‘Who was that Cad you were talking to?’ she asked Lata eagerly.
This wasn’t as bad as it sounded. A good-looking young man, in the slang of Brahmpur University girls, was a Cad. The term derived from Cadbury’s chocolate.
‘Oh, that’s just Maan, he’s Fran’s younger brother.’
‘Really! But he’s so good-looking and Fran’s so, well, not ugly, but, you know, dark, and nothing special.’
‘Maybe he’s a dark Cad,’ suggested Lata. ‘Bitter but sustaining.’
Malati considered this.
‘And,’ continued Lata, ‘as my aunts have reminded me five times in the last hour, I’m not all that fair either, and will therefore find it impossible to get a suitable husband.’
‘How can you put up with them, Lata?’ asked Malati, who had been brought up, fatherless and brotherless, in a circle of very supportive women.
‘Oh, I like most of them,’ said Lata. ‘And if it wasn’t for this sort of speculation it wouldn’t be much of a wedding for them. Once they see the bride and groom together, they’ll have an even better time. Beauty and the Beast.’
‘Well, he’s looked rather beast-like whenever I‘ve seen him on the university campus,’ said Malati. ‘Like a dark giraffe.’
‘Don’t be mean,’ said Lata, laughing. ‘Anyway, Fran’s very popular as a lecturer,’ she continued. ‘And I like him. And you’re going to have to visit me at his house once I leave the hostel and start living there. And since he’ll be my brother-in-law you’ll have to like him too. Promise me you will.’
‘I won’t,’ said Malati firmly. ‘He’s taking you away from me.’
‘He’s doing nothing of the sort, Malati,’ said Lata. ‘My mother, with her fine sense of household economy, is dumping me on him.’
‘Well, I don’t see why you should obey your mother. Tell her you can’t bear to be parted from me.’
‘I always obey my mother,’ said Lata. ‘And besides, who will pay my hostel fees if she doesn’t? And it will be very nice for me to live with Savita for a while. I refuse to lose you. You really must visit us – you must keep visiting us. If you don’t, I’ll know how much value to put on your friendship.’
Malati looked unhappy for a second or two, then recovered. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked. Aparna was looking at her in a severe and uncompromising manner.
‘My niece, Aparna,’ said Lata. ‘Say hello to Malati Aunty, Aparna.’
‘Hello,’ said Aparna, who had reached the end of her patience. ‘Can I have a pistachio ice-cream, please?’
‘Yes, kuchuk, of course, I’m sorry,’ said Lata. ‘Come, let’s all go together and get some.’
1.4
LATA soon lost Malati to a clutch of college friends, but before she and Aparna could get much further, they were captured by Aparna’s parents.
‘So there you are, you precious little runaway,’ said the resplendent Meenakshi, implanting a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. ‘Isn’t she precious, Arun? Now where have you been, you precious truant?’
‘I went to find Daadi,’ began Aparna. ‘And then I found her, but she had to go into the house because of Savita Bua, but I couldn’t go with her, and then Lata Bua took me to have ice-cream, but we couldn’t because –’
But Meenakshi had lost interest and had turned to Lata. ‘That pink doesn’t really suit you, Luts,’ said Meenakshi. ‘It lacks a certain – a certain –’
‘Je ne sais quoi?’ prompted a suave friend of her husband‘s, who was standing nearby.
‘Thank you,’ said Meenakshi, with such withering charm that the young fellow glided away for a while and pretended to stare at the stars.
‘No, pink’s just not right for you, Luts,’ re-affirmed Meenakshi, stretching her long, tawny neck like a relaxed cat and appraising her sister-in-law.
She herself was wearing a green-and-gold sari of Banaras silk, with a green choli that exposed more of her midriff than Brahmpur society was normally privileged or prepared to see.
‘Oh,’ said Lata, suddenly self-conscious. She knew she didn’t have much dress sense, and imagined she looked rather drab standing next to this bird-of-paradise.
‘Who was that fellow you were talking to?’ demanded her brother Arun, who, unlike his wife, had noticed Lata talking to Maan. Arun was twenty-five, a tall, fair, intelligent, pleasant-looking bully who kept his siblings in place by pummelling their egos. He was fond of reminding them that after their father’s death, he was ‘in a manner of speaking’, in loco parentis to them.