want to have to waste any more time with you today. God knows I have enough to do as it is. What has happened to Pran and that girl, what’s her name? It’s getting late. They were supposed to come out from opposite ends of the house and meet here for the jaymala five minutes ago.’

  ‘Savita,’ prompted Maan.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said his father impatiently. ‘Savita. Your superstitious mother will start panicking if they miss the correct configuration of the stars. Go and calm her down. Go! Do some good.’

  And Mahesh Kapoor went back to his own duties as a host. He frowned impatiently at one of the officiating priests, who smiled weakly back. He narrowly avoided being butted in the stomach and knocked over by three children, offspring of his rural relatives, who were careering joyfully around the garden as if it were a field of stubble. And he greeted, before he had walked ten steps, a professor of literature (who could be useful for Pran’s career); two influential members of the state legislature from the Congress Party (who might well agree to back him in his perennial power struggle with the Home Minister); a judge, the very last Englishman to remain on the bench of the Brahmpur High Court after Independence; and his old friend the Nawab Sahib of Baitar, one of the largest landowners in the state.

  1.3

  Lata, who had heard a part of Maan’s conversation with his father, could not help smiling to herself as she walked past.

  ‘I see you’re enjoying yourself,’ said Maan to her in English.

  His conversation with his father had been in Hindi, hers w
ith her mother in English. Maan spoke both well.

  Lata was struck shy, as she sometimes was with strangers, especially those who smiled as boldly as Maan. Let him do the smiling for both of us, she thought.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply, her eyes resting on his face for just a second. Aparna tugged at her hand.

  ‘Well, now, we’re almost family,’ said Maan, perhaps sensing her awkwardness. ‘A few minutes more, and the ceremonies will start.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Lata, looking up at him again more confidently. She paused and frowned. ‘My mother’s concerned that they won’t start on time.’

  ‘So is my father,’ said Maan.

  Lata began smiling again, but when Maan asked her why she shook her head.

  ‘Well,’ said Maan, flicking a rose petal off his beautiful tight white achkan, ‘you’re not laughing at me, are you?’

  ‘I’m not laughing at all,’ said Lata.

  ‘Smiling, I meant.’

  ‘No, not at you,’ said Lata. ‘At myself.’

  ‘That’s very mysterious,’ said Maan. His good-natured face melted into an expression of exaggerated perplexity.

  ‘It’ll have to remain so, I’m afraid,’ said Lata, almost laughing now. ‘Aparna here wants her ice-cream, and I must supply it.’

  ‘Try the pistachio ice-cream,’ suggested Maan. His eyes followed her pink sari for a few seconds. Good-looking girl—in a way, he thought again. Pink’s the wrong colour for her complexion, though. She should be dressed in deep green or dark blue . . . like that woman there. His attention veered to a new object of contemplation.

  A few seconds later Lata bumped into her best friend, Malati, a medical student who shared her room at the student hostel. Malati was very outgoing and never lost her tongue with strangers. Strangers, however, blinking into her lovely green eyes, sometimes lost their tongues with her.

  ‘Who was that Cad you were talking to?’ she asked Lata eagerly.

  This wasn’t as bad as it sounded. A good-looking young man, in the slang of Brahmpur University girls, was a Cad. The term derived from Cadbury’s chocolate.

  ‘Oh, that’s just Maan, he’s Pran’s younger brother.’

  ‘Really! But he’s so good-looking and Pran’s so, well, not ugly, but, you know, dark, and nothing special.’

  ‘Maybe he’s a dark Cad,’ suggested Lata. ‘Bitter but sustaining.’

  Malati considered this.

  ‘And,’ continued Lata, ‘as my aunts have reminded me five times in the last hour, I’m not all that fair either, and will therefore find it impossible to get a suitable husband.’

  ‘How can you put up with them, Lata?’ asked Malati, who had been brought up, fatherless and brotherless, in a circle of very supportive women.

  ‘Oh, I like most of them,’ said Lata. ‘And if it wasn’t for this sort of speculation it wouldn’t be much of a wedding for them. Once they see the bride and groom together, they’ll have an even better time. Beauty and the Beast.’

  ‘Well, he’s looked rather beast-like whenever I’ve seen him on the university campus,’ said Malati. ‘Like a dark giraffe.’

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ said Lata, laughing. ‘Anyway, Pran’s very popular as a lecturer,’ she continued. ‘And I like him. And you’re going to have to visit me at his house once I leave the hostel and start living there. And since he’ll be my brother-in-law you’ll have to like him too. Promise me you will.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Malati firmly. ‘He’s taking you away from me.’

  ‘He’s doing nothing of the sort, Malati,’ said Lata. ‘My mother, with her fine sense of household economy, is dumping me on him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see why you should obey your mother. Tell her you can’t bear to be parted from me.’

  ‘I always obey my mother,’ said Lata. ‘And besides, who will pay my hostel fees if she doesn’t? And it will be very nice for me to live with Savita for a while. I refuse to lose you. You really must visit us—you must keep visiting us. If you don’t, I’ll know how much value to put on your friendship.’

  Malati looked unhappy for a second or two, then recovered. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked. Aparna was looking at her in a severe and uncompromising manner.

  ‘My niece, Aparna,’ said Lata. ‘Say hello to Malati Aunty, Aparna.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Aparna, who had reached the end of her patience. ‘Can I have a pistachio ice-cream, please?’

  ‘Yes, kuchuk, of course, I’m sorry,’ said Lata. ‘Come, let’s all go together and get some.’

  1.4

  Lata soon lost Malati to a clutch of college friends, but before she and Aparna could get much further, they were captured by Aparna’s parents.

  ‘So there you are, you precious little runaway,’ said the resplendent Meenakshi, implanting a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. ‘Isn’t she precious, Arun? Now where have you been, you precious truant?’

  ‘I went to find Daadi,’ began Aparna. ‘And then I found her, but she had to go into the house because of Savita Bua, but I couldn’t go with her, and then Lata Bua took me to have ice-cream, but we couldn’t because—’

  But Meenakshi had lost interest and had turned to Lata.

  ‘That pink doesn’t really suit you, Luts,’ said Meenakshi. ‘It lacks a certain—a certain—’

  ‘Je ne sais quoi?’ prompted a suave friend of her husband’s, who was standing nearby.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Meenakshi, with such withering charm that the young fellow glided away for a while and pretended to stare at the stars.

  ‘No, pink’s just not right for you, Luts,’ reaffirmed Meenakshi, stretching her long, tawny neck like a relaxed cat and appraising her sister-in-law.

  She herself was wearing a green-and-gold sari of Banaras silk, with a green choli that exposed more of her midriff than Brahmpur society was normally privileged or prepared to see.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lata, suddenly self-conscious. She knew she didn’t have much dress sense, and imagined she looked rather drab standing next to this bird of paradise.

  ‘Who was that fellow you were talking to?’ demanded her brother Arun, who, unlike his wife, had noticed Lata talking to Maan. Arun was twenty-five, a tall, fair, intelligent, pleasant-looking bully who kept his siblings in place by pummelling their egos. He was fond of reminding them that after their father’s death, he was ‘in a manner of speaking’, in loco parentis to them.

  ‘That was Maan, Pran’s brother.’

  ‘Ah.’ The word spoke volumes of disapproval.

  Arun and Meenakshi had arrived just this morning by overnight train from Calcutta, where Arun worked as one of the few Indian executives in the prestigious and largely white firm of Bentsen & Pryce. He had had neither the time nor the desire to acquaint himself with the Kapoor family—or clan, as he called it—with whom his mother had contrived a match for his sister. He cast his eyes balefully around. Typical of their type to overdo everything, he thought, looking at the coloured lights in the hedge. The crassness of the state politicians, white-capped and effusive, and of Mahesh Kapoor’s contingent of rustic relatives excited his finely tuned disdain. And the fact that neither the brigadier from the Brahmpur Cantonment nor the Brahmpur representatives of companies like Burmah Shell, Imperial Tobacco, and Caltex were represented in the crowd of invitees blinded his eyes to the presence of the larger part of the professional elite of Brahmpur.

  ‘A bit of a bounder, I’d say,’ said Arun, who had noticed Maan’s eyes casually following Lata before he had turned them elsewhere.

  Lata smiled, and her meek brother Varun, who was a nervous shadow to Arun and Meenakshi, smiled too in a kind of stifled complicity. Varun was studying—or trying to study—mathematics at Calcutta University, and he lived with Arun and Meenakshi in their small ground-floor flat. He was thin, unsure of himself, sweet-natured and shifty-eyed; and he was Lata’s favourite. Though he was a year older than her, she felt protective of him. Varun was terrified, in different ways, of both Arun and Meenakshi, a
nd in some ways even of the precocious Aparna. His enjoyment of mathematics was mainly limited to the calculation of odds and handicaps on the racing form. In winter, as Varun’s excitement rose with the racing season, so did his elder brother’s ire. Arun was fond of calling him a bounder as well.

  And what would you know about bounding, Arun Bhai? thought Lata to herself. Aloud she said: ‘He seemed quite nice.’

  ‘An aunty we met called him a Cad,’ contributed Aparna.

  ‘Did she, precious?’ said Meenakshi, interested. ‘Do point him out to me, Arun.’ But Maan was now nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I blame myself to some extent,’ said Arun in a voice which implied nothing of the sort; Arun was not capable of blaming himself for anything. ‘I really should have done something,’ he continued. ‘If I hadn’t been so tied up with work, I might have prevented this whole fiasco. But once Ma got it into her head that this Kapoor chap was suitable, it was impossible to dissuade her. It’s impossible to talk reason with Ma; she just turns on the waterworks.’

  What had also helped deflect Arun’s suspicions had been the fact that Dr Pran Kapoor taught English. And yet, to Arun’s chagrin, there was hardly an English face in this whole provincial crowd.