A Suitable Boy(203)

‘Yes.’

‘Mine didn’t. It was modern. I was young, in Darjeeling. I wrote about nature, not about love. I hadn’t met Mihir then. My husband, you know. Later I typed them. I showed them to Mihir. Once I spent a night in a hospital bitten by mosquitoes. And a poem came out suddenly. But he said, “It doesn’t rhyme.” ’

She looked disapprovingly at her husband, who was hovering around like a cupbearer with her refilled glass.

‘Your husband said that?’ said Amit.

‘Yes. Then I never had the urge again. I don’t know why.’

‘You‘ve killed a poet,’ said Amit to her husband, who seemed a good enough fellow.

‘Come,’ he continued to Lata, who had been listening to the last part of the conversation, ‘I’ll introduce you to a few people, as I promised. Excuse me for a minute.’

Amit had made no such promise, but it enabled him to get away.





7.9


‘WELL, whom do you want to meet?’ said Amit to Lata.

‘No one,’ said Lata.

‘No one?’ asked Amit. He looked amused.

‘Anyone. How about that woman there with the redand-white cotton sari?’

‘The one with the short grey hair – who looks as if she’s laying down the law to Dipankar and my grandfather?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s Ila Chattopadhyay. Dr Ila Chattopadhyay. She’s related to us. She has strong and immediate opinions. You’ll like her.’

Though Lata was unsure about the value of strong and immediate opinions, she liked the look of the woman. Dr Ila Chattopadhyay was shaking her finger at Dipankar and saying something to him with great and apparently affectionate vigour. Her sari was rather crushed.

‘May we interrupt?’ asked Amit.

‘Of course you may, Amit, don’t be stupid,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay.

‘This is Lata, Arun’s sister.’

‘Good,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay, appraising her in a second. ‘I’m sure she’s nicer than her bumptious brother. I was telling Dipankar that economics is a pointless subject. He would have done far better to study mathematics. Don’t you agree?’

‘Of course,’ said Amit.

‘Now that you’re back in India you must stay here permanently, Amit. Your country needs you – and I don’t say that lightly.’

‘Of course,’ said Amit.

Dr Ila Chattopadhyay said to Lata: ‘I never pay any attention to Amit, he always agrees with me.’

‘Ila Kaki never pays any attention to anyone,‘ said Amit.

‘No. And do you know why? It’s because of your grandfather.’

‘Because of me?’ asked the old man.

‘Yes,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay. ‘Many years ago you told me that until you were forty you were very concerned about what people thought of you. Then you decided to be concerned about what you thought of other people instead.’

‘Did I say that? said old Mr Qnatterji, surprised.

‘Yes, indeed, whether you remember it or not. I too used to make myself miserable bothering about other people’s opinions, so I decided to adopt your philosophy immediately, even though I wasn’t forty then – or even thirty. Do you really not remember that remark of yours? I was trying to decide whether to give up my career, and was under a lot of pressure from my husband’s family to do so. My talk with you made all the difference.’

‘Well,’ said old Mr Chatterji, ‘I remember some things but not other things these days. But I’m very glad my remark made such a, such a, well, profound impression on you. Do you know, the other day I forgot the name of my last cat but one. I tried to recall it, but it didn’t come to me.

‘Biplob,’ said Amit.

‘Yes, of course, and it did come back to me eventually. I had named him that because I was a friend of Subhas Bose – well, let me say I knew the family… Of course, in my position as a judge, a name like that would have to be,er –’

Amit waited while the old man searched for the right word, then helped him out.

‘Ironic?’

‘No, I wasn’t looking for that word, Amit, I was – well, ‘ironic” will do. Of course, those were different times, mm, mm. Do you know, I can’t even draw a map of India now. It seems so unimaginable. And the law too is changing every day. One keeps reading about writ petitions being brought up before the High Courts. Well, in my day we were content with regular suits. But I’m an old man, things must move ahead, and I must fall back. Now girls like Ila, and young people like you’ – he gesticulated towards Amit and Lata – ‘must carry things forward.’