Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Arun laughed. Then another thought struck him. ‘Oh, by the way — Meenakshi’s expecting again.’

‘Expecting?’ Billy was looking slightly blank.

‘Yes, you know, old fellow, preggers!’

‘Ah, yes, yes, preggers!’ Billy Irani nodded his head. Then suddenly a thought struck him, and he began to look bewildered.

‘Are you feeling all right, old chap? Another? Abdar—’

The waiter came by. ‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Another gimlet. Though we were taking the usual precautions. Still, it shows you never can tell. Determined fellows—’

‘Fellows?’

‘Yes, you know, babies. They want to appear, so they do so without consulting their parents. Meenakshi’s been looking worried — but I suppose it’s all for the best. Aparna could do with a brother. Or sister, I suppose. I say, Billy, I might have to go over and have a few words with Khandelwal. It’s about the new hiring policies of our firm. Praha apparently have been taking on some Indians lately, and I might get a few ideas from him — well, I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Oh, no, no — not at all.’

‘You’re looking rather poorly. Is it the sun? We can change tables.’

‘No, no — just tired — working too hard, I suppose.’

‘Well, take it easy. Doesn’t Shireen tick you off? Act as a moderating influence and all that?’ Arun smiled as he moved away.

‘Shireen?’ Billy’s handsome face was pale. His mouth was open in rather a fish-like gape. ‘Oh, yes, Shireen.’

Arun wondered for a second whether Billy’s IQ had sunk to zero, but his mind was soon occupied with other thoughts. He winched up a smile as he approached Mr Khandelwal’s table at the far end of the verandah.

‘Ah, Mr Khandelwal. Good to see you.’

Mr Khandelwal looked up, half sozzled already, but very genially. This was Arun Mehra, one of a handful of young men in Calcutta who had been accepted into the British commercial establishment — and who with their wives were therefore the leaders of Indian society in Calcutta. Chairman of Praha though he was, he was flattered to be recognized by Arun, to whom he had once been introduced at the races. Khandelwal remembered that the young man had an exceedingly glamorous wife, but he had a bad memory for names, and groped around a bit before Arun, who could not believe that anyone could have forgotten him, said, ‘Arun Mehra.’

‘Yes, yes, of course — Bentsen Pryce.’

Arun was mollified.

‘I wonder if I could have a few words with you, Mr Khandelwal,’ he said.

Mr Khandelwal gestured towards a chair and Arun sat down.

‘Will you have a drink?’ offered Mr Khandelwal, his hand poised above the small brass bell.

‘No, thank you, I’ve had one already.’

In Mr Khandelwal’s view that was no good reason not to have another half-dozen. ‘What is on your mind?’ he asked the younger man.

‘Well, as you know, Mr Khandelwal, our firm, and several others like ours, have been recruiting Indians — suitable Indians, of course — for management positions, on a gradual basis. And one hears that you, too, being a big organization, have been thinking of doing the same thing.’

Khandelwal nodded.

‘Well,’ said Arun. ‘In some respects we are in the same predicament. It’s rather difficult to get the sort of people we need.’

Khandelwal smiled.

‘You may find it difficult,’ he said slowly, ‘but we find no problem getting qualified people. Only the other day we recruited a man with a good background.’ He lapsed into Hindi. ‘A good man — he has studied in England, has a fine technical background. They wanted to give him a lower position, but I insisted—’ He gestured for another Scotch. ‘I can’t remember his name, oh yes, Haresh Khanna.’

‘From Kanpur?’ replied Arun, permitting himself two words in Hindi.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Khandelwal. ‘Oh yes, from Kanpur. He came to my attention through Mukherji of CLFC. Yes, have you heard of him?’

‘It’s very curious,’ said Arun, to whom none of this was in the least curious. ‘But now that you mention the name, Mr Khandelwal, I believe this must be the young man whom my mother talked about a little while ago as a — well, as a prospect for my sister. He’s a khatri, and, as you know, so are we — though I’m not in the least a believer in caste and so on. But of course there’s no arguing with my mother — she believes in all this khatri-patri business. How interesting; so he works for you?’

‘Yes. A good boy. Good technical qualifications.’

Arun shuddered inwardly at the word ‘technical’.

‘Well, we wouldn’t mind his coming over some day to our place,’ Arun said. ‘But perhaps it might be better if it were not quite so face-to-face, with just him and us. I wonder if perhaps you and Mrs Khandelwal might care to come over for tea one day. We live in Sunny Park, which, as you know, is in Ballygunge: not all that far away from you. I’ve been thinking of inviting you over for some time anyway; I understand you play an excellent game of bridge.’

Since Mr Khandelwal was a notoriously reckless player — his skill at bridge consisted largely of losing while playing for high stakes (though sometimes in the interests of a larger game) — Arun’s remark was pure flattery. But it had its effect.

Mr Khandelwal, although not blind to Arun’s charming manipulativeness, was pleased to be flattered. He was a hospitable man — and he had a mansion to display. So, as Arun had hoped and intended that he might when he had tendered his reverse invitation, the Chairman of Praha invited them over instead.

‘No, no, you come and join us for tea at our place,’ said Mr Khandelwal. ‘I’ll get this boy over — Khanna. And my wife will be very interested in meeting Mrs Mehra. Please bring her too.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Khandelwal.’

‘Not at all, not at all. Sure you won’t have a drink?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘We can discuss recruiting procedures then.’

‘Oh, yes, recruiting,’ said Arun. ‘Well, which day would suit you?’

‘Come any time.’ Mr Khandelwal left the matter up in the air. The Khandelwal household ran on very flexible principles. People dropped in and vast formal parties were given, often at the same time. Six large Alsatians joined in the mêlée and terrified the guests. Mrs Khandelwal ruled over Mr Khandelwal with a whip, but he often went astray with drink or women.

‘How about next Tuesday?’

‘Yes, yes, next Tuesday, any day,’ said Mr Khandelwal vaguely.

‘At five?’

‘Yes, yes, at five, any time.’

‘Well, then, at five next Tuesday. I look forward to it,’ said Arun, wondering whether Mr Khandelwal would remember this conversation five minutes later.

‘Yes, yes, Tuesday, at five,’ said Mr Khandelwal, deep in his cups. ‘Yes. Abdar—’

Everyone punched in at the Praha factory gate before the second siren went at eight in the morning; but there was a separate gate for the supervisors and managers, from the foremen upwards. Haresh was shown where he would sit. It was at a table in the open hall next to the conveyor belt. Here he would both supervise and do any office work that was necessary. Only group foremen got cubicles. There was nowhere for him to screw in the brass plate bearing his name that he had removed from his office door at CLFC not very long ago.

But perhaps he would not have been able to use that brass plate anyway. Everything was uniform in Praha and no doubt there was a standard lettering and size to brass plates as to everything else. The Czechs, for example, had brought the metric system with them, and refused to work with anything else, regardless of what had prevailed in the Raj or what now prevailed in Independent India. As for the litany that every Indian schoolchild learned—‘three pies to a paisa, four paisas to an anna, sixteen annas to a rupee’—the Czechs treated this as a joke. They had decimalized the rupee for all internal Praha purposes by fiat decades before the government came around to even deciding to do so.