Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘But that’s very harsh,’ said Maan, trying to imagine what it would be like to be locked up for a few days in a cell.

‘It’s quite effective. We were equally unruly at that age,’ continued Rasheed with a brief smile. ‘My father beat me up regularly. Once my grandfather — whom you will meet — beat my brother to within an inch of his life — and that was a turning point in his life. He became a wrestler!’

‘Your grandfather beat him, not your father?’ said Maan.

‘My grandfather. He was the one we were most terrified of,’ said Rasheed.

‘Still?’

‘Less so now. He’s over seventy. But well into his sixties he was the terror of ten villages. Haven’t I mentioned him to you before?’

‘You mean he terrorized them?’ said Maan, trying to picture this strange patriarch.

‘I mean, they all respected him, and came to him to solve their disputes. He’s a landowner, a medium-sized landowner, so he has some standing in our community. He is a religious and just man, so people look up to him. And he himself was a wrestler in his youth, so they’re afraid of his arm. He used it to beat up any ruffian he could lay his hands on.’

‘I suppose I shouldn’t gamble or drink while I’m in your village,’ said Maan cheerfully.

Rasheed looked very serious. ‘No, really, Kapoor Sahib,’ he said, quite formally, Maan thought. ‘You are my guest, and my family does not know you are coming. For the month you are with me, your behaviour will reflect on me.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Maan said impulsively, ‘I won’t do anything that will cause you any trouble. I promise.’

Rasheed looked relieved, and Maan realized the rashness of his promise. He had never so far in his life succeeded in behaving himself for a whole month.

At the small subdivisional town of Salimpur, they dismounted, loaded their bags on the flimsy back of a cycle rickshaw, and got unbalancedly on.

The rickshaw jolted and swerved along the pitted road that led from Salimpur to Rasheed’s native village of Debaria. It was evening, and everywhere birds were chattering in the trees. The neem trees rustled in the warm evening breeze. Underneath a small stand of straight, broad-leafed teak trees a donkey, two of its legs tied together, was hobbling painfully forward. On every culvert sat a crowd of children, who shouted at the rickshaw as it went along. There was very little traffic other than the many bullock-carts making their way village-wards from the harvest or a few boys driving cattle down the road.

Since Maan had changed into an orange kurta before getting off the train — the one he had been wearing earlier was drenched with sweat — he presented a colourful spectacle, even in the waning light. As for Rasheed, several people on foot or on bullock-carts greeted him along the way.

‘How are you?’

‘Very well. And you? Everything all right?’

‘Everything all right.’

‘How is the harvest?’

‘Well — not too good. Back from Brahmpur?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long will you be staying?’

‘A month.’

Throughout the conversation, they would stare not at Rasheed but at Maan, looking him up and down.

The sunset was pink, smoky, and still. The fields stretched out to the dark horizon on either side. There was not a cloud in the sky. Maan began to think once again of Saeeda Bai, and he felt in his bones that it would be impossible for him to live for a whole month without her.

What was he doing anyway in this doltish place so far away from all civilization — among suspicious peasants, illiterate and unelectrified, who knew nothing better than to stare at strangers?

There was a sudden lurch, and Maan, Rasheed, and their luggage were nearly pitched out of the rickshaw.

‘What did you do that for?’ said Rasheed sharply to the rickshaw-wallah.

‘Aré, bhai, there was a hole in the road. I’m not a panther that I can see in the dark,’ said the rickshaw-wallah abruptly.

After a while they turned off the road on to an even more inadequate mud track that led to the village, a mile away. This track would clearly become impassable in the rainy season, and the village would virtually be cut off from the world. At the moment it was all the rickshaw-wallah could do to keep his balance. After a while he gave up and asked his passengers to get off.

‘I should charge you three rupees for this, not two,’ he said.

‘One rupee eight annas,’ was Rasheed’s quiet reply. ‘Now get on with it.’

It was completely dark by the time they got to Rasheed’s house — or, as he usually called it, his father’s house. It appeared to be a moderately large single-storey building made of whitewashed brick. A kerosene lamp was burning on the roof. Rasheed’s father was up on the roof, and called out when he heard the sound of the rickshaw — which was bumping along the village lane, guided by the light of Maan’s torch.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Rasheed, Abba-jaan.’

‘Good. We were expecting you.’

‘Is everything well here?’

‘As well as can be. The harvest is not much good. I’m coming down. Is that someone with you?’

It struck Maan that the voice from the roof sounded like that of a toothless man, more like the voice that he imagined Rasheed’s grandfather, not his father, would have.

By the time he came downstairs the man had two kerosene lamps in his hands and a couple of paans in his mouth. He greeted his son with very mild affection. Then the three of them sat on a charpoy out in front of the house under a great neem tree.

‘This is Maan Kapoor, Abba-jaan,’ said Rasheed.

His father nodded, then said to Maan: ‘Are you here on a visit or are you an officer of some kind?’

Maan smiled. ‘I’m here on a visit. Your son has been teaching me Urdu in Brahmpur. Now I hope he will continue to teach me in Debaria.’

Maan noticed, by the light of the lamp, that Rasheed’s father had large gaps in his teeth. This explained his peculiar voice and the absence of certain consonants. But it made him look sinister even when he was attempting to be welcoming.

Meanwhile another figure emerged out of the dark from across the way to greet Rasheed. He was introduced to Maan, and sat down on another stringed bedstead, which had been laid out in front of the house. He was a man of about twenty, and, therefore, younger than Rasheed, though he was his uncle — his father’s younger brother in fact. He was talkative — indeed, very full of himself.

A servant brought out some sherbet in a glass for each of them.

‘You’ve had a long journey,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘Wash your hands, rinse out your mouth, and drink your sherbet.’

Maan said: ‘Is there anywhere. . ’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Rasheed’s father, ‘go behind the cowshed if you want to piss. Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ said Maan, and went, gripping his torch tightly and stepping into cowdung as he made his way to the other side of the shed. One of the bullocks started lowing at his approach.

When he came back Rasheed poured some water over his hands from a brass pot. In the warm evening the water was wonderfully cool.

So was the sherbet. This was followed quickly by dinner, eaten again by the light of kerosene lamps. Dinner consisted of meat dishes and fairly thick wheat rotis. All four men ate together under the stars and among the insects that whirred all around. They concentrated on eating; conversation was desultory.

‘What’s this? Pigeon?’ asked Maan.

‘Yes. We have a pigeon-house up there — or, rather, my grandfather does.’ Rasheed pointed into the dark. ‘Where is Baba, by the way?’ he asked his father.

‘He’s gone off on one of his tours of inspection of the village,’ was the reply. ‘Probably also to talk to Vilayat Sahib — to try to convert him back to Islam.’