A Suitable Boy(567)

‘Hello?’ he said, picking up the receiver. ‘Hello, Pran Kapoor here.’

There was the sound of thick breathing at the other end. Then a voice rasped out: ‘Good! This is Marh.’

‘Yes?’ said Pran, trying to keep his voice low. Savita had got out of bed. He shook his head to reassure her that it was nothing serious and when she left he closed the dining room door.

‘This is Marh! The Raja of Marh.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand. Yes, Your Highness, what can I do for you?’

‘You know exactly what you can do for me.’

‘I am sorry, Your Highness, but if this is about your son’s expulsion, there’s nothing I can tell you. You’ve received a letter from the university –’

‘You – you – do you know who I am?’

‘Perfectly, Your Highness. Now it is somewhat late –’

‘You listen to me, if you don’t want something to happen to you – or to someone who matters to you. You rescind that order.’

‘Your Highness, I –’

‘Just because of some prank – and I know that your brother is just as – my son tells me he turned him upside down and shook the money out of his pockets when he was gambling – you tell your brother – and your land-robbing father –’

‘My father?’

‘Your whole family needs to be taught a lesson –’ The baby started to cry again. A note of fury appeared in the voice of the Raja of Marh.

‘Is that your baby?’

Pran was silent.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘Your Highness, I would like to forget this conversation. But if you phone me up again at this hour without cause, or if I receive any further threats from you, I will have to report the matter to the police.’

‘Without cause? – you expel my son for a prank –’

‘Your Highness, this was not some prank. The university authorities made the facts quite clear in their letter to you. Taking part in a communal riot is not a prank. Your son is lucky that he is still alive and out of jail.’

‘He must graduate. He must. He has bathed in the Ganga – he is now a snaatak.’

‘That was somewhat premature,’ Pran said, trying to keep the scorn out of his voice. ‘And your distress on that count cannot be expected to outweigh the decision of the committee. Goodnight, Your Highness.’

‘Not so quick! You listen to me now – I know you voted to expel him.’

‘That is neither here nor there, Your Highness – I saved him from trouble once before, but –’

‘It is very much here and there. When my temple is completed – do you know that it will be my son, my son whom you are trying to martyr, who will lead the ceremonies – and that the wrath of Shiva –’

Pran put down the phone. He sat down at the dining table for a minute or two, staring at it and shaking his head.

‘Who was that?’ asked Savita when he returned to bed.

‘Oh, no one, some lunatic who wanted to get his son admitted to the university,’ said Pran.





15.22


THE CONGRESS PARTY was hard at work selecting its candidates. Throughout October and November the State Election Committees worked on, while festivals came and went, and disturbances erupted and subsided, and white-and-orange blossoms floated down from their twigs at dawn.

District by district they selected those they believed should be given Congress tickets for the Legislative Assemblies and for Parliament. In Purva Pradesh the well-packed committee guided by L.N. Agarwal did its best to keep the so-called seceders out of the running. They used every ploy imaginable – procedural, technical, and personal – in order to do so. With an average of six applicants for every ticket, there were grounds enough to tilt a decision towards candidates of one’s own political persuasion without creating obvious evidence of bias. The board worked hard, and to good effect. It sat for ten hours a day for weeks on end. It balanced caste and local standing, money power and years spent in British jails. Most of all it considered whose faction a particular applicant belonged to and the chances of his (or, rarely, her) electoral success. L.N. Agarwal was well satisfied with the list. So was S.S. Sharma, who was happy to see the popular Mahesh Kapoor back but keen that he should not rejoin with too long a tail of followers.

Finally, with an eye towards the approval of the Prime Minister and the committees in Delhi which would screen their list, the P.P. Election Committee made a token gesture towards the seceders by inviting three of their representatives (among them Mahesh Kapoor) to the last two days of their meetings. When the seceders saw the list prepared by the committee, they were appalled. It contained almost no one from their group. Even sitting MLAs had been dropped as candidates if they belonged to the minority faction. Mahesh Kapoor himself had been deprived of his urban constituency and told that he could not have Rudhia either – it had been promised to a Member of Parliament who was returning to the state to rejoin the Legislative Assembly. If Mahesh Kapoor had not left the Congress (so the committee said) they would not have given his seat away; but by the time he rejoined the party it was too late, and they could do nothing. But instead of forcing him to accept a seat of their choosing, they would be accommodating and allow him a choice of the few seats still unsettled.