A Suitable Boy(603)

16.24


DEAREST Lata,

I have been. thinking of you often since you’ve been away, but you know how busy I always succeed in making myself, even in the holidays. Something, however, has happened which I feel I should write to you about. I have been torturing myself about whether to tell you, but I think the thing to do is simply to go ahead. I was so happy to get your letter and I dread the thought of making you unhappy. Maybe what with the election mail and the Christmas rush this letter will be delayed or will disappear entirely. I don’t suppose I’ll be sorry.

I’m sorry my thoughts are so scattered. I’m just writing on impulse. I was looking through my papers yesterday and came across the note you wrote to me when I was in Nainital, saying you had found the pressed flower again. I read it twice and suddenly thought of that day in the zoo, and tried to remember why I gave you that flower! I think it unconsciously was a seal to our friendship. It expressed my feelings for you, and I’m glad I can share my joys and sorrows with this wonderful, affectionate person who is so far away from me and yet so close.

Well, Calcutta isn’t so far away really, but friends matter all the time, and it’s good to know you haven’t forgotten me. I was looking at the photographs of the play again. While I was sorting things out in my mind, and was thinking how wonderfully you acted. It amazed me at the time and still amazes me – especially from someone who is sometimes so reserved, who doesn’t often talk about her fears, fantasies, dreams, anxieties, loves and hates – and whom I would probably never have got to know if it hadn’t been for the good luck of sharing the same hospital room – sorry! hostel room.

Well, I’ve avoided the subject long enough, and I can see your anxious face. The news I have to give you is about K, which – well, I should just give it and be done with it and I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. I’m just doing the unpleasant duty of a friend.

After you left for Cal, K sent me a note and we met at the Blue Danube. He wanted me to get you to talk to him or write to him. He said all sorts of things about how much he cared for you, sleepless nights, restless wanderings, lovelorn longings, the lot. He spoke very convincingly, and I felt quite sorry for him. But he must be rather practised at that sort of thing, because he was seeing another girl – at the Red Fox – on about the same day. You told me he doesn’t have a sister, and anyway, it’s clear from my informant, who is completely reliable, that he wasn’t behaving in a particularly brotherly way. I was surprised how furious I was to hear of this, but in a way I was glad that this made things quite clear. I made up my mind to fire him up face to face, but found he’d disappeared from town on some university cricket tour, and anyway now I don’t think it’s worth the stress and bother.

Now, please, Lata, don’t let this open up all the old wounds. Just treat it as confirmation of the course of action you’ve chosen. I’m sure we women make things far worse for ourselves by dwelling endlessly on matters that are best pushed aside. This is my professional opinion too. Some moderate mooning is OK, but please, no perennial pining! He isn’t worth it, Lata, and this proves it. If I were you, I would just crush him with the flat of my spoon into mashed potatoes and forget him entirely.

Now for other news.

What with elections coming up, everything is bubbling and swirling around here, and the Socialist Party is mapping out policies and strategies and quackeries and sorceries with the best of them. I attend all the meetings, and canvass and campaign, but I am rather disillusioned. Everyone is involved in pushing himself forward, spouting slogans, making promises, and not bothering about how these promises are to be paid for, let alone implemented. Even sensible people seem to have gone off their heads. One fellow here used to talk a good deal of sense before, but he froths so much and makes such ‘big-big eyes’ that I’m sure he is quite certifiable now.

And yes, women have been rediscovered: one pleasant side-effect of election fever. ‘The time has come when Woman must be restored to the status she occupied in ancient India: we must combine the best of the past and the present, of the West and the East…’ Here, however, is our ancient lawbook, the Manus-mriti. Take a deep breath:

‘Day and night, women must be kept in dependence by the males of their families. In childhood, a woman must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband and in old age to her son; a woman must never be independent because she is innately as impure as falsehood… The Lord created woman as one who is full of sensuality, wrath, dishonesty, malice and bad conduct.’ (And, sadly, now, the vote.)