A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

  Lata was silent for a minute. Malati expected her to burst into tears of relief or frustration, but no tears came. Then she said: ‘I won’t. But Malu, don’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I do, I do. Poor fellow—he was entirely sincere all along.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Lata. ‘Don’t. Don’t. I’m glad Kabir wasn’t lying to you—I can’t tell you how glad. But I’ve—well, I’ve learned something as a result of all this wretchedness—I have, Malu, I really have—about myself—and about, well, the strength of—really, the strangeness of my own feelings for him.’

  Her voice seemed to come from a no-man’s-land between hope and despair.

  18.8

  Professor Mishra, frustrated that he had not got Pran to withdraw either his application for the readership or his harebrained schemes of syllabus reform, was grateful nevertheless that things were not going at all well for his father. Opinion in the press was strongly critical of the means deployed by his opponents, but on the question of whether he would win or lose the election, most people were agreed that he had almost certainly lost. Professor Mishra took a lively interest in politics, and almost all his informants told him that he should work on the assumption that Pran’s father would not be in a position to wield much power to undo or avenge any injustice done to his son in the matter of the readership.

  Professor Mishra was also pleased that he would know this fact for certain by the time the selection committee met. Counting in Mahesh Kapoor’s constituency was due to be held on the 6th of February, and the selection committee was to meet on the 7th. He would thus be secure in the knowledge that he could safely stiletto the young lecturer who was proving to be such an obstacle in the smooth running of the department.

  At the same time, since one of the prospective candidates, and by no means the worst one, was the nephew of the Chief Minister, Professor Mishra could ingratiate himself further in the eyes of S.S. Sharma by helping him out in this small particular. And Professor Mishra expected that when any committee assignments in the government, particularly—but not necessarily—in the field of education, opened up, the name of the by-then-retired Professor O.P. Mishra would be considered in a not unfavourable light by the reigning powers.

  What if S.S. Sharma were called to Delhi, as it was rumoured that Nehru had not merely requested but virtually demanded of him? Professor Mishra reflected that it was not likely that even Nehru would succeed in dislodging so wily a politician as S.S. Sharma from his happy fief. And if he were to go and take charge of a ministry in Delhi, well, plums could fall from Delhi too, not merely from the Secretariat at Brahmpur.

  What if S.S. Sharma went to Delhi and Mahesh Kapoor became Chief Minister in Brahmpur? This prospect was horrible, but it was utterly remote. Everything was against it: the scandal surrounding his son, his own recent widowerhood, the fact that his political credibility would be damaged as soon as it was known and published that he had lost his own seat. Nehru liked him, it was true; and was particularly impressed by his work on the Zamindari Act. But Nehru was not a dictator, and the Congress MLAs of Purva Pradesh would elect their own Chief Minister.

  That it would be the great, baggy, faction-ridden Congress Party that would continue to run the country and the state was by now entirely clear. Congress, riding high on the popularity of Jawaharlal Nehru, was in the process of winning a landslide across the country. True, the party was garnering less than half the actual vote nationwide. But opposition to Congress was so fragmented and disorganized in most constituencies that it looked—from all the early returns—that Congress would be first-past-the-post in about three-quarters of the parliamentary seats, and in about two-thirds of the seats in the various state legislatures.

  That Mahesh Kapoor’s candidacy had collapsed for personal and special reasons relating to his constituency and his family, including the great popularity of the man whose agent he was seen to be opposing, would not help him after the elections. If anything, he would be seen to be one of the exceptional electoral failures in a sea of successes. Sympathy for losers counts for little in politics. Mahesh Kapoor would, Professor Mishra devoutly hoped, be finished; and his upstart, Joyce-loving, professor-baiting son would come to realize in due course that he had no future prospects in this department—any more than his younger brother had in civilized society.

  And yet—and yet—could anything go wrong in Professor Mishra’s plans? The five-person selection committee included himself (as Head of Department); the Vice-Chancellor of the university (who chaired the committee); the Chancellor’s nominee (who happened that year to be a distinguished but rather feeble retired professor of history); and two outside experts from the panel of experts approved by the Academic Council. Professor Mishra had looked carefully through the panel and chosen two names, which the Vice-Chancellor had accepted without discussion or demur. ‘You know what you are doing,’ he had told Professor Mishra encouragingly. Their interests lay in the same direction.

  The two experts, who at this moment were travelling from different directions to Brahmpur, were Professor Jaikumar and Dr Ila Chattopadhyay. Professor Jaikumar was a mild-mannered man from Madras, whose specialism was Shelley, and who, unlike that volatile and fiery spirit, believed firmly in the stability of the cosmos and the absence of intra-departmental friction. Professor Mishra had taken him around the department on the day when Pran had had his fortuitous collapse.

  Dr Ila Chattopadhyay would present no problem; she was beholden to Professor Mishra. He had sat on the committee that had made her a university reader some years ago, and he had immediately afterwards and on numerous subsequent occasions emphasized to her how instrumental he had been in the process. He had praised her work on Donne with great unctuousness and assiduity. He was certain that she would be compliant. When her train arrived at Brahmpur Station he was there to meet her and escort her to the Brahmpur University guest house.

  On the way he tried to veer the conversation prematurely around to the next day’s business. But Dr Ila Chattopadhyay did not appear to be at all keen to discuss the various candidates beforehand, which disappointed Professor Mishra. ‘Why don’t we wait till the interviews?’ she suggested.

  ‘Quite so, quite so, dear lady, that is just what I would have suggested myself. But the background—I was sure you would appreciate being informed about—ah, here we are.’

  ‘I am so exhausted,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay, looking around. ‘What a horrible place.’

  There should have been nothing exceptionally horrible about the room to one who had been to such places often before, but it was indeed fairly depressing, Professor Mishra had to agree. The university guest house was a dark series of rooms connected by a corridor. Instead of carpets there was coir matting, and the tables were too low to write at. A bed, two chairs, a few lights that did not work well, a tap that was over-generous with water even when turned off, and a flush that was miserly with it even when tugged violently: these were some of the appurtenances. As if to compensate for this, there was a great deal of dingy and unnecessary lace hanging everywhere: on the windows, on the lampshades, on the backs of the chairs.

  ‘Mrs Mishra and I would be delighted if you would come for dinner to our place,’ murmured Professor Mishra. ‘The facilities for dining here are, well, adequate at best.’

  ‘I’ve eaten,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay, shaking her head vigorously. ‘And I’m really exhausted. I need to take an aspirin and go straight to bed. I’ll be on that wretched committee tomorrow, don’t worry.’

  Professor Mishra went off, rather perturbed by Dr Ila Chattopadhyay’s extraordinary attitude.

  If it had not been open to misconstruction he would have invited her to stay at his house. When Professor Jaikumar arrived, he did precisely that.

  ‘This is extremely—infinitely kind,’ said Professor Jaikumar.

  Professor Mishra winced, as he almost invariably did when talking to his colleague. Professor Jaikumar had prefixed a ‘y’ to both adverbs. The Mask of Yena
rchy! thought Professor Mishra.

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ he assured his guest blandly. ‘You are the repository of the future stability of our department, and the least we can do is to make you welcome.’

  ‘Yes, welcome, welcome,’ said Mrs Mishra meekly and rapidly, doing namaste.

  ‘I am sure you have looked through the candidates’ applications and so on,’ said Professor Mishra jovially.

  Professor Jaikumar looked very slightly surprised. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said.

  ‘Well, if I may just indicate a couple of lines of thought that might smoothen the process tomorrow and make everyone’s task easier—’ began Professor Mishra. ‘A sort of foretaste, as it were, of the proceedings. Merely to save time and bother. I know you have to catch the seven o’clock train tomorrow night.’

  Professor Jaikumar said nothing. Courtesy and propriety struggled in his breast. Professor Mishra took his silence for acquiescence, and continued. Professor Jaikumar nodded from time to time but continued to say nothing.

  ‘So—’ said Professor Mishra finally.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, most helpful,’ said Professor Jaikumar. ‘Now I am forewarned and forearmed for the interviews.’ Professor Mishra flinched at the last word. ‘Yes—most helpful,’ continued Professor Jaikumar in a non-committal manner. ‘Now I must do a little puja.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Professor Mishra was taken aback by this sudden piety. He hoped it was not a purificatory rite.

  18.9

  A little before eleven the next morning the committee gathered in the glum-panelled and well-appointed office of the Vice-Chancellor. The Registrar was present too, though not as a participant. A few of the candidates were already waiting in the anteroom outside. After some tea and biscuits and cashew nuts and a little casual social chit-chat, the Vice-Chancellor looked at his watch and nodded at the Registrar. The first candidate was brought in.

  Professor Mishra had not been feeling entirely happy about the way preliminary matters were going. Apart from Dr Ila Chattopadhyay, who had continued in her abrupt vein this morning, there was something else that was bothering him. He did not yet know for certain what had happened to Pran’s father. He knew that for some reason the counting had not finished by the time of the local news bulletin on the radio the previous evening, for if it had, the name of the winning candidate would have been announced. But that was all he knew, and he had not been able to get in touch with his own informant. He had left instructions at home that he was to be called as soon as any news on the matter was received. Any excuse would do; and if necessary the information could be noted down, sealed in an envelope, and sent in to him. There would be nothing unusual in this. The Vice-Chancellor himself, who was—and took pride in being seen to be—a busy man, was forever interrupting committee meetings by taking telephone calls, and indeed sometimes signing letters that peons brought in.

  The interviews went on. The clear February sunlight pouring through the window helped dissipate the grand but dampening atmosphere of the office. The interviewees—thirteen men and two women, all of them lecturers, were, for the most part, treated not as colleagues but as supplicants by the Vice-Chancellor; the nephew of the Chief Minister, on the other hand, was treated with excessive deference by both him and Professor Mishra. Every so often a telephone call would interrupt the proceedings. At one point Dr Ila Chattopadhyay found it necessary to say:

  ‘Vice-Chancellor, can’t you take your phone off the hook?’

  The Vice-Chancellor looked absolutely amazed.

  ‘My dear lady,’ said Professor Mishra.

  ‘We have travelled a very considerable distance to be here,’ said Dr Ila Chattopadhyay. ‘At least two of us have. These selection committees are a duty, not a pleasure. I haven’t seen one decent candidate so far. We are due to go back tonight, but I’m not sure we will be able to at this rate. I do not see why our torment should be further prolonged by these endless interruptions.’

  Her outburst had its effect. For the next hour, the Vice-Chancellor told whoever called that he was in the middle of an urgent meeting.

  Lunch was served in a room adjoining the Vice-Chancellor’s office, and a little academic gossip was exchanged. Professor Mishra begged leave to go home. One of his sons was not very well, he said. Professor Jaikumar looked a little surprised.

  Once home, Professor Mishra phoned his informant.

  ‘What is the matter, Badri Nath?’ he said impatiently. ‘Why have you not got in touch with me?’

  ‘Because of George the Sixth, of course.’

  ‘What are you talking about? George the Sixth is dead. Don’t you listen to the news?’

  ‘Well, there you are.’ There was a cackle at the other end.

  ‘I can’t get any sense out of you, Badri Nath ji. Yes, I have heard you. George the Sixth is dead. I know that. I heard it on the news, and all the flags are at half-mast. But what does that have to do with me?’

  ‘They’ve stopped the counting.’

  ‘They can’t do that!’ exclaimed Professor Mishra. This was madness.

  ‘Yes—they can. They began the counting late—I think the DM’s jeep broke down—so they didn’t finish it by midnight. And at midnight they suspended the counting. All over the country. As a mark of respect.’ The thought struck Badri Nath as droll, and he cackled again.

  It did not strike Professor Mishra as being in the least droll. The former King-Emperor of India had no business dying at a time like this.

  ‘How far did they get in the counting?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Badri Nath.

  ‘Well, find out, please. And tell me the trend.’

  ‘What trend?’

  ‘Can’t you at least tell me who’s ahead in the race?’

  ‘There’s no ahead or behind in this, Mishraji. They don’t count the vote polling station by polling station. They count all the boxes of the first candidate first, and then go on down the line.’

  ‘Oh.’ Professor Mishra’s head had begun to throb.

  ‘Don’t worry, though—he’s lost. Take it from me. All my sources say so. I guarantee it,’ said Badri Nath.

  Professor Mishra wanted with all his heart to believe him. But some gnawing little doubt prompted him to say: ‘Please call me at four o’clock at the Vice-Chancellor’s office. His number is 623. I must know what is happening before we begin our discussion of the candidates.’

  ‘Who would have thought it!’ said Badri Nath, laughing. ‘The English still run our lives.’

  Professor Mishra put down the phone. ‘Where is my lunch?’ he said coldly to his wife.

  ‘You said that you—’ she began, then saw the look on his face. ‘I’ll just get something ready,’ she said.

  18.10

  Pran’s interview was scheduled for the early afternoon. The Vice-Chancellor asked him the usual questions about the relevance of teaching English in India. Professor Jaikumar asked him a careful question about Scrutiny and F.R. Leavis. Professor Mishra asked tenderly after his health and fussed about the onerous burdens of academia. The old history professor who was the Chancellor’s nominee said nothing at all.

  It was with Dr Ila Chattopadhyay that Pran got along really well. She drew him out on the subject of The Winter’s Tale, one of Pran’s favourite plays, and they both got carried away, talking freely of the implausibilities of the plot, the difficulties of imagining, let alone performing, some of the scenes, and the absurd and deeply moving climax. They both thought it should be on every syllabus. They agreed with each other violently and disagreed with each other pleasurably. At one point Dr Chattopadhyay told him outright that he was talking nonsense, and Professor Mishra’s troubled face wreathed itself in a smile. But even if she thought that the point Pran had just made was nonsense, it was obviously very stimulating nonsense; her attention was entirely engaged in rebutting it.

  Pran’s interview—or, rather, his conversation with her—lasted twice as long a
s the time allotted to him. But, as Dr Chattopadhyay remarked, some of the other candidates had been disposed of in five minutes, and she looked forward to other candidates of Pran’s calibre.

  By four o’clock the interviews were over, and they broke off for a short tea break. The peon who brought in the tea was not deferential to anyone except the Vice-Chancellor. This irked Professor Mishra, whose afternoon tea was usually sweetened by a little cringing.

  ‘You are looking very pensive, Professor Mishra,’ said Professor Jaikumar.

  ‘Pensive?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Well, I was wondering why it was that Indian academics publish so little. So few of our candidates have worthwhile publications to their name. Dr Chattopadhyay, of course, is a remarkable exception. Many moons ago, my dear lady,’—he turned towards her—‘I remember how impressed I was by reading your work on the Metaphysicals. That was long before I sat on the committee which—’

  ‘Well, we’re neither of us young now,’ interrupted Dr Ila Chattopadhyay, ‘and neither of us has published anything of worth in the last ten years. I wonder why that is.’

  While Professor Mishra was still recovering from this remark, Professor Jaikumar put forth an explanation which caused him a different kind of pain. ‘Our typical young university teacher,’ he began, ‘is overworked when he is junior—he has to teach yelementary prose and compulsory Yinglish. If he is yinnately conscientious, he has no time for yennything else. By then the fire is out—’

  ‘If it was ever there,’ added Dr Ila Chattopadhyay.

  ‘—and the family is growing up, yemoluments are small, and making yends meet is a problem. Luckily,’ added Professor Jaikumar, ‘my wife was yeconomical in her habits, and I got the opportunity to go to Yingland and that is how I managed to develop my yinterest in Shelley.’

  Professor Mishra, his mind distracted by Professor Jaikumar’s almost instinctive choice of words beginning with dangerous vowels, said: ‘Yes, but I really fail to see why, once we have riper academic experience and more leisure—’