A Suitable Boy(469)

Mr Ghosh was related to various important civil servants and a politician or two – it was partly as a result of this that he had been able to get government orders for CLFC’s shoes, which were not of the best quality. He was clearly a man who wielded a great deal of influence. At the moment he was also a very angry man, and he could create problems for James Hawley, indeed for the Cromarty Group as a whole, both in Kanpur and elsewhere.

A couple of days later Haresh got another letter from James Hawley. The crucial sentence read: ‘You will have to get clearance from your present employers before we can confirm our offer.’ There had been no question in the previous letter of the necessity of any confirmation, and it was clear that James Hawley had buckled under pressure. No doubt Ghosh now believed that Haresh would have no choice but to come to him cap in hand and beg for his old job again. But for Haresh one thing was certain: he would not work one day longer in CLFC. He would rather starve than cringe.

The next day he went to the factory to collect his things and unscrew his brass name-plate from his door. Mukherji happened to pass by as he was doing this, and murmured an offer of help for the future. Haresh shook his head. He spoke to Lee and apologized for the fact that he was leaving so soon after hiring him. He then spoke to the workmen in his department. They were upset and angry at the treatment meted out by Ghosh to a man they had grown to like and respect and whom they had even begun to see – in a curious way – as their champion; certainly they had got more work and more money since he had joined the company, even if he worked them, like himself, very hard. They even offered, astonishingly, to go on strike for him. Haresh could hardly believe this, and was touched almost to the point of tears, but told them that they should do nothing of the sort. ‘I would have been leaving in any case,’ he said, ‘and whether the management behaves nicely or nastily to me makes no difference. I am only sorry that I have to leave you to the incompetence of someone like Rao.’ Rao was standing nearby when he said this, but Haresh was past caring.

To take his mind off things, he went to Lucknow for a day to visit Simran’s sister. And three days later, seeing nothing further in Kanpur to keep him, and having very little money, he left for Delhi to stay with his family and to see what he might find there. He could not decide whether to write to Lata to tell her the news. He was deeply disheartened; he could see all his prospects of happiness receding into nothingness now that he was unemployed.

But this mood ceased to be continuous after a few days. Kalpana Gaur sympathized with him, his old St Stephen’s friends took him up into their jovial company almost as soon as he got to Delhi. And, being basically an optimist – or at any rate having an abundance, perhaps a super-abundance, of self-confidence – he refused to believe, even in these hard times, that nothing at all would turn up.





13.20


HIS own foster-father was understanding, and told him not to be disheartened. But Umesh Uncle, a close friend of the family, who loved to dispense wisdom, told him he had made a big mistake to let pride get in the way of good sense.

‘You think you can walk down the street and job offers will drop down on you like ripe mangoes,’ he remarked.

Haresh did not say anything. Umesh Uncle always got his goat.

Besides, he thought that his uncle, although he had a Rai Bahadur in front of his name, and an O.B.E. behind it, was an idiot.

Rai Bahadur Umesh Chand Khatri, O.B.E., one of the six brothers of a Punjabi family, was a good-looking man: fair, with delicate features. He was married to the adopted daughter of a very rich and cultured man, who, having no sons, had decided to get a son-in-law to live in the house. Umesh Chand Khatri’s only qualifications were his good looks. He managed his father-in- law’s estate after a fashion, read perhaps one book a year out of his vast library, and gave him three grandchildren, including two boys.

He had never worked in his life, but felt compelled to tender advice to anyone within earshot. However, when the Second World War broke out, circumstances contrived to give him a fortune. He had access to the Adarsh Condiment Company, and he got government contracts for the manufacture of condiment powder, including curry powder, for the Indian troops. On the basis of this he minted money. He was created a Rai Bahadur ‘in recognition of war efforts’, became Chairman of the Adarsh Condiment Company, and continued to dispense advice even more insufferably to everyone except Haresh’s foster-father, who (being his not very tolerant friend) would tell him periodically to shut up.

Umesh Chand Khatri’s grouse against Haresh, whom he loved to needle, was the fact that Haresh was always smartly turned out. Umesh Chand believed that he and his own two sons should be the smartest and most elegant of all his acquaintances. Once, just before he left for England, Haresh had indulged himself by buying a silk handkerchief for thirteen rupees from the Army and Navy Stores in Connaught Place. Uncle Umesh had rebuked him publicly for extravagance.