A Suitable Boy(112)

‘Please –’ said Pran, not at all calmly. ‘just let things take their natural course. Don’t get the papers involved in all this.’

Sunil looked meditative for a while, as if he was working something out. ‘All right, all right, have a drink!’ he said suddenly. ‘Why don’t you have a drink in your hand?’

‘First he grills me for half an hour without offering me a drink, then he asks me why I don’t have one. I’ll have whisky – with water,’ said Pran, in a less agitated tone.

As the evening went on, the talk of the party turned to news in the town, to India’s consistently poor performance in international cricket (‘I doubt we will ever win a Test Match’ said Pran with confident pessimism), to politics in Purva Pradesh and the world at large, and to the peculiarities of various teachers, both at Brahmpur University and – for the Stephanians – at St Stephen’s in Delhi. To the mystification of the non-Stephanians, they participated in chorus with a querulous: ‘In my class I will say one thing: you may not understand, you may not want to understand, but you will understand!’

Dinner was served, and it was just as rudimentary as Pran had predicted. Sunil, for all his good-natured bullying of his friends, was himself bullied by an old servant whose affection for his master (whom he had served since Sunil was a child) was only equalled by his unwillingness to do any work.

Over dinner there was a discussion – somewhat incoherent because some of the participants were either belligerent or erratic with whisky – about the economy and the political situation.

Making complete sense of it was difficult, but a part of it went like this: ‘Look, the only reason why Nehru became PM was because he was Gandhi’s favourite. Everyone knows that. All he knows how to do is to make those bloody long speeches that never go anywhere. He never seems to take a stand on anything. Just think. Even in the Congress Party, where Tandon and his cronies are pushing him to the wall, what does he do? He just goes along with it, and we have to –’

‘But what can he do? He’s not a dictator.’

‘Do you mind not interrupting? I mean to say, may I make my point? After that you can say whatever you want for as long as you want. So what does Nehru do? I mean to say, what does he do? He sends a message to some society that he’s been asked to address and he says, “We often feel a sense of darkness.” Darkness – who cares about his darkness or what’s going on inside his head? He may have a handsome head and that red rose may look pretty in his buttonhole, but what we need is someone with a stout heart, not a sensitive one. It’s his duty as Prime Minister to give a lead to the country, and he’s just not got the strength of character to do it.’

‘Well –’

‘Well, what?’

‘You just try to run a country. Try to feed the people, for a start. Keep the Hindus from slaughtering the Muslims –’

‘Or vice versa.’

‘All right, or vice versa. And try to abolish the zamindars’ estates when they fight you every inch of the way.’

‘He isn’t doing that as PM – land revenue isn’t a central subject – it’s a state subject. Nehru will make his vague speeches, but you ask Pran who’s the real brains behind our Zamindari Abolition Bill.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Pran, ‘it’s my father. At any rate, my mother says he works terribly late and sometimes comes back home from the Secretariat after midnight, dog-tired, then reads through the night to prepare for the next day’s arguments in the Assembly.’ He laughed shortly and shook his head. ‘My mother’s worried because he’s ruining his health. Two hundred clauses, two hundred ulcers, she thinks. And now that the Zamindari Act in Bihar has been declared unconstitutional, everyone’s in a panic. As if there’s not enough to panic about anyway, what with the trouble in Chowk.’

‘What trouble in Chowk?’ asked someone, thinking Pran was referring to something that might have happened that day.

‘The Raja of Marh and his damned Shiva Temple,’ said Haresh promptly. Though he was the only one from out of town, he had just been filled in on the facts by Kedarnath, and had made them his own.

‘Don’t call it a damned Shiva Temple,’ said the historian.

‘It is a damned Shiva Temple, it’s caused enough deaths already!’

‘You’re a Hindu, and you call it a damned temple – you should look at yourself in the mirror. The British have left, in case you need reminding, so don’t put on their airs. Damned temple, damned natives –’