A Suitable Boy(255)

Looking at Lata, but presumably addressing both of them – or perhaps all three of them, Kuku included – she continued: ‘You have put up my blood pressure and my blood sugar.’

‘No, Ma,’ said Lata, looking at the fresh mango peels on the plate. ‘If your blood sugar has gone up it’s because of all those dussehris you’ve been eating. Now please don’t have more than one a day – or at most two.’

‘Are you teaching your grandmother to suck eggs?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra, glowering.

Amit smiled. ‘It was my fault, Ma,’ he said. ‘The streets were flooded not far from the university, and we got caught.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra was in no mood to be friendly. What was he smiling for?

‘Is your blood sugar very high?’ asked Kakoli quickly.

‘Very high,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra with distress and pride. ‘I have even been having karela juice, but it has no effect.’

‘Then you must go to my homoeopathic doctor,’ said Kakoli.

Mrs Rupa Mehra, diverted from her attack, said, ‘I already have a homoeopath.’

But Kakoli insisted that her doctor was better than anyone else. ‘Doctor Nuruddin.’

‘A Mohammedan?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra doubtfully.

‘Yes. It happened in Kashmir, when we were on holiday.’

‘I am not going to Kashmir,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra decidedly.

‘No, he cured me here. His clinic is here, in Calcutta. He cures people of everything – diabetes, gout, skin troubles. I had a friend who had a cyst on his eyelid. He gave him a medicine called thuja, and the cyst dropped right off.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Amit energetically. ‘I sent a friend of mine to a homoeopath, and her brain tumour disappeared, and her broken leg mended, and though she was barren she had twins within three months.’

Both Kuku and Mrs Rupa Mehra glared at him. Lata looked at him with a smile of mixed reproof and approval.

‘Amit always makes fun of what he can’t understand,’ said Kuku. ‘He clubs homoeopathy together with astrology. But even our family doctor has slowly become convinced of the effectiveness of homoeopathy. And ever since my terrible problem in Kashmir I am a complete convert. I believe in results,’ continued Kuku. ‘When something works I believe in it.’

‘What problem did you have?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra eagerly.

‘It was the ice-cream in a hotel in Gulmarg.’

‘Oh.’ Ice-cream was one of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s weaknesses too.

‘The hotel made its own ice-cream. On the spur of the moment I ate two scoops.’

‘And then?’

‘Then – then it was terrible.’ Kuku’s voice reflected her trauma. ‘I had an awful throat. I was given some allopathic medicine by the local doctor. It suppressed the symptoms for a day, then they came back again. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sing, I could hardly speak, I couldn’t swallow. It was like having thorns in my throat. I had to think before I decided to say something.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra clicked her tongue in sympathy.

‘And my sinuses were blocked completely.’ Kuku paused, then went on: ‘Then I had another dose of medicine. And again it suppressed the condition, but it came back again. I had to be sent to Delhi and flown back to Calcutta. After dose number three, my throat was inflamed, my sinuses and nose were both infected, I was in a terrible state. My aunt, Mrs Ganguly, suggested Dr Nuruddin. “Try him and see,” she told my mother. “What’s the harm?” ’

The suspense, for Mrs Rupa Mehra, was unbearable. Stories involving ailments were as fascinating for her as murder mysteries or romances.

‘He took my history, and asked me some strange questions. Then he said: “Take two doses of pulsetilla, and come back to me.” I said: “Two doses? Just two doses? Will that be enough? Not a regular course?” He said: “Inshallah, two doses should be enough.” And it was. I was cured. The swelling disappeared. My sinuses cleared up completely and the thing never recurred. Allopathic treatment would have required puncturing and draining the sinuses to relieve an endemic complaint – which is what it would have become if I hadn’t gone to Dr Nuruddin; and you can stop laughing, Amit.’

Mrs Rupa Mehra was convinced. ‘I’ll go with you to see him,’ she said.

‘But you mustn’t mind his strange questions,’ said Kakoli.

‘I can handle myself in all situations,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

When they had left, Mrs Rupa Mehra said pointedly to Lata: ‘I am very tired of Calcutta, darling, and it is not good for my health. Let us go to Delhi.’