A Suitable Boy(570)

‘Very odd,’ said Malati, trying to restrict her smile to her eyes.

‘I’m not exactly an innocent, you know,’ said Kabir, a bit piqued at her amusement.

‘I should hope not!’ said Malati, laughing. ‘Good, I’ll write to Calcutta. just remain at the crease.’





16.2




ARUN managed to keep his mother’s birthday party a secret from her. He had invited a few older ladies for tea – her Calcutta friends with whom she occasionally played rummy – and he had generously forborne from inviting the Chatterjis.

The tip of the tail of the cat was let out of the bag by Varun, however, who, ever since sitting for his IAS exams, had been feeling that he had fulfilled enough of his duty to last a decade. The Winter Season was on, and the beat of galloping hooves was pounding in his ears.

One day he looked up from the racing form and said: ‘But I won’t be able to go on that day, because that’s when your party – oh!’

Mrs Rupa Mehra, who was saying, ‘3, 6, 10, 3, 6, 20,’ looked up from her knitting and said, ‘What is that, Varun? You’ve disturbed my counting. What party?’

‘Oh,’ said Varun, ‘I was talking to myself, Ma. My friends are, you know, well, throwing a party and it will interfere with a race-meeting.’ He looked relieved that he had covered up so well.

Mrs Rupa Mehra decided that she wanted to be surprised after all, so she did not follow up the matter. But she was in a state of suppressed excitement for the next few days.

On the morning of her birthday she opened all her cards (a good two-thirds of which were illustrated with roses) and read each one out to Lata and Savita and Pran and Aparna and the baby. (Meenakshi had made good her escape.) Then she complained of eye-strain, and asked Lata to re-read them back to her. The one from Parvati read as follows:

Dearest Rupa,

Your father and I wish you millions of happinesses on the occasion of your birthday, and hope that you are recovering well in Calcutta. Kishy joins me in saying Happy New Year in advance as well.

With fondest affection,

Parvati Seth



‘And what am I supposed to be recovering from?’ demanded Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘No, I don’t want that one read again.’

In the evening, Arun left work early. He collected the cake that he had ordered from Flury’s and a large number of pastries and patties. While waiting at an intersection, he noticed a man selling roses by the dozen. Arun rolled down his window and asked him the price. But the first price the man mentioned was so shocking that Arun yelled at him and began to roll up his window. He continued to glower even though the man was now shaking his head apologetically and pushing the flowers up against the pane.

But now that the car was moving, Arun thought of his mother again, and was almost tempted to tell the driver to halt. But no! it would have been intolerable to go back to the flower-seller and haggle with him. He had been absolutely mad angry, and he was still furious.

He thought of a colleague of his father’s, about ten years his father’s senior, who had recently shot himself out of rage just after his retirement. One evening his drink had been brought upstairs by his old servant, and he had flown into a fury because it had been brought without a tray. He had shouted at the servant, called his wife up, and told her to fire him immediately. This sort of thing had happened often enough in the past, and his wife told the servant to go down. Then she told her husband that she would speak to the servant in the morning, and that he should drink his whisky in the meantime. ‘You only care for your servants,’ he told her. She went down and, as was her habit, turned on the radio.

A few minutes later, she was startled by the sound of a shot. As she went upstairs, she heard another shot. She found her husband lying in a pool of blood. The first shot, applied immediately to his head, had glanced off and grazed his ear. The second had gone through his throat.

No one else in the Mehra family, when they heard the shocking news, had been able to understand the logic of it, least of all the appalled Mrs Rupa Mehra, who had known the man; but Arun felt that he understood it all too well. Rage did act like this. Sometimes he felt so angry that he wanted to kill himself or someone else, and he cared neither what he said nor what he did. Once again Arun thought of what his life would have been like had his father been alive. A great deal more carefree than it was today, he thought – with everyone to support financially as he now had to; with Varun to place in a job somehow, since he was bound not to get through the IAS exam; with Lata to get married off to someone suitable before Ma got her married off to this Haresh fellow.

By now he had arrived home. He had the confectionery taken to the kitchen through the back. Then, humming to himself, he greeted his mother once again. Her eyes filled with tears and she hugged him. ‘You came back early just for me,’ she exclaimed. He noticed that she was wearing her rather nice fawn silk sari, and this puzzled him. But when the guests arrived, she displayed a very satisfying astonishment and delight.