Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Flies!’

It was the man sitting next to Rasheed who had spoken. He looked like a dried-out farmer, about forty years of age. He was rolling some tobacco in his palm with the thumb of his other hand. He rubbed it, then tamped it down, threw off the excess, examined the residue with care, selected out the impurities, took a pinch, licked the inside of his lower lip, and spat out a bit sideways on to the floor.

‘Do you speak English?’ he said after a while in the local dialect of Hindi. He had noticed Maan’s luggage tag.

‘Yes,’ said Maan.

‘Without English you can’t do anything,’ said the farmer sagely.

Maan wondered what possible use English could be to the farmer.

‘What use is English?’ said Maan.

‘People love English!’ said the farmer, with a strange sort of deep-voiced giggle. ‘If you talk in English, you are a king. The more people you can mystify, the more people will respect you.’ He turned back to his tobacco.

Maan felt a sudden urge to explain himself. As he tried to think of what he should say, he heard the droning of flies getting louder and louder around him. It was too hot to think, and he felt overcome with sleepiness. His head sank on his chest. In a minute he was asleep.

‘Rudhia Junction. It’s Rudhia Junction.’ Maan woke up to see several passengers getting their luggage out of the train, and several others clambering in. Rudhia, the district town, was the largest town in the district, but not a railway junction in the sense that Brahmpur was, and certainly not in the sense of a great junction like Mughalsarai. Two narrow-gauge lines intersected at Rudhia, that was all. But those who lived there thought that it was the most important centre in Purva Pradesh next to Brahmpur, and the words Rudhia Jn on the signs and on the six white-tiled spittoons at the station added to the dignity of the town as much as did the District Court, the Collectorate and other administrative offices, and the steam power house, which was run on coal.

The train stopped at Rudhia a full three minutes before panting on through the afternoon. A sign in front of the stationmaster’s office announced: Our Goal: Security, Safety and Punctuality. In fact, the train was already an hour and a half late. This was nothing unusual, and most of the passengers, if inconvenienced, did not make things worse by distressing themselves. One and a half hours was nothing.

The train turned a bend, and smoke began to enter the compartment in great gusts. The farmer started struggling with the windows, and Maan and Rasheed gave him a hand.

A large, red-leafed tree in a field caught Maan’s attention. ‘What’s that tree?’ he asked, pointing out of the window. ‘It looks a bit like a mango with its red leaves, but it isn’t a mango.’

‘That’s a mahua,’ said the farmer, before Rasheed could reply. He looked amused, as if he’d had to explain what a cat was.

‘Very handsome tree,’ said Maan.

‘Oh yes. Useful too,’ said the farmer.

‘In what way?’

‘It gets you drunk,’ said the farmer with a brown-toothed smile.

‘Really?’ said Maan, interested. ‘Is it the sap?’

But the farmer, delighted with his ignorance, started giggling in his strange, deep way, and volunteered nothing else beyond the word: ‘Sap!’

Rasheed leaned forward towards Maan intently and, tapping the steel trunk that rested between them, said:

‘It’s the flowers. They are very light and fragrant. They would have fallen about a month ago. If you dry them, they last for a year. Ferment them, and they’ll give you a liquor.’ He sounded slightly disapproving.

‘Oh yes?’ said Maan, livening up.

But Rasheed continued: ‘Cook them, and they’ll act as a vegetable. Boil them with milk, and they’ll make the milk red and the person who drinks it strong. Mix them with the flour you use to make your rotis with in winter, and you won’t feel the cold.’

Maan was impressed.

‘Feed them to your cattle,’ added the farmer. ‘It’ll double their energy.’

Maan looked towards Rasheed for verification, not trusting anything that the mocking farmer said.

‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Rasheed.

‘What a wonderful tree!’ said Maan, delighted. He suddenly became less torpid, and began asking lots of questions. The countryside, which so far had looked entirely monotonous to him, became interesting.

They had just crossed a broad, brown river and entered a jungle. Maan immediately wanted to know if there was any game to be had there, and was pleased to hear that there was fox, jackal, nilgai, wild boar and even the occasional bear. And in the ravines and rocky outcrops not far from here there were wolves, who were sometimes a menace to the local population.

‘Actually,’ said Rasheed, ‘this jungle is part of the Baitar Estate.’

‘Ah!’ said Maan, delighted. Although he and Pran had been friends with Firoz and Imtiaz from childhood, they had only known them in Brahmpur, and had never visited Baitar Fort or the estate.

‘But this is wonderful!’ said Maan. ‘I know the family well. We must go hunting together.’

Rasheed smiled rather ruefully and said nothing. Perhaps, thought Maan, he was thinking that at this rate he would learn very little Urdu during his stay in the village. But what does that matter? he felt like saying. Instead he said:

‘They must have horses at the fort.’

‘They do,’ said the farmer, with sudden enthusiasm and new respect. ‘Many horses. A whole stable. And two jeeps also. And for Moharram they have a tremendous procession and lots of ceremonies. You really know the Nawab Sahib?’

‘Well, it’s his sons I know,’ said Maan.

Rasheed, who was rather tired with the farmer, said quietly: ‘This is Mahesh Kapoor’s son.’

The farmer’s mouth dropped open. This statement was so improbable as to be almost certainly true. But what was he — the son of the great Minister — doing, travelling for all the world like an ordinary citizen in a second-class carriage, and wearing a crumpled kurta-pyjama?

‘And I have been joking with you,’ he said, shocked by his own temerity.

Maan, whose discomfort he had enjoyed, now enjoyed his discomfort.

‘I won’t tell my father,’ he said.

‘He’ll take my land away if he hears of it,’ said the farmer — who either believed in the exaggerated powers of the Minister of Revenue, or else thought it politic to exaggerate his fear.

‘He’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Maan. Thinking of his father he felt a sudden spasm of outrage.

‘When zamindari is abolished, all these lands will be taken by him,’ said the farmer. ‘Even the Nawab Sahib’s estates. What can a small landowner like me do?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Maan. ‘Don’t tell me your name. Then you’ll be safe.’

The farmer seemed amused by this idea, and repeated it to himself a couple of times.

Suddenly the train started jolting, as if the brake had been applied, and in a short while came to a halt in open countryside.

‘This always happens,’ said Rasheed with a flicker of irritation.

‘What does?’ said Maan.

‘These schoolboys pulling the chain and stopping the train when it gets close to their village. It’s just the boys of this particular locality. By the time the guards get to their carriage, they’ve disappeared into the sugarcane fields.’

‘Can’t they do something about it?’ said Maan.

‘There’s no way of controlling them. Either they should simply halt the train here and admit defeat. Or else they should catch one of them somehow, and make an example of him.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, beat him up soundly,’ said Rasheed calmly. ‘And lock him up for a few days.’