Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

What was her fate? Long, long before her hour,

Death called her tender soul by break of bliss

From the first blossoms, from the buds of joy;

Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves

In this inclement clime of human life.

Lata looked at the tomb and then at Amit, who appeared to be deep in thought. She thought to herself: he has a comfortable sort of face.

‘So she was twenty when she died?’ said Lata.

‘Yes. Just about your age. They met in the Swansea Circulating Library. And then her parents took her out to India. Poor Landor. Noble Savage. Go, lovely Rose.’

‘What did she die of? The sorrow of parting?’

‘A surfeit of pineapples.’

Lata looked shocked.

‘I can see you don’t believe me, but oh, ’tis true, ’tis true,’ said Amit. ‘We’d better go back,’ he continued. ‘They will not wait for us — and who can wonder? You’re drenched.’

‘And so are you.’

‘Her tomb,’ continued Amit, ‘looks like an upside-down ice-cream cone.’

Lata said nothing. She was rather annoyed with Amit.

After Dipankar had been dropped off at the Asiatic Society, Amit asked the driver to take them down Chowringhee to the Presidency Hospital. As they passed the Victoria Memorial he said:

‘So the Victoria Memorial and Howrah Bridge is all you know and all you need to know of Calcutta?’

‘Not all I need to know,’ said Lata. ‘All I happen to know. And Firpo’s and The Golden Slipper. And the New Market.’

Tapan greeted this news with a Kakoli-couplet:

‘Cuddles, Cuddles, gentle dog,

Go and bite Sir Stuart Hogg.’

Lata looked mystified. Since neither Tapan nor Amit explained the reference, she went on: ‘But Arun has said we’ll go for a picnic to the Botanical Gardens.’

‘Under the spreading banyan tree,’ said Amit.

‘It’s the biggest in the world,’ said Tapan, with a Calcutta chauvinism equal to his brother’s.

‘And will you go there in the rains?’ said Amit.

‘Well, if not now, then at Christmas.’

‘So you’ll be back at Christmas?’ asked Amit, pleased.

‘I think so,’ said Lata.

‘Good, good,’ said Amit. ‘There are lots of concerts of Indian classical music in winter. And Calcutta is very pleasant. I’ll show you around. I’ll dispel your ignorance. I’ll expand your mind. I’ll teach you Bangla!’

Lata laughed. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said.

Cuddles gave a blood-curdling growl.

‘What’s the matter with you now?’ asked Tapan. ‘Will you hold this for a second?’ he asked Lata, handing her the leash.

Cuddles subsided into silence.

Tapan bent down and looked carefully at Cuddles’ ear.

‘He hasn’t had his walk yet,’ said Tapan. ‘And I haven’t had my milkshake.’

‘You’re right,’ said Amit. ‘Well, the rain’s let up. Let’s just look at the second great poetic relic and then we’ll go out on to the Maidan and the two of you can get as muddy as you like. And on the way back we’ll stop at Keventers.’ He continued, turning to Lata: ‘I was thinking of taking you to Rabindranath Tagore’s house in North Calcutta, but it’s quite far and a bit slushy and it can wait for another day. But you haven’t told me if there’s anything particular that you’d like to see.’

‘I’d like to see the university area some day,’ said Lata. ‘College Street and all that. But nothing else really. Are you sure you can spare the time?’

‘Yes,’ said Amit. ‘And here we are. It was in that small building there that Sir Ronald Ross discovered what caused malaria.’ He pointed to a plaque affixed to the gate. ‘And he wrote a poem to celebrate it.’

Everyone got down this time, though Tapan and Cuddles took no interest in the plaque. Lata read it through with a great deal of curiosity. She was not used to the comprehensible writings of scientists, and did not know what to expect.

This day relenting God

Hath placed within my hand

A wondrous thing; and God

Be praised. At his command,

Seeking his secret deeds

With tears and toiling breath,

I find thy cunning seeds

O million-murdering death.

I know this little thing

A myriad men will save.

O death where is thy sting?

Thy victory, O grave?

Lata read it a second time. ‘What do you think of it?’ asked Amit.

‘Not much,’ said Lata.

‘Really? Why?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Lata. ‘I just don’t. “Tears and toiling”, “million-murdering”—it’s too alliterative. And why should “God” be allowed to rhyme with “God”? Do you like it?’

‘Well, yes, in a way,’ said Amit. ‘I do like it. But equally I can’t defend that feeling. Perhaps I find it moving that a Surgeon-Major should write so fervently and with such religious force about something he’d done. I like the quaint chiasmus at the end. Ah, I’ve just created a pentameter,’ he said, pleased.

Lata was frowning slightly, still looking at the plaque, and Amit could see she was not convinced.

‘You’re quite severe in your judgement,’ he said with a smile. ‘I wonder what you’d say about my poems.’

‘Maybe some day I’ll read them,’ said Lata. ‘I can’t imagine the kind of poetry you write. You seem so cheerful and cynical.’

‘I’m certainly cynical,’ said Amit.

‘Do you ever recite your poetry?’

‘Almost never,’ said Amit.

‘Don’t people ask you to?’

‘Yes, all the time,’ said Amit. ‘Have you listened to poets reading their work? It’s usually awful.’

Lata thought back to the Brahmpur Literary Society and smiled broadly. Then she thought again of Kabir. She felt confused and sad.

Amit saw the swift change of expression on her face. He hesitated for a few seconds, wanting to ask her what had brought it about, but before he could do so she asked, pointing to the plaque:

‘How did he discover it?’

‘Oh,’ said Amit, ‘he sent his servant to get some mosquitoes, then got the mosquitoes to bite him — his servant, that is — and when he got malaria soon afterwards, Ross realized that it was mosquitoes that caused it. O million-murdering death.’

‘Almost a million and one,’ said Lata.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. But people have always treated their servants strangely. Landor of the memories and sighs once threw his cook out of a window.’

‘I’m not sure I like Calcutta poets,’ said Lata.

After the Maidan and the milkshake, Amit asked Lata if she had time for a cup of tea at his house before returning home. Lata said she did. She liked the fertile turmoil of that house, the piano, the books, the verandah, the large garden. When Amit asked that tea for two be sent up to his room, the servant Bahadur, who took a proprietorial interest in Amit, asked him if there was someone else to drink it with him.

‘Oh no,’ said Amit, ‘I’m going to drink both cups myself.’

‘You mustn’t mind him,’ said Amit later, when Bahadur had looked at Lata appraisingly as he set the tea tray down. ‘He thinks that I plan to marry everyone I have tea with. One or two?’

‘Two please,’ said Lata. She continued mischievously, since the question was riskless: ‘And do you?’

‘Oh, not so far,’ said Amit. ‘But he doesn’t believe it. Our servants haven’t given up trying to run our lives. Bahadur has seen me staring at the moon at odd hours, and wants to cure me by getting me married within the year. Dipankar has been dreaming of surrounding his hut with papaya and banana plants, and the mali has been lecturing him about herbaceous borders. The Mugh cook almost gave notice because Tapan, when he came back from boarding school, insisted on eating lamb chops and mango ice-cream for breakfast for a whole week.’