Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

But in between the two, in the two-rupee enclosure, stood Arun’s brother, sandwiched between his two disreputable companions, and so caught up in the excitement of the next race that he had forgotten his traumatic meeting of a few minutes ago and was jumping up and down, red in the face and screaming words that were unintelligible from this distance but were almost certainly the name of the horse on which he had laid, if not his bet, his heart. He looked almost, but not quite, unrecognizable.

Arun’s nostrils quivered slightly and after a few seconds he looked away. He told himself that he had better start being his brother’s keeper — for that beast, once out of its cage, could do no end of damage to the equilibrium of the universe.

Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata were continuing their conversation. From Varun and the IAS they had moved on to Savita and the baby. Though not yet a reality, in Mrs Rupa Mehra’s mind the baby was already a professor or a judge. Needless to say, it was a boy.

‘I have had no news from my daughter for a week. I am very upset with her,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. When she was with Lata, Mrs Rupa Mehra referred to Savita as ‘my daughter’, and vice versa.

‘She’s fine, Ma,’ said Lata reassuringly. ‘Or you would certainly have heard.’

‘And to be expecting in this heat!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, implying that Savita should have timed it better. ‘You were also born in the monsoon,’ she told Lata. ‘You were a very difficult birth,’ she added, and her eyes glistened with emotion.

Lata had heard about her own difficult birth a hundred times before. Sometimes when her mother was angry with her she flung this fact at her accusingly. At other times, when she was feeling especially fond of her, she mentioned it as a reminder of how precious to her Lata had always been. Lata had also heard a number of times about the tenacious grip she had as a baby.

‘And poor Pran. I hear it has not yet rained in Brahmpur,’ continued Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘It has, Ma, a little.’

‘Not proper rain — just a droplet or two here and there. It is still so dusty, and terrible for his asthma.’

Lata said: ‘Ma, you shouldn’t worry about him. Savita keeps a careful eye on him, and so does his mother.’ She knew, however, that it was no use. Mrs Rupa Mehra thrived on worrying. One of the marvellous by-products of Savita’s marriage was a whole new family to worry about.

‘But his mother herself is not well,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra triumphantly. ‘And, talking of which, I have been feeling like visiting my homoeopath.’

If Arun had been present, he would have told his mother that all homoeopaths were charlatans. Lata merely said:

‘But do those little white pills do you any good, Ma? I think it’s all faith healing.’

‘What is wrong with faith?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘In your generation no one believes in anything.’

Lata did not defend her generation.

‘Except in having a good time and staying out till four in the morning,’ added Mrs Rupa Mehra.

Lata, to her own surprise, laughed.

‘What is it?’ her mother demanded. ‘Why are you laughing? You weren’t laughing two days ago.’

‘Nothing, Ma, I was just laughing, that’s all. Can’t I laugh once in a while?’ She had stopped laughing, though, having suddenly thought of Kabir.

Mrs Rupa Mehra ignored the general point, and homed in on the particular.

‘But you were laughing for some reason. There must be a reason. You can tell your mother.’

‘Ma, I’m not a baby, I’m allowed to have my own thoughts.’

‘For me, you will always be my baby.’

‘Even when I’m sixty?’

Mrs Rupa Mehra looked at her daughter in surprise. Although she had just visualized Savita’s unborn child as a judge, she had never visualized Lata as a woman of sixty. She attempted to now, but the thought was too daunting. Luckily, another intervened.

‘God will have taken me away long before then,’ she sighed. ‘And it is only when I am dead and gone and you see my empty chair that you will appreciate me. Now you are hiding everything from me, as if you don’t trust me.’

Lata reflected, painfully, that she did not in fact trust her mother to understand much of what she felt. She thought of Kabir’s letter, which she had transferred from the book on Egyptian mythology to a writing pad at the bottom of her suitcase. Where had he got her address from? How often did he think of her? She thought again of the flippant tone of his letter and felt a rush of anger.

Perhaps it wasn’t really flippant, though, she said to herself. And perhaps he had been right in suggesting that she hadn’t given him much of a chance to explain himself. She thought of their last meeting — it seemed very long ago — and of her own behaviour: it had bordered on the hysterical. But for her it had been her whole life and for him probably no more than a pleasant early-morning outing. He clearly had not expected the intensity of her outburst. Perhaps, Lata admitted, perhaps he could not have been expected to expect it.

As it was, her heart ached for him. It was him and not her brother whom she had, in her imagination, been dancing with last night. And she had dreamed about him in her sleep this morning, strangely enough reciting his letter to her in a declamation contest for which she was one of the judges.

‘So why were you laughing?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

Lata said: ‘I was thinking about Bishwanath Bhaduri and his ridiculous comments last night at Firpo’s.’

‘But he is covenanted,’ her mother pointed out.

‘He told me I was more beautiful than Savita, and that my hair was like a river.’

‘You are quite pretty when you put your mind to it, darling,’ said her mother reassuringly. ‘But your hair was in a bun, wasn’t it?’

Lata nodded and yawned. It was past noon. Except when studying for her exams, she rarely felt so sleepy so late in the day. Meenakshi was the one who usually yawned — yawned with decided elegance whenever it suited the occasion.

‘Where’s Varun?’ Lata asked. ‘I was supposed to look through the Gazette with him — it’s got details about the IAS exams. Do you think he’s gone to the races too?’

‘You are always saying things to upset me, Lata,’ exclaimed Mrs Rupa Mehra with sudden indignation. ‘I have so many troubles, and then you say things like this. Races. No one cares about my troubles, they are always thinking about their own.’

‘What troubles, Ma?’ said Lata unsympathetically. ‘You are well taken care of, and everyone who knows you loves you.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra looked at Lata sternly. Savita would never have asked such a brutal question. In fact, it was more in the nature of a comment or even judgement than a question. Sometimes, she said to herself, I don’t understand Lata at all.

‘I have plenty of troubles,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in a decided manner. ‘You know them as well as I do. Look at Meenakshi and how she handles the child. And Varun and his studies — what will happen to him — smoking and drinking and gambling and all that? And you don’t get married — isn’t that a trouble? And Savita, expecting. And Pran with his illness. And Pran’s brother: doing all those things and people talking about it all over Brahmpur. And Meenakshi’s sister — people are talking about her also. Do you think I don’t have to listen to these things from people? Just yesterday Purobi Ray was gossiping about Kuku. So these are my troubles, and now you’ve upset me even more. And I am a widow with diabetes,’ she added, almost as an afterthought. ‘Isn’t that a trouble?’

Lata admitted that the last would count as a true trouble.

‘And Arun shouts, which is very bad for my blood pressure. And today Hanif has taken a day off so I am expected to do everything myself, even make tea.’