Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Suddenly the head slipped out, and she felt a sense of immediate relief.

When, after what seemed a long time, she heard the baby’s cry, she opened her eyes, which were still hazy with tears, and looked at the red, wrinkled, black-haired, bawling baby, covered with blood and a sort of greasy film, that the doctor was holding up in his arms.

‘It’s a girl, Mrs Kapoor,’ said the dreamy-eyed doctor. ‘With a very powerful voice.’

‘A girl?’

‘Yes. Quite a large baby. Well done. It was a difficult birth, as such things go.’

Savita lay exhausted for a couple of minutes. The light in the labour room was too bright for her. A baby! she thought.

‘Can I hold her?’ she asked after a while.

‘Just one minute more, and we’ll have her cleaned up.’

But the baby was still quite slippery when it — she — came to rest on the cradle of Savita’s slack stomach. Savita looked at the top of its head, adoringly and accusingly, then held it gently and closed her eyes with exhaustion once more.

Pran woke to find himself a father.

‘What?’ he said in disbelief to Imtiaz.

But seeing his parents sitting there by his bedside, something that would not normally have occurred outside visiting hours, he shook his head and believed it.

‘A girl,’ added Imtiaz. ‘They’re upstairs. Maan’s there too, quite happy to be mistaken for the father.’

‘A girl?’ Pran was surprised, perhaps even a little disappointed. ‘How is Savita?’

‘Fine. I’ve had a word with the obstetrician. He says the birth was a little difficult, but nothing unusual.’

‘Well, let me go to see her and the baby. I suppose she can’t move.’

‘No, she can’t. Not for a couple of days. She has a few stitches. And I’m sorry, Pran, you can’t move either. Neither movement nor excitement will conduce to your recovery.’ Imtiaz spoke with the slightly severe formality that he found worked best with patients when he wanted to ensure their compliance.

‘This is ridiculous, Imtiaz. Be sensible. Please. I suppose you’re going to tell me that I can only see photographs of my baby.’

‘That’s an idea now,’ said Imtiaz unable to resist a smile, and rubbing the mole on his cheek. ‘But the baby, unlike the mother, is a transportable item, and she can certainly be brought to you here. It’s a good thing you aren’t infectious, or even that wouldn’t have been possible. Butalia guards his babies as if they were something of value.’

‘But I must speak to Savita,’ said Pran.

‘She’s doing well, Pran,’ said his father reassuringly. ‘When I was upstairs she was resting. She’s a good girl,’ he added irrelevantly.

‘Why don’t you write her a note?’ suggested Imtiaz.

‘A note?’ said Pran with a short laugh. ‘She’s not in a different city.’ But he asked his mother to give him the pad on the nightstand, and scribbled a few lines:

Darling,

Imtiaz has forbidden me a sight of you; he claims that walking up a couple of flights of stairs and the excitement of seeing you will undo me. I know that you must be looking as beautiful as ever. I hope you are all right, and I wish I were there to hold your hand and tell you how wonderful our baby is. Because I’m sure she must be wonderful.

I haven’t seen her either yet, and this is to request you to relinquish her for a few minutes.

Incidentally, I am fine and, in case you were wondering, had a restful night!

All my love,

Pran

Imtiaz went off.

‘Don’t worry that it’s a girl, Pran,’ said his mother.

‘I’m not worried at all,’ said Pran. ‘I’m just surprised. Everyone kept talking about a boy, so after a while I believed it.’

Mrs Mahesh Kapoor herself was not displeased that she had had a granddaughter, since Bhaskar (though not in the male line) had fulfilled her wish for a grandson.

‘Rupa couldn’t be pleased, though,’ she told her husband.

‘Why?’ said her husband.

‘Two granddaughters and no grandsons.’

‘Women should have their brains examined,’ was his response, before he returned to the day’s newspaper.

‘But you always say—’

Mahesh Kapoor held up his hand, and continued reading.

In a short while Mrs Rupa Mehra appeared with the baby.

Pran’s eyes filled suddenly with tears. ‘Hello, Ma,’ he said, reaching out for the baby.

The baby’s eyes were open but because of the folds around them, she looked almost as if she was squinting. To Pran she looked extremely raw and wrinkled, but not unattractive. In an unfocused way she too appeared to register Pran.

He held her, not knowing what to do. How did one communicate with a baby? He hummed for a bit. Then he said to his mother-in-law: ‘How is Savita? When will she be able to move around?’

‘Oh, she’s sent a customs note with the parcel,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, handing Pran a piece of paper.

Pran looked at his mother-in-law, surprised by this sudden flippant touch of wit. He felt that if he had made a joke in the same vein she would have rebuked him.

‘Really, Ma!’ he said. But Mrs Rupa Mehra was laughing, and tickling the back of the baby’s head in a doting manner. Pran rested the note against the baby, and read as follows:

Dearest P,

Herewith find enclosed one baby, size M, sex F, colour R, to be returned after inspection and approval.

I am very well, and longing to see you, and I have been told that in two or three days I can move around carefully. It’s these stitches, which make certain things difficult for me.

The baby has a definite personality and I feel she has taken a liking to me. I hope you are equally lucky. Her nose reminds me of Ma’s, but nothing else reminds me of anything in either of our families. She was very slippery when she came out, but now she has been cleaned and talcumed for presentability.

Please don’t worry about me, Pran. I am very well, and Ma will be sleeping in my room next to the baby’s cot so that I’ll be able to rest except for feeding times.

I hope you are all right, my darling, and congratulations. It’s difficult to think of myself in my changed status. I know I’ve had a baby all right, but I can’t believe I’m a mother.

Lots of love,

Savita

Pran rocked his daughter for a while. He smiled at the last sentence. Imtiaz had congratulated him on being a father rather than on having a baby, and he had no difficulty in accepting the fact of his fatherhood.

The baby was asleep in his arms. Pran was amazed at how perfect she was, all of her. Even though she was so small, each vein, each limb and lid and lip, each tiny finger was there — and functioning.

The baby’s mouth was open in an unmeaning smile.

Pran saw what Savita meant about the nose. Even though it was very small, he could see that it had the potential of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s rather hawk-like nose. He wondered if it would redden in the same way when she cried. At any rate, it couldn’t be redder than it was now.

‘Isn’t she lovely?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘How proud He would have been to see his second granddaughter.’

Pran rocked the baby a bit more, and touched his nose to hers.

‘What do you think of your daughter?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘She has a nice smile, considering that she’s a baby,’ said Pran.

As he had thought, Mrs Rupa Mehra did not approve of his flippancy. She told him that if he had given birth to the baby he would have appreciated her more.

‘Quite right, Ma, quite right,’ said Pran.

He wrote a short note back to Savita, informing her that the baby met with his approval, and reassuring her that slippery people were necessary in the scheme of things. When Mrs Rupa Mehra returned upstairs with the baby, Mr and Mrs Mahesh Kapoor followed, and Pran stared at the ceiling, lost in his thoughts, more happy about the present than worried about the future.