Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Rai Bahadur Umesh Chand Khatri, O.B.E., one of the six brothers of a Punjabi family, was a good-looking man: fair, with delicate features. He was married to the adopted daughter of a very rich and cultured man, who, having no sons, had decided to get a son-in-law to live in the house. Umesh Chand Khatri’s only qualifications were his good looks. He managed his father-in-law’s estate after a fashion, read perhaps one book a year out of his vast library, and gave him three grandchildren, including two boys.

He had never worked in his life, but felt compelled to tender advice to anyone within earshot. However, when the Second World War broke out, circumstances contrived to give him a fortune. He had access to the Adarsh Condiment Company, and he got government contracts for the manufacture of condiment powder, including curry powder, for the Indian troops. On the basis of this he minted money. He was created a Rai Bahadur ‘in recognition of war efforts’, became Chairman of the Adarsh Condiment Company, and continued to dispense advice even more insufferably to everyone except Haresh’s foster-father, who (being his not very tolerant friend) would tell him periodically to shut up.

Umesh Chand Khatri’s grouse against Haresh, whom he loved to needle, was the fact that Haresh was always smartly turned out. Umesh Chand believed that he and his own two sons should be the smartest and most elegant of all his acquaintances. Once, just before he left for England, Haresh had indulged himself by buying a silk handkerchief for thirteen rupees from the Army and Navy Stores in Connaught Place. Umesh Uncle had rebuked him publicly for extravagance.

Now that Haresh was down on his luck, Umesh Uncle said to him:

‘So — you think you’ve done a clever thing — coming back to Delhi to loaf around?’

‘I had no choice,’ replied Haresh. ‘There was no point to my remaining in Kanpur.’

Umesh Uncle laughed shortly. ‘You young men are too cocksure, too happy to drop perfectly good jobs. We’ll see what happens to all your bravado in two or three months.’

Haresh knew that his money would not last even as long as that. He got annoyed. ‘I’ll have a job — as good or better than the one I’ve given up — within a month,’ he said — indeed, almost snapped.

‘You’re a fool,’ said Umesh Uncle with genial contempt. ‘Jobs are not easy to get.’

His tone and certainty got under Haresh’s skin. That afternoon he wrote to several companies and filled in a number of applications, including one for a government job in Indore. He had already applied in vain a number of times to the great Praha Shoe Company. Now he applied once again. Praha, originally a Czech company, and still largely run by Czechs, was one of the biggest shoe manufacturers in the country, and prided itself on the quality of its products. If Haresh could get a decent job at the Praha Shoe factory either in Brahmpur or in Calcutta, he would have achieved two things at once: the reattainment of his self-respect, and proximity to Lata. Umesh Uncle’s taunts rang in his ears, as did Ghosh’s accusations of underhandedness.

It was a meeting with Mr Mukherji that gave Haresh a contact in the Praha world. Someone told Haresh that his old boss was in town. Haresh went to see him. He had no grudge against Mukherji, who he felt was a decent man, if not a very courageous one. Despite his brother-in-law’s obdurate attitude to Haresh, Mukherji felt bad about what had happened. He had previously mentioned to Haresh that Mr Khandelwal — the Chairman of the Praha Shoe Company, and, very remarkably, not a Czech but an Indian — was in town on business. Haresh, who knew no one in the Praha organization, felt that this was a heaven-sent opportunity to try his luck with them — or at least to get an answer to his many requests and letters. He told Mukherji that he would be grateful if he would introduce him to Mr Khandelwal.

Mukherji took Haresh along late one evening to the Imperial Hotel, where Mr Khandelwal always stayed when in Delhi. In fact, Mr Khandelwal always stayed in the Moghul Suite, the fanciest suite of all. He was a relaxed sort of man, of medium height, running both to fat and to the beginning of grey hair. He was dressed in kurta and dhoti. Apparently, he was even more fond of paan than Haresh; he chewed three at a time.

Haresh could not at first believe that this man sitting in a dhoti on the sofa was the legendary Mr Khandelwal. But when he saw how everyone scurried around him, some of them actually trembling while handing him papers which he quickly scanned and commented on, usually in a couple of words, Haresh got a sense both of his acuity and of his undoubted authority. One short, eager Czech, moving around in a most deferential manner, took down notes whenever Mr Khandelwal wanted something done or checked or reported on.

When Mr Khandelwal noticed Mr Mukherji he smiled and welcomed him in Bengali. Despite being a Marwari, Mr Khandelwal, having lived in Calcutta all his life, was fluent in Bengali; in fact he conducted meetings with trade union leaders from the Prahapore factory near Calcutta entirely in Bengali.

‘What can I do for you, Mukherji Shaib?’ he said, and took a gulp of whisky.

‘This young man, who has been working for us, is now looking for a job. He wanted to see if Praha could give him one. He has excellent academic qualifications in footwear technology, and I can vouch for him in all other respects.’

Mr Khandelwal smiled benevolently and, looking now not at Mr Mukherji but at Haresh, exclaimed: ‘Why are you being so generous as to give me such a good man?’

Mr Mukherji looked a little shamefaced. He said, quietly: ‘He has been hard done by, and I do not have the courage to talk to my brother-in-law about it. I fear, anyway, that it would do no good; his mind is entirely made up.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Mr Khandelwal of Haresh.

‘Sir, I have applied for a job with Praha several times, and have sent several letters, but have not had any proper reply at all. If you were to see that my application is at least considered, I’m sure that my qualifications and work experience will get me a job with the firm.’

‘Take his application,’ said Mr Khandelwal, and the dapper Czech took it and jotted something down on his pad.

‘So—’ said Mr Khandelwal, ‘you will hear from Praha in less than a week.’

But Haresh, though he did indeed hear within a few days from Praha, was once again offered by the Personnel Office a job at Rs 28 a week: a pittance which succeeded in doing nothing but making him angry.

However, it reassured Umesh Uncle. ‘I told you that you would not get a job if you left this one. But you never took my advice; you considered yourself so smart. Look at you now, sponging off others, rather than working, like a man should.’

Haresh controlled himself before replying: ‘Thank you for your advice yet again, Umesh Uncle. It is as valuable as it has always been.’

Umesh Uncle, faced by Haresh’s sudden meekness, felt that his spirit had been broken, and that he would be an easier recipient for his counsel from then on. ‘It’s good that you’ve seen sense at last,’ he told him. ‘A man should never have too high an opinion of himself.’

Haresh nodded, his thoughts anything but meek.

When, some weeks previously, Lata had received Haresh’s first letter — three pages written in his small, forward-slanting hand on his blue writing pad — she had replied to it in a friendly way. Half of Haresh’s letter had been concerned with trying to get a contact at the Praha Shoe Company to present his application to. Mrs Rupa Mehra had mentioned when they had all met in Kanpur that she knew someone who knew someone who might be able to help. In fact, it had turned out to be more difficult than she had imagined, and nothing had come of it. Haresh could not have known at the time that a strange series of events and the sympathy of Mr Mukherji would have got him to meet Mr Khandelwal, the Chairman of Praha, himself.