Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Maan and Firoz were sauntering along through the dark lane of Katra Mast towards Misri Mandi when Maan stopped suddenly. The sounds he heard approaching them were not those he had expected. They were the sounds neither of a tazia procession — and surely it was too late for a tazia procession — nor the joyful sounds of Bharat Milaap. The sound of drums had stopped on either side — and neither ‘Hassan! Hussain!’ nor ‘Jai Siyaram!’ could be heard. Instead he made out the ominous, inchoate sounds of a mob, broken by screams of pain or passion — or shouts of ‘Har har Mahadeva’. This aggressive invocation of Shiva would not have sounded out of place yesterday — but today it chilled his blood.

He let go of Firoz’s hand and turned him around by the shoulders. ‘Run!’ he said, his mouth dry with fear. ‘Run.’ His heart was pounding. Firoz stared at him but did not move.

The crowd was rushing down the lane now. The sounds grew closer. Maan looked around him in desperation. The shops were all closed, their shutters down. There were no side lanes within immediate reach.

‘Get back, Firoz—’ said Maan, trembling. ‘Get back — run! There’s nowhere to hide here—’

‘What’s the matter — isn’t it the procession?’ Firoz’s mouth opened as he registered the terror in Maan’s eyes.

‘Just listen to me,’ Maan gasped—‘Do as I say. Run back! Run back towards the Imambara. I’ll delay them for a minute or two. That’ll be enough. They’ll stop me first.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ said Firoz.

‘Firoz, you fool, this is a Hindu mob. I’m not in danger. But I won’t be all right if I come with you. God knows what will be happening there by now. If there’s rioting going on, they’ll be killing Hindus there.’

‘No—’

‘Oh God—’

By now the crowd had almost reached them, and it was too late to flee.

Ahead of the pack was a young man, who looked as if he was drunk. His kurta was torn and he was bleeding from a cut along his ribs. He had a bloodstained lathi in his hand, and he made for Maan and Firoz. Behind him — though it was dark and difficult to see — must have been some twenty or thirty men, armed with spears and knives or flaming torches doused in kerosene.

‘Mussalmans — kill them also—’

‘We’re not Mussalmans,’ said Maan immediately, not looking at Firoz. He tried to control his voice, but it was high-pitched with terror.

‘We can find that out quickly enough,’ said the young man nastily. Maan looked at him — he had a lean, clean-shaven face — a handsome face, but one that was full of madness and rage and hatred. Who was he? Who were these people? Maan recognized none of them in the darkness. What had happened? How had the peacefulness of the Bharat Milaap suddenly turned into a riot? And what, he thought, his brain seizing up with fear, what was going to happen?

Suddenly, as if by a miracle, the fog of fear dispersed from his mind.

‘No need to find out who we are,’ he said in a deeper voice. ‘We were frightened because we thought at first you might be Muslims. We couldn’t hear what you were shouting.’

‘Recite the Gayatri Mantra,’ sneered the young man.

Maan promptly recited the few sacred syllables. ‘Now go—’ he said. ‘Don’t threaten innocent people. Be on your way. Jai Siyaram! Har har Mahadeva!’ He could not keep the rising mockery out of his voice.

The young man hesitated.

Someone in the crowd cried: ‘The other’s a Muslim. Why would he be dressed like that?’

‘Yes, that’s certain.’

‘Take off his fancy dress.’

Firoz had started trembling again. This encouraged them.

‘See if he’s circumcised.’

‘Kill the cruel, cow-murdering haramzada — cut the sister-fucker’s throat.’

‘What are you?’ said the young man, prodding Firoz in the stomach with his bloodstained lathi. ‘Quick — speak — speak, before I use this on your head—’

Firoz flinched and trembled. The blood on the lathi had stained his white sherwani. He did not lack courage normally, but now — in the face of such wild, unreasoning danger — he found he had lost his voice. How could he argue with a mob? He swallowed and said: ‘I am what I am. What’s that to you?’

Maan was looking desperately around him. He knew there was no time to talk. Suddenly in the erratic, terrifying light of the blazing torches his eyes fell on someone he thought he recognized.

‘Nand Kishor!’ he shouted. ‘What are you doing here in this gang? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’re supposed to be a teacher.’ Nand Kishor, a middle-aged, bespectacled man, looked sullen.

‘Shut up—’ said the young man to Maan viciously. ‘Just because you like circumcised cocks do you think we’ll let the Mussalman go?’ Again he prodded Firoz and drew another smear of blood down his sherwani.

Maan ignored him and continued to address Nand Kishor. He knew that the time for dialogue was short. It was miraculous that they had been able to speak at all — that they were still alive.

‘You teach my nephew Bhaskar. He’s part of Hanuman’s army. Do you teach him to attack innocent people? Is this the kind of Ram Rajya you want to bring about? We’re doing no one any harm. Let us go on our way. Come!’ he said to Firoz, grabbing him by the shoulder. ‘Come.’ He tried to shoulder his way past the mob.

‘Not so fast. You can go, you sister-fucking traitor — but you can’t,’ said the young man.

Maan turned on him and, ignoring his lathi, caught him by the throat in sudden fury.

‘You mother-fucker!’ he said to him in a low growl that nevertheless carried to every man in the mob. ‘Do you know what day this is? This man is my brother, more than my brother, and today in our neighbourhood we were celebrating Bharat Milaap. If you harm one hair of my brother’s head — if even one hair of his head is harmed — Lord Rama will seize your filthy soul and send it flaming into hell — and you’ll be born in your next life as the filthy krait you are. Go home and lick up your own blood, you sister-fucker, before I break your neck.’ He wrenched the young man’s lathi from his grasp and pushed him into the crowd.

His face flaming with anger, Maan now walked with Firoz unharmed through the mob, which seemed a little cowed by his words, a little uncertain of its purpose. Before it could think its way out again, Maan, pushing Firoz in front of him, had walked fifty yards and turned a corner.

‘Now run!’ he said.

He and Firoz ran for their lives. The mob was still dangerous. It was in effect leaderless for a few minutes and uncertain what to do, but it soon regrouped and, feeling cheated of its prey, moved along the alleys to hunt for more.

Maan knew that at all costs they had to avoid the route of the Bharat Milaap procession and still somehow get to his sister’s house. Who knew what danger they might have to face on the way, what other mobs or lunatics they might encounter.

‘I’ll try to get back to the Imambara,’ said Firoz.

‘It’s too late now,’ said Maan. ‘You’re cut off, and you don’t know this area. Stay with me now. We’re going to my sister’s. Her husband’s on the Ramlila Committee, no one will attack their house.’

‘But I can’t. How can I—’

‘Shut up!’ said Maan, his voice trembling again. ‘You’ve put us through enough danger already. Don’t have any more stupid scruples. There’s no purdah in our family, thank God. Go through that gate there and don’t make a sound.’ Then he put his arm around Firoz’s shoulder.

He led Firoz through a small washermen’s colony, and they emerged in the tiny alley where Kedarnath lived. It was a mere fifty yards from where the stage had been set up for the Bharat Milaap. They could hear the sound of shouting and screaming from close by. Veena’s house was in an almost entirely Hindu neighbourhood; no Muslim mobs could range here.