‘Uff-oh!’ said Mahesh Kapoor impatiently. ‘Do I have to hear about this from everyone? In the Assembly canteen, in my own office, everywhere I hear about Maan and his idiocy! This morning two or three people brought it up. Is there nothing more important in the world to talk about?’
But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor persevered.
‘It is very important for our family,’ she said. ‘How can we hold our heads up in front of people if this goes on? And it is not good for Maan either to spend all his time and money like this. He was supposed to come here on business, and he has done nothing in that line. Please speak to him.’
‘You speak to him,’ said Mahesh Kapoor brutally. ‘You have spoilt him all his life.’
Mrs Mahesh Kapoor was silent, but a tear trickled down her cheek. Then she rallied and said: ‘Is it good for your public image either? A son who does nothing but spend his time with that kind of person? The rest of the time he lies down on his bed and stares up at the fan. He should do something else, something serious. I don’t have the heart to say anything to him. After all, what can a mother say?’
‘All right, all right, all right,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, and closed his eyes.
He reflected that the cloth business in Banaras was, under the care of a competent assistant, doing better in Maan’s absence than it had been doing when he was there. What then was to be done with Maan?
At about eight o‘clock that evening he was about to get into the car to visit Baitar House when he told the driver to wait. Then he sent a servant to see if Maan was in the house. When the servant told him that he was sleeping, Mahesh Kapoor said: ‘Wake up the good-for-nothing fellow, and tell him to dress and come down at once. We are going to visit the Nawab Sahib of Baitar.’
Maan came down looking none too happy. Earlier in the day he had been exercising hard on the wooden horse, and now he was looking forward to visiting Saeeda Bai and exercising his wit, among other things.
‘Baoji?’ he said enquiringly.
‘Get into the car. We’re going to Baitar House.’
‘Do you want me to come along?’ asked Maan.
‘Yes.’
‘All right, then.’ Maan got into the car. There was, he realized, no way to avoid being kidnapped.
‘I am assuming you have nothing better to do,’ said his father.
‘No… Not really.’
‘Then you should get used to adult company again,’ said his father sternly.
As it happened, he also enjoyed Maan’s cheerfulness, and thought it would be good to take him along for moral support when he went to apologize to his old friend the Nawab Sahib. But Maan was less than cheerful at the moment. He was thinking of Saeeda Bai. She would be expecting him and he would not even be able to send her a message to say that he could not come.
6.15
AS THEY entered the grounds of Baitar House, however, he cheered up a little at the thought that he might meet Firoz. At polo practice Firoz had not mentioned that he would be going out for dinner.
They were asked to sit in the lobby for a few minutes. The old servant said that the Nawab Sahib was in the library, and that he would be informed of the Minister’s arrival. After ten minutes or so, Mahesh Kapoor got up from the old leather sofa and started walking up and down. He was tired of twiddling his thumbs and staring at photographs of white men with dead tigers at their feet.
A few minutes more, and his patience was at an end. He told Maan to come with him, and walked through the high-ceilinged rooms and somewhat ill-lit corridors towards the library. Ghulam Rusool made a few ineffectual attempts at dissuasion, but to no effect. Murtaza Ali, who was hanging around near the library, was brushed aside as well. The Minister of Revenue with his son in tow strode up to the library door and flung it open.
Brilliant light blinded him for a moment. Not only the mellower reading lights but the great chandelier in the middle of the library had been lit. And at the large round table below – with papers spread out around them and even a couple of buff leather-bound law-books lying open before them – sat three other sets of fathers and sons: The Nawab Sahib of Baitar and Firoz; the Raja and Rajkumar of Marh; and two Bony Bespectacled Bannerji Barristers (as that famous family of lawyers was known in Brahmpur).
It would be difficult to say who was most embarrassed by this sudden intrusion.
The crass Marh snarled: ‘Speak of the Devil.’
Firoz, though he found the situation uncomfortable, was pleased to see Maan and went up to him immediately to shake his hand. Maan put his left arm around his friend’s shoulder and said: ‘Don’t shake my right hand – you’ve crippled it already.’