‘No,’ said Lata.
‘Will you be by yourself within the next half-hour or so?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Lata.
‘It isn’t good news, Lata,’ said Malati, seriously. ‘You had better drop him.’
Lata said nothing.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Malati, concerned.
‘Yes,’ said Lata, glancing at the other three seated around the dining table. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he’s on the university cricket team,’ said Malati, reluctant to break the ultimate bad news to her friend. ‘There’s a photograph of the team in the university magazine.’
‘Yes?’ said Lata, puzzled. ‘But what –’
‘Lata,’ said Malati, unable to beat about the bush any further. ‘His surname is Durrani.’
So what? thought Lata. What does that make him? Is he a Sindhi or something? Like – well – Chetwani or Advani – or… or Makhijani?’
‘He’s a Muslim,’ said Malati, cutting into her thoughts. ‘Are you still there?’
Lata was staring straight ahead. Savita put down her knife and fork, and looked anxiously at her sister.
Malati continued: ‘You haven’t a chance. Your family will be dead set against him. Forget him. Put it down to experience. And always find out the last name of anyone with an ambiguous first name… Why don’t you say something? Are you listening?’
‘Yes,’ said Lata, her heart in turmoil.
She had a hundred questions, and more than ever she needed her friend’s advice and sympathy and help. She said, slowly and evenly, ‘I’d better go now. We’re in the middle of dinner.’
Malati said, ‘It didn’t occur to me – it just didn’t occur to me – but didn’t it occur to you either? With a name like that – though all the Kabirs I know are Hindu – Kabir Bhandare, Kabir Sondhi –’
‘It didn’t occur to me,’ said Lata. ‘Thanks, Malu,’ she added, using the form of Malati’s name she sometimes used out of affection. ‘Thank you for – well –’
‘I’m so sorry. Poor Lata.’
‘No. See you when you return.’
‘Read a P.G. Wodehouse or two,’ said Malati by way of parting advice. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye,’ said Lata and put down the receiver carefully.
She returned to the table but she could not eat. Mrs Rupa Mehra immediately tried to find out what the matter was. Savita decided not to say anything at all for the moment. Pran looked on, puzzled.
‘It’s nothing,’ Lata said, looking at her mother’s anxious face.
After dinner, she went to the bedroom. She couldn’t bear to talk with the family or listen to the late news on the radio. She lay face down on her bed and burst into tears – as quietly as she could – repeating his name with love and with angry reproach.
3.11
IT did not need Malati to tell her that it was impossible. Lata knew it well enough herself. She knew her mother and the deep pain and horror she would suffer if she heard that her daughter had been seeing a Muslim boy.
Any boy was worrisome enough, but this was too shameful, too painful, to believe. Lata could hear Mrs Rupa Mehra’s voice: ‘What did I do in my past life that I have deserved this?’ And she could see her mother’s tears as she faced the horror of her beloved daughter being given over to the nameless ‘them’. Her old age would be embittered and she would be past consoling.
Lata lay on the bed. It was getting light. Her mother had gone through two chapters of the Gita that she recited every day at dawn. The Gita asked for detachment, tranquil wisdom, indifference to the fruits of action. This was a lesson that Mrs Rupa Mehra would never learn, could never learn. The lesson did not suit her temperament, even if its recitation did. The day she learned to be detached and indifferent and tranquil she would cease to be herself.
Lata knew that her mother was worried about her. But perhaps she attributed Lata’s undisguisable misery over the next few days to anxiety about the results of the exams.
If only Malati were here, Lata said to herself.
If only she had not met him in the first place. If only their hands had not touched. If only.
If only I could stop acting like a fool! Lata said to herself. Malati always insisted that it was boys who behaved like morons when they were in love, sighing in their hostel rooms and wallowing in the Shelley-like treacle of ghazals. It was going to be a week before she met Kabir again. If she had known how to get in touch with him before then, she would have been even more torn with indecision.
She thought of yesterday’s laughter outside Mr Nowrojee’s house and angry tears came to her eyes again. She went to Pran’s bookshelf and picked up the first P.G. Wodehouse she saw: Pigs Have Wings. Malati, though flippant, both meant and prescribed well.