Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Dr Seth was never happier than when walking through an emotional minefield — unless it was when he was dragging seven other troops along with him.

Professor Mishra pursed his lips sweetly and said: ‘My dear Dr Seth, I have quite forgotten what I was rambling on about — perhaps because I feel so relaxed in these delightful surroundings. Or perhaps it is your excellent whisky that has made my memory as limp as my limbs. But what an amazing mechanism the human body is: who could imagine that one could feed in, say, four arrowroot biscuits and one boiled egg and get an output, say, of three spades — and one trick down?’

Parvati quickly interjected: ‘Professor Mishra, a young lecturer was telling us just a few days ago about the pleasures of teaching. What a noble profession it must be.’

‘My dear lady,’ said Professor Mishra, ‘teaching is a thankless task, but one undertakes it because one feels one has a calling, as it were. A couple of years ago I had rather an interesting discussion on the radio about the concept of teaching as a vocation — with a lawyer by the name of Dilip Pandey, in which I said — or was it Deepak Pandey — anyway, I said—’

‘Dilip,’ said the Advocate-General. ‘He is now dead, in fact.’

‘Oh, is he? What a pity. Well, I made the point that there are three kinds of teachers: those who are forgotten, those who are remembered and hated, and the third, the lucky ones, and I hope I am one of them, those who are remembered and’—he paused—‘forgiven.’

He looked rather pleased with his formulation.

‘Oh, you are, you are—’ said his wife eagerly.

‘What’s that?’ cried Dr Kishen Chand Seth. ‘Speak louder, we can’t hear you.’ He banged his stick on the floor.

Towards the end of the second rubber, the librarian (having been requested to do so twice already by the users of the library) sent a note to the bridge room. If Parvati had not restrained him, Dr Kishen Chand Seth would have screamed in wrath upon receiving it. As it was, he could neither believe nor stomach the insubordination of the librarian in requesting that the volume of conversation in the bridge room be reduced. He would haul the fellow up before the committee. A useless fellow, who spent most of his time dozing in the stacks, who treated the job as a sinecure, who—

‘Yes, dear,’ said Parvati. ‘Yes, dear, I know. Now we at our table have finished our second rubber, but we’re talking quite quietly. Why don’t you concentrate on finishing yours, and then we can all go out on to the lawn; the film will begin in about twenty minutes. It’s a pity that in the monsoon they screen it indoors. Ah, yes, Pran and Savita are sitting there; eating chips, I suppose. She looks enormous. I think perhaps we’ll go and join them immediately, and you can follow.’

‘I am afraid we must now be going,’ said Professor Mishra, getting up hastily. His wife stood up too.

‘Must you go? Can’t you join us?’ asked Parvati.

‘No — no — far too busy these days — there are guests in the house — and I have been saddled with a good deal of unnecessary curriculum revision,’ explained Professor Mishra.

Mahesh Kapoor looked at him for a second, then returned to his cards.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the whale, and glided quickly out of sight, followed by his minnow.

‘How peculiar,’ said Parvati, turning back to the table. ‘What do you make of it?’ she asked Mr Shastri.

‘Force-ful per-son-al-it-y,’ was Mr Shastri’s opinion. Though it was unrevealing, it was delivered with a smile and conveyed the sense that Mr Shastri had some knowledge of the world, and did not opine where opinion was unnecessary.

Parvati had begun to have second thoughts about letting her husband follow her. For one thing, he might still need to be managed. For another, she did not relish meeting Mrs Rupa Mehra without his support. The reaction of Kishy’s daughter to her rose-spangled sari was unpredictable. So Parvati waited for a few more minutes to see if the rubber would end. It did. Her husband was on the winning side. With some glee he was totting up his points for the hand — including an overtrick and a hundred honours. She breathed more freely.

Out on the lawn, everyone was introduced to everyone else. Savita found herself engaged in a slow and deliberate conversation with Mr Shastri. She found him very interesting. He was telling her about a woman lawyer at the Brahmpur High Court, who was very successful in criminal practice despite the fact that she had had to overcome the reservations of clients, colleagues and judges.

Pran was feeling a bit exhausted, but Savita had insisted on seeing Charlie Chaplin ‘once more before I become a mother and see everything differently’; her grandfather’s Buick, a little the worse for having been requisitioned, had been sent to fetch them. Lata had gone off to one of those evening rehearsals so dreaded by Mrs Rupa Mehra; the director had said that it was necessary to make up for the rehearsals lost because of the student agitation.

Savita was looking happy and energetic, and eating with great appetite the club speciality: small goli kababs, each with a raisin in the middle. The more she talked to Mr Shastri, the more she thought that it would be very interesting to study law.

Pran walked towards the low wall that separated the Subzipore Club lawn from the sands and the river. He looked over it at the brown water and the few slow boats plying silently along. He was thinking that soon, like his father, he would be a father too, and he was doubtful that he would make a good one. I’ll be too worried for my child’s own good, he thought. But in a while he reflected that Kedarnath’s perpetual air of anxiety had not had a damaging effect on Bhaskar. And, he reflected, thinking with a smile of Maan, one can be too carefree as well. Since he was feeling a little out of breath, he leaned against the wall and watched the others from a few yards away.

Mrs Rupa Mehra had started when she heard Dr Durrani’s name. She could hardly believe that her father had known him so well as to invite him for bridge. After all, it had been Dr Kishen Chand Seth to whom she had gone for advice in extremis, and who had told her to get Lata out of Brahmpur as soon as possible in the face of the Durrani threat. Had he deliberately not told her of the acquaintance? Or was it of very recent standing?

Dr Durrani was sitting next to her now, leaning forward slightly in his cane chair, and she was compelled by both politeness and curiosity to swallow her astonishment and talk to him. In response to a question from her, he mentioned that he had two sons.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, ‘one of them rescued Bhaskar at the Pul Mela. What a terrible business. How brave of him. Do have another chip.’

‘Yes. Kabir. I fear, though, that the, er, acuity of his, um, um, insight—’

‘Whose? Kabir’s?’

Dr Durrani looked startled. ‘No, er, Bhaskar’s.’

‘Has suffered?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra anxiously.

‘Er, quite.’

There was a silence; then Mrs Rupa Mehra asked, ‘And where is he now?’

‘In bed?’ asked Dr Durrani, presenting a question in lieu of a reply.

‘Isn’t it rather early for him to go to bed?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, puzzled.

‘As I, er, understand, his mother and er, grandmother, are quite strict. They tuck him up at, er, seven or so these days. Doctor’s orders.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘We have been talking at cross purposes. I meant, what is your son Kabir doing? Was he involved in these recent student activities?’

‘Only after the, er, lamentable, er, injury to that boy. . ’ He shook his head and his eyelids squeezed themselves together. ‘No, well, he has other interests. At the moment he is, er, rehearsing in a play. . er, is something the matter? Dear Mrs Mehra?’