A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

  Most tazia processions were much less decorous than the one that represented the Nawab Sahib’s family: their grief was loud, their drumbeats deafening, their self-flagellations bloody. Nor did they prize decorum above sincerity. The fervour of their feelings was what carried them onwards. Unshod, naked above the waist, their backs a mess of blood from the chains with which they lashed themselves, the men accompanying the tazias panted and moaned as they took the name of Imam Hussain and his brother Hassan repeatedly, rhythmically, in plaintive or agonized lament. Some of the processions that were known to be the most fervent were accompanied by as many as a dozen policemen.

  The routes of the tazia processions had been charted out with great care by the organizers and the police together. Hindu areas were to be avoided as far as possible, and in particular the area of the contested temple; low-lying branches of pipal trees were measured in advance against the heights of tazias, so that neither would be damaged; the processionists were enjoined from cursing the caliphs; and timings were matched so that by nightfall all the processions throughout the city would have arrived at the central destination.

  Maan met Firoz, as agreed, a little before sunset near the statue of the horse by the Imambara.

  ‘Ah, so you’ve come, you kafir.’ Firoz was looking very handsome in his white sherwani.

  ‘But only to do what all kafirs do,’ replied Maan.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Why don’t you have your Nawabi walking stick with you?’ asked Maan, who had been looking Firoz up and down.

  ‘It wouldn’t have been appropriate for the procession,’ replied Firoz. ‘I’d have been expected to beat myself with it, no doubt. But you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Oh—what was that?’

  ‘What is it that all kafirs do?’

  ‘Is that a riddle?’ asked Maan.

  ‘It is not,’ said Firoz. ‘You just said that you’d come to do what all kafirs do. And I’m asking you what that is.’

  ‘Oh, to prostrate myself before my idol. You said she’d be here.’

  ‘Well, there she is,’ said Firoz, jerking his head lightly in the direction of the nearby crossroads. ‘I’m pretty sure.’

  A woman dressed in a black burqa was standing at a booth, distributing sherbet to those who passed by in the tazia processions or who milled about the temporary market. They drank, they handed the glasses back, and these were dumped into a bucket of water by another woman in a brown burqa and given a cursory wash before being reused. The stand was very popular, probably because it was known who the lady in black was.

  ‘Quenching the thirst of Karbala,’ added Firoz.

  ‘Come,’ said Maan.

  ‘No, no, you go along. That other one’s Bibbo, by the way, the one in the brown burqa. Not Tasneem.’

  ‘Come with me, Firoz. Please. I really have no business to be here. I’ll feel very awkward.’

  ‘Nothing like as awkward as I felt when I went to her gathering last night. No, I’m going to see the tazias lined up. Most of them have arrived already, and each year there’s something astonishing to see. Last year there was one in the shape of a double-storeyed peacock with a woman’s head—and only half a dome to tell you it was meant to be a tomb. We’re becoming Hinduized.’

  ‘Well, if I come with you to see the tazias, will you accompany me to the sherbet-stand?’

  ‘Oh—all right.’

  Maan quickly got bored with the tazias, remarkable though they were. Everyone around him appeared to be engaged in heated discussion about which one was the most elegant, the most elaborate, the most expensive. ‘I recognize that one,’ said Maan with a smile; he had seen it in the Imambara at Baitar House.

  ‘Well, we’ll probably use it for another fifty years,’ said Firoz. ‘I doubt we’ll be able to afford to make anything like that again.’

  ‘Come, now, keep your part of the bargain.’

  ‘All right.’

  Firoz and Maan walked over to the sherbet-stand.

  ‘It’s too unhygienic for words, Maan—you can’t drink from those glasses.’

  But Maan had gone forward, pushed his way through the crowd and now held his hand out for a glass of sherbet. The woman in black handed it to him, but at the last moment, as her eyes suddenly registered who he was, she was so startled that she spilled the sherbet over his hands.

  She took her breath in sharply and said, ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ in a low voice. ‘Let me pour you another glass.’

  There was no mistaking her voice. ‘No, no, Madam,’ protested Maan. ‘Please do not trouble yourself. What is left in this glass will more than quench my thirst, however terrible.’

  The woman in the brown burqa turned towards him upon hearing his voice. Then the two women turned towards each other. Maan sensed their tension, and he allowed himself a smile.

  Bibbo may not have been surprised to see Maan, but Saeeda Bai was both surprised and displeased. As Maan had expected, she thought he had no business to be there; certainly he could not pretend to any lavish fondness for the Shia martyrs. But his smile only succeeded in making her angrier. She contrasted the flippancy of Maan’s remark with the terrible thirst of the heroes of Karbala—their tents burning behind them, the river cut off in front of them—and, making no attempt this time to disguise her voice or her indignation, she said to Maan: ‘I am running short of supplies. There is a booth half a mile farther on where I would advise you to go when you have finished this glass. It is run by a lady of great piety; the sherbet is sweeter, and you will find the crowd less oppressive.’

  And before Maan could respond with an appropriate conciliatory couplet, she had turned to the other thirsty men.

  ‘Well?’ said Firoz.

  Maan scratched his head. ‘No, she wasn’t pleased.’

  ‘Well, don’t fret; it doesn’t suit you. Let’s see what the market has to offer.’

  Maan looked at his watch. ‘No, I can’t. I have to go to watch the Bharat Milaap, or I’ll lose my standing in the eyes of my nephew. Why don’t you come along as well? It’s very affecting. Everyone lines the lanes, cheering and weeping and showering flowers on the procession. Rama and company from the left, Bharat and company from the right. And the two brothers embrace in the middle—just outside the city of Ayodhya.’

  ‘Well, I suppose there are enough people to manage without me here,’ said Firoz. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Misri Mandi—that’s where Ayodhya’s located this year. Only a ten-minute walk from here—very close to Veena’s house. She’ll be pleasantly surprised to see you.’

  Firoz laughed. ‘That’s what you thought Saeeda Bai would be,’ he said, as they wandered hand in hand through the bazaar in the direction of Misri Mandi.

  15.10

  The Bharat Milaap processions began on time. Since Bharat had merely to go to the outskirts of his city to meet his brother, he bided his time until the pandit gave him the signal; but Rama had a long journey to make to the holy capital of Ayodhya—to which he was returning in triumph after many years of exile—and just as it became dark he set out on this journey from a temple situated a good half-mile away from the stage where the brothers were at last to be united.

  This stage had been festooned with strings of flowers suspended from the bamboo poles that rose from its four corners; it had been put together by almost the whole neighbourhood with much advice and many marigolds; and several cows that had attempted to eat the marigolds had been shooed off by the monkey army. The cows were normally welcome enough in the neighbourhood—their movements at least were unobstructed—and the poor trusting things must have wondered what had created such a sudden change in their popularity.

  Today was a day of pure joy and celebration; for not only were Rama and Lakshman to be reunited with their brothers Bharat and Shatrughan, but it was the day when the people would see their Lord return to them, to rule over them and establish perfect righteousness not only in Ayodhya but in the entire world.

  The
procession began to wind its way through the narrow lanes of Misri Mandi to the sound of drums and shehnais and a raucous popular band. First came the lights, courtesy of Jawaharlal Light House, the same company that had provided the demons’ red eyes the previous evening. The brilliant lights they held above them emitted an intense white glow from what looked like bulbs covered with gauze cloth.

  Mahesh Kapoor held his hand against his eyes. He was here partly because his wife wanted him to be, partly because he was more and more coming around to the idea of rejoining the Congress Party and felt he should re-establish his links with his old constituency just in case.

  ‘This light is too bright—I’m going blind—’ he said. ‘Kedarnath, do something about it. You’re one of the organizers, aren’t you?’

  ‘Baoji, let’s just let them pass. It’ll be better later on,’ said his son-in-law, who knew that once the procession had begun, there was almost nothing he could do about it. Mrs Mahesh Kapoor had cupped her hands over her ears, but was smiling to herself.

  The brass band was deafening. After blaring out a few film songs, they switched to religious melodies. They made a striking sight in their cheap red trousers with white piping and their blue tunics with gold-coloured cotton braid. Every one of their trumpets, trombones and horns was out of tune.

  Then came the principal noisemongers, the flat drummers, who had been roasting their instruments carefully over three small fires near the temple to heighten their pitch and crispness. They played as if they had gone mad—in unbelievably swift salvos of unbearable noise. They forced themselves aggressively upon anyone whom they recognized from the Ramlila Committee in a mixture of display and blackmail, compelling them to hand over coins and notes. They thrust their pelvises forward and moved their drums back and forth at a slant from their waists. These were good days for the drummers: they were in demand both by those who celebrated Dussehra and by those who observed Moharram.

  ‘Where are they from?’ asked Mahesh Kapoor.

  ‘What?’ asked Kedarnath.

  ‘I said, where are they from?’

  ‘I can’t hear you because of these wretched drummers.’

  Mahesh Kapoor cupped his hands and shouted into his son-in-law’s ears: ‘I said, where are they from? Are they Muslim?’

  ‘They’re from the market—’ shouted Kedarnath, which was a way of admitting that they were.

  Even before the swaroops—Rama, Lakshman, and Sita—could appear in their beauty and glory, the master of fireworks—who carried a massive sack on his shoulder—brought out a huge packet, tore off the coloured paper from it, ripped open the cardboard box inside, and rolled out another great red carpet of five thousand firecrackers. As they exploded in series, people drew back from the light and noise, their faces flushed with excitement, their hands clapped over their ears or their fingers inserted into them. The noise was so overwhelming that Mahesh Kapoor decided that even his obligation to be seen in his old constituency was not worth the loss of his hearing and sanity.

  ‘Come,’ he shouted to his wife, ‘we’re going home.’

  Mrs Mahesh Kapoor could not hear a word of what he was saying, and kept smiling.

  The monkey army, Bhaskar included, was next in the procession, and a great quiver of excitement went through the spectators; the swaroops were to follow shortly. The children started clapping; the old people were the most expectant of all, remembering perhaps the scores of Ramlilas they must have seen enacted in the course of their lives. Some children sat on a low wall along the route, others skilfully scrambled up to the ledges of houses, getting a foothold here or the help of an adult shoulder there. One father, kissing his two-year-old daughter’s bare foot, pushed her up on to the flat top of a decorative pillar and held her there to help her get a better view.

  And then at last Lord Rama appeared; and Sita, in a yellow sari; and Lakshman, smiling, his quiver glistening with arrows.

  The eyes of the spectators filled with tears of joy, and they began showering flowers on the swaroops. The children clambered down from their perches and followed the procession, chanting ‘Jai Siyaram’ and ‘Ramchandra ji ki jai!’ and sprinkling rose petals and water from the Ganga on them. And the drummers beat their drums with renewed frenzy.

  Mahesh Kapoor, his face flushed with annoyance, seized his wife’s hand and pulled her to one side.

  ‘We are leaving,’ he shouted directly into her ear. ‘Can’t you hear me? I have had enough. . . . Veena, your mother and I are leaving.’

  Mrs Mahesh Kapoor looked at her husband, astonished, almost disbelieving. Tears filled her eyes when she understood what he had said, what she was to be deprived of. Once she had seen the Bharat Milaap at Nati Imli in Banaras, and she had never forgotten it. The tenderness of the occasion—with the two brothers who had remained in Ayodhya throwing themselves at the feet of their two long-exiled brothers—the throng of spectators, at least a lakh of people—the devotion in everyone’s eyes as the small figures came on to the stage—everything came back to her. Whenever she saw the Bharat Milaap here in Brahmpur she thought of that occasion in all its charm and wonder and grace. How simple it was and how wonderful. And it was not merely the tender meeting of long-separated brothers but the first act of Ram Rajya, the rule of Rama when, unlike in these factious, violent, petty times, the four pillars of religion—truth, purity, mercy, and charity—would hold up the edifice of the world.

  The words of Tulsidas, long known by heart, came back to her:

  Devoted to duty, the people walked in the path of the Vedas, each according to his own caste and stage of life, and enjoyed perfect happiness, unvexed by fear, or sorrow, or disease.

  ‘Let us at least wait till the procession has reached Ayodhya,’ Mrs Mahesh Kapoor pleaded with her husband.

  ‘Stay if you want. I’m going,’ snapped Mahesh Kapoor; and, forlornly, she followed. But she decided that tomorrow she would not persuade him to come for Rama’s coronation. She would come alone and, not subject to his whims and commands, she would see it from beginning to end. She would not be prised away yet again from a scene that her soul thirsted for.

  Meanwhile the procession wound its way through the labyrinthine alleys of Misri Mandi and the contiguous neighbourhoods. Lakshman stepped on one of the burnt-out bulbs from the Jawaharlal Light House, and yelped in pain. Since there was no water to be had immediately, Rama picked up some rose petals that had been strewn in his path and crushed them against the burn. The people sighed at this sign of brotherly solicitude, and the procession moved on. The chief of fireworks now set off a few green-flared rockets that soared into the sky before exploding in a chrysanthemum of sparks. At this, Hanuman rushed forward, waving his tail, as if reminded of his own incendiary activities in Lanka. He was followed by the monkey throng, chattering and shouting with joy; they reached the marigold stage a couple of hundred yards before the three main swaroops. Hanuman, who today was even redder, plumper and jollier than he had been yesterday, leapt on to the stage, hopped, skipped, and danced for a few seconds, then jumped off. Now Bharat understood that Rama and Lakshman were approaching the river Saryu and the city of Ayodhya, and he too began to move towards the stage along the lane from the other side.

  15.11

  And then suddenly Rama’s procession stopped, and the sound of other drums was heard together with cries of terrible grief and lamentation. A group of about twenty men accompanied by drummers was trying to cut across the procession in order to get to the Imambara with their tazia. Some were beating their breasts in sorrow for Imam Hussain; in the hands of others were chains and whips tipped with small knives and razor blades with which they lashed themselves mercilessly in jerky, compulsive motions. They were an hour and a half behind time—their drummers had turned up late, they had got into a scuffle with another tazia procession—and now they were trying to push forward as fast as they could, desperate to get to their destination. It was the ninth night of Moharram. In the distance they could just make out the spire of th
e Imambara lit up with a string of lights. They moved forward, tears coursing down their cheeks—

  ‘Ya Hassan! Ya Hussain!’ ‘Ya Hassan! Ya Hussain!’ ‘Hassan! Hussain!’ ‘Hassan! Hussain!’

  ‘Bhaskar,’ said Veena to her son, who had grabbed her hand—Go home at once. At once. Where’s Daadi?—’

  ‘But I want to watch—’

  She slapped him once, hard, across his monkey-face. He looked at her unbelievingly, then, crying, backed out of the lane.

  Kedarnath had moved forward to talk to the two policemen accompanying the tazia procession. Not caring what her neighbours might think, she went up to him, caught his hands in her own, and said:

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  ‘But there’s trouble here—I’d better—’

  ‘Bhaskar’s ill.’

  Kedarnath, torn between two anxieties, nodded.

  The two policemen accompanying the tazia-bearers tried to clear a path for them, but this was too much for the people of Misri Mandi, the citizens of the holy city of Ayodhya who had waited so long and devotedly for a sight of Lord Rama.

  The policemen realized that what would have been a safe path an hour previously was no longer safe. They ordered, then pleaded with the tazia procession to change its route, to halt, to go back, but to no avail. The desperate mourners thrust forward through the joyous celebrators.

  This atrocious and violent interruption—this lunatic mourning that made a mockery of the enactment of Shri Ramachandra ji returning to his home, his brothers, his people, to establish his perfect reign—was not to be borne. The monkeys, who had just been leaping about in uncontrollable joy, angrily threw flowers on to the tazia, shouted and growled aggressively, and then stood threateningly around the intruders who were attempting to force themselves across the path of Rama, Sita and Lakshman.

  The actor playing Rama himself moved forward in a motion that was half aggressive, half propitiatory.