Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘If. If,’ said Jha expansively.

‘I have heard enough nonsense,’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Tell Joshi that I have a list of the tenants he has turned out. How I have got it concerns neither him nor you. He had better reinstate them by Independence Day. That is all I have to say.’

Mahesh Kapoor got up to go. As he was about to leave the room, Joshi, the very man he had been talking about, entered. Joshi looked so worried that he hardly noticed Mahesh Kapoor until he bumped into him. He looked up — he was a small man with a neat white moustache — and said:

‘Oh, Kapoor Sahib, Kapoor Sahib, such terrible news.’

‘What terrible news?’ said Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Have your tenants bribed the police before you could get to them yourself?’

‘Tenants?’ said Joshi blankly.

‘Kapoorji has been writing his own Ramayana,’ said Jha.

‘Ramayana?’ said Joshi.

‘Must you repeat everything?’ said Jha, who was beginning to lose patience with his friend. ‘What is this terrible news? I know that this Lahiri fellow has managed to extort a thousand rupees from the people. Is that what you came to tell me? Let me tell you that I will deal with him in my own way.’

‘No, no—’ Joshi found it difficult to speak, so momentous was the information he was carrying. ‘It is just that Nehru—’

His face was wobbling with unhappiness and alarm.

‘What?’ said Jha.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor, prepared for the worst.

‘No, far worse — resigned — resigned—’ gasped Joshi.

‘As Prime Minister?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor. ‘From the Congress? What do you mean “resigned”?’

‘From the Congress Working Committee — and from the Central Election Committee,’ cried Joshi miserably. ‘They say that he is thinking of resigning from the Congress altogether — and joining another party. God knows what will happen. Chaos, chaos.’

Mahesh Kapoor realized immediately that he would have to go back to Brahmpur — and perhaps even to Delhi — for consultations. As he left the room he turned back for one last glance at Jha. Jha’s mouth was open, and his hands were clutching the two sides of his white Congress cap. He was entirely incapable of concealing the powerful emotion that had seized him. He was in a state of violent shock.

Maan had remained behind on the farm when his father had rushed off to Brahmpur in the wake of the news of Nehru’s resignation from his party posts. There had been talk of a crisis in the Congress Party for over a year, but there was no doubt now that it was truly upon them. The Prime Minister of the country had virtually declared that he had no confidence in the elected leadership of the party whom he represented in Parliament. And he had chosen to make this declaration just a few days before Independence Day when he, as Prime Minister, would speak to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi.

Sandeep Lahiri, meanwhile, briefly addressed the assembled population of Rudhia from a podium erected at the edge of the local maidan. He took charge of feeding the poor with the help of various women’s organizations in the town. He distributed sweets to children with his own hands — a task he found pleasant but awkward. And he took the salute at the boy scouts’ parade and the police parade and hoisted the national flag, which had been filled beforehand with marigold petals, a shower of which fell on him as he looked up in surprise.

Jha was not present. He and his supporters boycotted the whole show. At the end of the ceremonies, after a local band had struck up the National Anthem, and Sandeep Lahiri had shouted ‘Jai Hind!’ to the cheers of a couple of thousand people, more sweets were distributed. Maan gave him a hand with this, and appeared to be enjoying it a great deal more than Sandeep. The children were finding it difficult not to break ranks and had to be restrained by their flustered teachers. While all this was going on, a postman came up to the SDO, and handed him a telegram. He was about to put it absently into his pocket, when it struck him that it might contain something of importance. But his hand was sticky with jalebis, and he asked Maan, who had managed to avoid that particular hazard, to open it for him and read it out to him.

Maan opened the envelope and read it out. At first the message did not quite register on Sandeep, but then he frowned, and it was not a silly-ass frown but an aggrieved one. Jha had moved fast, it appeared. The telegram had been sent by the Chief Secretary of Purva Pradesh. It informed Shri Sandeep Lahiri, IAS, of his transfer with immediate effect from the post of Sub-Divisional Officer of Rudhia subdivision to a post in the Department of Mines at Brahmpur. He was to relinquish charge as soon as the officer to replace him arrived, on the 16th of August, and to report at Brahmpur the same day.

One of Sandeep Lahiri’s first acts upon arriving in Brahmpur was to request an interview with the Chief Secretary. A couple of months earlier, the Chief Secretary had dropped him a note to say that he had been doing an excellent job in his subdivision, and had especially commended his role in solving — by on-the-spot inquiries in the villages — a large number of land disputes that had appeared for some years to be intractable. He had assured Lahiri of his full support. And now, in effect, he had pulled the rug out from under his feet.

The Chief Secretary, busy though he was, granted him an interview at his house the same evening.

‘Now I know what you are going to ask me, young man, and I will be quite frank with you. But I must tell you in advance that there is no question of this order being rescinded.’

‘I see, Sir,’ said Sandeep, who had grown very fond of Rudhia, and had expected to serve his full term there — or at least to be given the time to apprise his successor of the problems and pitfalls — as well as the pleasures — that he was likely to encounter, and the various schemes that he had set in train which he would be sorry to see fall into neglect.

‘You see, orders in your case came directly from the Chief Minister.’

‘Did Jha have anything to do with this?’ asked Sandeep, frowning

‘Jha? Oh, I see — Jha, from Rudhia. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you. It’s certainly possible. I’m beginning to think that anything’s possible these days. Have you been treading on his toes?’

‘I suppose I have, Sir — and he on mine.’

Sandeep filled the Chief Secretary in on the details of their conflict. The Chief Secretary’s eyes drifted across his table.

‘You do realize that this is a premature promotion, don’t you?’ he said at last. ‘You shouldn’t be displeased.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ said Sandeep. And indeed, the position of Under-Secretary in the Department of Mines, though lowly enough in the hierarchy of the Indian Administrative Service, ranked higher than the post of SDO, with all its freedom of action and its life in the open air. He would in the normal course of things have been transferred to a desk job in Brahmpur six months later.

‘Well, then?’

‘Did — well, Sir, if I might ask — did you say anything to dissuade the Chief Minister from getting rid of me?’

‘Lahiri, I do wish you wouldn’t see things in that light. No one has got rid of you, and no one wishes to. You have an excellent career ahead of you. I cannot go into details, but I will tell you that the first thing I did upon receiving the CM’s instructions — which, incidentally, did surprise me — was to call for your file. You have an excellent record, with a number of good marks and only one bad mark against you. The only reason that I could think of that the CM wanted you out of Rudhia was that Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary is coming around in a couple of months. It appears that your decision in that troublesome matter last year rather annoyed him; I assumed that something had jogged his memory of late, and he thought that your presence in Rudhia might be a provocation. Anyway, it will be no bad thing for you to spend some time in Brahmpur early on in your career,’ he continued in a genial tone. ‘You’ll be spending at least a third of your working life here, and you may as well see how things run in the labyrinths of the state capital. My only specific advice,’ continued the Chief Secretary, now rather glumly, ‘is that you should not be seen at the bar of the Subzipore Club too often. Sharma, being a true Gandhian, doesn’t like people drinking; he makes rather a point of summoning me for some emergency work late in the evening whenever he hears I’m at the club.’