A Suitable Boy(600)

‘Oh, he’s just being Arun. I’m sorry about the scene just now; that too is typical of him. But he’s quite affectionate sometimes. It’s just that one never knows when. You’ll get used to it.’

The last sentence had slipped out of its own accord. Lata was both puzzled at and displeased with herself. She did like Haresh, but she didn’t want to give him any false hopes. Quickly she added: ‘Like all his – his colleagues.’ But this made things worse; it sounded cruelly distancing and a bit illogical.

‘I hope I’m not going to become his colleague!’ said Haresh, smiling. He wanted to hold Lata’s hand, but sensed that – despite the scent of stocks and Mrs Rupa Mehra’s tacit approval of their tête-à-tête – this was not the moment. Haresh was a little bewildered. Had he been with Simran, he would have known what to talk about; in any case they would have been talking in a mixture of Hindi, Punjabi and English. But talking to Lata was different.

He did not know what to say. It was much easier to write letters. After a while he said: ‘I’ve been reading one or two Hardys again.’ It was better than talking about his Goodyear Welted line or how much the Czechs drank on New Year’s Eve.

Lata said: ‘Don’t you find him a bit pessimistic?’ She too was attempting to make conversation. Perhaps they should have kept on writing to each other.

‘Well, I am an optimistic person – some people say too optimistic – so it’s a good thing for me to read something that is not so optimistic.’

‘That’s an interesting thought,’ said Lata.

Haresh was puzzled. Here they were, sitting on a garden bench in the cool of the evening with the blessing of her mother and his foster-father, and they could hardly piece together a conversation. The Mehras were a complicated family and nothing was what it seemed.

‘Well, do I have grounds to be optimistic?’ he asked with a smile. He had promised himself to get a clear answer quickly. Lata had said that writing was a good way to get to know each other, and he felt that their correspondence had revealed a great deal. He had perhaps detected a slight cooling off in her last two letters from Brahmpur, but she had promised to spend as much time as she could with him over the vacation. He could understand, however, that she might be nervous about an actual meeting, especially under the critical eye of her elder brother.

Lata said nothing for a while. Then, thinking in a flash over all the time she had spent with Haresh – which seemed to be no more than a succession of meals and trains and factories – she said: ‘Haresh, I think we should meet and talk a little more before I make up my mind finally. It’s the most important decision of my life. I need to be completely sure.’

‘Well, I’m sure,’ said Haresh in a firm voice. ‘I’ve now seen you in five different places, and my feelings for you have grown with time. I am not very eloquent –’

‘It’s not that,’ said Lata, though she knew that it was at least partly that. What, after all would they talk about for the rest of their lives?

‘Anyway, I’m sure I will improve with your instruction,’ said Haresh cheerfully.

‘What’s the fifth place?’ said Lata.

‘What fifth place?’

‘You said we’d met in five places. Prahapore, Calcutta now, Kanpur, very briefly in Lucknow when you helped us at the station… What’s the fifth? It was only my mother you met in Delhi.’

‘Brahmpur.’

‘But –’

‘We didn’t meet exactly, but I was at the platform when you were getting onto the Calcutta train. Not this time – a few months ago. You were wearing a blue sari, and you had a very intense and serious expression on your face as if something had – well, a very intense and serious expression.’

‘Are you sure it was a blue sari?’ said Lata with a smile.

‘Yes,’ said Haresh, smiling back.

‘What were you doing there?’ asked Lata wonderingly; her mind was now already back on that platform and what she had been feeling.

‘Nothing. Just leaving for Cawnpore. And then, for a few days after we met properly, I kept thinking, “Where have I seen her before?” Like today at the Test Match with that young fellow Durrani.’

Lata came out of her dream. ‘Durrani?’, she said.

‘Yes, but I didn’t have to wonder long. I discovered where I’d seen him within a few minutes of talking to him. That was in Brahmpur too. I’d taken Bhaskar to meet his father. Everything happens in Brahmpur!’

Lata was silent but looking at him with, he felt, great interest at last. ‘Good-looking fellow,’ continued Haresh, encouraged. ‘Very well-informed about cricket. And on the university team. He’s leaving tomorrow for the Inter-’Varsity somewhere.’