Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Well, I’m sure,’ said Haresh in a firm voice. ‘I’ve now seen you in five different places, and my feelings for you have grown with time. I am not very eloquent—’

‘It’s not that,’ said Lata, though she knew that it was at least partly that. What, after all, would they talk about for the rest of their lives?

‘Anyway, I’m sure I will improve with your instruction,’ said Haresh cheerfully.

‘What’s the fifth place?’ said Lata.

‘What fifth place?’

‘You said we’d met in five places. Prahapore, Calcutta now, Kanpur, very briefly in Lucknow when you helped us at the station. . What’s the fifth? It was only my mother you met in Delhi.’

‘Brahmpur.’

‘But—’

‘We didn’t meet exactly, but I was at the platform when you were getting on to the Calcutta train. Not this time — a few months ago. You were wearing a blue sari, and you had a very intense and serious expression on your face as if something had — well, a very intense and serious expression.’

‘Are you sure it was a blue sari?’ said Lata with a smile.

‘Yes,’ said Haresh, smiling back.

‘What were you doing there?’ asked Lata wonderingly; her mind was now already back on that platform and what she had been feeling.

‘Nothing. Just leaving for Cawnpore. And then, for a few days after we met properly, I kept thinking, “Where have I seen her before?” Like today at the Test match with that young fellow Durrani.’

Lata came out of her dream. ‘Durrani?’ she said.

‘Yes, but I didn’t have to wonder long. I discovered where I’d seen him within a few minutes of talking to him. That was in Brahmpur too. I’d taken Bhaskar to meet his father. Everything happens in Brahmpur!’

Lata was silent but looking at him with, he felt, great interest at last.

‘Good-looking fellow,’ continued Haresh, encouraged. ‘Very well informed about cricket. And on the university team. He’s leaving tomorrow for the Inter-’Varsity somewhere.’

‘At the cricket match?’ said Lata. ‘You met Kabir?’

‘Do you know him?’ asked Haresh, frowning a little.

‘Yes,’ said Lata, controlling her voice. ‘We acted in Twelfth Night together. How strange. What was he doing in Calcutta? How long has he been here?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Haresh. ‘For the cricket mainly, I suppose. But it seems a pity to have to leave after three days of a Test. Not that this one is likely to end in a win for either side. And he might have come on business too. He did say something about wanting to meet someone but being uncertain about his reception when he met him.’

‘Oh,’ said Lata. ‘Did he meet him eventually?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Anyway, what were we talking about? Yes, five towns. Brahmpur, Prahapore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Cawnpore.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t call it Cawnpore,’ said Lata with a touch of irritation.

‘What should I call it?’

‘Kanpur.’

‘All right. And if you wish I’ll call Calcutta Kolkota.’

Lata didn’t answer. The thought that Kabir was still in town, in Calcutta somewhere, but unreachable, and that he would be leaving the next day, made her eyes smart. Here she was, sitting on the same bench where she had read his letter — and with Haresh of all people. Certainly, if her meetings with Haresh were marked by meals, her meetings with Kabir were marked by benches. She felt like both laughing and crying.

‘Is something the matter?’ said Haresh, a little troubled.

‘No, let’s go in. It’s getting a little chilly. If Arun Bhai has left by now it shouldn’t be too difficult to get Varun to put on a few film songs. I feel in the mood for them.’

‘I thought you were more fond of classical music.’

‘I like everything,’ said Lata brightly, ‘but at different times. And Varun will offer you a drink.’

Haresh asked for a beer. Varun put on a song from Deedar , then left the drawing room; he had instructions from his mother to keep out of the way. Lata’s eye fell on the book of Egyptian mythology.

Haresh was more than a little bewildered by her change of mood. It made him feel uneasy. He was being truthful when he wrote in his letters that he had grown to be in love with her. He was sure she too was fond of him. Now she was treating him in a baffling manner.

The record had run its three-minute course. Lata did not get up to change it. The room was quiet. ‘I’m tired of Calcutta,’ she said light-heartedly. ‘It’s a good thing I’m going to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow.’

‘But I’d set tomorrow aside for you. I planned to spend it with you,’ said Haresh.

‘You never told me, Haresh.’

‘You said — you wrote — that you wanted to spend as much time as possible with me.’ Something had changed in their conversation at a certain point. He passed his hand across his forehead and frowned.

‘Well, we still have five days before I leave for Brahmpur,’ said Lata.

‘My leave will be over tomorrow. Cancel your Botanical trip. I insist!’ He smiled, and caught her hand.

‘Oh, don’t be mean—’ said Lata.

He released her hand at once. ‘I am not mean,’ he said.

Lata looked at him. The colour had left his face, and the laugh too had been wiped away. He was suddenly very angry. ‘I am not mean,’ he repeated. ‘No one has ever said that to me before. Don’t ever use that word for me again. I–I am going now.’ He got up. ‘I’ll find my way to the station. Please thank your family for me. I can’t stay for dinner.’

Lata looked completely stunned, but did not try to stop him. ‘Oh, don’t be mean!’ was an expression that the girls at Sophia Convent must have used twenty times a day to each other. Some of it had survived — especially in certain moods — in her present-day speech. It meant nothing particularly wounding, and she could not imagine for the moment why he was so wounded.

But Haresh, already troubled by something he could not lay his finger on, was stung to the depths of his being. To be called ‘mean’—ungenerous, lowly, base — and that too by the woman he loved and for whom he was prepared to do so much — he could tolerate some things, but he would not tolerate that. He was not ungenerous — far less so than her cavalier brother who had had hardly a word of appreciation for his efforts a few days earlier and who did not have the decency to spend an evening with him in order to reciprocate his hospitality. As for being base, his accent might not have their polish nor his diction their elegance, but he came from stock as good as theirs. They could keep their Anglicized veneer. To be labelled ‘mean’ was something not to be borne. He would have nothing to do with people who held this opinion of him.

Mrs Rupa Mehra almost had hysterics when she heard that Haresh had gone. ‘That was very, very rude of him,’ she said, and burst into tears. Then she turned upon her daughter. ‘You must have done something to displease him. Otherwise he would never have gone. He would never have gone without saying goodbye.’

It took Savita to calm her down. Then, realizing that Lata looked completely shell-shocked, she sat beside her and held her hand. She was glad that Arun had not been there to fling sawdust into the fire. Slowly she worked out what had happened, and what Haresh might have misconstrued Lata to have meant.

‘But if we don’t even understand each other when we speak,’ said Lata, ‘what possible future can we have together?’

‘Don’t worry about that for the moment,’ said Savita. ‘Have some soup.’

When all else fails, thought Lata, there is always soup.

‘And read something soothing,’ added Savita.