Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Hello, genius,’ said Maan genially.

‘Hello,’ said Bhaskar, rather abstracted. ‘Just a minute.’ He stared at a chart for a minute, scribbled down a few numbers with a pencil, and turned towards his uncle.

Maan kissed him, and asked him how he had been.

‘Fine, Maan Maama, but everyone makes such a fuss here.’

‘How’s the head?’

‘Head?’ said Bhaskar, surprised. ‘My head is fine.’

‘Well, then, do you want some sums?’

‘Not just at the moment,’ said Bhaskar. ‘My head is full of them.’

Maan could hardly believe this response. It was as if Kumbhkaran had decided to wake up at dawn and go on a diet.

‘What are you doing? It looks very serious,’ he ventured.

‘Very serious indeed,’ said Mahesh Kapoor’s voice. Maan turned around. His father, mother, and sister had come into the room. Veena hugged Maan tearfully, then sat down on the edge of Bhaskar’s bed after moving away a few sheets of paper. Bhaskar didn’t object.

‘Bhaskar’s been complaining that he’s bored here. He wants to leave,’ said Veena to Maan.

‘Oh, I can stay for two or three days more,’ said Bhaskar.

‘Really?’ said Veena, surprised. ‘Perhaps I really should have your head examined twice a day.’ Maan cheered up at his sister’s response. If she could joke in this way, Bhaskar must be all right.

‘What’s he been up to?’ he asked.

Mahesh Kapoor replied laconically: ‘He’s telling me which constituency I should fight from.’

‘Why not from your old one?’ asked Maan.

‘They’ve redrawn it.’

‘Oh.’

‘Besides, I’m going to leave the Congress Party.’

‘Oh!’ Maan looked at his mother, but she did not say anything. She appeared rather unhappy, though. She was not in favour of her husband’s decision, but did not feel she could stop him. He would have to resign as Minister of Revenue; he would have to move out of the party that was associated in the people’s minds with the freedom movement, the party of which he and she had been lifelong members; he would have to find funds from somewhere to compete with the sizeable funds of the state Congress Party, so effectively garnered and dispensed by the Home Minister. Above all, he would have to struggle once again against hard odds, and he was not young.

‘Maan, you’ve grown so thin,’ said his mother.

‘Thin? Me?’ said Maan.

‘Yes, and you’re so much darker,’ she said, sadly. ‘Almost like Pran. This village life is not good for you. Now we must take care of you properly. You must tell me what you want at every meal—’

‘Yes, well, it’s good to see you back, and I hope that things have changed,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, pleased but somewhat anxious to see his son.

‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about Bhaskar?’ said Maan.

Both Veena and her mother glanced towards Mahesh Kapoor.

‘Well,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, ‘you must trust us to decide certain things.’

‘So if Savita’s baby had been born—’

‘You’re here now, Maan, and that’s the main thing,’ said his father shortly. ‘Where are your things? The servant can’t find them. I’ll have them sent up to your room. And before you leave for Banaras you must—’

‘My things are at Firoz’s house. I’m staying there.’

This remark was greeted with an amazed silence.

Mahesh Kapoor looked annoyed, and Maan was not too upset by this. But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor looked hurt, and he felt bad. He began to wonder if, after all, he had done the right thing.

‘So this is not your home any more?’ she said.

‘Of course it is, of course it is, Ammaji, but with so many people staying here—’

‘People — really, Maan,’ Veena said.

‘It’s only temporary. I’ll move back when I can. I have to talk things over with Firoz as well. My future and so on—’

‘Your future lies in Banaras, and no question about it,’ said his father impatiently.

His mother, sensing possible trouble, said: ‘Well, we will talk about all this after lunch. You can stay for lunch, can’t you?’ She looked at him tenderly.

‘Of course I can, Ammaji,’ said Maan, hurt.

‘Good. We have alu paratha today.’ This was one of Maan’s favourite dishes. ‘When did you come?’

‘I just came. I thought I’d see Bhaskar before anyone else.’

‘No, to Brahmpur.’

‘Yesterday evening.’

‘So why didn’t you come and have dinner with us?’ asked his mother.

‘I was tired.’

‘So you had dinner at Baitar House?’ asked his father. ‘How is the Nawab Sahib?’

Maan flushed but did not answer. This was intolerable. He was glad he was not going to live under the dominating eye of his father.

‘So where did you have dinner?’ repeated his father.

‘I did not have dinner last night. I was not hungry. I nibbled throughout my journey, and by the time I arrived I was not hungry. Not hungry at all.’

‘Did you eat well in Rudhia?’ asked his mother.

‘Yes, Ammaji, I ate well, I ate very well, all the time,’ said Maan with a trace of irritation in his voice.

Veena had a good sense of her brother’s moods. She remembered him following her all around the house when he was a small boy. He had always been good-humoured unless he was both baulked and perplexed. He had a bad temper, but he was seldom irritable.

Something must have happened to upset or frustrate him recently; she was sure of it. She was about to ask him about it — which would probably only have bothered him further — when Bhaskar, as if waking from a reverie, said: ‘Rudhia?’

‘What about Rudhia?’ asked Maan.

‘Which part of Rudhia were you in?’ asked Bhaskar.

‘The northern part — near Debaria.’

‘That is definitely the most favourable constituency among the rural ones,’ pronounced Bhaskar. ‘Northern Rudhia. Nanaji said that a large proportion of Muslims and jatavs were factors in his favour.’

Mahesh Kapoor shook his head. ‘Be quiet,’ he told Bhaskar. ‘You’re nine years old. You don’t understand anything about all this.’

‘But, Nanaji, really, it’s true, it’s one of the best!’ insisted Bhaskar. ‘Why don’t you fight from there — you said that the new party would give you any seat you wanted. If you want a rural seat, that’s the one to choose. Salimpur-cum-Baitar in Northern Rudhia. I haven’t sorted out the urban seats yet.’

‘Idiot, you know nothing about politics,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘I need those papers back.’

‘Well, I’m returning to Rudhia at Bakr-Id,’ said Maan, siding with Bhaskar. He had cheered up at his father’s discomfiture. ‘People insist I celebrate with them. I’m very popular! And you can come with me. I’ll introduce you to everyone in your future constituency. All the Muslims, all the jatavs.’

Mahesh Kapoor said sharply: ‘I know everyone, I don’t need to be introduced to them. And it is not my future constituency, let me make that clear. And let me tell you that you are going back to Banaras to settle down, not to Rudhia to make merry at Id.’

Mahesh Kapoor had not left the party to which he had dedicated his life without pain or regret, and he was still assailed by doubts about his decision. His fear and expectation were that the Congress would not lose. The party was too well entrenched both in office and in the people’s consciousness; unless it lost Nehru, how could it fail to win? Dissatisfied though he was with the way things were going, there were other excellent reasons why Mahesh Kapoor should have remained. His brainchild the Zamindari Abolition Act had still to be declared valid by the Supreme Court and to be implemented. And there was the obvious danger that L.N. Agarwal would accumulate yet further power into his hands in the absence of a strong ministerial rival.