Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Oh, all right,’ said Netaji. He had by now almost entirely forgiven Maan for his humiliation at the railway station because a number of grander humiliations and successes had occurred since then, and on the whole he was making progress in his plans for world conquest.

‘You don’t mind me asking you a question?’ said Netaji.

‘No,’ said Maan, ‘any question except that one.’

Netaji smiled, and proceeded. ‘Tell me, have you ever been in love?’

Maan pretended to be annoyed in order to avoid the question. ‘What kind of question is that?’ he asked.

Netaji was apologetic. ‘You see — I thought life in Brahmpur — in a modern family—’ he began.

‘So that’s what you think of us—’ said Maan.

Netaji retreated quickly: ‘No, no, I don’t — and anyway, why should I mind what your answer is? I only asked out of curiosity.’

‘Well, if you’ve asked such a question,’ said Maan, ‘you must be prepared to answer it yourself. Have you ever been in love?’

Netaji was not at all unwilling to answer. He had given the matter a lot of thought of late. ‘Our marriages, you see, are all arranged,’ he said to Maan. ‘It’s always been so. If I had it my way, I’d do it differently. But what’s done is done. I’m sure I would have fallen in love otherwise. But now it would only confuse me. How about you?’

‘Look, here comes Rasheed,’ said Maan. ‘Should we ask him to join our discussion?’

Netaji took his leave hurriedly. He had to preserve his nominal position of superiority as Rasheed’s uncle. As Rasheed approached, he gave him a peculiar look, and disappeared.

‘Who was that?’ said Rasheed.

‘Netaji. He wanted to talk to me about love.’

Rasheed made an impatient sound.

‘Where were you?’ said Maan to Rasheed.

‘At the bania’s shop, talking to a few people — trying to undo some of that ancient Sagal damage.’

‘What is there to undo?’ said Maan. ‘You were very fiery. I was full of admiration. But it seems that for some reason your father is very annoyed with you.’

‘There’s a great deal to undo,’ said Rasheed. ‘The latest version of that incident is that I came to blows with the good elders and claimed that the Imam of the Sagal mosque was an incarnation of Satan. I also have a plan to set up a commune on the lands of the madrasa — once I have persuaded you to persuade your father to somehow take it over. But people — at least in Debaria — seem to doubt this part of the story.’ Rasheed laughed shortly. ‘You have made quite a good impression in the village. Everyone likes you; it amazes me.’

‘Looks like you’re in trouble, though,’ said Maan.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. How can one argue with ignorance? People know nothing and want to know nothing.’

‘Tell me,’ said Maan, ‘do you know what a giggi is?’

‘No,’ said Rasheed, frowning.

‘Then you’re really in worse trouble than you imagine,’ said Maan.

‘I am?’ asked Rasheed, and for a second he looked genuinely worried. ‘By the way, how are your exercises going?’

‘Tremendously well,’ said Maan. ‘I’ve been working on them ever since you left.’

No sooner had Rasheed gone indoors than the postman dropped by on his way home, and handed Maan a letter.

He exchanged a few words with Maan; Maan responded without knowing what he said. He was dazed.

The envelope, a very pale yellow, seemed to be as cool and gentle as moonlight. The Urdu script was fluid, even careless. The postmark said ‘Pasand Bagh P.O., Brahmpur’. She had written to him after all.

Desire made him weak as he held the envelope to the light of the lantern. He had to get back to her — at once — no matter what his father — or anyone — said. Whether his exile was officially over made no difference at all.

When he was alone again, Maan opened the envelope. The faint fragrance of her familiar perfume mingled with the night air. He saw immediately that to read this letter — with its almost evasive cursiveness, its casually sprinkled diacritical marks, its compressions — would be far beyond his own rudimentary ability in Urdu. He pieced together the salutation to Dagh Sahib, made out from the physical appearance of the letter that it was laced with poetic couplets, but for the moment could get no further.

If there was no aloneness here in the village, Maan reflected with frustration, there was no privacy either. If Rasheed’s father or grandfather were to pass by and his letter happened to be lying open, they would pick it up quite unselfconsciously and read it. And yet to comprehend even part of it, he himself would have to look at it for hours and try to piece it together glyph by glyph.

Maan did not want to have to pore over it for hours. He wanted to know immediately what Saeeda Bai had written to him. But whom should he ask for help? Rasheed? No. Netaji? No. Who would serve as his interpreter?

What had she written? In his mind’s eye he saw her right hand with its brilliant rings move from right to left over the pale yellow page. As he did so, he heard a descending scale on the harmonium. He realized with a start that he had never seen her writing anything. The touch of her hands on his face — the touch of her hands on the keyboard — these needed such little conscious interpretation. But here her hands had moved across the page in a pattern of speed and grace, and he had no inkling what it meant of love or indifference, seriousness or playfulness, pleasure or anger, desire or calm.

Rasheed was indeed in worse trouble than he imagined, but it was the next evening that he found out about it.

When, after an almost sleepless night, Maan had asked him that morning for help with Saeeda Bai’s letter, Rasheed had gazed thoughtfully at the envelope for a moment, looked uncomfortable (probably with embarrassment at the request, thought Maan), and, to his great surprise, agreed.

‘After dinner,’ he had suggested.

Though dinner seemed months away, Maan had nodded gratefully.

But the crisis broke immediately after the evening prayer. Rasheed was summoned to meet five men gathered upstairs on the roof: his grandfather; his father; Netaji; his mother’s brother who had arrived that afternoon without his friend the guppi; and the Imam of the mosque.

They were all seated on a large rug in the middle of the roof. Rasheed made his adaabs.

‘Sit down, Rasheed,’ said his father. No one else said anything beyond responding to the salutations.

Only the Bear appeared to be genuinely welcoming, though he looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘Have a glass of this sherbet, Rasheed,’ he said after a while, handing him a glass with a red liquid inside. ‘It’s made from rhododendrons,’ he explained. ‘Excellent stuff. When I visited the hills last month. . ’ He tapered off into silence.

‘What is this about?’ asked Rasheed, looking first at the awkward Bear, then at the Imam. The Imam of the Debaria mosque was a good man, the senior member of the other big landowning family in the village. He usually greeted Rasheed in a warm manner, but Rasheed had noticed a distance in the last couple of days. Perhaps the Sagal incident had upset him as well — or perhaps the rumours that were proliferating had confused one Imam with another. Anyway, whatever his own theological or social errors, it was humiliating to be required to answer charges of rudeness to what looked like an accusatorial committee. And why had the Bear been called to join them from a considerable distance away? Rasheed sipped his sherbet and looked at the others. His father seemed disgusted, his grandfather stern. Netaji was trying to look judicious; he succeeded in looking complacent.