Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘People are stuck at seventeen, you know,’ continued Mr Kohli. ‘That’s where they imagine themselves ever afterwards — always seventeen, and always happy. Not that they’re happy when they’re actually seventeen. But you have some years to go still. How old are you?’

‘Thirteen — almost.’

‘Good — stay there, that’s my advice,’ suggested Mr Kohli.

‘Are you serious?’ said Tapan, suddenly looking more than a little unhappy. ‘You mean things don’t get any better?’

‘Oh, don’t take anything I say seriously,’ said Mr Kohli. He paused for a sip. ‘On the other hand,’ he added, ‘take everything I say more seriously than what other adults say.’

‘Go to bed at once, Tapan,’ said Mrs Chatterji, coming up to them. ‘What’s this you’ve been saying to Bahadur? You won’t be allowed to stay up late if you behave like this. Now pour Mr Kohli a drink, and then go to bed at once.’

‘Oh, no, no, no, Dipankar,’ said the Grande Dame of Culture, slowly shaking her ancient and benevolent head from side to side in pitying condescension as she held him with her dully glittering eye, ‘that’s not it at all, not Duality, I could never have said Duality, Dipankar, oh dear me, no — the intrinsic essence of our being here in India is a Oneness, yes, a Oneness of Being, an ecumenical assimilation of all that pours into this great subcontinent of ours.’ She gestured around the drawing room tolerantly, maternally. ‘It is Unity that governs our souls, here in our ancient land.’

Dipankar nodded furiously, blinked rapidly, and gulped his Scotch down, while Kakoli winked at him. That’s what she liked about Dipankar, thought Kakoli: he was the only serious younger Chatterji, and because he was such a gentle, accommodating soul, he made the ideal captive listener for any purveyors of pabulum who happened to stray into the irreverent household. And everyone in the family could go to him when they wanted unflippant advice.

‘Dipankar,’ said Kakoli, ‘Hemangini wants to talk to you, she’s pining away without you, and she has to leave in ten minutes.’

‘Yes, Kuku, thanks,’ said Dipankar unhappily, and blinking a little more than usual as a result. ‘Try to keep her here as long as you can. . we were just having this interesting discussion. . Why don’t you join us, Kuku?’ he added desperately. ‘It’s all about how Unity is the intrinsic essence of our being. . ’

‘Oh, no, no, no, no, Dipankar,’ said the Grande Dame, correcting him a trifle sadly, but still patiently: ‘Not Unity, not Unity, but Zero, Nullity itself is the guiding principle of our existence. I could never have used the term intrinsic essence — for what is an essence if it is not intrinsic? India is the land of the Zero, for it was from the horizons of our soil that it rose like a vast sun to spread its light on the world of knowledge.’ She surveyed a gulab-jamun for a few seconds. ‘It is the Zero, Dipankar, represented by the Mandala, the circle, the circular nature of Time itself, that is the guiding principle of our civilization. All this’—she waved her arm around the drawing room once more, taking in, in one slow plump sweep the piano, the bookcases, the flowers in their huge cut-glass vases, the cigarettes smouldering at the edges of ashtrays, two plates of gulab-jamuns, the glittering guests, and Dipankar himself—‘all this is Non-Being. It is the Non-ness of things, Dipankar, that you must accept, for in Nothing lies the secret of Everything.’

The Chatterji parliament (including Kakoli, who normally found it difficult to wake up before ten) was assembled for breakfast the next day.

All signs of the party had been cleared away. Cuddles had been unleashed upon the world. He had bounded around the garden in delight, and had disturbed Dipankar’s meditations in the small hut that he had made for himself in a corner of the garden. He had also dug up a few plants in the vegetable garden that Dipankar took so much interest in. Dipankar took all this calmly. Cuddles had probably buried something there, and after the trauma of last night merely wanted to reassure himself that the world and the objects in it were as they used to be.

Kakoli had left instructions that she was to be woken up at seven. She had to make a phone call to Hans after he came back from his morning ride. How he managed to wake up at five — like Dipankar — and do all these vigorous things on a horse she did not know. But she felt that he must have great strength of will.

Kakoli was deeply attached to the telephone, and monopolized it shamelessly — as she did the car. Often she would burble on for forty-five minutes on end and her father sometimes found it impossible to get through to his house from the High Court or the Calcutta Club. There were fewer than ten thousand telephones in the whole of Calcutta, so a second phone would have been an unimaginable luxury. Ever since Kakoli had had an extension installed in her room, however, the unimaginable had begun to appear to him almost reasonable.

Since it had been a late night, the old servant Bahadur, who usually performed the difficult task of waking the unwilling Kuku and placating her with milk, had been told to sleep late. Amit had therefore taken on the duty of waking his sister.

He knocked gently on her door. There was no response. He opened the door. Light was streaming through the window on to Kakoli’s bed. She was sleeping diagonally across the bed with her arm thrown across her eyes. Her pretty, round face was covered with dried Lacto Calamine, which, like papaya pulp, she used to improve her complexion.

Amit said, ‘Kuku, wake up. It’s seven o’clock.’

Kakoli continued to sleep soundly.

‘Wake up, Kuku.’

Kakoli stirred slightly, then said what sounded like ‘choo-moo’. It was a sound of complaint.

After about five minutes of trying to get her to wake up, first by gentle words and then by a gentle shake or two of the shoulders, and being rewarded with nothing but ‘choo-moo’, Amit threw a pillow rather ungently over her head.

Kakoli bestirred herself enough to say: ‘Take a lesson from Bahadur. Wake people up nicely.’

Amit said, ‘I don’t have the practice. He has probably had to stand around your bed ten thousand times murmuring, “Kuku Baby, wake up; wake up, Baby Memsahib,” for twenty minutes while you do your “choo-moo”.’

‘Ungh,’ said Kakoli.

‘Open your eyes at least,’ said Amit. ‘Otherwise you’ll just roll over and go back to sleep.’ After a pause he added, ‘Kuku Baby.’

‘Ungh,’ said Kakoli irritably. She opened both her eyes a fraction, however.

‘Do you want your teddy bear? Your telephone? A glass of milk?’ said Amit.

‘Milk.’

‘How many glasses?’

‘A glass of milk.’

‘All right.’

Amit went off to fetch her a glass of milk.

When he returned he found that she was sitting on the bed, with the telephone receiver in one hand and Cuddles tucked under the other arm. She was treating Cuddles to a stream of Chatterji chatter.

‘Oh you beastie,’ she was saying: ‘oh you beastly beastie — oh you ghastly, beastly beastie.’ She stroked his head with the telephone receiver. ‘Oh you vastly ghastly mostly beastly beastie.’ She paid no attention to Amit.

‘Do shut up, Kuku, and take your milk,’ said Amit irritably. ‘I have other things to do than wait on you, you know.’

This remark struck Kakoli with novel force. She was well practised in the art of being helpless when there were helpful people around.

‘Or do you want me to drink it for you as well?’ added Amit gratuitously.

‘Go bite Amit,’ Kakoli instructed Cuddles. Cuddles did not comply.