Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Well, it’s a dewy wicket,’ said Amit in mitigation.

‘Dewy wicket my foot,’ said Kabir with good-natured combativeness. ‘We are always making excuses for ourselves. Roy had no business to cut that ball. And Umrigar did the same. And for Hazare and Amarnath to be bowled neck and crop in the same over — it’s really too bad. They send over a team that doesn’t include Hutton or Bedser or Compton or Laker or May — and we manage to disgrace ourselves anyway. We’ve never had a Test victory against the MCC, and if we lose this one, we don’t ever deserve to win. I’m beginning to think it’s a good thing I’m leaving Calcutta tomorrow morning. Anyway, tomorrow’s a rest day.’

‘Why, where are you going?’ laughed Haresh, who liked the young man’s spirit. ‘Back to Brahmpur?’

‘No — I’ve got to go to Allahabad for the Inter-’Varsity.’

‘Are you on the university team?’

‘Yes.’ Kabir frowned. ‘But I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name’s Kabir. Kabir Durrani.’

‘Ah,’ said Haresh, his eyes disappearing. ‘You’re the son of Professor Durrani.’

Kabir looked at Haresh in amazement.

‘We met for just a minute,’ said Haresh. ‘I brought young Bhaskar Tandon over to your house one day to meet your father. In fact, now I come to think of it, you were wearing cricket clothes.’

Kabir said: ‘Good heavens. I think I do remember now. I’m terribly sorry. But won’t you sit down? These two chairs are free — my friends have gone off to get some coffee.’

Haresh introduced Amit, and they all sat down.

After the next over Kabir turned to Haresh and said: ‘I suppose you know what happened to Bhaskar at the Pul Mela?’

‘Yes, indeed. I’m glad to hear he’s all right now.’

‘If he had been here, we wouldn’t have needed that fancy Australian-style scoreboard.’

‘No,’ said Haresh with a smile. ‘Pran’s nephew,’ he said to Amit by way of incomplete explanation.

‘I do wish women wouldn’t bring their knitting to the match,’ said Kabir intolerantly. ‘Hazare out. Plain. Umrigar out. Purl. It’s like A Tale of Two Cities .’

Amit laughed at this pleasant young fellow’s analogy, but was forced to come to the defence of his own city. ‘Well, apart from our sections of the stadium, where people come to be seen as much as to see, Calcutta’s a good place for cricket,’ he said. ‘In the four-rupee seats the crowd knows its stuff all right. And they start queueing up for day tickets from nine o’clock the previous night.’

Kabir nodded. ‘Well, you’re right. And it’s a lovely stadium. The greenness of the field almost hurts the eyes.’

Haresh thought back for a moment to his mistake about colours, and wondered whether it had done him any harm.

The bowling changed over once again from the Maidan end to the High Court end.

‘Whenever I think of the High Court end I feel guilty,’ said Amit to Haresh. Making conversation with his rival was one way of sizing him up.

Haresh, who had no sense at all that he had any rival anywhere, answered innocently: ‘Why? Have you done anything against the law? Oh, I’m forgetting, your father’s a judge.’

‘And I’m a lawyer, that’s my problem. I should be working, according to him — writing opinions, not poems.’

Kabir half turned towards Amit in astonishment.

‘You’re not the Amit Chatterji?’

Amit had discovered that coyness made things worse once he was recognized. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘The.’

‘Why — I’m — how amazing — I like your stuff — a lot of it — I can’t say I understand it all.’

‘No, nor do I.’

A sudden thought struck Kabir. ‘Why don’t you come to Brahmpur to read? You have a lot of fans there in the Brahmpur Literary Society. But I hear you never give readings.’

‘Well, not never,’ said Amit thoughtfully. ‘I don’t normally — but if I’m asked to come to Brahmpur, and can get leave of absence from my Muse, I might well come. I’ve often wondered what the town is like: the Barsaat Mahal, you know, and, of course, the Fort — and, well, other objects of beauty and interest. I’ve never been there before.’ He paused. ‘Well, would you care to join us there among the season-ticket holders? But I suppose these are better seats.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Kabir. ‘It’s just that I’m with friends — they’ve invited me — and it’s my last day in town. I’d better not. But I’m very honoured to meet you. And — well — you’re sure you wouldn’t take it amiss if you were invited to Brahmpur? It wouldn’t interfere too much with your writing?’

‘No,’ said Amit mildly. ‘Not Brahmpur. Just write to my publishers. It’ll be forwarded to me.’

The game was continuing, a little more steadily than before. It would soon be lunchtime. No more wickets had fallen, which was a blessing, but India was still in perilous straits.

‘It’s a real pity about Hazare. His form seems to have deserted him after that knock on the head in Bombay,’ said Amit.

‘Well,’ said Kabir, ‘you can’t blame him entirely. Ridgway’s bouncers can be vicious — and he’d scored a century, after all. He was pretty badly stunned. I don’t think he should have been forced back out from the pavilion by the Chairman of Selectors. It’s demeaning for a skipper to be ordered back — and bad for morale all around.’ He went on, almost in a dream: ‘I suppose Hazare is indecisive — it took him fifteen minutes to decide whether to bat or to field in the last Test. But, well, I’m discovering that I’m quite indecisive myself, so I sympathize. I’ve been thinking of visiting someone ever since I arrived in Calcutta, but I can’t. I find I just can’t. I don’t know what kind of bowling I’d have to face,’ he added with a rather bitter laugh. ‘They say he’s lost his nerve, and I think I’ve lost mine!’ Kabir’s remarks were not addressed to anyone in particular, but Amit felt — for no very good reason — a strong sense of sympathy for him.

Had Amit identified him as the ‘Akbar from As You Like It ’ of Meenakshi’s imaginative description, he may not have felt quite so sympathetic.

Pran did not question either Amit or Haresh about their meeting with Kabir. He waited for one or the other of them to mention that Kabir knew or had heard of either him or Arun; but since neither name had come up in their conversation, there was nothing as such to tell. He breathed a sigh of relief. Clearly Kabir would not be visiting Sunny Park and upsetting well-laid plans.

After a quick lunch of sandwiches and coffee the group of six — still dazed by India’s sudden collapse and not optimistic about the afternoon’s play — dispersed in cars and taxis. They had to thread their way through huge crowds that had begun to gather on the Maidan to hear Pandit Nehru speak. The Prime Minister — or, in this role, the President of Congress — was on one of his lightning election tours. Just the previous day he had spoken at Kharagpur, Asansol, Burdwan, Chinsurah and Serampore; and just before that he had been canvassing in Assam.

Varun asked to be put down near the smaller — but equally eager — crowds surrounding the racetrack, and started to look around for his friends. After a while he began to wonder whether he shouldn’t listen to Nehru’s speech instead. But after a brief struggle, My Lady Jean and Windy Wold defeated Freedom Fighter by several lengths. I can always read about it in the newspapers, he told himself.

Haresh had meanwhile gone to visit distant relatives whom his foster-father had told him to look up in Calcutta. So involved had he been with production in Prahapore that he hadn’t found the time to do so; but now he had a couple of hours to spare. When he got to his relatives’ place he found them all glued to the radio listening to the cricket commentary. They tried to be hospitable, but their minds were clearly elsewhere. Haresh too joined them by the radio.