Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘What’s a giggi?’ he asked.

‘A giggi?’

‘You don’t know what a giggi is?’ The disappointment was palpable.

‘No. What is it?’ asked Maan.

‘I don’t know either,’ said Rasheed’s father in distress.

Maan looked at him, mystified.

‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked him.

‘Oh,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘I need one — immediately.’

‘If you don’t know what it is, how do you know you need one?’ said Maan.

‘It’s not for me but for Meher,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘She woke up and said, “Dada, I want a giggi. Give me a giggi.” And now she’s crying for it, and I can’t find out from her what it is or what it looks like. I’ll have to wait till — well, till Rasheed comes back. Maybe he knows. Sorry to have disturbed you again.’

‘No, not at all,’ said Maan, who hadn’t minded this interruption. For a while he couldn’t get back to his work. He tried to decide whether a giggi was to be eaten or to be played with or to be ridden on. Finally he picked up his pen again.

Baba, who had returned from the mosque, seeing him sitting by himself in the open courtyard, joined him a minute later. He greeted him, then coughed and spat on the ground.

‘What is a young man like you doing wasting your eyes on a book?’

‘Well, I’m learning to read and write Urdu.’

‘Yes, yes. I remember: seen, sheen. . seen, sheen. . Why bother?’ said Baba, and cleared his throat again.

‘Why bother?’

‘Yes — tell me what is there in Urdu apart from a few sinful poems?’

‘Now I’ve begun it, I should carry it through,’ said Maan.

It was the right thing to say. Baba approved of this sentiment, then added: ‘Now Arabic, you should learn Arabic. That’s the language to learn. Then you can read the Holy Book. You might stop being a kafir.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Maan cheerfully.

‘Oh, most assuredly,’ said Baba. He added: ‘You aren’t taking what I’ve said badly?’

Maan smiled.

‘One of my best friends is a thakur who lives a few villages away,’ continued Baba reminiscently. ‘In the summer of ’47 around the time of Partition, a crowd gathered on the road to Salimpur in order to attack this village because of us Muslims. And Sagal too. I sent an urgent message to my friend, and he and his men went out with lathis and guns, and told the mob that they’d have to reckon with them first. And a good thing too. Otherwise, I’d have died fighting, but I’d have died all right.’

It suddenly struck Maan that he had become a universal confidant.

‘Rasheed said that you were the terror of the tehsil,’ he told Baba.

Baba nodded his head in vigorous approval. He said emphatically: ‘I was strict with people. I turned him’—he pointed in the direction of the roof—‘out of the house, naked in the fields, at the age of seven because he would not study.’

Maan tried to imagine what Rasheed’s father might have been like as a boy, with a book instead of a paan-pouch in his hand. But Baba was continuing:

‘In the time of the English, there was honesty. The government was firm. How can you govern unless you are firm? Now, when the police catch some criminal, the Ministers and MPs and MLAs say, “He’s my friend: release him!” And they do.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Maan.

‘The police used to take little bribes then, now they are big ones,’ said Baba. ‘And the day will come when they will take huge ones. There is no respect for the law. The whole world is being destroyed. These people are selling the country. And now they are trying to take away the land that our forefathers earned with their sweat and blood. Well, no one is going to take away a single bigha of my land, I can tell you that.’

‘But if it’s the law—’ said Maan, thinking of his father.

‘Now, you’re a sober young man,’ said Baba. ‘You don’t drink or smoke and you are law-abiding and respect our customs. But tell me, if they made a law that you should not pray to Mecca but to Calcutta instead, would you obey it?’

Maan shook his head, trying not to smile at the thought of either eventuality.

‘It’s the same thing,’ said Baba. ‘Now Rasheed tells me that your father is a great friend of the Nawab Sahib, who is well respected in this district. What does the Nawab Sahib think of this attempt to grab his land?’

‘He does not like it,’ said Maan. He had learned by now to state the obvious as blandly as he could.

‘And nor would you. I can tell you that things will get worse and worse. As it is, things have begun to fall apart. There’s a family of low people in this village who have turned their mother and father out to starve. They eat well enough, but they’ve turned them out. Independence has come — and now the politicians want to finish the zamindars off — and the country has collapsed. In the old days if someone had done this — dared to turn his mother into a beggar — a mother who had fed him, cleaned him, clothed him — we would have beaten him until his bones and brains were set right. It was our responsibility. Now if we beat people up they’ll immediately start a court case, they’ll try to lock us up in the police station.’

‘Can’t you talk to them, convince them?’ asked Maan.

Baba shrugged impatiently. ‘Of course — but bad characters are improved less by explanations than by the lathi.’

‘You must have been a very severe disciplinarian,’ said Maan, quite pleased at the traits he would have found intolerable in his own father.

‘Oh yes,’ agreed Rasheed’s grandfather. ‘Discipline is the key. You have to work hard at everything you do. You, for instance, should be studying, not wasting your time talking to an old man like me. . Tell me, did your father want you to come here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, to learn Urdu — and I suppose to gain some experience of the villages,’ improvised Maan.

‘Good. . good. Well, tell him this is a good constituency. He has a good reputation among our community. . To study Urdu? Yes, we must protect it. . it’s our heritage. . You know, you would make a good politician yourself. You kicked the Football through the goalposts very smoothly. Of course, if you join politics from this place, Netaji would probably assassinate you. . Oh, well. . well, carry on, carry on. . ’

And he got up and started walking towards his house.

A thought struck Maan.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know what a giggi is, Baba?’ he asked.

Baba stopped. ‘A giggi?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you sure you’re reading it right?’ He walked back and picked up Maan’s exercise book. ‘I don’t have my glasses.’

‘Oh, it’s Meher who’s demanding a giggi,’ said Maan.

‘But what is it?’ asked Baba.

‘That’s the problem,’ said Maan. ‘She woke up and wanted a giggi from her grandfather. It must have been part of a dream. No one in the house knows what it means.’

‘Hmm,’ said Baba, considering the crisis. ‘Perhaps I’d better go and help.’ He changed his direction and went towards his son’s house. ‘I am the only one who really understands her.’

Maan’s next visitor was Netaji. It was now quite dark. Netaji, who had been away on mysterious business for some days, wanted to ask Maan about many things: the SDO, the Nawab Sahib’s estate at Baitar, the wolf-hunt, and love. But he could see that Maan was quite busy with his Urdu, and decided on love. After all, he had lent Maan the ghazals of Mir.

‘Is it all right to sit here?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ said Maan. He looked up. ‘How are things?’