A Suitable Boy(217)

‘No?’ said Biswas Babu, leaning forward. His knees started vibrating rapidly in and out.

‘You see, Biswas Babu, I know you feel I have let the family down.’

‘Yes?’ said Biswas Babu.

‘You see, my grandfather went in for it, and my father, but I haven’t. And you probably think it is very peculiar. I know you are disappointed in me.’

‘It is not peculiar, it is just late. But you are probably making hail while the sun shines, and sowing oats. That is why I have come.’

‘Sowing oats?’ Amit was puzzled.

‘But Meenakshi has rolled the ball, now you must follow it.’

It suddenly struck Amit that Biswas Babu was talking not about the law but about marriage. He began to laugh.

‘So it is about this, Biswas Babu, that you have come to talk to me?’ he said. ‘And you are speaking to me about the matter, not to my father.’

‘I also spoke to your father. But that was one year ago, and where is the progress?’

Amit, despite his headache, was smiling.

Biswas Babu was not offended. He told Amit: ‘Man without life companion is either god or beast. Now you can decide where to place yourself. Unless you are above such thoughts…’

Amit confessed that he wasn’t.

Very few were, said Biswas Babu. Perhaps only people like Dipankar, with his spiritual leanings, were able to renounce such yearnings. That made it all the more imperative that Amit should continue the family line.

‘Don’t believe it, Biswas Babu,’ said Amit. ‘It is all Scotch and sannyaas with Dipankar.’

But Biswas Babu was not to be distracted from his purpose. ‘I was thinking about you three days ago,’ he said. ‘You are so old – twenty-nine or more – and are still issueless. How can you give joy to your parents? You owe to them. Even Mrs Biswas agrees. They are so proud of your achievement.’

‘But Meenakshi has given them Aparna.’

Obviously a non-Chatterji like Aparna, and a girl at that, did not count for much in Biswas Babu’s eyes. He shook his head and pursed his lips in disagreement.

‘In my heart-deep opinion –’ he began, and stopped, so that Amit could encourage him to continue.

‘What do you advise me to do, Biswas Babu?’ asked Amit obligingly.

‘When my parents were keen that I should meet that girl Shormishtha, you made your objections known to my father, and he passed them on to me.’

‘Sorry to say, she had tinted reputation,’ said Biswas Babu, frowning at the corner of the desk. This conversation was proving more difficult than he had imagined it would. ‘I did not want trouble for you. Enquiries were necessary.’

‘And so you made them.’

‘Yes, Amit Babu. Now maybe about law you know best. But I know about early life and youth. It is hard to restrain, and then there is danger.’

‘I am not sure I understand.’

After a pause Biswas Babu went on. He seemed a little embarrassed, but the consciousness of his duty as an adviser to the family kept him going.

‘Of course it is dangerous business but any lady who cohabits with more than one man increases risks. It is but natural,’ he added.

Amit did not know what to say, as he had not got Biswas Babu’s drift.

‘Indeed, any lady who has the opportunity to go to second man will know no limits,’ Biswas Babu remarked gravely, even sadly, as if admonishing Amit in a muted way.

‘In fact,’ he ruminated, ‘though not admitted in our Hindu society, lady is more excited than man as a rule, I will have to say. That is why there should not be too much difference. So that lady can cool down with man.’

Amit looked startled.

‘I mean,’ continued Biswas Babu, ‘difference in age of course. That way they are commenstruate. Otherwise of course an older man is cool in later years when his wife is in the prime of lusty life and there is scope for mischief.’

‘Mischief,’ echoed Amit. Biswas Babu had never talked in this vein to him before.

‘Of course,’ thought Biswas Babu aloud, glancing in a melancholy way at the rows of law-books around him, ‘that is not true in all cases. But you must not leave it till you are more than thirty. Do you have headache?’ he asked, concerned, for Amit looked as if he was in pain.

‘A slight headache,’ said Amit. ‘Nothing serious.’

‘An arranged marriage with a sober girl, that is the solution. And I will also think about a helpmeet for Dipankar.’

They were both quiet for a minute. Amit broke the silence.

‘Nowadays people say that you should choose your own life-partner, Biswas Babu. Certainly, poets like myself say that.’

‘What people think, what people say, and what people do are two different things,’ said Biswas Babu. ‘Now I and Mrs Biswas are happily married for thirty-four years. Where is the harm in an arrangement like that? Nobody asked me. One day my father said it is fixed.’