Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

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.

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 the 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.