Veena looked at her husband very dubiously.
‘Everything good is always about to happen, and everything bad always happens.’
‘Now that’s not true. At least in the short term something good has happened to me. The shops in Bombay have paid up at last. I promise you that that is true. I know I’m a bad liar, so I don’t even attempt it. Now get the navratan back.’
‘Show me the money first!’
Kedarnath burst out laughing. Veena burst into tears.
‘Where’s Bhaskar?’ he asked, after she had sobbed for a bit and subsided into silence.
‘At Dr Durrani’s.’
‘Good. I hope he stays there a couple of hours more. Let’s play a game of chaupar, you and I.’
Veena dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
‘It’s too hot on the roof. Your mother won’t want her beloved son to turn black as ink.’
‘Well, we’ll play in this room, then,’ said Kedarnath with decision.
*
Veena got the jewellery back late that afternoon. Priya was not able to give her an estimate; with the witch hanging around the gossipy jeweller every minute of his previous visit, she had decided to subjugate urgency to discretion.
Veena looked at the navratan, gazing reminiscently at each stone in turn.
Early the same evening, Kedarnath went over with it to his father-in-law, and asked him to keep it in his custody at Prem Nivas.
‘What on earth for?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Why are you bothering me with these trinkets?’
‘Baoji, it belongs to Veena, and I want to make sure she keeps it. If it’s in my house, she might suddenly be struck with noble fancies and pawn it.’
‘Pawn it?’
‘Pawn it or sell it.’
‘What madness. What’s been going on? Have all my children taken leave of their senses?’
After a brief account of the navratan incident, Mahesh Kapoor said: ‘And how is your business now that the strike is finally over?’
‘I can’t say it’s going well – but it hasn’t collapsed yet.’
‘Kedarnath, run my farm instead.’
‘No, but thank you, Baoji. I should be getting back now. The market must have opened already.’ A further thought struck him. ‘And besides, Baoji, who would mind your constituency if I decided to leave Misri Mandi?’
‘True. All right. Fine. It’s good that you have to go back because I have to deal with these files before tomorrow morning,’ said Mahesh Kapoor inhospitably. ‘I’ll be working all night. Put it down here somewhere.’
‘What – on the files, Baoji?’ There, was nowhere else on the table to place the navratan.
‘Where else then – around my neck? Yes, yes, on that pink one: “Orders of the State Government on the Assessment Proposals”. Don’t look so anxious, Kedarnath, it won’t disappear again. I’ll see that Veena’s mother puts the stupid thing away somewhere.’
6.22
LATER that night in the house where the Rajkumar and his friends lived, Maan lost more than two hundred rupees gambling on flush. He usually held onto his cards far too long before packing them in or asking for a show. The predictability of his optimism was fatal to his chances. Besides, he was entirely un-poker-faced, and his fellowplayers had a shrewd idea of how good his cards were from the instant he picked them up. He lost ten rupees or more on hand after hand – and when he held three kings, all he won was four rupees.
The more he drank, the more he lost, and vice versa.
Every time he got a queen – or begum – in his hand, he thought with a pang of the Begun Sahiba whom he was allowed to see so rarely these days. He could sense that even when he was with her, despite their mutual excitement and affection, she was finding him less amusing as he became more intense.
After he had got completely cleaned out, he muttered in a slurred voice that he had to be off.
‘Spend the night here if you wish – go home in the morning,’ suggested the Rajkumar.
‘No, no –’ said Maan, and left.
He wandered over to Saeeda Bai’s, reciting some poetry on the way and singing from time to time.
It was past midnight. The watchman, seeing the state he was in, asked him to go home. Maan started singing, appealing over his head to Saeeda Bai:
‘It’s just a heart, not brick and stone, why should it then not fill with pain?
Yes, I will weep a thousand times, why should you torture me in vain?’
‘Kapoor Sahib, you will wake up everyone on the street,’ said the watchman matter-of-factly. He bore Maan no grudge for the scuffle they had had the other night.
Bibbo came out and chided Maan gently. ‘Kindly go home, Dagh Sahib. This is a respectable house. Begum Sahiba asked who was singing, and when I told her, she was most annoyed. I believe she is fond of you, Dagh Sahib, but she will not see you tonight, and she has asked me to tell you that she will never see you in this state. Please forgive my impertinence, I am only repeating her words.’