The Chief Minister returned, as he had come, incognito. Once back in his office he asked L.N. Agarwal to cancel the curfew and to release all the students who had been arrested in the demonstration earlier. ‘And send for the President of the students’ union ,’ he added.
Over L.N. Agarwal’s protest that it was a march instigated by the union that had been the genesis of this problem in the first place, the Chief Minister met the young man, who seemed less self-assured but more determined than before. He had wanted to bring Rasheed with him – one Hindu, one Muslim, to emphasize the secularism of the socialists – but Rasheed had looked so ill with distress and guilt that he had changed his mind. Now the young man was here alone, face to face with the Chief Minister and the Home Minister, and he was patently nervous.
The Chief Minister said: ‘I agree to your terms, but I want the movement to be called off. Are you prepared to do that? Do you have the courage to avoid further bloodshed?’
‘The question of membership of the students’ union s?’ said the young man.
‘Yes,’ said the Chief Minister. L.N. Agarwal stood tight-lipped nearby, and could not trust himself to utter a word. His silence, he knew, implied consent, and it was a difficult silence to maintain.
‘The primary schoolteachers’ salaries?’
‘We will go into the question, and we will improve the salaries, but we do not know if the extent of the improvement will satisfy you completely. The resources of the state are limited. Still, we will try.’
Thus they went down the list of demands one by one.
‘What I can offer,’ said the young man, ‘is a temporary with-drawal. I have your promise, and you have mine – assuming I can persuade the others. But if the demands are not in fact met, this understanding will no longer hold.’
L.N. Agarwal, disgusted with the proceedings, reflected that the young man thought nothing of the fact that he was parleying on equal terms with the chief executive of the state. And even S.S. Sharma, who normally loved the outward forms of respect and obeisance, had, it appeared, so far forgotten what was due to him as not to mind their absence.
‘I understand and agree,’ the Chief Minister was saying. L.N. Agarwal looked at S.S. Sharma and thought: You are getting old and weak. You have acceded to unreason in order to buy a temporary peace. But the precedent of this peace will remain to haunt us, your successors. And you may not have bought peace anyway. Still, we will know soon enough about that.
That night the injured student died. The grieving father spoke to those who were holding vigil outside. The next day the body was cremated at the cremation ghat on the Ganga. The students sat on the great steps leading down to the ghat. There was no procession. The dense crowd of mourners was quiet as the flames crackled around the body. The police had been instructed to keep away. There was no violence.
12.25
DR KISHEN CHAND SETH had booked two tables in the small bridge room of the Subzipore Club. Noticing his name on the roster for the day, none of the other members had booked either of the two remaining tables. The librarian, who usually made it a point to look at the roster himself (the bridge room was located next door to the library), sighed when he saw the name of the eminent radiologist. There would be little peace for him that afternoon; and, if they continued to play through the film, that evening either.
Dr Kishen Chand Seth was seated facing a tiger-skin that was hanging head downwards on the wall. The tiger had been there for as long as anyone could remember, though its connection with bridge was unclear. Prints of Oxford colleges – including one with a pelican perched on a pillar in the quad – hung on the remaining walls. The four green baize-covered bridge-tables were arranged squarely in the small square room. Apart from the sixteen hard- backed chairs there were no others. It was a fairly austere room, if one excepted the tiger. Its one large window looked out upon a gravel drive, and beyond that the lawn where members and their guests sat on white cane chairs in the shade of large trees and sipped long drinks; and far beyond that the Ganges.
The seven others constituting Dr Kishen Chand Seth’s bridge party were: his wife Parvati, who was wearing an exceptionally tasteless sari with roses printed on it; his relation by marriage, the ex-Minister of Revenue, Mahesh Kapoor, whom Dr Seth seemed to recall he was currently on good terms with; Mr Shastri, the Advocate-General; the Nawab Sahib of Baitar; Professor and Mrs O.P. Mishra; and Dr Durrani. There were six men and two women, and the draw of cards had placed them in such a way that the two women were seated at the same table, though they were not partners. Mrs O.P. Mishra, a frightened but babbling sort of woman, was a good bridge player. Parvati Seth was not a good player, and irritated her husband a great deal by her hesitant and obtuse bidding whenever she happened to be his partner. He very rarely dared to rebuke her, however, and vented his spleen on anyone else who happened to be nearby.