‘What does Biswas Babu have to do with duck’s water?’ asked Lata, who found Meenakshi’s family amusing but confusing.
‘Oh – that’s just one of his expressions. I don’t think it’s very kind of Amit not to explain family references to outsiders.’
‘She’s not an outsider,’ said Amit. ‘Or she shouldn’t be. Actually, we are all very fond of Biswas Babu, and he is very fond of us. He was my grandfather’s clerk originally.’
‘But he won’t be Amit’s – to his heart-deep regret,’ said Meenakshi. ‘In fact, Biswas Babu is even more upset than our father that Amit has deserted the Bar.’
‘I can still practise if I choose to,’ said Amit. ‘A university degree is enough in Calcutta.’
‘Ah, but you won’t be admitted to the Bar Library.’
‘Who cares?’ said Amit. ‘Actually, I’d be happy editing a small journal and writing a few good poems and a novel or two and passing gently into senility and posterity. May I offer you a drink? A sherry?’
‘I’ll have a sherry,’ said Kakoli.
‘Not you, Kuku, you can help yourself. I was offering Lata a drink.’
‘Ouch,’ said Kakoli. She looked at Lata’s pale blue cotton sari with its fine chikan embroidery, and said: ‘Do you know, Lata – pink is what would really suit you.’
Lata said: ‘I’d better not have anything as dangerous as a sherry. Could I have some – oh, why not? A small sherry, please.’
Amit went to the bar with a smile and said: ‘Do you think I might have two glasses of sherry?’
‘Dry, medium or sweet, Sir?’ asked Tapan.
Tapan was the baby of the family, whom everyone loved and fussed over, and who was even allowed an occasional sip of sherry himself. This evening he was helping at the bar.
‘One sweet and one dry, please,’ said Amit. ‘Where’s Dipankar?’ he asked Tapan.
‘I think he’s in his room, Amit Da,’ said Tapan. ‘Shall I call him down?’
‘No, no, you help with the bar,’ said Amit, patting his brother on the shoulder. ‘You’re doing a fine job. I’ll just see what he’s up to.’
Dipankar, their middle brother, was a dreamer. He had studied economics, but spent most of his time reading about the poet and patriot Sri Aurobindo, whose flaccid mystical verse he was (to Amit’s disgust) at present deeply engrossed in. Dipankar was indecisive by nature. Amit knew that it would be best simply to bring him downstairs himself. Left to his own devices, Dipankar treated every decision like a spiritual crisis. Whether to have one spoon of sugar in his tea or two, whether to come down now or fifteen minutes later, whether to enjoy the good life of Ballygunge or to take up Sri Aurobindo’s path of renunciation, all these decisions caused him endless agony. A succession of strong women passed through his life and made most of his decisions for him, before they became impatient with his vacillation (‘Is she really the one for me?’) and moved on. His views moulded themselves to theirs while they lasted, then began to float freely again.
Dipankar was fond of making remarks such as, ‘It is all the Void,’ at breakfast, thus casting a mystical aura over the scrambled eggs.
Amit went up to Dipankar’s room, and found him sitting on a prayer-mat at the harmonium, untunefully singing a song by Rabindranath Tagore.
‘You had better come down soon,’ Amit said in Bengali. ‘The guests have begun to arrive.’
‘Just coming, just coming,’ said Dipankar. ‘I’ll just finish this song, and then I’ll… I’ll come down. I will.’
‘I’ll wait,’ said Amit.
‘You can go down, Dada. Don’t trouble yourself. Please.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ said Amit. After Dipankar had finished his song, unembarrassed by its tunelessness – for all pitches, no doubt, stood equal before the Void – Amit escorted him down the teak-balustraded marble stairs.
7.8
‘WHERE’s Cuddles?’ asked Amit when they were halfway down.
‘Oh,’ said Dipankar vaguely, ‘I don’t know.’
‘He might bite someone.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Dipankar, not greatly troubled by the thought.
Cuddles was not a hospitable dog. He had been with the Chatterji family for more than ten years, during which time he had bitten Biswas Babu, several schoolchildren (friends who had come to play), a number of lawyers (who had visited Mr Justice Chatterji’s chambers for conferences during his years as a barrister), a middle-level executive, a doctor on a house call, and the standard mixture of postmen and electricians.