‘Well, I suppose we follow the Calcutta model,’ said Firoz. ‘But don’t ask me why. Well, Abba, I’ll be off.’
The two old friends wandered into the corridor, where the heat hit them like a blast, and from there to the Nawab Sahib’s car. Mahesh Kapoor instructed his driver to follow them to Baitar House. In the car both studiously avoided discussing the case or its implications, which, in a sense, was a pity because it would have been interesting to know what they would have said. Mahesh Kapoor could not, however, refrain from saying: ‘Tell me when Firoz is going to argue. I’ll come and listen.’
‘I’ll do so. That’s very friendly of you.’ The Nawab Sahib smiled. Although he had not intended it, perhaps his remark would be interpreted as ironic.
He was reassured when his friend continued: ‘Why – he’s like my nephew.’ After a pause, Mahesh Kapoor added: ‘But isn’t Karlekar leading him in the case?’
‘Yes, but his brother is very ill, and he may have to go back to Bombay. If that’s the case, Firoz will have to argue in his place.’
‘Ah.’ There was a pause.
‘What news of Maan?’ asked the Nawab Sahib at last, as they got out at Baitar House. ‘We’ll eat in the library; we won’t be disturbed there.’
Mahesh Kapoor’s face darkened. ‘If I know him, he’s still infatuated with that wretched woman. I wish I’d never asked her to sing at Prem Nivas on Holi. It all came about because of that evening.’
The Nawab Sahib was silent, but he seemed to have stiffened at the words.
‘Keep an eye on your son too,’ said Mahesh Kapoor with a curt laugh. ‘Firoz, I mean.’
The Nawab Sahib looked at his friend, but said nothing. His face had gone white.
‘Are you all right?’ '
‘Yes, yes, Kapoor Sahib, I am all right. What were you saying about Firoz?’
‘He visits that house too, I’ve heard. No harm in it if it’s a brief thing, it’s not as if it’s an obsession yet –’
‘No!’ There was such sharp and unaccountable pain, almost horror, in the Nawab Sahib’s voice that Mahesh Kapoor was taken aback. He knew that his friend had turned religious, but he had not imagined he had become such a puritan.
He quickly changed the subject. He talked about a couple of new bills, about how the delimitation of constituencies throughout the country was expected any day now, about the endless troubles in the Congress Party – both at the state level between him and Agarwal, and at the Centre between Nehru and the right wing.
‘Why, I, even I, am thinking that this party is no longer a home for me,’ said the Minister of Revenue. ‘An old teacher – a freedom fighter – came to me the other day and said a number of things that I’ve been thinking over. Perhaps I should leave the Congress. I believe that if Nehru could be persuaded to leave the party and fight the next elections on his own platform and with a new party, he would win. I would follow him, as would many others.’
But even this startling and momentous confidence provoked no response from the Nawab Sahib. He was equally abstracted at lunch. Indeed, he appeared to have difficulty not only in speaking much but in swallowing his food.
11.4
TWO evenings later, all the lawyers for the zamindars and a couple of the clients themselves met in G.N. Bannerji’s hotel room. He held these conferences from about six to eight each evening in order to prepare for the next day’s arguments. Today, however, there was a dual purpose to the conference. First, the other lawyers were present to help him prepare for the morning session, when he would wind up his opening of the case. Secondly, he too had been requested today to give them advice for their own arguments of the afternoon, when they would be pleading their own particular sections of the case before the bench. G.N. Bannerji was happy to help them, but even more keen to see them go at eight o’clock sharp so that he could enjoy his evening in his standard manner with the person whom the juniors gossiped about as his ‘lady-love’: a Mrs Chakravarti, whom he had installed in great style (and at the expense of his clients) in a railway saloon on a siding at Brahmpur Junction.
Everyone arrived promptly at six. The local seniors and juniors brought the law-books and a waiter brought cups of tea. G.N. Bannerji complained about the fans in the hotel and about the tea. He was looking forward later to a Scotch or three.
‘Sir, I have been waiting to say how fine your argument on public purpose was this afternoon.’ This was a local senior lawyer.
The great G.N. Bannerji smiled. ‘Yes, you saw how the Chief Justice appreciated the point about the connection between public purpose and public benefit?