by Vikram Seth
Varun’s hair was wild, his face red; the racing form in his hands was crushed; his shirt was wet with rain and sweat. Jason and Sajid were flanking him. They had just received their winnings and were jumping up and down.
Miraculously, however, Sajid’s cigarette had not been dislodged, and was hanging down from his lip as supportlessly as ever.
‘Heh, heh,’ laughed Varun nervously, looking this way and that.
‘How delightful to meet you again,’ said Patricia Cox with unmistakable pleasure.
‘Erh, eh, heh, heh,’ said Varun. ‘Hum. Er.’ He couldn’t remember her name. Box? He looked undecided.
‘Patricia Cox,’ said Patricia Cox helpfully. ‘We met that evening at your house after dinner. But I suppose you’ve forgotten.’
‘No, er, no, heh, heh!’ laughed Varun weakly, looking for escape.
‘And I suppose these are your Shamshu friends,’ she continued with approval.
Jason and Sajid, who had been looking on astonished, now gaped at Patricia Cox, then turned questioningly and a little threateningly towards Varun.
‘Heh, heh,’ bleated Varun pathetically.
‘Do you have any recommendations for the next race?’ asked Patricia Cox. ‘Your brother’s here as our guest. Would you like to—’
‘No—no—I have to go—’ Varun found his voice at last, and almost fled from the hall without even laying a bet on the next race.
When Patricia Cox returned to the members’ enclosure she said brightly to Arun: ‘You didn’t tell me your brother would be here. We didn’t know he was keen on the races. We would have invited him too.’
Arun stiffened. ‘Here? Oh yes, here. Yes, sometimes. Of course. Rain’s let up.’
‘I’m afraid he doesn’t like me much,’ continued Patricia Cox sadly.
‘He’s probably afraid of you,’ said Meenakshi perceptively.
‘Of me?’ Patricia Cox found this difficult to believe.
During the next race, Arun found it impossible to concentrate on the track. While everyone else around him was (with some restraint) cheering on the horses, his eyes, as if of their own accord, strayed downwards. Beyond the path from the paddock to the track was the exclusive (and exclusively European) Tollygunge Club where, now that the rain had stopped, a few members were having tea on the lawn and watching the races at leisure. And here, where Arun was sitting as a guest of the Coxes, was the balancing social pinnacle of the members’ enclosure.
But in between the two, in the two-rupee enclosure, stood Arun’s brother, sandwiched between his two disreputable companions, and so caught up in the excitement of the next race that he had forgotten his traumatic meeting of a few minutes ago and was jumping up and down, red in the face and screaming words that were unintelligible from this distance but were almost certainly the name of the horse on which he had laid, if not his bet, his heart. He looked almost, but not quite, unrecognizable.
Arun’s nostrils quivered slightly and after a few seconds he looked away. He told himself that he had better start being his brother’s keeper—for that beast, once out of its cage, could do no end of damage to the equilibrium of the universe.
7.26
Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata were continuing their conversation. From Varun and the IAS they had moved on to Savita and the baby. Though not yet a reality, in Mrs Rupa Mehra’s mind the baby was already a professor or a judge. Needless to say, it was a boy.
‘I have had no news from my daughter for a week. I am very upset with her,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. When she was with Lata, Mrs Rupa Mehra referred to Savita as ‘my daughter’, and vice versa.
‘She’s fine, Ma,’ said Lata reassuringly. ‘Or you would certainly have heard.’
‘And to be expecting in this heat!’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, implying that Savita should have timed it better. ‘You were also born in the monsoon,’ she told Lata. ‘You were a very difficult birth,’ she added, and her eyes glistened with emotion.
Lata had heard about her own difficult birth a hundred times before. Sometimes when her mother was angry with her she flung this fact at her accusingly. At other times, when she was feeling especially fond of her, she mentioned it as a reminder of how precious to her Lata had always been. Lata had also heard a number of times about the tenacious grip she had as a baby.
‘And poor Pran. I hear it has not yet rained in Brahmpur,’ continued Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘It has, Ma, a little.’
‘Not proper rain—just a droplet or two here and there. It is still so dusty, and terrible for his asthma.’
Lata said: ‘Ma, you shouldn’t worry about him. Savita keeps a careful eye on him, and so does his mother.’ She knew, however, that it was no use. Mrs Rupa Mehra thrived on worrying. One of the marvellous by-products of Savita’s marriage was a whole new family to worry about.
‘But his mother herself is not well,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra triumphantly. ‘And, talking of which, I have been feeling like visiting my homoeopath.’
If Arun had been present, he would have told his mother that all homoeopaths were charlatans. Lata merely said:
‘But do those little white pills do you any good, Ma? I think it’s all faith healing.’
‘What is wrong with faith?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘In your generation no one believes in anything.’
Lata did not defend her generation.
‘Except in having a good time and staying out till four in the morning,’ added Mrs Rupa Mehra.
Lata, to her own surprise, laughed.
‘What is it?’ her mother demanded. ‘Why are you laughing? You weren’t laughing two days ago.’
‘Nothing, Ma, I was just laughing, that’s all. Can’t I laugh once in a while?’ She had stopped laughing, though, having suddenly thought of Kabir.
Mrs Rupa Mehra ignored the general point, and homed in on the particular.
‘But you were laughing for some reason. There must be a reason. You can tell your mother.’
‘Ma, I’m not a baby, I’m allowed to have my own thoughts.’
‘For me, you will always be my baby.’
‘Even when I’m sixty?’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked at her daughter in surprise. Although she had just visualized Savita’s unborn child as a judge, she had never visualized Lata as a woman of sixty. She attempted to now, but the thought was too daunting. Luckily, another intervened.
‘God will have taken me away long before then,’ she sighed. ‘And it is only when I am dead and gone and you see my empty chair that you will appreciate me. Now you are hiding everything from me, as if you don’t trust me.’
Lata reflected, painfully, that she did not in fact trust her mother to understand much of what she felt. She thought of Kabir’s letter, which she had transferred from the book on Egyptian mythology to a writing pad at the bottom of her suitcase. Where had he got her address from? How often did he think of her? She thought again of the flippant tone of his letter and felt a rush of anger.
Perhaps it wasn’t really flippant, though, she said to herself. And perhaps he had been right in suggesting that she hadn’t given him much of a chance to explain himself. She thought of their last meeting—it seemed very long ago—and of her own behaviour: it had bordered on the hysterical. But for her it had been her whole life and for him probably no more than a pleasant early-morning outing. He clearly had not expected the intensity of her outburst. Perhaps, Lata admitted, perhaps he could not have been expected to expect it.
As it was, her heart ached for him. It was him and not her brother whom she had, in her imagination, been dancing with last night. And she had dreamed about him in her sleep this morning, strangely enough reciting his letter to her in a declamation contest for which she was one of the judges.
‘So why were you laughing?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
Lata said: ‘I was thinking about Bishwanath Bhaduri and his ridiculous comments last night at Firpo’s.’
‘But he is covenanted,’ her mother pointed out.
&nbs
p; ‘He told me I was more beautiful than Savita, and that my hair was like a river.’
‘You are quite pretty when you put your mind to it, darling,’ said her mother reassuringly. ‘But your hair was in a bun, wasn’t it?’
Lata nodded and yawned. It was past noon. Except when studying for her exams, she rarely felt so sleepy so late in the day. Meenakshi was the one who usually yawned—yawned with decided elegance whenever it suited the occasion.
‘Where’s Varun?’ Lata asked. ‘I was supposed to look through the Gazette with him—it’s got details about the IAS exams. Do you think he’s gone to the races too?’
‘You are always saying things to upset me, Lata,’ exclaimed Mrs Rupa Mehra with sudden indignation. ‘I have so many troubles, and then you say things like this. Races. No one cares about my troubles, they are always thinking about their own.’
‘What troubles, Ma?’ said Lata unsympathetically. ‘You are well taken care of, and everyone who knows you loves you.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked at Lata sternly. Savita would never have asked such a brutal question. In fact, it was more in the nature of a comment or even judgement than a question. Sometimes, she said to herself, I don’t understand Lata at all.
‘I have plenty of troubles,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in a decided manner. ‘You know them as well as I do. Look at Meenakshi and how she handles the child. And Varun and his studies—what will happen to him—smoking and drinking and gambling and all that? And you don’t get married—isn’t that a trouble? And Savita, expecting. And Pran with his illness. And Pran’s brother: doing all those things and people talking about it all over Brahmpur. And Meenakshi’s sister—people are talking about her also. Do you think I don’t have to listen to these things from people? Just yesterday Purobi Ray was gossiping about Kuku. So these are my troubles, and now you’ve upset me even more. And I am a widow with diabetes,’ she added, almost as an afterthought. ‘Isn’t that a trouble?’
Lata admitted that the last would count as a true trouble.
‘And Arun shouts, which is very bad for my blood pressure. And today Hanif has taken a day off so I am expected to do everything myself, even make tea.’
‘I’ll make it for you, Ma,’ said Lata. ‘Would you like some now?’
‘No, darling, you’re yawning, you go and rest,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, suddenly accommodating. By offering to make tea, Lata had as good as made it for her.
‘I don’t want to rest, Ma,’ said Lata.
‘Then why are you yawning, darling?’
‘Probably because I’ve slept too much. Would you like some tea?’
‘Not if it’s too much trouble.’
Lata went to the kitchen. She had been brought up by her mother ‘not to give trouble but to take trouble’. After her father’s death, they had lived for a number of years in the house—and therefore in a sense on the charity, however graciously bestowed—of friends, so it was natural that Mrs Rupa Mehra should have been concerned about giving trouble either directly or because of her children. A great deal in the personality of all four children could be traced to these years. The sense of uncertainty and the consciousness of obligation to others outside the family had had its effect on them. Savita had been affected least of all, it seemed; but then with Savita one sometimes got the impression that her kindness and gentleness had come to her as a baby, and that no circumstances of mere environment could have greatly altered them.
‘Was Savita sunny even as a baby?’ asked Lata a few minutes later when she returned with the tea. Lata knew the answer to her question not only because it was part of Mehra folklore but because there were plenty of photographs to attest to Savita’s sunniness: baby pictures of her wolfing down quarter-boiled eggs with a beatific grin, or smiling in her infant sleep. But she asked it anyway, perhaps in order to put her mother in a better mood.
‘Yes, very sunny,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘But, darling, you have forgotten my saccharine.’
7.27
A little later Amit and Dipankar dropped by in the Chatterji car, a large white Humber. They could tell that Lata and her mother were slightly surprised to see them.
‘Where’s Meenakshi?’ asked Dipankar, looking around slowly. ‘Nice spider lilies outside.’
‘She’s gone with Arun to the races,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘They are determined to catch pneumonia. We were just having a cup of tea. Lata will make another pot.’
‘No, really, it isn’t necessary,’ said Amit.
‘That’s all right,’ said Lata with a smile. ‘The water’s hot.’
‘How like Meenakshi,’ said Amit, a bit irked and a bit amused. ‘And she said it would be fine to drop by this afternoon. I suppose we’d better be going. Dipankar has some work in the library of the Asiatic Society.’
‘You can’t do that,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra hospitably. ‘Not without having tea.’
‘But didn’t she even tell you we’d be coming?’
‘No one ever tells me anything,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra automatically.
‘Setting off without a brolly,
Meenee-haha goes to Tolly,’
remarked Amit.
Mrs Rupa Mehra frowned. She always found it difficult to hold a coherent conversation with any of the younger Chatterjis.
Dipankar, having looked around once more, asked: ‘Where’s Varun?’
He liked talking to Varun. Even when Varun was bored, he was too nervous to object, and Dipankar construed his silence as interest. Certainly he was a better listener than anyone in Dipankar’s own family, who became impatient when he talked about the Skein of Nothingness or the Cessation of Desire. When he had talked about the latter subject at the breakfast table, Kakoli had listed his girlfriends seriatim and stated that she saw no marked Deceleration, let alone Cessation, in his own life so far. Kuku did not see things in the abstract, thought Dipankar. She was still trapped on the plane of contingent actuality.
‘Varun’s gone out too,’ said Lata, returning with the tea. ‘Should I tell him to phone you when he returns?’
‘If we are to meet, we will meet,’ said Dipankar thoughtfully. He then walked into the garden, though it was still drizzling and his shoes would get muddy.
Meenakshi’s brothers! thought Mrs Rupa Mehra.
Since Amit was sitting in silence, and Mrs Rupa Mehra abhorred silence, she asked after Tapan.
‘Oh, he’s very well,’ said Amit. ‘We’ve just dropped him and Cuddles at a friend’s place. They have a lot of dogs, and Cuddles, oddly enough, gets along with them.’
‘Oddly enough’ was right, thought Mrs Rupa Mehra. Cuddles had flown through the air on their first meeting and tried to bite her. Luckily, he had been tied to the leg of the piano, and had remained just out of range. Meanwhile Kakoli had continued to play her Chopin without missing a beat. ‘Don’t mind him,’ she had said, ‘he means well.’ Truly a mad family, reflected Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘And dear Kakoli?’ she asked.
‘She’s singing Schubert with Hans. Or rather, she’s playing, he’s singing.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked stern. This must be the boy whom Purobi Ray had mentioned in connection with Kakoli. Most unsuitable.
‘At home, of course,’ she said.
‘No, at Hans’s place. He came to fetch her. A good thing too, otherwise Kuku would have beaten us to the car.’
‘Who is with them?’ asked Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘The spirit of Schubert,’ replied Amit casually.
‘For Kuku’s sake you must be careful,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, startled as much by his tone as by what he had said. She simply could not understand the Chatterjis’ attitude to the risks their sister was running. ‘Why can’t they sing in Ballygunge?’
‘Well, for a start, there’s often a conflict between the harmonium and the piano. And I can’t write in that din.’
‘My husband wrote his railway inspection reports with four children shouting all around him,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘Ma, that’s n
ot the same thing at all,’ said Lata. ‘Amit’s a poet. Poetry’s different.’
Amit shot her a grateful glance, even though he wondered whether the novel he was engaged on—or even poetry—was different from inspection reports to quite the extent that she imagined.
Dipankar came in from the garden, fairly wet. He did, however, wipe his feet on the mat before he entered. He was reciting, indeed, chanting, a passage from Sri Aurobindo’s mystic poem ‘Savitri’:
‘Calm heavens of imperishable Light,
Illumined continents of violet peace,
Oceans and rivers of the mirth of God
And griefless countries under purple suns. . . .’
He turned towards them. ‘Oh, the tea,’ he said, and fell to wondering how much sugar he ought to have.
Amit turned to Lata. ‘Did you understand that?’ he asked.
Dipankar fixed a look of gentle condescension upon his elder brother. ‘Amit Da is a cynic,’ he said, ‘and believes in Life and Matter. But what about the psychical entity behind the vital and physical mentality?’
‘What about it?’ said Amit.
‘You mean you don’t believe in the Supramental?’ asked Dipankar, beginning to blink. It was as if Amit had questioned the existence of Saturday—which, as a matter of fact, he was capable of doing.
‘I don’t know if I believe in it or not,’ said Amit. ‘I don’t know what it is. But it’s all right—no, don’t—don’t tell me.’
‘It’s the plane on which the Divine meets the individual soul and transforms the individual to a “gnostic being”,’ explained Dipankar with mild disdain.
‘How interesting,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, who from time to time wondered about the Divine. She began to feel quite positive about Dipankar. Of all the Chatterji children he appeared to be the most serious-minded. He blinked a lot, which was disconcerting, but Mrs Rupa Mehra was willing to make allowances.
‘Yes,’ said Dipankar, stirring a third spoon of sugar into his tea. ‘It is below Brahma and sat-chit-ananda, but acts like a conduit or conductor.’