Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Haresh’s family left for Delhi that day, and Arun and Varun and the rest left for Calcutta. And the next day Lata and Haresh were themselves seated in a train bound for Calcutta. Haresh could not take a honeymoon immediately because of the pressure of work, but he promised to take one soon. He was even more considerate to her now than he had been on the journey from Kanpur to Lucknow. Lata smiled and told him to stop fussing over her, but she liked it.

Her mother came to see them off at the railway station, together with Savita and Pran. It was hot and noisy. Mrs Rupa Mehra dabbed first at her forehead and then at her eyes with her cologne-scented handkerchief. Standing on the platform between her two daughters and their husbands, she did not know how she could bear to be without either of them. She was suddenly tempted to go along with Lata and Haresh, but fortunately desisted.

Instead, she made sure that they had enough food for the journey; she had brought extra provisions, just in case they hadn’t thought of it themselves, including a large cardboard box marked Shiv Market: Superb Sweetmeats and a thermos flask filled with cold coffee.

She hugged Haresh, and clung to Lata as if she would never be seeing her again. In fact she planned to return to Calcutta on the 20th of June — the birthday of a dear friend — and would visit Prahapore the very day of her arrival. She was delighted by the fact that she had yet another home to travel to.

Lata waved from the window as the train pulled out of Brahmpur Junction. Haresh appeared relaxed and happy, and that, she found, made her happy too. Tears came to her eyes at the thought of leaving her mother. She looked at Haresh for a second, and then turned to the view. In a few minutes they would pass into the countryside.

An hour or so later, during a halt at one of the smaller railway stations, she saw a small crowd of monkeys. They became aware of her looking out at them and, anticipating a sympathetic soul, approached her window. She glanced at Haresh: he was taking a nap. It amazed her how he was able to go to sleep for ten or twenty minutes at a time whenever or wherever he wanted to.

She threw them a few biscuits: they gathered around, chattering and insistent. She looked for a moment or two at her hennaed hands, took out a musammi, peeled the thick green skin with care, and began to distribute the segments. The monkeys gobbled them down instantly. The whistle had blown when Lata noticed a rather old monkey, sitting alone almost at the end of the platform.

He was contemplating her carefully and undemandingly.

As the train began to move, Lata quickly reached down into the bag of fruit for another musammi, and threw it in his direction. He moved towards it, but the others, seeing it roll along, began running towards it too; and before she could see what had become of it, the train had steamed out of the station.

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to quote copyright material:

The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India for extracts from Letters to Chief Ministers , Vol. 2, 1950–1952 by Jawaharlal Nehru, general editor G. Parthasarathi (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, distributed by Oxford University Press, 1986)

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd for extracts from The Koran Interpreted by A.J. Arberry (George Allen & Unwin Ltd; and Oxford University Press, 1964)

Oxford University Press for an extract from The Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Faber & Faber for an extract from the poem ‘Law, Say the Gardeners’ published in W.H. Auden: Collected Poems edited by Edward Mendelson (Faber & Faber)

Penguin Books Ltd for extracts from Selected Poems by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by William Radice (Penguin Books, 1985)

Bantam Books Inc. for extracts from The Bhagavad-Gita translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Bantam Books, 1986)

The Sahitya Akademi for extracts from Mir Anis by Ali Jawad Zaidi published in the series ‘Makers of Indian Literature’ (Sahitya Akademi, 1986)

The Gita Press, Gorakhpur, for extracts from Sri Ramacharitamanasa translated into English (Gita Press, 1968)

While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.

A SUITABLE BOY

Vikram Seth is the acclaimed author of three novels: The Golden Gate, An Equal Music and A Suitable Boy , one of the most beloved and widely read books of recent times. He has also written five books of poetry, an opera libretto, a book of other libretti, and two highly regarded works of non-fiction, From Heaven Lake and Two Lives . He is at present at work on A Suitable Girl .