‘What’s he been up to?’ he asked.
Mahesh Kapoor replied laconically: ‘He’s telling me which constituency I should fight from.’
‘Why not from your old one?’ asked Maan.
‘They’ve redrawn it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Besides, I’m going to leave the Congress Party.’
‘Oh !’ Maan looked at his mother, but she did not say anything. She appeared rather unhappy, though. She was not in favour of her husband’s decision, but did not feel she could stop him. He would have to resign as Minister of Revenue; he would have to move out of the party that was associated in the people’s mind with the freedom movement, the party of which he and she had been lifelong members; he would have to find funds from somewhere to compete with the sizeable funds of the state Congress Party, so effectively garnered and dispensed by the Home Minister. Above all, he would have to struggle once again against hard odds, and he was not young.
‘Maan, you’ve grown so thin,’ said his mother.
‘Thin? Me?’ said Maan.
‘Yes, and you’re so much darker,’ she said, sadly. ‘Almost like Pran. This village life is not good for you. Now we must take care of you properly. You must tell me what you want at every meal –’
‘Yes, well, it’s good to see you back, and I hope that things have changed,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, pleased but somewhat anxious to see his son.
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about Bhaskar?’ said Maan. Both Veena and her mother glanced towards Mahesh Kapoor. ‘Well,’ said Mahesh Kapoor, ‘you must trust us to decide certain things.’
‘So if Savita’s baby had been born –’
‘You’re here now, Maan, and that’s the main thing,’ said his father shortly. ‘Where are your things? The servant can’t find them. I’ll have them sent up to your room. And before you leave for Banaras you must –’
‘My things are at Firoz’s house. I’m staying there.’
This remark was greeted with an amazed silence. Mahesh Kapoor looked annoyed, and Maan was not too upset by this. But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor looked hurt, and he felt bad. He began to wonder if, after all, he had done the right thing.
‘So this is not your home any more?’ she said.
‘Of course it is, of course it is, Ammaji, but with so many people staying here –’
‘People – really, Maan,’ Veena said.
‘It’s only temporary. I’ll move back when I can. I have to talk things over with Firoz as well. My future, and so on –’
‘Your future lies in Banaras, and no question about it,’ said his father impatiently.
His mother, sensing possible trouble, said: ‘Well, we will talk about all this after lunch. You can stay for lunch, can’t you?’ She looked at him tenderly.
‘Of course I can, Ammaji,’ said Maan, hurt.
‘Good. We have alu paratha today.’ This was one of Maan’s favourite dishes. ‘When did you come?’
‘I just came. I thought I’d see Bhaskar before anyone else.’
‘No, to Brahmpur.’
‘Yesterday evening.’
‘So why didn’t you come and have dinner with us?’ asked his mother.
‘I was tired.’
‘So you had dinner at Baitar House?’ asked his father. ‘How is the Nawab Sahib?’
Maan flushed but did not answer. This was intolerable. He was glad he was not going to live under the dominating eye of his father.
‘So where did you have dinner?’ repeated his father.
‘I did not have dinner last night. I was not hungry. I nibbled throughout my journey, and by the time I arrived I was not hungry. Not hungry at all.’
‘Did you eat well in Rudhia?’ asked his mother.
‘Yes, Ammaji, I ate well, I ate very well, all the time,’ said Maan with a trace of irritation in his voice.
Veena had a good sense of her brother’s moods. She remembered him following her all over the house when he was a small boy. He had always been good-humoured unless he was both baulked and perplexed. He had a bad temper, but he was seldom irritable.
Something must have happened to upset or frustrate him recently; she was sure of it. She was about to ask him about it – which would probably only have bothered him further – when Bhaskar, as if waking from a reverie, said: ‘Rudhia?’
‘What about Rudhia ?’ asked Maan.
‘Which part of Rudhia were you in?’ asked Bhaskar.
‘The northern part – near Debaria.’
‘That is definitely the most favourable constituency among the rural ones,’ pronounced Bhaskar. ‘Northern Rudhia. Nanaji said that a large proportion of Muslims and jatavs were factors in his favour.”