Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Lata reddened but said nothing. Bish, she recalled, referred to himself exclusively and incessantly as ‘one’.

‘It’s like “thrice”,’ said Amit.

‘I see,’ said Lata.

‘Just imagine if I were to say to you: “One loves you,”’ Amit went on. ‘Or worse still, “One loves one.” Doesn’t that sound idiotic?’

‘Yes,’ Lata admitted with a frown. She felt he was sounding a bit too professional. And the word ‘love’ reminded her unnecessarily of Kabir.

‘That’s all I meant,’ said Amit.

‘I see,’ said Lata. ‘Or, rather, one sees.’

‘I see one does,’ said Amit.

‘What is it like to write a novel?’ asked Lata after a pause. ‘Don’t you have to forget the “I” or the “one”—?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Amit. ‘This is my first novel, and I’m in the process of finding out. At the moment it feels like a banyan tree.’

‘I see,’ said Lata, though she didn’t.

‘What I mean is,’ continued Amit, ‘it sprouts, and grows, and spreads, and drops down branches that become trunks or intertwine with other branches. Sometimes branches die. Sometimes the main trunk dies, and the structure is held up by the supporting trunks. When you go to the Botanical Garden you’ll see what I mean. It has its own life — but so do the snakes and birds and bees and lizards and termites that live in it and on it and off it. But then it’s also like the Ganges in its upper, middle and lower courses — including its delta — of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Lata.

‘I have the feeling,’ said Amit, ‘that you’re laughing at me.’

‘How far have you got so far with writing it?’ she said.

‘I’m about a third of the way.’

‘And aren’t I wasting your time?’

‘No.’

‘It’s about the Bengal Famine, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have any memory of the famine yourself?’

‘I do. I remember it only too well. It was only eight years ago.’ He paused. ‘I was somewhat active in student politics then. But do you know, we had a dog even then, and fed it well.’ He looked distressed.

‘Does a writer have to feel strongly about what he writes?’ asked Lata.

‘I haven’t the least idea,’ said Amit. ‘Sometimes I write best about the things I care about least. But even that’s not a consistent rule.’

‘So do you just flounder and hope?’

‘No, no, not exactly.’

Lata felt that Amit, who had been so open, even expansive, a minute ago, was resisting her questioning now, and she did not press it further.

‘I’ll send you a book of my poems sometime,’ said Amit. ‘And you can form your own opinion about how much or how little I feel.’

‘Why not now?’ asked Lata.

‘I need time to think of a suitable inscription,’ said Amit. ‘Ah, there’s Kuku.’

Kuku had performed her errand of appeasement. Now she wanted to go home as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, it had begun to rain once more, and soon the warm rain was battering down on the roof of the Humber. Rivulets of brown water began running down the sides of the street. A little farther there was no street at all, just a sort of shallow canal, where traffic in the opposite direction created waves that shook the chassis of the car. Ten minutes later the car was trapped in a flash flood. The driver inched forward, trying to keep to the middle of the road, where the camber created a slightly higher level. Then the engine died.

With Kuku and Amit to talk to in the car, Lata did not fret. It was very hot, though, and beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. Amit told her a bit about his college days and how he had begun writing poetry. ‘Most of it was terrible, and I burned it,’ he said.

‘How could you have done that?’ asked Lata, amazed that anyone could burn what must have been written with so much feeling. But at least he had burned it and not simply torn it up. That would have been too matter-of-fact. The thought of a fire in the Calcutta climate was odd too. There was no fireplace in the Ballygunge house.

‘Where did you burn the poems?’ she asked.

‘In the washbasin,’ interjected Kuku. ‘He nearly burned the house down too.’

‘It was awful poetry,’ said Amit by way of extenuation. ‘Embarrassingly bad. Self-indulgent, dishonest.’

‘Poetry I don’t desire

I will immolate with fire,’

said Kuku.

‘All my sorrow, all my pain:

Ashes flowing down the drain,’

continued Amit.

‘Aren’t there any Chatterjis who don’t make flippant couplets?’ asked Lata, unaccountably annoyed. Weren’t they ever serious? How could they joke about such heartbreaking matters?

‘Ma and Baba don’t,’ said Kuku. ‘That’s because they’ve never had Amit as an elder brother. And Dipankar’s not quite as skilled as the rest of us. It comes naturally to us, like singing in a raag if you’ve heard it often enough. People are astonished we can do it, but we’re astonished Dipankar can’t. Or only once a month or so, when he has his poetic periods. .

Rhyming, rhyming so precisely—

Couplets, they are coming nicely,’

gurgled Kakoli, who churned them out with such appalling frequency that they were now called Kakoli-couplets, though Amit had started the trend.

By now most of the motor traffic had come to a halt. A few rickshaws were still moving, the rickshaw-wallahs waist-deep in the flood, their passengers, laden with packages, surveying the watery brown world around them with a kind of alarmed satisfaction.

In due course the water subsided. The driver looked at the engine, examined the ignition wire, which was moist, and wiped it with a piece of cloth. The car still wouldn’t start. Then he looked at the carburettor, fiddled a bit here and there, and murmured the names of his favourite goddesses in correct firing sequence. The car began to move.

By the time they got back to Sunny Park it was dark.

‘You have taken your own sweet time,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra sharply to Lata. She glared at Amit.

Amit and Lata were both surprised by the hostility of their reception.

‘Even Meenakshi has returned before you,’ continued Mrs Rupa Mehra. She looked at Amit, and thought: Poet, wastrel! He has never earned an honest rupee in his life. I will not have all my grandchildren speaking Bengali! Suddenly she remembered that the last time Amit had dropped Lata home, she had had flowers in her hair.

Looking at Lata, but presumably addressing both of them — or perhaps all three of them, Kuku included — she continued: ‘You have put up my blood pressure and my blood sugar.’

‘No, Ma,’ said Lata, looking at the fresh mango peels on the plate. ‘If your blood sugar has gone up it’s because of all those dussehris you’ve been eating. Now please don’t have more than one a day — or at most two.’

‘Are you teaching your grandmother to suck eggs?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra, glowering.

Amit smiled. ‘It was my fault, Ma,’ he said. ‘The streets were flooded not far from the university, and we got caught.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra was in no mood to be friendly. What was he smiling for?

‘Is your blood sugar very high?’ asked Kakoli quickly.

‘Very high,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra with distress and pride. ‘I have even been having karela juice, but it has no effect.’

‘Then you must go to my homoeopathic doctor,’ said Kakoli.

Mrs Rupa Mehra, diverted from her attack, said, ‘I already have a homoeopath.’

But Kakoli insisted that her doctor was better than anyone else. ‘Doctor Nuruddin.’

‘A Mohammedan?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra doubtfully.

‘Yes. It happened in Kashmir, when we were on holiday.’