Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

He did not know how long he had been sitting there when he heard Ustad Majeed Khan saying:

‘Now, you strum it.’

He opened his eyes. The maestro, sitting bolt upright, indicated the tanpura that was lying before him.

Ishaq’s hands did not cause him any pain as he turned it towards himself and began to strum the four wires, tuned perfectly to the open and hypnotic combination of tonic and dominant. He assumed that the maestro was going to continue his practice.

‘Now, sing this after me.’ And the Ustad sang a phrase.

Ishaq Khan was literally dumbstruck.

‘What is taking you so long?’ asked the Ustad sternly, in the tone known so well to his students at the Haridas College of Music.

Ishaq Khan sang the phrase.

The Ustad continued to offer him phrases, at first brief, and then increasingly long and complex. Ishaq repeated them to the best of his ability, at first with unmusical hesitancy but after a while entirely forgetting himself in the surge and ebb of the music.

‘Sarangi-wallahs are good at copying,’ said the Ustad thoughtfully. ‘But there is something in you that goes beyond that.’

So astonished was Ishaq that his hands stopped strumming the tanpura.

The Ustad was silent for a while. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a cheap clock. Ustad Majeed Khan looked at it, as if conscious for the first time of its presence, then turned his gaze towards Ishaq.

It struck him that possibly, but only just possibly, he may have found in Ishaq that disciple whom he had looked for now for years — someone to whom he could pass on his art, someone who, unlike his own frog-voiced son, loved music with a passion, who had a grounding in performance, whose voice was not displeasing, whose sense of pitch and ornament was exceptional, and who had that additional element of indefinable expressivity, even when he copied his own phrases, which was the soul of music. But originality in composition — did he possess that — or at least the germ of such originality? Only time would tell — months, perhaps years, of time.

‘Come again tomorrow, but at seven in the morning,’ said the Ustad, dismissing him. Ishaq Khan nodded slowly, then stood up to leave.

Lata saw the envelope on the salver. Arun’s servant had brought the mail in just before breakfast and laid it on the dining table. As soon as she saw the letter she took in her breath sharply. She even glanced around the dining room. No one else had yet entered. Breakfast was an erratic meal in this household.

Lata knew Kabir’s handwriting from the note that he had scribbled to her during the meeting of the Brahmpur Literary Society. She had not expected him to write to her, and could not think how he had obtained her address in Calcutta. She had not wanted him to write. She did not want to hear from him or about him. Now that she looked back she saw that she had been happy before she had met him: anxious about her exams perhaps, worried about a few small differences she may have had with her mother or a friend, troubled about this constant talk of finding a suitable boy for her, but not miserable as she had been during this so-called holiday so suddenly enforced by her mother.

There was a paperknife on the salver. Lata picked it up, then stood undecided. Her mother might come in at any moment, and — as she usually did — ask Lata whom the letter was from and what it said. She put the knife down and picked the letter up.

Arun entered. He was wearing a red-and-black striped tie over his starched white shirt, and was carrying his jacket in one hand and holding the Statesman in the other. He draped the jacket across the back of his chair, folded the newspaper to give him convenient access to the crossword, greeted Lata affectionately, and riffled through the post.

Lata wandered into the small drawing room that adjoined the dining room, got out a large volume on Egyptian mythology that no one ever read, and inserted her envelope in it. Then she returned to the dining room and sat down, humming to herself in Raag Todi. Arun frowned. Lata stopped. The servant brought her a fried egg.

Arun began whistling ‘Three Coins in a Fountain’ to himself. He had already solved several clues of the crossword puzzle while in the bathroom, and he filled in a few more at the breakfast table. Now he opened some of his mail, glanced through it and said:

‘When is that damned fool going to bring me my bloody egg? I shall be late.’

He reached out for a piece of toast, and buttered it.

Varun entered. He was wearing the torn kurta-pyjama that he had obviously been sleeping in. ‘Good morning. Good morning,’ he said. He sounded uncertain, almost guilty. Then he sat down. When Hanif, the servant-cum-cook, came in with Arun’s egg, he ordered his own. He first asked for an omelette, then decided on a scrambled egg. Meanwhile he took a piece of toast from the rack and buttered it.

‘You might think of using the butter knife,’ growled Arun from the head of the table.

Varun had extracted butter from the butter dish with his own knife to butter his toast. He accepted the rebuke in silence.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘Yes, Arun Bhai.’

‘Then you would do well to acknowledge my remark with a word or at the very least a nod.’

‘Yes.’

‘There is a purpose to table manners, you know.’

Varun grimaced. Lata glanced sympathetically in his direction.

‘Not everyone enjoys seeing the butter encrusted with crumbs from your toast.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Varun, driven to impatience. It was a feeble protest, and it was dealt with promptly.

Arun put down his knife and fork, looked at him, and waited.

‘All right, Arun Bhai,’ said Varun meekly.

He had been undecided as to whether to have marmalade or honey, but now decided on marmalade, since negotiating with the honey spoon was bound to bring reproof down on his head. As he spread the marmalade, he looked across at Lata, and they exchanged smiles. Lata’s was a half-smile, very typical of her these days. Varun’s was rather a twisted smile, as if he was not sure whether to be happy or despairing. It was the kind of smile that drove his elder brother mad and convinced him that Varun was a hopeless case. Varun had just got a Second in his mathematics B.A., and when he told his family the result, it was with exactly this kind of smile.

Soon after the term was over, instead of getting a job and contributing to expenses, Varun had, to Arun’s annoyance, fallen ill. He was still somewhat weak, and started at loud sounds. Arun told himself that he really had to have a frank talk with his younger brother in the next week or so about how the world did not owe one a living, and about what Daddy would have said had he been alive.

Meenakshi came in with Aparna.

‘Where’s Daadi?’ asked Aparna, looking around the table for Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘Grandma will be coming in a moment, Aparna precious,’ said Meenakshi. ‘She’s probably reciting the Vedas,’ she added vaguely.

Mrs Rupa Mehra, who recited a chapter or two from the Gita very early each morning, was in fact dressing.

As she came in, she beamed around the table. But when she noticed Aparna’s golden chain, which Meenakshi in an unthinking moment had put around her neck, the smile died on her lips. Meenakshi was blithely unaware of anything being the matter, but Aparna asked a few minutes later:

‘Why are you looking so sad, Daadi?’

Mrs Rupa Mehra finished chewing a bite of fried tomatoes on toast and said: ‘I’m not sad, darling.’

‘Are you angry with me, Daadi?’ said Aparna.

‘No, sweetheart, not with you.’

‘Then with who?’