Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Mrs Mahesh Kapoor for her part could not believe that these two shamelessly bare-waisted and bold-mouthed girls were the sisters of that nice boy Dipankar, who was so simple in his dress, amiable in his manners, and spiritual in his tastes. She was upset that Maan appeared to be hovering fascinatedly nearby. Kuku was looking at him with liquid eyes. Meenakshi’s eyes held a look of come-hither disdain which was as challenging as Kuku’s was appealing. Perhaps because she did not understand much English, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor was able more keenly to observe the unobvious undercurrents of hostility and attraction, contempt and admiration, tenderness and indifference that tied together the twenty or so people talking non-stop in this room.

Meenakshi was telling a story, punctuated by her bell-like laugh, about her own pregnancy. ‘It had to be Dr Evans, of course. Dr Matthew Evans. Really, if one has to have a baby in Calcutta, there’s no other choice. Such a charming man. Absolutely the best gynaecologist in Calcutta. He has such a nice way with his patients.’

‘Oh, Meenakshi, you’re only saying that because he flirts with his patients shamelessly,’ interrupted Kakoli. ‘He pats them on their bottoms.’

‘Well, he certainly cheers them up,’ said Meenakshi. ‘That’s part of his bedside manner.’

Kakoli giggled. Mrs Rupa Mehra looked at Mr Mahesh Kapoor, who seemed to be going through a paroxysm of self-control.

‘Of course he’s terribly terribly expensive — his fee for Aparna was 750 rupees. But even Ma, who’s so penny-pinching, agrees he was worth every paisa. Don’t you, Ma?’

Mrs Rupa Mehra did not agree, but did not say so. When Dr Evans had heard that Meenakshi was in labour, he had merely said, as if sighting the Armada: ‘Tell her to hold on. I’m finishing my game of golf.’

Meenakshi was continuing. ‘The Irwin Nursing Home is spotless. And there’s a nursery too. The mother isn’t exhausted by having the baby with her all the time in a cot, yelling and needing its nappy changed. It’s just brought to her at feeding times. And they’re strict about the number of visitors there.’ Meenakshi looked rather pointedly at the riff-raff from Rudhia.

Mrs Rupa Mehra was too embarrassed by Meenakshi’s behaviour to say anything.

Mr Mahesh Kapoor said: ‘Mrs Mehra, this is very fascinating, but—’

‘Do you think so?’ said Meenakshi. ‘I do think childbirth is so — so ennobling.’

‘Ennobling?’ said Kuku, astonished.

Savita was beginning to look pale.

‘Well, don’t you think one shouldn’t miss out on the whole thing?’ Meenakshi hadn’t thought so when she had actually been pregnant.

‘I don’t know,’ said Kakoli. ‘I’m not pregnant — yet.’

Maan laughed, and Mr Mahesh Kapoor almost choked.

‘Kakoli!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in a warning voice.

‘But not everyone knows when they’re pregnant,’ continued Kakoli. ‘Remember Brigadier Guha’s wife in Kashmir? She didn’t go through the ennobling experience.’

Meenakshi laughed at the memory.

‘What about her?’ said Maan.

‘Well—’ began Meenakshi.

‘She was—’ began Kakoli simultaneously.

‘You tell it,’ said Meenakshi.

‘No, you tell it,’ said Kakoli.

‘All right,’ said Meenakshi. ‘She was playing hockey in Kashmir, where she’d gone for a holiday to celebrate her fortieth birthday. She fell down, and got hurt, and had to return to Calcutta. When she got back, she began to feel shooting pains every few minutes. They called the doctor—’

‘Dr Evans,’ added Kakoli.

‘No, Kuku, Dr Evans came later, this was another one. So she said, “Doctor, what is this?” And he said, “You’re going to have a baby. We’ve got to get you to the nursing home at once.”’

‘It really caused shock waves in Calcutta society,’ said Kakoli to the assembled company. ‘When they told her husband he said: “What baby? Bloody nonsense!” He was fifty-five years old.’

‘You see,’ continued Meenakshi, ‘when she stopped having periods, she thought it was her menopause. She couldn’t imagine she was going to have a baby.’

Maan, noticing his father’s frozen face, began to laugh uncontrollably, and even Meenakshi graced him with a smile. The baby too appeared to be smiling, but it was probably just wind.

The baby and mother got along very well over the next couple of days. What was most surprising to Savita about the baby was her softness. She was almost unbearably soft, especially the soles of her feet, the inside of her elbows, the back of her neck — here she was even more amazingly, heartbreakingly tender! Sometimes she laid the baby beside her on the bed and looked at her admiringly. The baby appeared satisfied with life; she was quite a hungry baby, but not a noisy one. When she had had her fill, she would look at her mother with half-opened eyes: a snug, smug expression. Savita found that, being right-handed, it was easier to feed her from the left breast. This fact had never struck her before.

She had even begun to consider herself a mother now.

Cushioned by her mother, daughter, and sister in a feminine and loving world, Savita felt the days pass placidly and happily. But from time to time a wave of deep depression swept over her. Once this happened when it was raining outside and a couple of pigeons were cooing on the window ledge. Sometimes she would think of the student who had died in this very hospital a few days ago, and wonder about the world into which she had brought her daughter. Once, when she heard how Maan had dispatched the crazed monkey, she burst into tears. The depth of her sudden sadnesses was unaccountable.

Or perhaps it was not as unaccountable as it seemed to her. With Pran’s heart trouble hanging over the family, they would always live under a shadow of uncertainty. Savita began to feel more and more that she had to learn a profession, no matter what Pran’s father might say.

Notes passed between Pran and Savita as usual, but most of them these days were about suitable names for the baby. Both agreed that she should be named soon; it was not necessary to wait for her character to develop in order to pick a suitable name.

Everyone made suggestions of one kind or another. Eventually, Pran and Savita decided by correspondence on Maya. Its two simple syllables meant, among other things: the goddess Lakshmi, illusion, fascination, art, the goddess Durga, kindness, and the name of the mother of the Buddha. It also meant: ignorance, delusion, fraud, guile, and hypocrisy; but no one who named their daughter Maya ever paid any attention to these pejorative possibilities.

When Savita announced the baby’s name to the family, there was an appreciative murmur from the dozen or so people in the room. Then Mrs Rupa Mehra said:

‘You cannot name her Maya, and that is that.’

‘Why ever not, Ma?’ said Meenakshi. ‘It’s a very Bengali name, a very nice name.’

‘Because it is just impossible,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Ask Pran’s mother,’ she added in Hindi.

Veena too, who, like Meenakshi, had just become an aunt by virtue of this baby and felt that she had some rights in the matter, thought the name was a good one. She turned to her mother in surprise.

But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor agreed with Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘No, Rupaji, you are quite right, it won’t do.’

‘But why, Ammaji?’ asked Veena. ‘Do you think Maya is inauspicious?’

‘It isn’t that, Veena. It’s just that — as Savita’s mother is thinking — you must not name a child after a living relative.’

Savita’s aunt in Lucknow was called Maya.

No amount of arguing by the younger generation could budge either of the grandmothers.