A Suitable Boy(395)

As the Advocate-General saw it, the judges had given a violent blow to the government – and thereby moved it out of the path of an unseen but swiftly approaching train. He smiled to himself at the strangeness of it all.

As for the special cases – the Hindu charitable trusts, the waqfs, the crown grantees, the erstwhile rulers, and so on – none of their contentions had been upheld. Shastri had only one mild regret, and that had nothing to do with the judgment itself. It was that his rival, G.N. Bannerji, had not been in court to hear the judgment.

But G.N. Bannerji was away in Calcutta, arguing another vastly lucrative if less momentous case, and Mr Shastri reflected that he had probably merely shrugged and poured himself another Scotch when he had heard by telephone or telegram about the result of this one.





11.32


IN previous Pul Melas, although the crowds began to thin out after Jeth Purnima, large numbers of pilgrims still remained eleven days later to bathe on the night of Ekadashi, or even fourteen days later at the next ‘dark’ moon or amavas, which was sacred to Lord Jagannath. Not so this time. The tragedy, apart from the dread it had aroused among the pious, had resulted in a complete dislocation of regular administration on the sands. The health staff, overburdened by the emergency, was forced to neglect its regular tasks. Hygiene suffered, and there were epidemics of gastro-enteritis and diarrhoea, especially on the northern bank. The food-stalls were dismantled in an attempt to discourage the pilgrims from remaining, but those who remained had to eat, and soon profiteering became rife: a seer of puris cost five rupees, a seer of boiled potatoes cost three rupees, and the price of paan trebled.

But soon the pilgrims did disperse entirely. The army engineers removed the electricity poles and the steel plates of the roads, and dismantled the pontoon bridges. River traffic began to move down-stream.

In time the Ganga rose with the monsoon rains and covered the sands.

Ramjap Baba remained on his platform, surrounded now on all sides by the Ganga, and continued to recite unceasingly the eternal name of God.





Part Twelve





12.1


MRS RUPA MEHRA and Lata returned from Lucknow to Brahmpur about a week before the Monsoon Term of the university began. Pran was at the station to meet them. It was late at night, and though it was not cold, Pran was coughing.

Mrs Rupa Mehra scolded him for coming.

‘Don’t be silly, Ma,’ said Pran. ‘Do you think I’d have sent Mansoor instead?’

‘How is Savita?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra, just as Lata was about to ask the same question.

‘Very well,’ said Pran. ‘But she’s getting bigger by the minute –’

‘No complications at all?’

‘She’s fine. She’s waiting for you at home.’

‘She should be asleep.’

‘Well, that’s what I told her. But she obviously cares more for her mother and sister than for her husband. She thought you might need a bite to eat when you got home. How was your trip? I hope there was someone to help you at Lucknow-Station.’

Lata and her mother exchanged a quick glance.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in a definitive manner. ‘The very nice young man I wrote to you about from Delhi.’

‘The shoemaker Haresh Khanna.’

‘You shouldn’t call him a shoemaker, Pran,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘He will probably turn out to be my second son-in-law, God willing.’

Now it was Pran’s turn to give Lata a quick glance. Lata was shaking her head gently from side to side. Pran did not know if she was disavowing the opinion or the certainty of it.

‘Lata encouraged him to write to her. That can only mean one thing,’ continued Mrs Rupa Mehra.

‘On the contrary, Ma,’ said Lata, who could hold back no longer. ‘It can mean one of several things.’ She did not add that she had not encouraged Haresh to write, merely consented to his doing so.

‘Well, I agree, he’s a good fellow,’ said Pran. ‘Here’s the tonga.’ And he got busy telling the coolies how to arrange the luggage.

Lata didn’t quite catch Pran’s remark, or she would have responded very much as her mother did, which was with great surprise.

‘A good fellow? How do you know he is a good fellow?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra, frowning.

‘No mystery,’ said Pran, enjoying Mrs Rupa Mehra’s perplexity. ‘I just happen to have met him, that’s all.’

‘You mean you know Haresh?’ said his mother-in-law.

Pran was coughing and nodding simultaneously. Now both Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata were looking at him in astonishment.

After his voice returned he said, ‘Yes, yes, I know your cobbler.’