Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

The car had in fact been sent for Saeeda Bai and her musicians more than half an hour ago, and Mahesh Kapoor was just beginning to be concerned. Most of the audience had by now sat down, but some were still standing around and talking. Saeeda Bai was known on occasion to have committed to sing somewhere and then simply gone off on an impulse somewhere else — perhaps to visit an old or a new flame, or to see a relative, or even to sing to a small circle of friends. She behaved very much to suit her own inclinations. This policy, or rather tendency, could have done her a great deal of harm professionally if her voice and her manner had not been as captivating as they were. There was even a mystery to her irresponsibility if seen in a certain light. This light had begun to dim for Mahesh Kapoor, however, when he heard a buzz of muted exclamation from the door: Saeeda Bai and her three accompanists had finally arrived.

She looked stunning. If she had not sung a word all evening but had kept smiling at familiar faces and looking appreciatively around the room, pausing whenever she saw a handsome man or a good-looking (if modern) woman, that would have been enough for most of the men present. But very shortly she made her way to the open side of the courtyard — the part bordering the garden — and sat down near her harmonium, which a servant of the house had carried from the car. She moved the pallu of her silk sari further forward over her head: it tended to slip down, and one of her most charming gestures — to be repeated throughout the evening — was to adjust her sari to ensure that her head was not left uncovered. The musicians — a tabla player, a sarangi player, and a man who strummed the tanpura — sat down and started tuning their instruments as she pressed down a black key with a heavily ringed right hand, gently forcing air through the bellows with an equally bejewelled left. The tabla player used a small silver hammer to tauten the leather straps on his right-hand drum, the sarangi player adjusted his tuning pegs and bowed a few phrases on the strings. The audience adjusted itself and found places for new arrivals. Several boys, some as young as six, sat down near their fathers or uncles. There was an air of pleasant expectancy. Shallow bowls filled with rose and jasmine petals were passed around: those who, like Imtiaz, were still somewhat high on bhang, lingered delightedly over their enhanced fragrance.

Upstairs on the balcony two of the (less modern) women looked down through the slits in a cane screen and discussed Saeeda Bai’s dress, ornament, face, manner, antecedents and voice.

‘Nice sari, but nothing special. She always wears Banarasi silk. Red tonight. Last year it was green. Stop and go.’

‘Look at that zari work in the sari.’

‘Very flashy, very flashy — but I suppose all that is necessary in her profession, poor thing.’

‘I wouldn’t say “poor thing”. Look at her jewels. That heavy gold necklace with the enamel work—’

‘It comes down a bit too low for my taste—’

‘—well, anyway, they say it was given to her by the Sitagarh people!’

‘Oh.’

‘And many of those rings too, I should think. She’s quite a favourite of the Nawab of Sitagarh. They say he’s quite a lover of music.’

‘And of music-makers?’

‘Naturally. Now she’s greeting Maheshji and his son Maan. He looks very pleased with himself. Is that the Governor he’s—’

‘Yes, yes, all these Congress-wallahs are the same. They talk about simplicity and plain living, and then they invite this kind of person to the house to entertain their friends.’

‘Well, she’s not a dancer or anything like that.’

‘No, but you can’t deny what she is!’

‘But your husband has come as well.’

‘My husband!’

The two ladies — one the wife of an ear, nose and throat specialist, one the wife of an important middleman in the shoe trade — looked at each other in exasperated resignation at the ways of men.

‘She’s exchanging greetings with the Governor now. Look at him grinning. What a fat little man — but they say he’s very capable.’

‘Aré, what does a Governor have to do except snip a few ribbons here and there and enjoy the luxuries of Government House? Can you hear what she’s saying?’

‘No.’

‘Every time she shakes her head the diamond on her nose-pin flashes. It’s like the headlight of a car.’

‘A car that has seen many passengers in its time.’

‘What time? She’s only thirty-five. She’s guaranteed for many more miles. And all those rings. No wonder she loves doing adaab to anyone she sees.’

‘Diamonds and sapphires mainly, though I can’t see clearly from here. What a large diamond that is on her right hand—’

‘No, that’s a white something — I was going to say a white sapphire, but it isn’t that — I was told it was even more expensive than a diamond, but I can’t remember what they call it.’

‘Why does she need to wear all those bright glass bangles among the gold ones. They look a bit cheap!’

‘Well, she’s not called Firozabadi for nothing. Even if her forefathers — her foremothers — don’t come from Firozabad, at least her glass bangles do. Oh-hoh, look at the eyes she’s making at the young men!’

‘Shameless.’

‘That poor young man doesn’t know where to look.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Dr Durrani’s younger son, Hashim. He’s just eighteen.’

‘Hmm. . ’

‘Very good-looking. Look at him blush.’

‘Blush! All these Muslim boys might look innocent, but they are lascivious in their hearts, let me tell you. When we used to live in Karachi—’

But at this point Saeeda Bai Firozabadi, having exchanged salutations with various members of the audience, having spoken to her musicians in a low tone, having placed a paan in the corner of her right cheek, and having coughed twice to clear her throat, began to sing.

Only a few words had emerged from that lovely throat when the ‘wah! wahs!’ and other appreciative comments of the audience elicited an acknowledging smile from Saeeda Bai. Lovely she certainly was, and yet in what did her loveliness lie? Most of the men there would have been hard-pressed to explain it; the women sitting above might have been more perceptive. She was no more than pleasing-looking, but she had all the airs of the distinguished courtesan — the small marks of favour, the tilt of the head, the flash of the nose-pin, a delightful mixture of directness and circuitousness in her attentions to those whom she was attracted by, a knowledge of Urdu poetry, especially of the ghazal, that was by no means viewed as shallow even in an audience of cognoscenti. But more than all this, and more than her clothes and jewels and even her exceptional natural talent and musical training, was a touch of heartache in her voice. Where it had come from, no one knew for sure, though rumours about her past were common enough in Brahmpur. Even the women could not say that this sadness was a device. She seemed somehow to be both bold and vulnerable, and it was this combination that was irresistible.

It being Holi, she began her recital with a few Holi songs. Saeeda Bai Firozabadi was Muslim, but sang these happy descriptions of young Krishna playing Holi with the milkmaids of his foster-father’s village with such charm and energy that one would have had to be convinced that she saw the scene before her own eyes. The little boys in the audience looked at her wonderingly. Even Savita, whose first Holi this was at her parents-in-law’s house, and who had come more out of duty than from the expectation of pleasure, began to enjoy herself.

Mrs Rupa Mehra, torn between the need to protect her younger daughter and the inappropriateness of one of her generation, particularly a widow, forming a part of the downstairs audience, had (with a strict admonition to Pran to keep an eye on Lata) disappeared upstairs. She was looking through a gap in the cane screen and saying to Mrs Mahesh Kapoor, ‘In my time, no women would have been allowed in the courtyard for such an evening.’ It was a little unfair of Mrs Rupa Mehra to make such an objection known to her quiet, much-put-upon hostess, who had in fact spoken about this very matter to her husband, and had been impatiently overruled by him on the grounds that the times were changing.