A Suitable Boy(416)

‘Ah.’

‘But it is also your work, I can see.’ Maggu Gopal grabbed Pran’s hand with the same painful vigour with which he had twisted his head. He examined it carefully. After a while he said in a solemn tone: ‘Your hand is most remarkable. The sky is the limit of your success.’

‘Really?’ said Pran.

‘Really. Consistency! That is the secret of success in any art. In order to obtain proficiency, you must have one goal – one track – consistency.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Pran, thinking, among many other things, of his baby, his wife, his brother, his nephew, his sister, his father, his mother, the department, the English language, the future of the country, the Indian cricket team, and his own health.

‘There is a saying of Swami Vivekananda: “Rise! Awake! Stop not – until the goal is achieved!” ’ The magical masseur smiled assurance on Pran,

‘Tell me, Mr Maggu Gopal,’ Pran said, turning his head sideways, ‘can you tell from my hand if I will have a daughter or a son?’

‘Turn over please,’ said Maggu Gopal. He examined Pran’s right hand again. ‘Yes,’ he said to himself.

Turning over onto his back had made Pran start to cough, but Maggu Gopal ignored this, so intent was he on gazing at his hand.

‘Now you see,’ he said, ‘you, or rather your missus, will have a daughter.’

‘But my missus is sure she will have a son.’

‘Mark my words,’ said the magical masseur.

‘All right,’ said Pran, ‘but my wife is almost always right.’

‘You have a happy married life?’ Maggu Gopal inquired.

‘You tell me, Mr Maggu Gopal,’ said Pran,

Maggu Gopal frowned. ‘It is written in your hand that your married life will be a comedy.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Yes, yes, you can see – your Mercury is very strong.’

‘I suppose I can’t escape from destiny,’ said Pran.

This word had a magical effect on Maggu Gopal. He drew backward slightly and pointed his finger at Pran’s chest. ‘Destiny!’ he said, and grinned at Pran. ‘That is it.’ After a pause he continued: ‘Behind every successful man is a woman. Behind Mr Napoleon there was Josephine. Not that you have to be married. I do not believe it. In fact I predict that you have had auspicious women in your life before and will continue to after marriage.’

‘Really?’ said Pran, interested, but rather fearful. ‘Will my wife like this? I fear my life may become a comedy of the wrong kind.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ said the magical masseur reassuringly. ‘She will be very tolerant. But the women must be auspicious. If you drink tea made from dirty water you will fall ill. But if you drink tea made from deluxe water it will refresh you.’

Maggu Gopal stared at Pran with some fixity. Seeing that he had got the point he went on: ‘Love is colourblind. Caste does not matter. It is karma – which means actions according to the vicious of God.’

‘The vicious of God?’ said Pran, bewildered, before he understood what Maggu Gopal was getting at.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the magical masseur, pulling Pran’s toes one by one until they made clicking and cracking sounds: ‘One should not get married just for bringing tea in the morning – or for sex or anything.’

‘Ah,’ said Pran, with a sudden sense of enlightenment, ‘just for living day to day.’

‘Today! Yes! Do not live for yesterday or tomorrow.’

‘I meant from day to day,’ explained Pran.

‘Yes, yes, it is all the same. Family life with children is a comedy, both today, yesterday, and tomorrow.’

‘And how many children will I have?’ asked Pran. He had lately begun to wonder whether he should be bringing a child into the world at all, a terrible world of hatred, intrigue, poverty, and cold war – a world that was unlike even his own unsettled childhood in that the safety of the earth itself was now threatened.

‘Ah, exact number is in wife’s hand,’ said the masseur regretfully. ‘But once there is delight in your life through one child, it is like a tonic, a chyavanprash – and then the sky is the limit for offspring.’

‘Two or three would be more than enough,’ said Pran.

‘But you must keep up the massage. To maintain the vital fluids.’

‘Oh yes!’ agreed Pran.

‘It is most essential for all people.’

‘But who massages the masseur?’ asked Pran.

‘I am sixty-three,’ said Mr Maggu Gopal, rather affronted. ‘I don’t need it. Now turn around, please.’