A Suitable Boy(238)

‘Oh,’ said Amit, ‘he sent his servant to get some mosquitoes, then got the mosquitoes to bite him – his servant, that is – and when he got malaria soon afterwards, Ross realized that it was mosquitoes that caused it. O million-murdering death.’

‘Almost a million and one,’ said Lata.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. But people have always treated their servants strangely. Landor of the memories and sighs once threw his cook out of a window.’

‘I’m not sure I like Calcutta poets,’ said Lata.





7.31


AFTER the Maidan and the milkshake, Amit asked Lata if she had time for a cup of tea at his house before returning home. Lata said she did. She liked the fertile turmoil of that house, the piano, the books, the verandah, the large garden. When Amit asked that tea for two be sent up to his room, the servant Bahadur, who took a proprietorial interest in Amit, asked him if there was someone else to drink it with him.

‘Oh no,’ said Amit, ‘I’m going to drink both cups myself.’

‘You mustn’t mind him,’ said Amit later, when Bahadur had looked at Lata appraisingly as he set the tea-tray down. ‘He thinks that I plan to marry everyone I have tea with. One or two?’

‘Two please,’ said Lata. She continued mischievously, since the question was riskless: ‘And do you?’

‘Oh, not so far,’ said Amit. ‘But he doesn’t believe it. Our servants haven’t given up trying to run our lives. Bahadur has seen me staring at the moon at odd hours, and wants to cure me by getting me married within the year. Dipankar has been dreaming of surrounding his hut with papaya and banana plants, and the mali has been lecturing him about herbaceous borders. The Mugh cook almost gave notice because Tapan, when he came back from boarding-school, insisted on eating lamb chops and mango ice-cream for breakfast for a whole week.’

‘And Kuku?’

‘Kuku drives the driver cuckoo.’

‘What a crazy family you are,’ said Lata.

‘On the contrary,’ said Amit, ‘We’re a hotbed of sanity.’





7.32


WHEN Lata returned home towards evening Mrs Rupa Mehra did not ask her for a detailed account of where she had been and what she had seen. She was too distressed to do so. Arun and Varun had had a grand flare-up, and the smell of combustion was still thick in the air.

Varun had returned to the house with his winnings in his pocket. He was not drunk yet, but it was clear where his windfall was going to go. Arun had told him he was irresponsible; he should contribute the winnings to the family kitty and never go to the race-track again. He was wasting his life, and didn’t know the meaning of sacrifice and hard work. Varun, who knew that Arun had been at the races himself, had told him what he could do with his advice. Arun, purple-faced, had ordered him to get out of the house. Mrs Rupa Mehra had wept and pleaded and acted as an exacerbating intermediary. Meenakshi had said she couldn’t live in such a noisy family and had threatened to go back to Ballygunge. She was glad, she said, that it was Hanif’s day off. Aparna had started bawling. Even her ayah had not been able to pacify her.

Aparna’s bawling had calmed everyone down, perhaps even made them feel a little ashamed. Now Meenakshi and Arun had just left for a party, and Varun was sitting in his small half-room, muttering to himself.

‘I wish Savita was here,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Only she can control Arun when he is in one of his moods.’

‘It’s good she isn’t here, Ma,’ said Lata. ‘Anyway, Varun’s the one I’m more worried about. I’m going to see how he is.’ It seemed to her that her advice to him in Brahmpur had been futile.

When she knocked at his door and entered, she found him sprawled on the bed with the Gazette of India lying open in front of him.

‘I’ve decided to improve myself,’ Varun said in a nervous manner, looking this way and that. ‘I’m going through the rules for the IAS exams. They’re to be held this September, and I haven’t even begun studying. Arun Bhai thinks I’m irresponsible, and he’s right. I’m terribly irresponsible. I’m wasting my life. Daddy would have been ashamed of me. Look at me, Luts, just look at me. What am I?’ He was growing more and more agitated. ‘I’m a bloody fool,’ he concluded, with the Arun-like condemnation pronounced in an Arun-like tone of dismissal. ‘Bloody fool!’ he repeated for good measure. ‘Don’t you think so too?’ he asked Lata hopefully.

‘Shall I make you some tea?’ asked Lata, wondering why he, in the manner of Meenakshi, had called her ‘Luts’. Varun was far too easily led.