Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

The boatman they hired from near the dhobi-ghat happened to be the same one who had taken Lata and Kabir to see the Barsaat Mahal some months previously at dawn. As usual he demanded an outrageous price. Pran brought it down slightly, but was in no mood for further haggling. He was glad Uma was too small to come with them; he was happy to be alone with Savita if only for an hour or two.

The river was still high, and a pleasant breeze was blowing.

‘Ma was right — it is cold — you’d better hold on to me for warmth,’ Pran said.

‘Aren’t you going to recite a ghazal by Mast for me?’ asked Savita as she looked out, past the ghats and the Fort towards the vague silhouette of the Barsaat Mahal.

‘Sorry, you’ve married the wrong brother,’ said Pran.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Savita. She leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘What is that thing there with the walls and chimney — beyond the Barsaat Mahal?’

‘Hmm — I don’t know — perhaps the tannery or the shoe factory,’ said Pran. ‘But everything looks different from this side, especially at night.’

They were silent for a while.

‘What’s the latest on that front?’ said Pran.

‘You mean Haresh?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know. Lata’s being secretive. But he does write and she does reply. You’re the one who’s met him. You said you liked him.’

‘Well, it’s impossible to judge someone on the basis of a single meeting,’ said Pran.

‘Oh, so you think so!’ said Savita archly, and they both laughed. A thought struck Pran.

‘I suppose I too am going to be judged soon enough on the basis of a single meeting,’ he said.

‘Soon enough!’ said Savita.

‘Well, things really are going ahead at last—’

‘Or so Professor Mishra assures you.’

‘No, no — in a month or two at the latest they’re going to have their interviews — someone who works in the Registrar’s Office mentioned it to one of my father’s ex-PAs. So let’s see, it’s the middle of October now—’ Pran looked across towards the burning ghat. He lost the thread of his thoughts.

‘How quiet the city looks,’ he said. ‘And when you think that Maan and Firoz could have been murdered—’

‘Don’t.’

‘Sorry, darling. Anyway, what were you saying?’

‘I’ve forgotten.’

‘Oh, well.’

‘I think,’ said Savita, ‘that you’re in danger of becoming complacent.’

‘Who — me?’ said Pran, surprised rather than affronted. ‘Why should I be complacent? A humble university lecturer with a weak heart, who will have to puff his way up the cliff at the end of this boat ride.’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Savita. ‘Anyway, what does it feel like to have a wife and child?’

‘What does it feel like? It feels wonderful.’

Savita smiled into the darkness. She had fished for a compliment, and landed one.

‘This is where you’ll get the best view,’ said the boatman, driving his long pole deep into the bed of the river. ‘I can’t go further back into the current. The river’s too high.’

‘And I suppose it must be quite pleasant to have a husband and child,’ added Pran.

‘Yes,’ said Savita thoughtfully. ‘It is.’ After a while she said: ‘Sad about Meenakshi.’

‘Yes. But you’ve never been very fond of her, have you?’

Savita did not reply.

‘Has her miscarriage made you like her more?’ said Pran.

‘What a question! It has, in a way. Well, let me think about that. I’ll know immediately when I see her again.’

‘You know,’ said Pran, ‘I don’t look forward to staying with your brother and sister-in-law over the New Year.’ He closed his eyes; there was a mild and pleasant breeze on the river.

‘I’m not sure there’ll even be room for all of us at Sunny Park,’ said Savita. ‘Ma and Lata can stay with them as usual. And you and I can camp in the garden. Rock-a-bye Baby can hang from the treetop.’

Pran laughed. ‘Well, at least the baby doesn’t take after your brother, as I feared she might.’

‘Which one?’

‘Either. But I meant Arun. Well, they’ll have to put us up somewhere — I suppose at the Chatterjis. I liked that boy, what’s his name—’

‘Amit?’

‘No, the other one — the holy man who was fond of Scotch.’

‘Dipankar.’

‘Yes, that’s it. . At any rate, you’ll meet him when we go to Calcutta in December,’ said Pran.

‘But I’ve already met him,’ Savita pointed out. ‘At the Pul Mela, most recently.’

‘I meant Haresh. You can appraise him at your leisure.’

‘But you were just talking about Dipankar.’

‘Was I, dear?’

‘Really, Pran, I wish you would keep track of your conversation. It’s very confusing. I’m sure this isn’t how you lecture.’

‘I lecture rather well,’ said Pran, ‘even if I say so myself. But don’t take my word for it. Ask Malati.’

‘I have no intention of asking Malati how you lecture. The last time she listened to you, you were so overcome you fainted away.’

The boatman was getting tired of holding his boat steady against the current. ‘Do you want to talk or to watch the Barsaat Mahal?’ he asked. ‘You’re paying me good money to come here.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Pran vaguely.

‘You should have come here three nights ago,’ said the boatman—‘there were fires burning all along there. Beautiful it looked, and you couldn’t smell it here on the Ganga. And the next day lots of corpses at the ghat there. Too many for one ghat to handle. The municipality has been planning another burning ghat for years now but they’ll never get down to deciding where.’

‘Why?’ Pran couldn’t resist asking.

‘If it’s on the Brahmpur side it’ll face north like this one. Of course, by rights it should face south, in the direction of Yama. But that would put it on the other shore, and they’d have to ferry the bodies — and the passengers — across.’

‘They? You mean you.’

‘I suppose so. I wouldn’t complain.’

For a while Pran and Savita looked at the Barsaat Mahal, lit in the full light of the full moon. Beautiful by itself, its reflection at night made it look lovelier than ever. The moon shivered gently in the water. The boatman said nothing further.

Another boat passed them. For some reason Pran shuddered.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’

‘Nothing.’

Savita took a small coin out of her purse and put it in Pran’s hand.

‘Well, what I was thinking was how peaceful it all looks.’

Savita nodded to herself in the darkness. Pran suddenly realized she was crying.

‘What’s the matter, darling? What have I said?’

‘Nothing. I’m so happy. I’m just happy.’

‘How strange you are,’ said Pran, stroking her hair.

The boatman released his pole and, guided only casually by him, the boat began to move downstream again. Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.

For the last few weeks Mahesh Kapoor had been in two minds — two uncertain and troubled minds — about whether to go back to the Congress Party. He, who was so full of definite, often dismissive, opinion, had found himself lost in a dust storm of indecision.

Too many factors were whirling around in his head and each time they came to rest they formed a new configuration.

What the Chief Minister had said to him in his garden; what the Nawab Sahib had said to him at the Fort; the visit to Prem Nivas of the seceder from U.P. who had rejoined the Congress; Baba’s advice in Debaria; Nehru’s coup; Rafi Sahib’s circuitous return to the fold; his own beloved legislation which he wanted to make sure did not merely moulder on the statute-books; irritatingly enough, even his wife’s unspoken but palpable view of the whole matter: all these told him to go back to the party that, until his slow but thorough disillusionment, had unquestionably been his home.