Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Firoz was thinking about Maan:

My dearest, dearest Maan, you’ve saved my life all right and I love you dearly, but if you keep nattering to Lata, your captain will forfeit your own.

Maan was talking to Lata:

‘No, no, it’s all right to talk, no ball ever comes my way. They know what a fantastic player I am, so they’ve put me here on the boundary where I can’t drop any catches or overthrow the ball or anything. And if I go off to sleep, it doesn’t matter. Do you know, I think you’re looking very beautiful today, no, don’t make a face. I’ve always thought so — green suits you, you know. You just merge with the grass like a. . a nymph! a peri in paradise. . No, no, not at all, I think we’re doing tremendously well. All out for 219 isn’t bad, after such a poor beginning, and now we’ve got them at 157 for 7. They’ve got hopeless people at the bottom of their batting order. I don’t think they have a chance. . The Old Brahmpurians haven’t won in a decade, so it’ll be a great victory! The only danger is this wretched Durrani fellow, who’s still batting on at. . what does the scoreboard say? 68. . Once we’ve forked him off the pitch we’ll be home and dry. . ’

Lata was thinking about Kabir:

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe’er

But falls into abatement and low price. .

A few mynas were sitting on the field, their faces turned towards the batsmen, and the mild, warm sun shone down on her as the sound of bat on ball continued drowsily — interspersed occasionally by a cheer — through the late afternoon. She broke off a blade of grass, and moved it gently up and down her arm.

Kabir was talking to Pran:

‘Thanks; no, the light’s fine, Dr Kapoor. . oh, thank you — well, it was just a fluke this morning. . ’

Pran was thinking about Savita:

I know our whole Sunday’s gone, darling, but next Sunday I’ll do whatever you want. I promise. If you wish, I’ll hold a huge ball of wool instead, while you knit twenty booties for the baby.

Kabir had gone in fourth, higher up than usual in the batting order, but had more than justified himself there. He had noticed Lata in the crowd, but this had the effect, oddly enough, of steadying his nerves — or increasing his determination. His score mounted, mainly through boundaries, not a few of which got past Maan, and it now stood in the nineties.

One by one his partners had dropped away, however, and the fall of wickets told its own story: 140 for 4, 143 for 5, 154 for 6, 154 for 7, 183 for 8, and now 190 for 9. There were 29 runs to score for a tie, 30 for a win, and his new partner was the exceedingly nervous wicket-keeper! Too bad, thought Kabir. He’s lived so long behind the stumps that he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s in front of them. Luckily it’s the beginning of the over. Still, he’ll be out the first ball he faces, poor chap. The whole thing’s impossible, but I wonder if I’ll at least manage to get my century.

The wicket-keeper, however, played an admirable second fiddle, and Kabir got the strategic singles that enabled him to keep the bowling. When the University stood at 199, with his own score at 98, on the last ball of the last-but-one over — with three minutes to go before end of play — he tried to make his usual single. As he and his partner passed each other, he said: ‘We’ll draw it yet!’

A cheer had gone up for the anticipated 200 while they were still running. The fielder hurled the ball at Kabir’s wicket. It missed by a hair, but hurtled onwards with such force that poor Maan, who had begun, gallantly, to clap, realized too late what was happening. Too late did he run towards it, too late did he try to hurl himself at it as it sped past his extended length to the boundary.

A great cheer rose from the university ranks — but whether for Kabir’s fortuitous five off a single ball, or for his century, or for the university’s double-century, or for the fact that with sixteen, rather than twenty, runs to win in the last over, they suddenly felt they still had a chance, no one could say.

The captain of the Old Brahmpurians, a major from the cantonment, glared at Maan.

But now, to a background of cheers and jeers and shouts, Kabir faced the final over. He hit a grand cover drive for four, lofted the next ball just over long on for another, and faced the third ball to a complete and petrified silence from spectators of both sides alike.

It was a good-length ball. He hit it towards mid-wicket, but the moment he realized it was only worth a single, he waved his partner urgently back.

They ran two on the next ball.

It was now the last ball but one, with five runs to tie and six to win. No one dared to breathe. No one had the least idea of what Kabir was aiming to do — or the bowler for that matter. Kabir passed his gloved hand through his wavy hair. Pran thought he looked unnaturally calm at the crease.

Perhaps the bowler had succumbed to his tension and frustration, for amazingly enough his next ball was a full-toss. Kabir, with a smile on his face and happiness in his heart, hit it high in the air with all the force he could muster, and watched it as it sailed in a serene parabola towards victory.

High, high, high it rose in the air, carrying with it all the joy and hopes and blessings of the university. A murmur, not yet a cheer, arose all around, and then swelled into a shout of triumph.

But, as Kabir watched, a dreadful thing happened. For Maan, who too had been watching the red grenade ascend and then descend, and whose mouth was open in an expression of trance-like dismay, suddenly found himself at the very edge of the boundary, almost leaning backwards. And, to his considerable amazement, the ball lay in his hands.

The cheer became a sudden silence, then a great collective groan, to be replaced by an amazed shout of victory by the Old Brahmpurians. A finger moved skywards. The bails were taken off. The players stood dazed in the field, shaking hands and shaking heads. And Maan somersaulted five times for sheer joy in the direction of the spectators.

What a goof! thought Lata, watching Maan. Perhaps I should elope with him next April 1st.

‘How’s that? How’s that? How’s that?’ Maan asked Firoz, hugging him, then rushed back to his team to be applauded as the hero of the day.

Firoz noticed Savita raise her eyebrows. He raised his eyebrows back at her; he wondered what she had made of the soporific climax.

‘Still awake — just about,’ Savita said, smiling at Pran as he came off the field a few minutes later.

A nice fellow — plucky under pressure, thought Pran, watching Kabir detach himself from his friends and walk towards them, his bat under his arm. A pity. .

‘Fluke of a catch,’ murmured Kabir disgustedly, almost under his breath, as he passed Lata on his way back to the pavilion.

The Hindu festive season was almost over. But for Brahmpur one festival, observed much more devotedly here than almost anywhere in India, that of Kartik Purnima, remained. The full moon of Kartik brings to an end one of the three especially sacred months for bathing; and since Brahmpur lies on the holiest river of all, many pious people observe their daily dip throughout the month, eat their single meal, worship the tulsi plant, and hang lamps suspended from the end of bamboo poles in small baskets to guide departed souls across the sky. As the Puranas say: ‘What fruit was obtained in the Perfect Age by doing austerities for one hundred years, all that is obtained by a bath in the Five Rivers during the month of Kartik.’

It is of course also possible that the city of Brahmpur could be said to have a special claim on this festival because of the god whose name the city bears. A seventeenth century commentator on the Mahabharata wrote: ‘Brahma’s festival is celebrated by all, and is held in autumn when the corn has begun to grow.’ Certainly in Pushkar, the greatest living shrine to Brahma in all India (indeed, the only one of any great significance other than Gaya and — possibly — Brahmpur), it is Kartik Purnima that is the time of the great camel fair and the visit of tens of thousands of pilgrims. The image of Brahma in the great temple there is daubed with orange paint and decorated with tinsel by his devotees in the manner of other gods. Perhaps the strong observance of the festival in Brahmpur is a residue of the time when Brahma was worshipped here too, in his own city, as a bhakti god, a god of personal devotion, before he was displaced in this role by Shiva — or by Vishnu in one or other of his incarnations.