A Suitable Boy(25)

The man at the counter was looking at Lata and Malati with the energetic friendliness he showered on regular customers. The little finger of his left hand was searching for wax in the crevices of his ear. He shook his head with reproving benevolence and said in Hindi to Malati:

‘Exams are coming up, Malatiji, and you are still buying novels? Twelve annas plus one rupee four annas makes two rupees altogether. I should not allow this. You are like daughters to me.’

‘Balwantji, you would go out of business if we did not read your novels. We are sacrificing our examination results at the altar of your prosperity,’ said Malati.

‘I’m not,’ said Lata. The young man must have disappeared behind a bookshelf, because she couldn’t see him anywhere.

‘Good girl, good girl,’ said Balwant, possibly referring to both of them.

‘Actually, we were going to get some coffee and came into your shop unplanned,’ said Malati, ‘so I didn’t bring –’ She left the sentence unfinished and flung a winning smile at Balwant.

‘No, no, that is not necessary – you can give it later,’ said Balwant. He and his brother extended terms of easy credit to many students. When asked whether this wasn’t bad for business, they would reply that they had never lost money trusting anyone who bought books. And, certainly, they were doing very well for themselves. They reminded Lata of the priests of a well-endowed temple. The reverence with which the brothers treated their books supported the analogy.

‘Since you suddenly feel famished, we are going straight to the Blue Danube,’ said Malati decisively once they were outside the shop. ‘And there you will tell me exactly what happened between that Cad and you.’

‘Nothing,’ said Lata.

‘Hah!’ said Malati in affectionate scorn. ‘So what did you two talk about?’

‘Nothing,’ said Lata. ‘Seriously, Malati, he just came up and started talking nonsense, and I said nothing in reply. Or monosyllables. Don’t add chillies to boiled potatoes.’

They continued to stroll down Nabiganj.

‘Quite tall,’ said Malati, a couple of minutes later.

Lata said nothing.

‘Not exactly dark,’ said Malati.

Lata did not think this was worth responding to either. ‘Dark’, as she understood it, referred in novels to hair, not skin.

‘But very handsome,’ persisted Malati.

Lata made a wry face at her friend, but she was, to her own surprise, quite enjoying her description.

‘What’s his name?’ continued Malati.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lata, looking at herself in the glass front of a shoe shop.

Malati was astonished at Lata’s ineptness. ‘You talked to him for fifteen minutes and you don’t know his name?’

‘We did not talk for fifteen minutes,’ said Lata. ‘And I hardly talked at all. If you’re so keen on him, why don’t you go back to the Imperial Book Depot and ask him his name? Like you, he has no compunctions about talking to anyone.’

‘So you don’t like him?’

Lata was silent. Then she said, ‘No, I don’t. I’ve no reason to like him.’

‘It’s not all that easy for men to talk to us, you know,’ said Malati. ‘We shouldn’t be so hard on them.’

‘Malati defending the weaker sex!’ said Lata. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ said Malati. ‘He didn’t seem the brazen type. I know. Trust my five-hundredfold experience.’

Lata flushed. ‘It seemed pretty easy for him to talk to me,’ she said. ‘As if I was the sort of girl who…’

‘Who what?’

‘Who can be talked to,’ ended Lata uncertainly. Visions of her mother’s disapproval floated across her mind. She made an effort to push these away.

‘Well,’ said Malati, a little more quietly than usual as they entered the Blue Danube, ‘he really does have nice looks.’

They sat down.

‘Nice hair,’ continued Malati, surveying the menu.

‘Let’s order,’ said Lata. Malati appeared to be in love with the word ‘nice’.

They ordered coffee and pastries.

‘Nice eyes,’ said Malati, five minutes later, laughing now at Lata’s studied unresponsiveness.

Lata remembered the young man’s temporary nervousness when she had looked straight at him.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But so what? I have nice eyes too, and one pair is enough.’





1.16


WHILE his mother-in-law was playing patience and his sister-in-law was fending off Malati’s leading questions, Dr Pran Kapoor, that first-class husband and son-in-law, was battling with the departmental problems he was reticent about burdening his family with.