Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

The university vacations, thought Lata. Perhaps we won’t see each other again after all. The thought saddened her.

‘Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you,’ she said.

‘Yes?’ asked the young man, looking puzzled. ‘Go ahead.’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Lata.

The young man’s face broke into a happy grin. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I thought you would never ask. I’m Kabir, but very recently my friends have started calling me Galahad.’

‘Why?’ asked Lata, surprised.

‘Because they think that I spend my time rescuing damsels in distress.’

‘I was not in such distress that I needed rescuing,’ said Lata.

Kabir laughed. ‘I know you weren’t, you know you weren’t, but my friends are such idiots,’ he said.

‘So are mine,’ said Lata disloyally. Malati had, after all, left her in the lurch.

‘Why don’t we exchange last names as well?’ said the young man, pursuing his advantage.

Some instinct of self-preservation made Lata pause. She liked him, and she very much hoped she would meet him again — but he might ask her for her address next. Images of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s interrogations came to mind.

‘No, let’s not,’ said Lata. Then, feeling her abruptness and the hurt she might have caused him, she quickly blurted out the first thing she could think of. ‘Do you have any brothers and sisters?’

‘Yes, a younger brother.’

‘No sisters?’ Lata smiled, though she did not quite know why.

‘I had a younger sister till last year.’

‘Oh — I am so sorry,’ said Lata in dismay. ‘How terrible that must have been for you — and for your parents.’

‘Well, for my father,’ said Kabir quietly. ‘But it looks as if Ustad Majeed Khan has begun. Maybe we should go in?’

Lata, moved by a rush of sympathy and even tenderness, hardly heard him; but as he walked towards the door, so did she. Inside the hall the maestro had begun his slow and magnificent rendition of Raag Shri. They separated, resumed their previous places, and sat down to listen.

Normally Lata would have been transfixed by Ustad Majeed Khan’s music. Malati, sitting next to her, was. But her encounter with Kabir had set her mind wandering in so many different directions, often simultaneously, that she might as well have been listening to silence. She felt suddenly light-hearted and started smiling to herself at the thought of the rose in her hair. A minute later, remembering the last part of their conversation, she rebuked herself for being so unfeeling. She tried to make sense of what he had meant by saying — and so quietly at that—‘Well, for my father.’ Was it that his mother had already died? That would place him and Lata in a curiously symmetrical position. Or was his mother so estranged from the family that she was unconscious of or not much distressed by the loss of her daughter? Why am I thinking such impossible thoughts? Lata wondered. Indeed, when Kabir had said, ‘I had a younger sister till last year,’ did that have to imply the conclusion to which Lata had automatically jumped? But, poor fellow, he had grown so tense and subdued by the last few words that had passed between them that he had himself suggested that they return to the hall.

Malati was kind enough and smart enough neither to glance at her nor to nudge her. And soon Lata too sank into the music and lost herself in it.

The next time Lata saw Kabir, he was looking the very opposite of tense and subdued. She was walking across the campus with a book and a file under her arm when she saw him and another student, both wearing cricket clothes, sauntering along the path that led to the sports fields. Kabir was casually swinging a bat as he walked and the two of them appeared to be engaged in relaxed and occasional conversation. Lata was too far behind them to make out anything of what they were saying. Suddenly Kabir leaned his head back and burst out laughing. He looked so handsome in the morning sunlight and his laughter was so open-hearted and free from tension that Lata, who had been about to turn towards the library, found herself continuing to follow him. She was astonished by this, but didn’t rebuke herself. Well, why shouldn’t I? she thought. Since he’s approached me three times already, I don’t see why I shouldn’t follow him for once. But I thought the cricket season was over. I didn’t know there was a match on in the middle of exams.

As it happened, Kabir and his friend were off for a bit of practice at the nets. It was his way of taking a break from studies. The far end of the sports fields, where the practice nets had been set up, was close to a small stand of bamboos. Lata sat down in the shade and — herself unobserved — watched the two take turns with bat and ball. She did not know the first thing about cricket — even Pran’s enthusiasm had not affected her at all — but she was drowsily entranced by the sight of Kabir, dressed completely in white, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, capless and with ruffled hair, running in to bowl — or standing at the crease wielding his bat with what seemed like easy skill. Kabir was an inch or two under six feet, slim and athletic, with a ‘fair to wheatish’ complexion, an aquiline nose, and black, wavy hair. Lata did not know how long she sat there, but it must have been for more than half an hour. The sound of bat on ball, the rustle of a slight breeze in the bamboo, the twittering of a few sparrows, the calls of a couple of mynas, and, above all, the sound of the young men’s easy laughter and indistinct conversation all combined to make her almost oblivious of herself. It was quite a while before she came to.

I’m behaving like a fascinated gopi, she thought. Soon, instead of feeling jealous of Krishna’s flute I’ll start envying Kabir’s bat! She smiled at the thought, then got up, brushed a few dried leaves from her salwaar-kameez, and — still unnoticed — walked back the way she had come.

‘You have to find out who he is,’ she told Malati that afternoon, plucking a leaf and absent-mindedly running it up and down her arm.

‘Who?’ said Malati. She was delighted.

Lata made a sound of exasperation.

‘Well, I could have told you something about him,’ said Malati, ‘if you’d allowed me to after the concert.’

‘Like what?’ said Lata expectantly.

‘Well, here are two facts to begin with,’ said Malati tantalizingly. ‘His name is Kabir, and he plays cricket.’

‘But I know that already,’ protested Lata. ‘And that’s about all I do know. Don’t you know anything else?’

‘No,’ said Malati. She toyed with the idea of inventing a streak of criminality in his family, but decided that that was too cruel.

‘But you said “to begin with”. That means you must have something else.’

‘No,’ said Malati. ‘The second half of the concert began just as I was about to ask my informant a few more questions.’

‘I’m sure you can find out everything about him if you put your mind to it.’ Lata’s faith in her friend was touching.

Malati doubted it. She had a wide circle of acquaintance. But it was nearly the end of term and she didn’t know where to begin inquiries. Some students — those whose exams were over — had already left Brahmpur; these included her informant at the concert. She herself would be leaving in a couple of days to go back to Agra for a while.

‘The Trivedi Detective Agency needs a clue or two to start with,’ she said. ‘And time is short. You’ve got to think back over your conversations. Isn’t there anything else you know about him that could help me?’

Lata thought for a while but came up with a blank. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Oh, wait — his father teaches maths.’