This was one of Biswas Babu’s adjectives of high praise. Kuku felt that Tapan should have his ears boxed.
‘I like Hans,’ said Dipankar. ‘He was very polite to the man who told him to drink the juice of bitter gourds. He does have a good heart.’
‘O my darling, don’t be heartless.
Hold my hand. Let us be partless,’
murmured Amit.
‘But don’t hold it too hard,’ laughed Tapan.
‘Stop it!’ cried Kuku. ‘You are all being utterly horrible.’
‘He is good wedding bell material for our Kuku,’ continued Tapan, tempting retribution.
‘Wedding bell? Or bedding well?’ asked Amit. Tapan grinned delightedly.
‘Now, that’s enough, Amit,’ said Mr Justice Chatterji before his wife could intervene. ‘No bloodshed at breakfast. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Kuku. ‘Like the way Amit was mooning over Lata last night.’
‘Over Lata?’ said Amit, genuinely astonished.
‘Over Lata?’ repeated Kuku, imitating him.
‘Really, Kuku, love has destroyed your brain,’ said Amit. ‘I didn’t notice I was spending any time with her at all.’
‘No, I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘She’s just a nice girl, that’s all,’ said Amit. ‘If Meenakshi hadn’t been so busy gossiping and Arun making contacts I wouldn’t have assumed any responsibility for her at all.’
‘So we needn’t invite her over unnecessarily while she’s in Calcutta,’ murmured Kuku.
Mrs Chatterji said nothing, but had begun to look anxious.
‘I’ll invite whoever I like over,’ said Amit. ‘You, Kuku, invited fifty-odd people to the party last night.’
‘Fifty odd people,’ Tapan couldn’t resist saying.
Kuku turned on him severely.
‘Little boys shouldn’t interrupt adult conversations,’ she said.
Tapan, from the safety of the other side of the table, made a face at her. Once Kuku had actually got so incensed she had chased him around the table, but usually she was sluggish till noon.
‘Yes,’ Amit frowned. ‘Some of them were very odd, Kuku. Who is that fellow Krishnan? Dark chap, south Indian, I imagine. He was glaring at you and your Second Secretary very resentfully.’
‘Oh, he’s just a friend,’ said Kuku, spreading her butter with more than usual concentration. ‘I suppose he’s annoyed with me.’
Amit could not resist delivering a Kakoli-couplet:
‘What is Krishnan in the end?
Just a mushroom, just a friend.’
Tapan continued :
‘Always eating dosa-iddly,
Drinking beer and going piddly !’
‘Tapan!’ gasped his mother.
Amit, Meenakshi and Kuku, it appeared, had completely corrupted her baby with their stupid rhyming.
Mr Justice Chatterji put down his toast. ‘That’s enough from you, Tapan,’ he said.
‘But Baba, I was only joking,’ protested Tapan, thinking it unfair that he should have been singled out. Just because I’m the youngest, he thought. And it was a pretty good couplet too.
‘A joke’s a joke, but enough’s enough,’ said his father. ‘And you too, Amit. You‘d have a better claim to criticizing others if you did something useful yourself.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ added Kuku happily, seeing the tables turning. ‘Do some serious work, Amit Da. Act like a useful member of society before you criticize others.’
‘What’s wrong with writing poems and novels?’ asked Amit. ‘Or has passion made you illiterate as well?’
‘It’s all right as an amusement, Amit,’ said Mr Justice Chatterji. ‘But it’s not a living. And what’s wrong with the law?’
‘Well, it’s like going back to school,’ said Amit.
‘I don’t quite see how you come to that conclusion,’ said his father dryly.
‘Well,’ said Amit, ‘you have to be properly dressed that’s like school uniform. And instead of saying “Sir” you say “My Lord” – which is just as bad – until you’re raised to the bench and people say it to you instead. And you get holidays, and you get good chits and bad chits just like Tapan does: I mean judgments in your favour and against you.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Justice Chatterji, not entirely pleased by the analogy, ‘it was good enough for your grandfather and for me.’
‘But Amit has a special gift,’ broke in Mrs Chatterji. ‘Aren’t you proud of him?’
‘He can practise his special gifts in his spare time,’ said her husband.