Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

It was with thoughts such as these that the maestro was occupied that morning when he heard a voice say, respectfully:

‘Adaab arz, Ustad Sahib.’

Ustad Majeed Khan turned to see Ishaq. A single glance at the young man was sufficient to remove the ease of his meditations and to remind him of the insults that he had had to face in the canteen. His face grew dark with the memory; he picked up two or three tomatoes from the stall, and asked their price.

‘I have a request to make of you.’ It was Ishaq Khan again.

‘Yes?’ The contempt in the great musician’s voice was unmistakable. As he recalled, it was after he had offered his help to the young man in some footling matter that the whole exchange had occurred.

‘I also have an apology to make.’

‘Please do not waste my time.’

‘I have followed you here from your house. I need your help. I am in trouble. I need work to support myself and my younger brothers, and I cannot get it. After that day, All India Radio has not called me even once to perform.’

The maestro shrugged his shoulders.

‘I beg of you, Ustad Sahib, whatever you think of me, do not ruin my family. You knew my father and grandfather. Excuse any mistake that I may have made for their sakes.’

‘That you may have made?’

‘That I have made. I do not know what came over me.’

‘I am not ruining you. Go in peace.’

‘Ustad Sahib, since that day I have had no work, and my sister’s husband has heard nothing about his transfer from Lucknow. I dare not approach the Director.’

‘But you dare approach me. You follow me from my house—’

‘Only to get the chance to speak to you. You might understand — as a fellow-musician.’ The Ustad winced. ‘And of late my hands have been giving me trouble. I showed them to a doctor, but—’

‘I had heard,’ said the maestro dryly, but did not mention where.

‘My employer has made it clear to me that I cannot be supported for my own sake much longer.’

‘Your employer!’ The great singer was about to walk on in disgust when he added: ‘Go and thank God for that. Throw yourself on His mercy.’

‘I am throwing myself on yours,’ said Ishaq Khan desperately.

‘I have said nothing for or against you to the Station Director. What happened that morning I shall put down to an aberration in your brain. If your work has fallen off, that is not my doing. In any case, with your hands, what do you propose to do? You are very proud of your long hours of practice. My advice to you is to practise less.’

This had been Tasneem’s advice as well. Ishaq Khan nodded miserably. There was no hope, and since his pride had already suffered through his desperation, he felt that he could lose nothing by completing the apology he had begun and that he had come to believe he should make.

‘On another matter,’ he said, ‘if I may presume on your further indulgence — I have been wishing for a long time to apologize for what I know is not forgivable. That morning, Ustad Sahib, the reason why I made so bold as to sit at your table in the canteen was because I had heard your Todi just a little earlier.’

The maestro, who had been examining the vegetables, turned towards him slightly.

‘I had been sitting beneath the neem tree outside with those friends of mine. One of them had a radio. We were entranced, at least I was. I thought I would find some way of saying so to you. But then things went wrong, and other thoughts took over.’

He could not say any more by way of apology without, he felt, bringing in other matters — such as the memory of his own father, which he felt that the Ustad had demeaned.

Ustad Majeed Khan nodded his head almost imperceptibly by way of acknowledgement. He looked at the young man’s hands, noticing the worn groove in the fingernail, and for a second he also found himself wondering why he did not have a bag to carry his vegetables home in.

‘So — you liked my Todi,’ he said.

‘Yours — or God’s,’ said Ishaq Khan. ‘I felt that the great Tansen himself would have listened rapt to that rendering of his raag. But since then I have never been able to listen to you.’

The maestro frowned, but did not deign to ask Ishaq what he meant by that last remark.

‘I will be practising Todi this morning,’ said Ustad Majeed Khan. ‘Follow me after this.’

Ishaq’s face expressed complete disbelief; it was as if heaven had fallen into his hands. He forgot his hands, his pride, the financial desperation that had forced him to speak to Ustad Majeed Khan. He merely listened as if in a dream to the Ustad’s further conversation with the vegetable seller:

‘How much are these?’

‘Two and a half annas per pao,’ replied the vegetable seller.

‘Beyond Subzipur you can get them for one and a half annas.’

‘Bhai Sahib, these are not the prices of Subzipur but of Chowk.’

‘Very high, these prices of yours.’

‘Oh, we had a child last year — since then my prices have gone up.’ The vegetable seller, seated calmly on the ground on a bit of jute matting, looked up at the Ustad.

Ustad Majeed Khan did not smile at the vendor’s quips. ‘Two annas per pao — that’s it.’

‘I have to earn my meals from you, Sir, not from the charity of a gurudwara.’

‘All right — all right—’ And Ustad Majeed Khan threw him a couple of coins.

After buying a bit of ginger and some chillies, the Ustad decided to get a few tindas.

‘Mind that you give me small ones.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s what I’m doing.’

‘And these tomatoes — they are soft.’

‘Soft, Sir?’

‘Yes, look—’ The Ustad took them off the scales. ‘Weigh these ones instead.’ He rummaged around among the selection.

‘They wouldn’t have gone soft in a week — but whatever you say, Sir.’

‘Weigh them properly,’ growled the Ustad. ‘If you keep putting weights on one pan, I can keep putting tomatoes on the other. My pan should sink in the balance.’

Suddenly, the Ustad’s attention was caught by a couple of cauliflowers which looked comparatively fresh, not like the stunted outriders of the season. But when the vegetable seller named the price, he was appalled.

‘Don’t you fear God?’

‘For you, Sir, I have quoted a special price.’

‘What do you mean, for me? It’s what you charge everyone, you rogue, I am certain. Special price—’

‘Ah, but these cauliflowers are special — you don’t require oil to fry them.’

Ishaq smiled slightly, but Ustad Majeed Khan simply said to the local wit:

‘Huh! Give me this one.’

Ishaq said: ‘Let me carry them, Ustad Sahib.’

Ustad Majeed Khan gave Ishaq the bag of vegetables to carry, forgetful of his hands. On the way home he did not say anything. Ishaq walked along quietly.

At his door, Ustad Majeed Khan said in a loud voice: ‘There is someone with me.’ There was a sound of flustered female voices and then of people leaving the front room. They entered. The tanpura was in a corner. Ustad Majeed Khan told Ishaq to put the vegetables down and to wait for him. Ishaq remained standing, but looked about him. The room was full of cheap knick-knacks and tasteless furniture. There could not have been a greater contrast to Saeeda Bai’s immaculate outer chamber.

Ustad Majeed Khan came back in, having washed his face and hands. He told Ishaq to sit down, and tuned the tanpura for a while. Finally, satisfied, he started to practise in Raag Todi.

There was no tabla player, and Ustad Majeed Khan began to sense his way around the raag in a freer, less rhythmic but more intense manner than Ishaq Khan had ever heard from him before. He always began his public performances not with a free alaap such as this but with a very slow composition in a long rhythmic cycle which allowed him a liberty that was almost, but not quite, comparable. The flavour of these few minutes was so startlingly different from those other great performances that Ishaq was enraptured. He closed his eyes, and the room ceased to exist; and then, after a while, himself; and finally even the singer.