A Suitable Boy(74)

3.6


A couple of days later there was a music recital in the Bharatendu Auditorium, one of the two largest auditoriums in town. One of the performers was Ustad Majeed Khan.

Lata and Malati both managed to get tickets. So did Hema, a tall, thin, and high-spirited friend of theirs who lived with innumerable cousins – boys and girls – in a house not far from Nabiganj. They were all under the care of a strict elder member of the family who was referred to by everyone as ‘Tauji’. Hema’s Tauji had quite a job on his hands, as he was not only responsible for the well-being and reputation of the girls of the family but also had to make sure that the boys did not get into the countless kinds of mischief that boys are prone to. He had often cursed his luck that he was the sole representative in a university town of a large and far-flung family. He had on occasion threatened to send everyone straight back home when they had caused him more trouble than he could bear. But his wife, ‘Taiji’ to everyone, though she herself had been brought up with almost no liberty or latitude, felt it was a great pity that her nieces and grandnieces should be similarly constrained. She managed to obtain for the girls what they could not obtain by a more direct approach.

This evening Hema and her cousins had thus succeeded in reserving the use of Tauji’s large maroon Packard, and went around town collecting their friends for the concert. No sooner was Tauji out of sight than they had entirely forgotten his outraged parting comment: ‘Flowers? Flowers in your hair? Rushing off in exam time – and listening to all this pleasure-music! Everyone will think you are completely dissolute – you will never get married.’

Eleven girls, including Lata and Malati, emerged from the Packard at Bharatendu Auditorium. Strangely enough, their saris were not crushed, though perhaps they looked slightly dishevelled. They stood outside the auditorium re-arranging their own and each other’s hair, chattering excitedly. Then in a busy shimmer of colour they streamed inside. There was no place for all of them to sit together, so they broke up into twos and threes, and sat down, rapt but no less voluble. A few fans whirled round overhead, but it had been a hot day, and the auditorium was stuffy. Lata and her friends started fanning themselves with their programmes, and waited for the recital to begin.

The first half consisted of a disappointingly indifferent sitar recital by a well-known musician. At the interval, Lata and Malati were standing by the staircase in the lobby when the Potato Man walked towards them.

Malati saw him first, nudged Lata’s attention in his direction, and said:

‘Meeting number three. I’m going to make myself scarce.’

‘Malati, please stay here,’ said Lata in sudden desperation, but Malati had disappeared with the admonition: ‘Don’t be a mouse. Be a tigress.’

The young man approached her with fairly assured steps.

‘Is it all right to interrupt you?’ he said, not very loudly.

Lata could not make out what he was saying in the noise of the crowded lobby, and indicated as much.

This was taken by the young man as permission to approach. He came closer, smiled at her, and said: ‘I wondered if it was all right to interrupt you.’

‘To interrupt me?’ said Lata. ‘But I was doing nothing.’ Her heart was beating fast.

‘I meant, to interrupt your thoughts.’

‘I wasn’t having any,’ said Lata, trying to control a sudden overload of them. She thought of Malati’s comment about her being a poor liar and felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

‘Quite stuffy in there,’ said the young man. ‘Here too, of course.’

Lata nodded. I’m not a mouse or a tigress, she thought, I’m a hedgehog.

‘Lovely music,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Lata, though she hadn’t thought so. His presence so close to her was making her tingle. Besides, she was embarrassed about being seen with a young man. She knew that if she looked around she would see someone she recognized looking at her. But having been unkind to him twice already she was determined not to rebuff him again. Holding up her side of the conversation, however, was difficult when she was feeling so distracted. Since it was hard for her to meet his eye, she looked down instead.

The young man was saying: ‘…though, of course, I don’t often go there. How about you?’

Lata, nonplussed, because she had either not heard or not registered what went before, did not reply.

‘You’re very quiet,’ he said.

‘I’m always very quiet,’ said Lata. ‘It balances out.’

‘No, you aren’t,’ said the young man with a faint smile. ‘You and your friends were chattering like a flock of jungle babblers when you came in – and some of you continued to chatter while the sitar player was tuning up.’