A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

  The maidservant turned to leave.

  ‘Oh, yes, and get me a little sugar, and see if the daal that you soaked earlier is soft yet. It probably isn’t.’

  Saeeda Bai continued to talk to the parakeet, who was sitting on a little nest of clean rags in the middle of the brass cage that had once held Mohsina Bai’s myna.

  ‘Now, Miya Mitthu,’ said Saeeda Bai rather sadly to the parakeet, ‘you had better learn good and auspicious things at an early age, or you’ll be ruined for life, like that foul-mouthed myna. As they say, if you don’t learn your alif-be-pe-te clearly, you’ll never amount to a calligrapher. What do you have to say for yourself? Do you want to learn?’

  The small, unfeathered ball of flesh was in no position to answer, and didn’t.

  ‘Now look at me,’ said Saeeda Bai. ‘I still feel young, though I admit I am naturally not as young as you. I am waiting to spend the evening with this disgustingly ugly man who is fifty-five years old, who picks his nose and belches, and who is going to be drunk even before he gets here. Then he’ll want me to sing romantic songs to him. Everyone feels that I am the epitome of romance, Miya Mitthu, but what about my feelings? How can I feel anything for these ancient animals, whose skin hangs from their jaws—like that of the old cattle straying around Chowk?’

  The parakeet opened his mouth.

  ‘Miya Mitthu,’ said Saeeda Bai.

  The parakeet rocked a little from side to side. His big head looked unsteady.

  ‘Miya Mitthu,’ repeated Saeeda Bai, trying to imprint the syllables on his mind.

  The parakeet closed his mouth.

  ‘What I really want tonight is not to entertain but to be entertained. By someone young and handsome,’ she added.

  Saeeda Bai smiled at the thought of Maan.

  ‘What do you think of him, Miya Mitthu?’ continued Saeeda Bai. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you haven’t yet met Dagh Sahib, you have just brought your presence here today. And you must be hungry, that’s why you are refusing to talk to me—you can’t sing bhajans on an empty stomach. I’m sorry the service is so slow in this establishment, but Bibbo is a very scatterbrained girl.’

  But soon Bibbo came in and the parakeet was fed.

  The old cook had decided that a little daal should be boiled and then cooled, rather than merely soaked, for the bird. Now she too came to look at him.

  Ishaq Khan came in with his sarangi, looking a little shamefaced.

  Motu Chand came in and admired the parakeet.

  Tasneem put down the novel she was reading, and came in to say ‘Miya Mitthu’ and ‘Mitthu Miya’ several times to the parakeet, delighting Ishaq with each iteration. At least she loved his bird.

  And in due course the Raja of Marh was announced.

  2.18

  His Highness the Raja of Marh was less drunk on arrival than he usually was, but rapidly remedied the situation. He had brought along a bottle of Black Dog, his favourite whisky. This immediately reminded Saeeda Bai of one of his more unpleasant characteristics, the fact that he would get incredibly excited when he saw dogs copulating. In Marh, when Saeeda Bai had visited, he had twice got dogs to mount a bitch in heat. This was the prelude to his flinging his own gross body on Saeeda Bai.

  This took place a couple of years before Independence; despite Saeeda Bai’s revulsion she had not been able immediately to escape from Marh, where the crass Raja, restrained only by a succession of disgusted but tactful British Residents, held ultimate sway. Afterwards, she was too frightened of the sluggish and brutal man and his hired ruffians to cut off relations completely with him. She could only hope that his visits to Brahmpur would become less frequent with time.

  The Raja had degenerated from his student days in Brahmpur, when he had given the impression of being tolerably presentable. His son, who had been protected from his father’s way of life by the Rani and Dowager Rani, was now himself a student at Brahmpur University; no doubt he too, upon returning to feudal Marh as an adult, would shake off the maternal influence and grow to be as tamasic as his father: ignorant, brutal, slothful, and rank.

  The father ignored the son during his stay in town and visited a series of courtesans and prostitutes. Today, once again, it was Saeeda Bai’s turn. He arrived adorned with diamond ear-tops and a ruby in his silk turban, and smelling strongly of attar of musk. He placed a small silken pouch containing five hundred rupees on a table near the door of the upstairs room where Saeeda Bai entertained. The Raja then stretched out against a long white bolster on the white-sheeted floor, and looked around for glasses. They were lying on the low table where the tablas and harmonium stood. The Black Dog was opened and the whisky poured into two glasses. The musicians remained downstairs.

  ‘How long it has been since these eyes last saw you—’ said Saeeda Bai, sipping her whisky and restraining a grimace at its strong taste.

  The Raja was too involved with his drink to think of answering.

  ‘You have become as difficult to sight as the moon at Id.’

  The Raja grunted at the pleasantry. After he had downed a few whiskies, he became more affable, and told her how beautiful she was looking—before pushing her thickly towards the door that led into the bedroom.

  After half an hour, they came out, and the musicians were summoned. Saeeda Bai was looking slightly sick.

  He made her sing the same set of ghazals he always did; she sang them with the same break in her voice at the same heartrending phrases—something she had learned to do without difficulty. She nursed her glass of whisky. The Raja had finished a third of his bottle by now, and his eyes were becoming red. From time to time he shouted, ‘wah! wah!’ in indiscriminate praise, or belched or snorted or gaped or scratched his crotch.

  2.19

  While the ghazals were proceeding upstairs, Maan was walking towards the house. From the street he could not make out the sound of singing. He told the watchman he was there to see Saeeda Bai, but the stolid man told him that she was indisposed.

  ‘Oh,’ said Maan, his voice filled with concern. ‘Let me go in—I’ll see how she is—perhaps I can fetch a doctor.’

  ‘Begum Sahiba is not admitting anyone today.’

  ‘But I have something for her with me here,’ said Maan. He had a large book in his left hand. He reached into his pocket with his right and extracted his wallet. ‘Would you see she gets it?’

  ‘Yes, Huzoor,’ said the watchman, accepting a five-rupee note.

  ‘Well, then—’ said Maan and, with a disappointed look at the rose-coloured house beyond the small green gate, walked slowly away.

  The watchman carried the book a couple of minutes later to the front door and gave it to Bibbo.

  ‘What—for me?’ said Bibbo flirtatiously.

  The watchman looked at her with such a lack of expression it was almost an expression in itself.

  ‘No. And tell Begum Sahiba it was from that young man who came the other day.’

  ‘The one who got you into such trouble with Begum Sahiba?’

  ‘I was not in trouble.’

  And the watchman walked back to the gate.

  Bibbo giggled and closed the door. She looked at the book for a few minutes. It was very handsome and—apart from print—contained pictures of languid men and women in various romantic settings. One particular picture took her fancy. A woman in a black robe was kneeling by a grave. Her eyes were closed. There were stars in the sky behind a high wall in the background. In the foreground was a short, gnarled, leafless tree, its roots entwined among large stones. Bibbo stood wondering for a few moments. Then, without thinking about the Raja of Marh, she closed the book to take it up to Saeeda Bai.

  Like a spark on a slow fuse, the book now moved from the gate to the front door, across the hall, up the stairs and along the gallery to the open doorway of the room where Saeeda Bai was entertaining the Raja. When she saw him, Bibbo stopped abruptly and tried to retreat along the gallery. But Saeeda Bai had spotted her. She broke off the ghazal she was singing.
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  ‘Bibbo, what’s the matter? Come in.’

  ‘Nothing, Saeeda Begum. I’ll come back later.’

  ‘What’s the matter with the girl? First she interrupts, then it’s “Nothing, Saeeda Begum, I’ll come back later!” What’s that in your hands?’

  ‘Nothing, Begum Sahiba.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at that nothing,’ said Saeeda Bai.

  Bibbo entered with a frightened salaam, and handed the book to her. On the brown cover in gold letters it said in Urdu: The Poetical Works of Ghalib. An Album of Pictures by Chughtai.

  It was clearly no ordinary collected poems of Ghalib. Saeeda Bai could not resist opening it. She turned the pages. The book contained a few words of introduction and an essay by the artist Chughtai, the entire collected Urdu poems of the great Ghalib, a group of plates of the most beautiful paintings in the Persian style (each illustrating a line or two of Ghalib’s poetry), and some text in English. This English text was probably a foreword when seen from the other side, thought Saeeda Bai, who was still amused by the fact that books in English opened at the wrong end.

  So delighted was she by the gift that she placed it on the harmonium and began to leaf through the illustrations. ‘Who sent it?’ she asked, when she noticed that there was no inscription. In her pleasure she had forgotten the presence of the Raja, who was simmering with anger and jealousy.

  Bibbo, with a quick glance around the room for inspiration, said, ‘It came with the watchman.’

  She had sensed the Raja’s dangerous rage, and did not wish her mistress to display the involuntary joy she might if her admirer’s name were mentioned directly. Besides, the Raja would not be tenderly disposed towards the sender of the book; and Bibbo, though mischievous, did not wish Maan ill. Far from it, in fact.

  Meanwhile, Saeeda Bai, her head down, was looking at a picture of an old woman, a young woman and a boy praying before a window towards a new moon at sunset. ‘Yes, yes—’ she said ‘—but who sent it?’ She looked up and frowned.

  Bibbo, now under duress, tried to name Maan as elliptically as possible. Hoping that the Raja would not notice, she pointed to a spot on the white-sheeted floor where he had spilt some of his whisky. Aloud she said, ‘I don’t know. No name was left. May I go?’

  ‘Yes, yes—what a fool—’ said her mistress, impatient with Bibbo’s enigmatic behaviour.

  But the Raja of Marh had had enough of this insolent interruption. With an ugly snort he moved forward to snatch the book from Saeeda Bai’s hands. If she had not moved it swiftly away at the last moment he would have ripped it from her grasp.

  Now, breathing heavily, he said: ‘Who is he? How much is his life worth? What is his name? Is this exhibition to be part of my entertainment?’

  ‘No—no—’ said Saeeda Bai, ‘please forgive the silly girl. It is impossible to teach etiquette and discrimination to these unsophisticated things.’ Then, to mollify him, she added: ‘But look at this picture—how lovely it is—their hands raised in prayer—the sunset, the white dome and minaret of the mosque—’

  It was the wrong word to use. With a guttural grunt of rage, the Raja of Marh ripped out the page she was showing him. Saeeda Bai stared at him, petrified.

  ‘Play!’ he roared at Motu and Ishaq. And to Saeeda Bai he said, moving his face forward in threat: ‘Sing! Finish the ghazal—No! begin it again. Remember who has reserved you for the evening.’

  Saeeda Bai replaced the ragged page in the book, closed it, and set it by the harmonium. Then, closing her eyes, she began again to sing the words of love. Her voice was trembling and there was no life to the lines. Indeed, she was not even thinking of them. Beneath her tears she was in a white rage. If she had had the freedom to, she would have lashed out against the Raja—flung her whisky at his bulging red eyes, slashed his face, thrown him out on to the street. But she knew that, for all her worldly wisdom, she was utterly powerless. To avoid these thoughts her mind strayed to Bibbo’s gestures.

  Whisky? Liquor? Floor? Sheet? she wondered to herself.

  Then suddenly she realized what Bibbo had tried to say to her. It was the word for stain—‘dagh’.

  With a song now in her heart, not only on her lips, Saeeda Bai opened her eyes and smiled, looking at the whisky stain. As of a black dog pissing! she thought. I must give that quick-thinking girl a gift.

  She thought of Maan, one man—the only man, in fact—whom she both liked and felt she could have almost complete control over. Perhaps she had not treated him well enough—perhaps she had been too cavalier with his infatuation.

  The ghazal she was singing bloomed into life. Ishaq Khan was startled and could not understand it. Even Motu Chand was puzzled.

  It certainly also had charms to soothe the savage breast. The Raja of Marh’s head sank gently on to his chest, and in a while he began snoring.

  2.20

  The next evening, when Maan asked the watchman about Saeeda Bai’s health, he was told that she had left instructions that he was to be sent up. This was wonderful, considering that he had neither left word nor sent a note to say that he would be coming.

  As he walked up the stairs at the end of the hall he paused to admire himself in the mirror, and greeted himself with a sotto voce ‘Adaab arz, Dagh Sahib’, raising his cupped hand to his forehead in happy salutation. He was dressed as smartly as ever in a starched and immaculate kurta-pyjama; he wore the same white cap that had drawn a comment from Saeeda Bai.

  When he got to the upstairs gallery that fringed the hall below, he stopped. There was no sound of music or talk. Saeeda Bai would probably be alone. He was filled with a pleased expectation; his heart began beating hard.

  She must have heard his footsteps: she had put down the slim novel she had been reading—at least it appeared to be a novel from the illustration on the cover—and had stood up to greet him.

  As he entered the doorway she said, ‘Dagh Sahib, Dagh Sahib, you did not need to do that.’

  Maan looked at her—she appeared a little tired. She was wearing the same red silk sari that she had worn in Prem Nivas. He smiled and said: ‘Every object strives for its proper place. A book seeks to be near its truest admirer. Just as this helpless moth seeks to be near the candle that infatuates him.’

  ‘But, Maan Sahib, books are chosen with care and treated with love,’ said Saeeda Bai, addressing him tenderly by his own name for—was it?—the first time, and entirely disregarding his conventionally gallant remark. ‘You must have had this book in your library for many years. You should not have parted with it.’

  Maan had in fact had the book on his bookshelf, but in Banaras. He had remembered it for some reason, had thought immediately of Saeeda Bai, and after some search had obtained a perfect second-hand copy from a bookseller in Chowk. But in the pleasure of hearing himself so gently addressed, all he now said was, ‘The Urdu, even of those poems that I know by heart, is wasted on me. I cannot read the script. Did you like it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Saeeda Bai very quietly. ‘Everyone gives me jewels and other glittering things, but nothing has caught my eyes or my heart like your gift. But why are we standing? Please sit down.’

  Maan sat down. There was the same slight fragrance that he had noticed before in this room. But today attar of roses was slightly interfused with attar of musk, a combination which made the robust Maan almost weak with longing.

  ‘Will you have some whisky, Dagh Sahib?’ asked Saeeda Bai. ‘I am sorry that this is the only kind we have got,’ she added, indicating the half-empty bottle of Black Dog.

  ‘But this is excellent whisky, Saeeda Begum,’ said Maan.

  ‘We’ve had it for some time,’ she said, handing him the glass.

  Maan sat silent for a while, leaning against a long cylindrical bolster and sipping his Scotch. Then he said, ‘I’ve often wondered about the couplets that inspired Chughtai’s paintings, but have never got around to asking someone who knows Urdu to read them to me. For instance, there is one picture that has always i
ntrigued me. I can describe it even without opening the book. It shows a watery landscape in orange and brown, with a tree, a withered tree, rising out from the water. And somewhere in the middle of the water floats a lotus on which a small, smoky oil lamp is resting. Do you know the one I’m talking about? I think it’s somewhere at the beginning of the book. On the page of tissue that covers it is the single word “Life!” That’s all there is in English, and it is very mysterious—because there is a whole couplet underneath in Urdu. Perhaps you could tell me how it reads?’

  Saeeda Bai fetched the book. She sat down on Maan’s left, and as he turned the pages of his magnificent gift, she prayed that he would not come upon the torn page that she had carefully patched together. The English titles were oddly succinct. After flipping past ‘Around the Beloved’, ‘The Brimming Cup’, and ‘The Wasted Vigil’, Maan came to ‘Life!’

  ‘This is the one,’ he said, as they re-examined the mysterious painting. ‘Ghalib has plenty of couplets dealing with lamps. I wonder which one this is.’

  Saeeda Bai turned back to the covering sheet of tissue, and as she did their hands touched for a moment. With a slight intake of breath, Saeeda Bai looked down at the Urdu couplet, then read it out:

  ‘The horse of time is galloping fast: let us see where he halts.

  Neither is the hand on the reins nor the foot in the stirrup.’

  Maan burst out laughing. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that should teach me how dangerous it is to come to conclusions based on shaky assumptions.’

  They went through a couple of other couplets, and then Saeeda Bai said: ‘When I looked through the poems this morning, I wondered what the few pages in English at the end of the book were all about.’

  The beginning of the book from my point of view, thought Maan, still smiling. Aloud, he said: ‘I suppose it’s a translation of the Urdu pages at the other end—but why don’t we make sure?’