Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Maan said simply, ‘It is just a few minutes away.’

‘Please — sit down.’

Maan sat cross-legged on the white-sheeted floor.

Saeeda Bai began to busy herself making paan. Maan looked at her wonderingly.

‘I came yesterday too, but was less fortunate.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘My fool of a watchman turned you away. What can I say? We are not all blessed with the faculty of discrimination. . ’

‘But I’m here today,’ said Maan, rather obviously.

‘Wherever Dagh has sat down, he has sat down?’ asked Saeeda Bai, with a smile. Her head was bent, and she was spreading a little white dab of lime on the paan leaves.

‘He may not quit your assembly at all this time,’ said Maan.

Since she was not looking directly at him, he could look at her without embarrassment. She had covered her head with her sari before he had come in. But the soft, smooth skin of her neck and shoulders was exposed, and Maan found the tilt of her neck as she bent over her task indescribably charming.

Having made a pair of paans she impaled them on a little silver toothpick with tassels, and offered them to him. He took them and put them in his mouth, pleasantly surprised at the taste of coconut, which was an ingredient Saeeda Bai was fond of adding to her paan.

‘I see you are wearing your own style of Gandhi cap,’ said Saeeda Bai, after popping a couple of paans into her mouth. She did not offer any to Ishaq Khan or Motu Chand, but then they seemed to have virtually melted into the background.

Maan touched the side of his embroidered white cap nervously, unsure of himself.

‘No, no, Dagh Sahib, don’t trouble yourself. This isn’t a church, you know.’ Saeeda Bai looked at him and said, ‘I was reminded of other white caps one sees floating around in Brahmpur. The heads that wear them have grown taller recently.’

‘I am afraid you are going to accuse me of the accident of my birth,’ said Maan.

‘No, no,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘Your father has been an old patron of the arts. It is the other Congress-wallahs I was thinking of.’

‘Perhaps I should wear a cap of a different colour the next time I come,’ said Maan.

Saeeda Bai raised an eyebrow.

‘Assuming I am ushered into your presence,’ Maan added humbly.

Saeeda Bai thought to herself: What a well-brought-up young man. She indicated to Motu Chand that he should bring the tablas and harmonium that were lying in the corner of the room.

To Maan she said, ‘And now what does Hazrat Dagh command us to sing?’

‘Why, anything,’ said Maan, throwing banter to the winds.

‘Not a ghazal, I hope,’ said Saeeda Bai, pressing down a key on the harmonium to help the tabla and sarangi tune up.

‘No?’ asked Maan, disappointed.

‘Ghazals are for open gatherings or the intimacy of lovers,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘I’ll sing what my family is best known for and what my Ustad best taught me.’

She began a thumri in Raag Pilu, ‘Why then are you not speaking to me?’ and Maan’s face brightened up. As she sang he floated off into a state of intoxication. The sight of her face, the sound of her voice, and the scent of her perfume were intertwined in his happiness.

After two or three thumris and a dadra, Saeeda Bai indicated that she was tired, and that Maan should leave.

He left reluctantly, showing, however, more good humour than reluctance. Downstairs, the watchman found a five-rupee note pressed into his hand.

Out on the street Maan trod on air.

She will sing a ghazal for me sometime, he promised himself. She will, she certainly will.

It was Sunday morning. The sky was bright and clear. The weekly bird market near the Barsaat Mahal was in full swing. Thousands of birds — mynas, partridges, pigeons, parakeets — fighting birds, eating birds, racing birds, talking birds — sat or fluttered in iron or cane cages in little stalls from which rowdy hawkers cried out the excellence and cheapness of their wares. The pavement had been taken over by the bird market, and buyers or passers-by like Ishaq had to walk on the road surface, bumping against rickshaws and bicycles and the occasional tonga.

There was even a pavement stall with books about birds. Ishaq picked up a flimsy, blunt-typed paperback about owls and spells, and looked idly through to see what uses this unlucky bird could be put to. It appeared to be a book of Hindu black magic, The Tantra of Owls , though it was printed in Urdu. He read:

Sovereign Remedy to Obtain Employment

Take the tail-feathers of an owl and a crow, and burn them together in a fire made from mango wood until they form ash. Place this ash on your forehead like a caste-mark when you go to seek employment, and you will most certainly obtain it.

He frowned and read on:

Method of Keeping a Woman in Your Power

If you want to keep a woman in your control, and wish to prevent her from coming under the influence of anyone else, then use the technique described below:

Take the blood of an owl, the blood of a jungle fowl and the blood of a bat in equal proportions, and after smearing the mixture on your penis have intercourse with the woman. Then she will never desire another man.

Ishaq felt almost sick. These Hindus! he thought. On an impulse he bought the book, deciding that it was an excellent means of provoking his friend Motu Chand.

‘I have one on vultures as well,’ said the bookseller helpfully.

‘No, this is all I want,’ said Ishaq, and walked on.

He stopped at a stall where a large number of tiny, almost formless grey-green balls of stubbly flesh lay imprisoned in a hooped cage.

‘Ah!’ he said.

His look of interest had an immediate effect on the white-capped stall-keeper, who appraised him, glancing at the book in his hand.

‘These are not ordinary parakeets, Huzoor, these are hill parakeets, Alexandrine parakeets as the English sahibs say.’

The English had left more than three years ago, but Ishaq let it pass.

‘I know, I know,’ he said.

‘I can tell an expert when I see one,’ said the stall-keeper in a most friendly manner. ‘Now, why not have this one? Only two rupees — and it will sing like an angel.’

‘A male angel or a female angel?’ said Ishaq severely.

The stall-keeper suddenly became obsequious.

‘Oh, you must forgive me, you must forgive me. People here are so ignorant, one can hardly bear to part with one’s most promising birds, but for one who knows parakeets I will do anything, anything. Have this one, Huzoor.’ And he picked out one with a larger head, a male.

Ishaq held it for a few seconds, then placed it back in the cage. The man shook his head, then said:

‘Now for a true fancier, what can I provide that is better than this? Is it a bird from Rudhia District that you want? Or from the foothills in Horshana? They talk better than mynas.’

Ishaq simply said, ‘Let’s see something worth seeing.’

The man went to the back of the shop and opened a cage in which three little half-fledged birds sat huddled together. Ishaq looked at them silently, then asked to see one of them.

He smiled, thinking of parakeets he had known. His aunt was very fond of them, and had one who was still alive at the age of seventeen. ‘This one,’ he said to the man. ‘And you know by now that I will not be fooled about the price either.’

They haggled for a while. Until the money changed hands the stall-keeper seemed a bit resentful. Then, as Ishaq was about to leave — with his purchase nestled in his handkerchief — the stall-keeper said in an anxious voice, ‘Tell me how he is doing when you come by next time.’

‘What do they call you?’ asked Ishaq.