Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

‘Oh, nothing, I don’t know what it is. I just feel this way sometimes — lately, quite a lot. Maybe it’s Pran’s health.’ She put her arm gently on Lata’s.

Savita was not a moody person, and Lata knew it. She looked at her sister affectionately, and said: ‘Do you love Pran?’ This suddenly seemed very important.

‘Of course I do,’ said Savita, surprised.

‘Why “of course”, Didi?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Savita. ‘I love him. I feel better when he’s here. I feel worried about him. And sometimes I feel worried about his baby.’

‘Oh, he’ll be all right,’ said Lata, ‘judging from his kicking.’

She lay down again, and tried to go back to her book. But she couldn’t concentrate even on Wodehouse. After a pause, she said:

‘Do you like being pregnant?’

‘Yes,’ said Savita with a smile.

‘Do you like being married?’

‘Yes,’ said Savita, her smile widening.

‘To a man who was chosen for you — whom you didn’t really know before your marriage?’

‘Don’t talk like that about Pran, it’s as if you were talking about a stranger,’ said Savita, taken aback. ‘You’re funny sometimes, Lata. Don’t you love him too?’

‘Yes,’ said Lata, frowning at this non sequitur, ‘but I don’t have to be close to him in the same way. What I can’t understand is how — well, it was other people who decided he was suitable for you — but if you didn’t find him attractive—’

She was thinking that Pran was not good-looking, and she did not believe that his goodness was a substitute for — what? — a spark.

‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ asked Savita, stroking her sister’s hair.

‘Well, I might have to face a problem like that some day.’ ‘Are you in love, Lata?’

The head beneath Savita’s hand jerked up very slightly and then pretended it hadn’t. Savita had her answer, and in half an hour she had most of the details about Kabir and Lata and their various meetings. Lata was so relieved to talk to someone who loved her and understood her that she poured out all her hopes and visions of bliss. Savita saw at once how impossible these were, but let Lata talk on. She felt increasingly sad as Lata grew more elated.

‘But what should I do?’ said Lata.

‘Do?’ repeated Savita. The answer that came to her mind was that Lata should give Kabir up immediately before their infatuation went any further, but she knew better than to say so to Lata, who could be very contrary.

‘Should I tell Ma?’ said Lata.

‘No!’ said Savita. ‘No. Don’t tell Ma, whatever you do.’ She could imagine her mother’s shock and pain.

‘Please don’t tell anyone either, Didi. Anyone,’ said Lata.

‘I can’t keep any secrets from Pran,’ said Savita.

‘Please keep this one,’ said Lata. ‘Rumours get around so easily. You’re my sister. You’ve known this man for less than a year.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Lata felt bad about the way she had referred to Pran, whom she now adored. She should have phrased it better.

Savita nodded, a little unhappily.

Although she hated the atmosphere of conspiracy that her question might generate, Savita felt that she had to help her sister, even guard her in some way.

‘Shouldn’t I meet Kabir?’ she asked.

‘I’ll ask him,’ said Lata. She felt sure that Kabir would not have any reservations about meeting anyone who was basically sympathetic, but she did not think he would enjoy it particularly. Nor did she want him to meet anyone from her family for some time yet. She sensed that everything would become troubled and confused, and that the carefree spirit of their boat ride would quickly disappear.

‘Please be careful, Lata,’ said Savita. ‘He may be very good-looking and from a good family, but—’

She left the second half of her sentence unfinished, and later Lata tried to fit various endings to it.

Early that evening, when the heat of the day had somewhat died down, Savita went to visit her mother-in-law, whom she had grown to be very fond of. It had been almost a week since they had seen each other. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor was out in the garden, and rushed over to Savita when she saw the tonga arrive. She was pleased to see her, but concerned that she should be jolting about in a tonga when she was pregnant. She questioned Savita about her own health and Pran’s; complained that he came over very rarely; inquired after Mrs Rupa Mehra, who was due to come over to Prem Nivas the next day; and asked Savita whether either of her brothers was by any chance in town. Savita, slightly puzzled by this last question, said that they weren’t. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor and she then wandered into the garden.

The garden was looking a bit dry, despite the fact that it had been watered a couple of days previously; but a gulmohur tree was in bloom: its petals were almost scarlet, rather than the usual red-orange. Everything, Savita thought, appeared more intense in the garden at Prem Nivas. It was almost as if the plants understood that their mistress, though she would not overtly complain about a weak performance, would not be happy with less than their best.

The head gardener Gajraj and Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had been at loggerheads for a few days now. They were agreed upon what cuttings to propagate, which varieties to select for seed collection, which shrubs to prune, and when to transplant the small chrysanthemum plants to larger pots. But ever since the ground had begun to be prepared for the sowing of new lawns, an apparently irreconcilable difference had emerged.

This year, as an experiment, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor proposed that a part of the lawn be left unlevelled before sowing. This had struck the mali as being eccentric in the extreme, and utterly at variance with Mrs Mahesh Kapoor’s usual instructions. He complained that it would be impossible to water the lawn properly, that mowing it would be difficult, that muddy puddles would form in the monsoons and the winter rains, that the garden would be infested with pond herons feeding on water beetles and other insects, and that the Flower Show Judges’ Committee would see the lack of evenness as a sign of lack of balance — aesthetically speaking, of course.

Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had replied that she had only proposed an unevenness for the side lawn, not the front lawn; that the unevenness that she proposed was slight; that he could water the higher parts with a hose; that the small proportion of the mowing that proved difficult for the grand, blunt lawnmower dragged by the Public Works Department’s placid white bullock could be done with a small foreign-made lawnmower that she would borrow from a friend; that the Flower Show Judges’ Committee might look at the garden for an hour in February but that it gave her pleasure all the year round; that level had nothing to do with balance; and, finally, that it was precisely because of the puddles and the pond herons that she had proposed the experiment.

One day in late December, a couple of months after Savita’s wedding, when the honey-scented harsingar had still been in blossom, when the roses were in their first full flush, when the sweet alyssum and sweet william had begun to bloom, when those beds of feathery-leafed larkspur that the partridges had not gobbled down almost to the root were doing their best to recover in front of the tall ranks of equally feathery-leafed but untempting cosmos, there had been a tremendous, almost torrential rainstorm. It had been gloomy, gusty and cold, and there had been no sun for two days, but the garden had been full of birds: pond herons, partridges, mynas, small puffed-up grey babblers in their chattering groups of seven, hoopoes and parakeets in a combination that reminded her of the colours of the Congress flag, a pair of red-wattled lapwings, and a couple of vultures, flying with huge twigs in their mouth to the neem tree. Despite their heroism in the Ramayana, Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had never been able to reconcile herself to vultures. But what had truly delighted her had been the three plump, dowdy pond herons, each standing near a separate small pool, almost entirely motionless as they gazed at the water, taking a careful minute over every step they made, and thoroughly content with the squelchiness of their environment. But the pools on the level lawn had quickly dried up when the sun had emerged. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor wanted to offer the hospitality of her lawn to a few more pond herons this year, and she did not want to leave matters to chance.