Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Ma, why don’t you read me a poem?’ said Savita, trying to get her mother off this latest subject. But when Mrs Rupa Mehra turned to one of her favourites, ‘The Blind Boy’ by Colley Cibber, Savita regretted her suggestion.

The tears already starting to her eyes, Mrs Rupa Mehra began to read in a tremulous voice:

‘Oh say, what is that thing called Light,

That I must ne’er enjoy?

What are the blessings of the sight?

Oh, tell your poor blind boy!’

‘Ma,’ said Savita, ‘Daddy was very good to you, wasn’t he? Very tender — very loving—’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, the tears flowing copiously now, ‘he was a husband in a million. Now Pran’s father would always disappear when Pran’s mother gave birth. He couldn’t stand childbirth — so when the baby was young and noisy and messy he would try to be away as much as he could. If he had been there, maybe Pran would not have half-drowned in that soapy tub as a baby, and then all this asthma would not have happened — and his heart would have been undamaged.’ Mrs Rupa Mehra lowered her voice at the word ‘heart’.

‘Ma, I’m feeling tired. I think I’ll turn in,’ said Savita. She insisted on sleeping alone in her bedroom, though Mrs Rupa Mehra had offered to sleep with her in case her labour pains started and she would be too helpless to move or get help.

One night at about nine o’clock, while she was reading in bed, Savita suddenly felt a severe pain, and called out aloud. Mrs Rupa Mehra, her ears preternaturally sensitive to Savita’s voice these days, came rushing into the room. She had taken out her false teeth already and only had her bra and petticoat on. She asked Savita what the matter was, and whether the pains had begun.

Savita nodded, gripping her stomach, and said she thought so. Mrs Rupa Mehra promptly shook Lata awake, put on a housecoat, roused the servants, put in her false teeth, and telephoned Prem Nivas for the car to be sent. She could not get through to the obstetrician at his home number. She phoned Baitar House.

Imtiaz answered the phone. ‘How often are the contractions taking place?’ he asked. ‘Who is your obstetrician? Butalia? Good. Have you called him yet? Oh, I see. Leave it to me; he may be at the hospital with another delivery. I’ll make sure that they have a private room ready, and are prepared for everything.’

The pains were more frequent now, but irregular. Lata was holding Savita’s hand, and sometimes kissing her or stroking her forehead. When the pains were on, Savita closed her eyes. Imtiaz was over in an hour or so. He had had a difficult time tracking down the obstetrician, who had happened to be at a party.

Once she was in the hospital — the medical college hospital — Savita looked around and asked where Pran was. ‘Shall I get him?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘No, no, let him sleep — he shouldn’t get out of bed,’ said Savita.

‘She’s quite right,’ said Imtiaz firmly. ‘It would do him no good at all. There are enough of us here for support and company.’

A nurse informed them that the obstetrician would be coming very soon, and that there was nothing to be alarmed about. ‘First births take a long time in general. Twelve hours is quite normal.’ Savita’s eyes opened wide.

Though she was in great pain, she did not cry out aloud. Dr Butalia, a short Sikh doctor with rather dreamy eyes, arrived, examined her briefly, and again assured her that things were fine.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ he said with a smile, his eyes fixed on his watch while Savita writhed on the bed. ‘Ten minutes — well, good, good.’ He then disappeared.

Maan turned up next. The nurse, noting that he was a Mr Kapoor, and that he looked quite dishevelled and concerned, decided that he must be the father, and addressed him in those terms for a few minutes before he corrected her.

‘I’m afraid the father is another patient in this hospital,’ said Maan. ‘I am his brother.’

‘Oh, but how awful,’ said the nurse. ‘Does he know—’

‘Not yet.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, he’s sleeping, and it’s his doctor’s orders — and his wife’s — that he not move or suffer unnecessary excitement. I’m standing in for him.’

The nurse frowned. ‘Now lie quietly,’ she advised Savita. ‘Lie quietly and think calm thoughts.’

‘Yes,’ said Savita, tears squeezing themselves out of her eyes.

The night was hot, and despite the fact that the room was on the second floor there were a number of mosquitoes. Mrs Rupa Mehra asked for another bed to be brought in so that she and Lata could take turns to rest. Imtiaz, having made sure that things were in good order, left. Maan sat on a chair in the corridor and went off to sleep.

Savita could not think calm thoughts. She felt as if her body had been taken out of her own control by some terrible, brutal force. She gasped when the pains came, but because her mother had told her that they would be unbearable, and she kept expecting them to get worse, she tried not to cry out aloud, and succeeded. Hour followed hour, and the sweat stood out on her forehead. Lata tried to keep the mosquitoes away from her face.

It was four o’clock, and still dark. In a couple of hours, Pran would be awake. But Imtiaz had made it quite clear that he would not be allowed out of his room. Now Savita began to cry softly to herself, not only because she would be deprived of the comfort of his support, but because she could imagine how anxious he would be for her.

Her mother, thinking she was crying because of the pain, said: ‘Now, darling, be brave, it’ll all be over soon.’

Savita groaned, and held her mother’s hand tightly.

The pain was now very nearly unbearable. Suddenly, she felt the bed wet around her legs, and turned to Mrs Rupa Mehra, flushed with embarrassment and perplexity.

‘Ma—’

‘What is it, darling?’

‘I think — I think the bed is wet.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra woke Maan and sent him to get the nurses on duty.

The bag of waters had broken, and the contractions began coming very fast now, every couple of minutes or so. The nurses took one look at the situation, and wheeled Savita into the labour room. One of them telephoned Dr Butalia.

‘Where’s my mother?’ asked Savita.

‘She’s outside,’ said one rather abrupt nurse.

‘Please tell her to come in.’

‘Mrs Kapoor, I’m so sorry, we can’t do that,’ said the other nurse, a large, kind, Anglo-Indian woman. ‘The doctor will be here very soon. Hold on to the railing behind your bed if the pain is too bad.’

‘I think I can feel the baby—’ began Savita.

‘Mrs Kapoor, please try to hold on till the doctor arrives.’

‘I can’t—’

Luckily the doctor appeared almost immediately, and the nurses now both exhorted her to push.

‘Hold on to the spring and handle above you.’

‘Push, push, push—’

‘I can’t bear it — I can’t bear it—’ said Savita, her lips drawn apart in agony.

‘Just push—’

‘No,’ she wept. ‘It’s horrible. I can’t bear it. Give me an anaesthetic. Doctor, please—’

‘Push, Mrs Kapoor, you’re doing very well,’ said the doctor.

Out of a haze of pain, Savita heard one nurse say to the other: ‘Is the baby’s head coming out first?’

Savita felt a tearing sensation below, then a sudden warm gush. Then more stretching and such pain that she thought she would pass out.

‘I can’t bear it, oh Ma, I can’t bear it any more,’ she screamed. ‘I never want to have another baby.’

‘They all say that,’ said the abrupt nurse, ‘and they all come back next year. Keep pushing—’

‘I won’t. I’ll never — never — never have another child,’ said Savita, who felt herself being stretched beyond endurance, almost torn apart. ‘Oh God.’