Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Two letters in hand, he went to see Mukherji.

‘Mr Mukherji,’ he said, once they were both seated, ‘I feel I should take you into confidence. I have applied for a job with James Hawley, and they have made me an offer. After last week’s events you can imagine how I feel about continuing here. I would like your advice on what I should do.’

‘Mr Khanna,’ said Mr Mukherji quite unhappily, ‘I am sorry to hear this. I assume that you must have applied some time ago.’

‘I applied on Friday afternoon, and got the job within the hour.’

Mr Mukherji looked startled. If Haresh said so, however, it must be the truth.

‘Here is the letter of appointment.’

The General Manager scanned it, and said, ‘I see. Well, you have asked me for my advice. I can only say that I am sorry about the way that that order was taken out of your hands last week. It was not my doing. But I cannot accept your resignation myself — certainly not immediately. The matter will have to go to Bombay.’

‘I am sure Mr Ghosh will agree.’

‘I am sure he will,’ agreed Mr Mukherji, who was his brother-in-law. ‘But, well, it has to have his sanction before I can accept it.’

‘At any rate,’ said Haresh. ‘I am tendering my resignation to you now.’

But when Mr Mukherji phoned him to tell him that Haresh was leaving, Mr Ghosh was livid. Haresh was important for the success of his Kanpur factory, and he was not willing to let him go. He was due to go to Delhi to procure a government order for army footwear, and he told Mr Mukherji to hold on to Haresh Khanna until he himself came to Kanpur immediately afterwards.

Upon his arrival he summoned Haresh and tore into him in the presence of Mukherji. His eyes were bulging, and he seemed almost berserk with anger, although he was far from incoherent.

‘I gave you your very first job, Mr Khanna, when you arrived in India. And, if you recall, you gave me your assurance at the time that you would stay with us for two years, as long as we wanted you. Well, we do. Looking for another job is an underhand action on your part, and I refuse to let you go.’

Haresh coloured at Ghosh’s words and manner. A word like ‘underhand’ was like a red rag to him. But Ghosh was an older man, and one whose business sense at least he admired. Besides, it was true that he had given him his first job. ‘I do recall that conversation, Sir,’ he said. ‘But you might remember that you gave me certain assurances as well. You said, for one thing, that I should accept three hundred and fifty rupees at the time, because you would increase it once I had proved my worth to the organization. Well, I have certainly proved my worth to you, but you have not kept your side of the understanding.’

‘If it is a question of money, there is no problem,’ said Ghosh abruptly. ‘We can accommodate you — we can match their offer.’

This was news to Haresh — and to Mukherji as well, who looked startled — but the word ‘underhand’ so rankled against him that he continued: ‘I am afraid it is not merely money, Sir, it is the whole style of things.’ He paused, then went on: ‘James Hawley is a professional organization. I can make my way up that ladder in a way that I cannot in a family organization. I am hoping to get married, and I am sure you will see that I have to look to the future.’

‘You are not leaving us,’ said Ghosh. ‘That is all I have to say.’

‘We shall see about that,’ said Haresh, very angry himself by Ghosh’s high-handedness. ‘I have a written offer, and you have my written resignation. I fail to see what you can do about it.’ And he stood up, nodded wordlessly to his two superiors, and left.

The moment Haresh left the office, Ghosh phoned John Clayton, whom he had met a number of times in Delhi in a couple of ministries; both had been concerned with procuring government orders for their companies.

Ghosh told Clayton in no uncertain terms that he considered his action in ‘pinching’ his man to be unethical. He refused to countenance it, and he would not release Haresh. If necessary he would take the matter to court. This was an extremely unfair trade practice, and no way for a reputable British company to behave.

Mr Ghosh was related to various important civil servants and a politician or two — it was partly as a result of this that he had been able to get government orders for CLFC’s shoes, which were not of the best quality. He was clearly a man who wielded a great deal of influence. At the moment he was also a very angry man, and he could create problems for James Hawley, indeed for the Cromarty Group as a whole, both in Kanpur and elsewhere.

A couple of days later Haresh got another letter from James Hawley. The crucial sentence read: ‘You will have to get clearance from your present employers before we can confirm our offer.’ There had been no question in the previous letter of the necessity of any confirmation, and it was clear that James Hawley had buckled under pressure. No doubt Ghosh now believed that Haresh would have no choice but to come to him cap in hand and beg for his old job again. But for Haresh one thing was certain: he would not work one day longer in CLFC. He would rather starve than cringe.

The next day he went to the factory to collect his things and unscrew his brass nameplate from his door. Mukherji happened to pass by as he was doing this, and murmured an offer of help for the future. Haresh shook his head. He spoke to Lee and apologized for the fact that he was leaving so soon after hiring him. He then spoke to the workmen in his department. They were upset and angry at the treatment meted out by Ghosh to a man they had grown to like and respect and whom they had even begun to see — in a curious way — as their champion; certainly they had got more work and more money since he had joined the company, even if he worked them, like himself, very hard. They even offered, astonishingly, to go on strike for him. Haresh could hardly believe this, and was touched almost to the point of tears, but told them that they should do nothing of the sort. ‘I would have been leaving in any case,’ he said, ‘and whether the management behaves nicely or nastily to me makes no difference. I am only sorry that I have to leave you to the incompetence of someone like Rao.’ Rao was standing nearby when he said this, but Haresh was past caring.

To take his mind off things, he went to Lucknow for a day to visit Simran’s sister. And three days later, seeing nothing further in Kanpur to keep him, and having very little money, he left for Delhi to stay with his family and to see what he might find there. He could not decide whether to write to Lata to tell her the news. He was deeply disheartened; he could see all his prospects of happiness receding into nothingness now that he was unemployed.

But this mood dissolved somewhat after a few days. Kalpana Gaur sympathized with him, his old St Stephen’s friends took him up into their jovial company almost as soon as he got to Delhi. And, being basically an optimist — or at any rate having an abundance, perhaps a superabundance, of self-confidence — he refused to believe, even in these hard times, that nothing at all would turn up.

His own foster-father was understanding, and told him not to be disheartened. But Umesh Uncle, a close friend of the family, who loved to dispense wisdom, told him he had made a big mistake to let pride get in the way of good sense.

‘You think you can walk down the street and job offers will drop down on you like ripe mangoes,’ he remarked.

Haresh did not say anything. Umesh Uncle always got his goat.

Besides, he thought that his uncle, although he had a Rai Bahadur in front of his name, and an O.B.E. behind it, was an idiot.