Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Dr Narayanan looked at him and came out suddenly in unexpected support. ‘“The Dead”,’ said Dr Narayanan. ‘A fine story. I read it twice.’

Pran looked at him gratefully.

Professor Mishra looked at Dr Narayanan’s small, bald head almost approvingly. ‘Very good, very good,’ he said, as if applauding a small child. ‘But’—and his voice assumed a cutting edge—‘there is more to Joyce than “The Dead”. There is the unreadable Ulysses. There is the worse than unreadable Finnegans Wake. This kind of writing is unhealthy for our students. It encourages them, as it were, in sloppy and ungrammatical writing. And what about the ending of Ulysses ? There are young and impressionable women whom in our courses it is our responsibility to introduce to the higher things of life, Dr Kapoor — your charming sister-in-law for example. Would you put a book like Ulysses into her hands?’ Professor Mishra smiled benignly.

‘Yes,’ said Pran simply.

Dr Narayanan looked interested. Dr Gupta, who was mainly interested in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, looked at his nails.

‘It is heartening to come across a young man — a young lecturer’—Professor Mishra looked over at the rank-conscious reader, Dr Gupta—‘who is so, shall I say, so, well, direct in his opinions and so willing to share them with his colleagues, however senior they may be. It is heartening. We may disagree of course; but India is a democracy and we can speak our minds. . ’ He stopped for a few seconds, and stared out of the window at the dusty laburnum. ‘A democracy. Yes. But even democracies are faced with hard choices. There can be only one head of department, for example. And when a post falls open, of all the deserving candidates only one can be selected. We are already hard-pressed to teach twenty-one writers in the time we allot to this paper. If Joyce goes in, what comes out?’

‘Flecker,’ said Pran without a moment’s hesitation.

Professor Mishra laughed indulgently. ‘Ah, Dr Kapoor, Dr Kapoor. .’ he intoned,

‘Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird?

James Elroy Flecker, James Elroy Flecker.’ That seemed to settle it in his mind.

Pran’s face became completely impassive. Does he believe this? he thought. Does he really believe what he is implying? Aloud he said, ‘If Fletcher — Flecker — is indispensable, I suggest we include Joyce as our twenty-second writer. I would be pleased to put it to the committee for a vote.’ Surely, thought Pran, the ignominy of being known to have turned Joyce down (as opposed to merely having deferred the decision indefinitely) would be something that the committee would not be willing to face.

‘Ah, Dr Kapoor, you are angry. Do not get angry. You want to pin us down,’ said Professor Mishra playfully. He turned his palms up on the table to display his own helplessness. ‘But we did not agree to decide the matter at this meeting, only to decide whether to decide it.’

This was too much for Pran in his present mood, though he knew it was true.

‘Please do not misunderstand me, Professor Mishra,’ he said, ‘but that line of argument may be taken by those of us not well versed in the finer forms of parliamentary byplay to be a species of quibbling.’

‘A species of quibbling. . a species of quibbling.’ Professor Mishra appeared delighted by the phrase, while both his colleagues looked appalled at Pran’s insubordination. (This is like playing bridge with two dummies, thought Pran.) Professor Mishra continued: ‘I will now order coffee, and we will collect ourselves and approach the issues calmly, as it were.’

Dr Narayanan perked up at the prospect of coffee. Professor Mishra clapped his hands, and a lean peon in a threadbare green uniform came in.

‘Is coffee ready?’ asked Professor Mishra in Hindi.

‘Yes, Sahib.’

‘Good.’ Professor Mishra indicated that it should be served.

The peon brought in a tray with a coffee pot, a small jug of hot milk, a bowl of sugar, and four cups. Professor Mishra indicated that he should serve the others first. The peon did so in the usual manner. Then Professor Mishra was offered coffee. As Professor Mishra poured coffee into his cup, the peon moved the tray deferentially backwards. Professor Mishra made to set down the coffee pot, and the peon moved the tray forward. Professor Mishra picked up the milk jug and began to add milk to his coffee, and the peon moved the tray backwards. And so on for each of three spoons of sugar. It was like a comic ballet. It would have been merely ridiculous, thought Pran, this display of the naked gradient of power and obsequiousness between the department head and the department peon, if it had only been some other department at some other university. But it was the English Department of Brahmpur University — and it was through this man that Pran had to apply to the selection committee for the readership he both wanted and needed.

This same man whom in my first term I considered jovial, bluff, expansive, charming, why have I transformed him in my mind into such a caricature of a villain? thought Pran looking into his cup. Does he loathe me? No, that is his strength: he doesn’t. He just wants his own way. In effective politics hatred is just not useful. For him all this is like a game of chess — on a slightly vibrating board. He is fifty-eight — he has two more years until he retires. How will I be able to put up with him for so long? A sudden murderous impulse seized Pran, whom murderous impulses never seized, and he realized his hands were trembling slightly. And all this over Joyce, he said to himself. At least I haven’t had a bronchial attack. He looked down at the pad on which he, as the junior member of the committee, was taking the minutes of the meeting. It read simply:

Present: Professor O.P. Mishra (head); Dr R.B. Gupta;

Dr T.R. Narayanan; Dr P. Kapoor.

1. The Minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

We have got nowhere, and we will get nowhere, he thought.

A few well-known lines from Tagore came into his head in Tagore’s own English translation:

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening

thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

At least his own mortal father had given him principles, thought Pran, even if he had given him almost no time or company when he was younger. His mind wandered back home, to the small whitewashed house, to Savita, her sister, her mother — the family that he had taken into his heart and that had taken him into theirs; and then to the Ganges flowing close by the house. (When he thought in English, it was the Ganges, rather than the Ganga, to him.) He followed it first downstream to Patna and Calcutta, then upstream past Banaras till it divided at Allahabad; there he chose the Yamuna and followed it to Delhi. Are things as closed-minded in the capital? he asked himself. As mad, as mean, as silly, as rigid? How will I be able to live in Brahmpur all my life? And Mishra will doubtless give me an excellent report just to see the back of me.

But now Dr Gupta was laughing at a remark of Dr Narayanan’s, and Professor Mishra was saying, ‘Consensus — consensus is the goal, the civilized goal — how can we vote when we might be divided two votes against two? There were five Pandavas, they could have voted if they chose, but even they did everything by consensus. They even took a wife by consensus, ha, ha, ha! And Dr Varma is indisposed as usual, so we are only four.’