A Suitable Boy(250)

Dipankar reassured her that she could, and that he did. He mentioned that tastes were tastes, and that, if she recalled, Mrs Rupa Mehra had once thought Kuku herself a barbarian because she had spoken slightingly of the dussehri mango. As for Hans, Dipankar suspected that he was in for an education. Sauerkraut would soon be replaced by the banana flower, and stollen and sachertorte by lobongolotikas and ladycannings; and he would have to adapt, and accept, and appreciate, if he was to remain Kakoli’s most-favoured mushroom; for if everyone else was putty in his firmly-grasping hands, he was certainly putty in hers.

‘And where will I go and live?’ asked Kuku, beginning to sniff. ‘In that freezing, bombed-out country?’ She looked around Dipankar’s room, and said, ‘You know what’s lacking on that wall is a picture of the Sundarbans. I’ll paint you one… I hear it rains all the time in Germany, and people spend their whole lives shivering, and if Hans and I quarrel, I can’t just walk home like Meenakshi.’

Kakoli sneezed. Cuddles barked. Dipankar blinked and continued.

‘Well, Kuku, if I were you –’

‘You didn’t bless me,’ protested Kakoli.

‘Oh, sorry, Kuku, bless you.’

‘Oh, Cuddles, Cuddles, Cuddles,’ said Kuku, ‘no one loves us, no one at all, not even Dipankar. No one cares if we get pneumonia and die.’

Bahadur entered. ‘A phone call for Baby Memsahib,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Kuku, ‘I must flee.’

‘But you were discussing the direction of your life,’ protested Dipankar mildly. ‘You don’t even know who’s called – it couldn’t possibly be that important.’

‘But it’s the phone,’ said Kuku and, having delivered herself of this complete and ineluctable explanation, did indeed flee.

Next came Dipankar’s mother, not to take, but to give advice.

‘Ki korchho tumi, Dipankar…?’ she began, and continued to upbraid him quietly, while Dipankar continued to smile pacifically. ‘Your father is so worried… and I also would like you to settle down… family business… after all, we are not going to live for ever… responsibility… father’s getting old… look at your brother, only wants to write poetry, and now these novels, thinks he is another Saratchandra… you are our only hope… then your father and I can rest in peace.’

‘But, Mago, we still have some time left to settle the matter,’ said Dipankar, who always deferred whatever he could and left the rest undecided.

Mrs Chatterji looked uncertain. When Dipankar was small, whenever Bahadur asked him what he wanted to eat for breakfast, he would just look up and shake his head in one way or another, and Bahadur, understanding intuitively what was required, would turn up with a fried egg or an omelette or whatever, which Dipankar would eat quite happily. The family had been filled with wonderment. Perhaps, Mrs Chatterji now thought, no mental message had ever passed between them at all, and Bahadur merely represented Fate making its offerings to a Dipankar who decided nothing but accepted everything.

‘And even among girls, you don’t decide,’ continued Mrs Chatterji. ‘There’s Hemangini, and Chitra, and it’s as bad as Kuku,’ she ended sadly.

Dipankar had rather chiselled features, not like the milder, more rounded, features of the large-eyed Amit, who fitted Mrs Chatterji’s Bengali idea of good looks. She always thought of Dipankar as a sort of ugly duckling, was fiercely ready to protect him against accusations of angularity and boniness, and was amazed when women of the younger generation, all these Chitras and Hemanginis, babbled on about how attractive he was.

‘None of them is the Ideal, Mago,’ said Dipankar. ‘I must continue to search for the Ideal. And for Unity.’

‘And now you are going to this Pul Mela in Brahmpur. It is so inappropriate for a Brahmo, praying to the Ganga and taking dips.’

‘No, Ma, not at all –’ said Dipankar seriously. ‘Even Keshub Chunder Sen anointed himself with oil and dipped himself three times in the tank in Dalhousie Square.’

‘He did not!’ said Mrs Chatterji, shocked by Dipankar’s apostasy.

The Brahmos, who believed in an abstract and elevated monotheism, or were supposed to, simply did not go about doing that sort of thing.

‘He did, Mago. Well, I’m not sure it was Dalhousie Square,’ Dipankar conceded. ’But, on the other hand, I think it was four dips, not three. And the Ganga is so much holier than a stagnant tank. Why, even Rabindranath Tagore said about the Ganga…’

‘Oh, Robi Babu!’ exclaimed Mrs Chatterji, her face transfigured with muted ecstasy.