Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

Bhaskar looked at the two men in inquiring appeal. His father, though he had closed his eyes, sensed that Bhaskar was waiting for his word.

‘Yes. Do as your mother says,’ said Kedarnath. Haresh said nothing, but smiled. Bhaskar went off, rather annoyed at being excluded.

‘Don’t mind him, he’s never annoyed for long,’ said Veena apologetically. ‘He doesn’t like being left out of things that interest him. When we play chaupar together — Kedarnath and I — we have to make sure Bhaskar isn’t in the house, otherwise he insists on playing and beats both of us. Very bothersome.’

‘I can imagine it would be,’ said Haresh.

‘The trouble is that he has no one to talk to about his maths, and sometimes he becomes very withdrawn. His teachers at school are less proud of him than worried about him. Sometimes it seems he deliberately does badly in maths — if a question annoys him, for instance. Once, when he was very young, I remember Maan — that’s my brother — asked him for the answer to 17 minus 6. When he got 11, Maan asked him to subtract 6 again. When he got 5, Maan asked him to subtract 6 yet again. And Bhaskar actually began to cry! “No, no,” he said, “Maan Maama is playing a trick on me. Stop him!” And he wouldn’t speak to him for a week.’

‘Well, for a day or two at least,’ said Kedarnath. ‘But that was before he learned about negative numbers. Once he did, he insisted on taking bigger things away from smaller things the whole day long. I suppose, the way things are going with my work, he’ll get plenty of practice in that line.’

‘By the way,’ said Veena to her husband anxiously, ‘I think you should go out this afternoon. Bajaj came this morning and, when he didn’t find you in, he said he would drop by at about three.’

From her expression and his, Haresh guessed that Bajaj might be a creditor.

‘Once the strike’s over, things will improve,’ said Kedarnath a bit apologetically to Haresh. ‘I’m a little over-extended at present.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Veena, ‘that there’s so much mistrust. And the local leaders make it much worse. Because my father’s so busy with his department and the legislature, Kedarnath tries to help him by keeping in touch with his constituency. So when there’s trouble of some kind, people often come to him. But this time, when Kedarnath tried to mediate, although — I know I shouldn’t be saying this and he doesn’t like me to, but it’s quite true — although he’s quite well-liked and respected by people on both sides, the shoemakers’ leaders have undermined all his efforts — just because he’s a trader.’

‘Well, that’s not quite it,’ said Kedarnath, but decided to defer his explanation until he and Haresh were alone. He had closed his eyes again. Haresh looked a little concerned.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Veena to Haresh. ‘He’s not asleep or bored or even praying before lunch.’ Her husband opened his eyes quickly. ‘He does it all the time,’ she explained. ‘Even at our wedding — but it was less obvious behind those strings of flowers.’

She got up to see if the rice was ready. After the men had been served and had eaten, old Mrs Tandon came in for a short while to exchange a few words. Upon hearing that Haresh Khanna was originally from Delhi she asked him whether he belonged to the Khannas of Neel Darvaza or those who lived in Lakkhi Kothi. When Haresh said he was from Neel Darvaza, she told him she had visited it once as a girl.

Haresh described a few changes, recounted a few personal anecdotes, praised the simple but tasty vegetarian food that the two women had prepared, and was a hit with the old lady.

‘My son has to travel a lot,’ she confided to Haresh, ‘and no one feeds him properly on the way. Even here, if it wasn’t for me—’

‘Quite right,’ said Veena, attempting to take the wind out of her sails. ‘It is so important for a man to be treated as a child. In matters of food, of course. Kedarnath — I mean Bhaskar’s father’—she corrected herself as her mother-in-law shot a look at her—‘simply loves the food his mother prepares. It’s a pity men don’t like being sung to sleep with lullabies.’

Haresh’s eyes twinkled and almost disappeared between his eyelids, but he kept his lips steady.

‘I wonder if Bhaskar will continue to like the food I prepare,’ continued Veena. ‘Probably not. When he gets married—’

Kedarnath held up his hand. ‘Really,’ he said, in mild reproof.

Haresh noticed that Kedarnath’s palm was badly scarred.

‘Now what have I done?’ asked Veena innocently, but she changed the subject. Her husband had a decency which rather frightened her, and she didn’t want to be judged badly by him.

‘You know, I blame myself for Bhaskar’s obsession with mathematics,’ she continued. ‘I named him Bhaskar after the sun. Then, when he was a year old, someone told me that one of our ancient mathematicians was called Bhaskar, and now our Bhaskar can’t live without his mathematics. Names are terribly important. My father wasn’t in town when I was born, and my mother named me Veena, thinking it would please him because he’s so fond of music. But as a result I’ve become obsessed with music, and I can’t live without it either.’

‘Really?’ said Haresh. ‘And do you play the veena?’

‘No,’ laughed Veena, her eyes shining. ‘I sing. I sing. I can’t live without singing.’

Old Mrs Tandon got up and left the room.

After a while, with a shrug, Veena followed her.

When the men were left alone, Haresh — who had been sent to Brahmpur for a few days to purchase some materials by his employers, the Cawnpore Leather & Footwear Company — turned to Kedarnath and said: ‘Well, I’ve been around the markets during the last couple of days and have got some idea of what goes on there, or at least what is supposed to go on there. But despite all this running around, I don’t think I’ve been able to make complete sense of it. Especially your system of credit — what with all these chits and promissory notes and so on. And why have the small manufacturers — who make shoes in their own homes — gone on strike? Surely it must cause them terrible hardship. And it must be very bad for traders like yourself who buy directly from them.’

‘Well,’ said Kedarnath, passing his hand through his slightly greyed hair, ‘about the chit system — it confused me too at the beginning. As I mentioned, we were forced out of Lahore at the time of Partition and even then I was not exactly in the footwear trade. I did happen to go through Agra and Kanpur on the way here and you’re quite right, Kanpur has nothing like the system that we have here. But have you been to Agra?’

‘Yes,’ said Haresh. ‘I have. But that was before I entered the industry.’

‘Well, Agra has a system somewhat similar to ours.’ And Kedarnath outlined it roughly.

Because they were perennially short of cash, the traders paid the shoemakers partly with post-dated chits. The shoemakers could only get cash to buy raw materials by discounting these chits elsewhere. They had felt for years that the traders had been squeezing a kind of unwarranted credit out of them. Finally, when the traders, as a body, had tried to winch up the proportion of chit to cash, the shoemakers had struck.

‘And of course, you’re right,’ Kedarnath added, ‘the strike hurts everyone — they could starve and we could be ruined.’

‘I suppose the shoemakers would claim,’ said Haresh, with a meditative air, ‘that as a result of the chit system they are the ones who are financing your expansion.’

There was no tone of accusation in Haresh’s voice, simply the curiosity of a pragmatic man trying to get facts and attitudes straight. Kedarnath responded to his interest and went on: