Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Apart from deer and wild boar, which they spied only occasionally, there were a great number of monkeys, especially langurs, and a great variety of birds, including peacocks, scattered throughout the forest. They even saw a peacock dancing. Maan was transported with pleasure.

It was a warm day, but there was plenty of shade, and from time to time they rested. Waris noticed how delighted the two young men were in each other’s company, and he joined in their banter whenever he felt like it. He had liked Maan from the first, and Firoz’s friendship with him cemented his liking.

As for the two young masters, having been cooped up in Brahmpur for a while, they were happy to be out in the open. They were sitting in the shade of a large banyan tree and talking.

‘Have you ever eaten peacock?’ Waris asked Maan.

‘No,’ said Maan.

‘It’s excellent meat,’ said Waris.

‘Come on, Waris, the Nawab Sahib doesn’t like people shooting peacocks on the estate,’ said Firoz.

‘No, no, by no means,’ said Waris. ‘But if you shoot one of them by mistake, you may as well eat the bastard. No point in leaving him to the jackals.’

‘By mistake!’ said Firoz.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Waris, making an effort at invention or recall. ‘Once there was a sudden rustling in the bushes when I was sitting under a tree — just as we are sitting now, and I thought it was a wild boar — so I shot at it, and it was only a peacock. Poor thing. Delicious.’

Firoz frowned. Maan laughed.

‘Shall I tell you the next time I do that?’ asked Waris. ‘You’ll like it, Chhoté Sahib, let me tell you. My wife is an excellent cook.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Firoz, who had several times eaten junglefowl cooked by her.

‘Chhoté Sahib always believes in doing the right thing,’ said Waris. ‘That’s why he is a lawyer.’

‘I thought that was a disqualification,’ said Maan.

‘Soon, if they make him a judge, he will get the zamindari decisions reversed,’ asserted Waris.

There was a sudden movement in the bushes not thirty feet away. A large wild boar, its tusks lowered, came charging in their direction, aiming either towards them or past them. Without thinking, Maan lifted his rifle and — hardly taking conscious aim — fired at it when it was just a dozen feet away.

The boar collapsed in its tracks. The three of them got to their feet — at first in fear — and then, standing around it at a safe distance, heard its grunts and squeals and watched it thrash about for a minute or so, while its blood soaked the leaves and mud around it.

‘My God—’ said Firoz, staring at the beast’s huge tusks.

‘Not a fucking peacock,’ was Waris’s comment.

Maan did a little dance. He was looking a little dazed and very pleased with himself.

‘Well, what will we do with it?’ said Firoz.

‘Eat it, of course,’ said Maan.

‘Don’t be an idiot — we can’t eat it. We’ll give it to — well, someone or other. Waris can tell us which of the servants won’t object to eating it.’

They loaded the boar on to Waris’s horse. By the time it was evening they were all tired. Maan was resting his rifle in the saddle, holding the reins in his left hand and practising polo strokes with his right. They had come within a few hundred yards of the mango orchard, and were looking forward to a rest before the evening meal. The deer would have preceded them; perhaps it was being prepared at this very moment. It was almost sunset. From the mosque at the Fort they could hear the sound of the evening azaan in the muezzin’s fine voice. Firoz, who had been whistling, stopped.

They were almost at the border of the orchard when Maan, who was riding in front, saw a jungle cat on the path — a couple of feet long, lithe and long-legged, with fur that looked to him almost golden, and with sharp, greenish eyes that it turned upon him in an intent and narrow, almost cruel, gaze. The horse, who had not resented the weight of the boar or its scent of death, came to an immediate halt, and Maan again instinctively raised his rifle.

‘No — no — don’t—’ cried Firoz.

The jungle cat bounded away into the tall grass to the right of the path.

Maan turned angrily on Firoz.

‘What do you mean — don’t? I would have had it.’

‘It isn’t a tiger or a panther — there’s nothing heroic about shooting one. Anyway, my father doesn’t like killing what we can’t eat — unless, of course, it’s an immediate threat.’

‘Come on, Firoz, I know you’ve shot panther before,’ said Maan.

‘Well, I don’t shoot jungle cats. They’re too beautiful and harmless. I’m fond of them.’

‘What an idiot you are,’ said Maan regretfully.

‘All of us like jungle cats,’ explained Firoz, who didn’t want his friend to remain annoyed. ‘Once Imtiaz shot one, and Zainab didn’t speak to him for days.’

Maan was still shaking his head. Firoz drew alongside him and put his arm around his shoulder. By the time they had crossed the orchard, Maan was mollified.

‘Did a cart carrying a deer come this way?’ asked Waris of an old man who was walking through the orchard with a stick.

‘No, Sahib, I haven’t seen any such thing,’ said the old man. ‘But I’ve only been here a little while.’ He stared at the trussed-up boar, its huge-tusked head hanging across the haunch of Waris’s horse.

Waris, pleased to have been called Sahib, grinned and said optimistically:

‘It’s probably got to the kitchen by now. And we’ll be late for the evening prayer. Too bad,’ he grinned.

‘I need a bath,’ said Firoz. ‘Have you had our things put in my room?’ he asked Waris. ‘Maan Sahib is sleeping in my room.’

‘Yes, I gave orders just before we left. That’s where he slept the last time too,’ said Waris. ‘But I doubt he’ll be able to sleep tonight with that grim fellow gargling away till the early hours. Last time it was the owl.’

‘Waris pretends to be thicker than he is,’ said Firoz to Maan. ‘Ustad Majeed Khan will be singing tonight after dinner.’

‘Good,’ said Maan.

‘When I suggested getting your favourite singer over, my father got annoyed. Not that I was really serious.’

‘Well, Veena studies music under Khan Sahib, so we’re used to that sort of gargling,’ said Maan.

‘Here we are,’ said Firoz, dismounting and stretching himself.

The excellent dinner included a roasted haunch of venison. They ate not in the dark-panelled dining room but in the highest of the several open courtyards under a clear sky. Unlike at lunch, the Nawab Sahib was rather quiet throughout dinner; he was thinking about his munshi, who had annoyed him by complaining about the size of the fee that Ustad Majeed Khan now felt he should command. ‘What? All this for a song?’ was the munshi’s view of the matter.

After dinner they adjourned to the Imambara to listen to Ustad Majeed Khan. Since Moharram was still a few weeks away, the Imambara continued to be used as a general meeting hall; indeed, the Nawab Sahib’s father had used it as a durbar of sorts except during Moharram itself. Despite the fact that the Nawab Sahib was in general devout — there were, for example, no drinks served at dinner — a number of paintings depicting scenes from the martyrdom of Hussain decorated the walls of the Imambara. These, out of consideration for anyone who followed very strictly the injunctions against representational art, especially with respect to religious depiction, had been covered with white cloth. A few tazias — replicas in various materials of the tomb of Hussain — stood at the far end behind tall white pillars; some Moharram lances and standards stood in a corner.