A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

The flavour of these few minutes was so startlingly different from those other great performances that Ishaq was enraptured. He closed his eyes, and the room ceased to exist; and then, after a while, himself; and finally even the singer.

None of them worked, but each had an occupation.

It was an intelligent family where everyone thought of everyone else as an idiot.

Mrs Rupa Mehra thrived on worrying. One of the marvellous by-products of Savita’s marriage was a whole new family to worry about.

a man who in his friendships and acquaintance looked upon religion and nationality as both significant and irrelevant,

‘But, Mago, we still have some time left to settle the matter,’ said Dipankar, who always deferred whatever he could and left the rest undecided.

‘What is it like to write a novel?’ asked Lata after a pause. ‘Don’t you have to forget the “I” or the “one”—?’ ‘I don’t know exactly,’ said Amit. ‘This is my first novel, and I’m in the process of finding out. At the moment it feels like a banyan tree.’ ‘I see,’ said Lata, though she didn’t. ‘What I mean is,’ continued Amit, ‘it sprouts, and grows, and spreads, and drops down branches that become trunks or intertwine with other branches. Sometimes branches die. Sometimes the main trunk dies, and the structure is held up by the supporting trunks. When you go to the Botanical Garden you’ll see what I mean. It has its own life—but so do the snakes and birds and bees and lizards and termites that live in it and on it and off it. But then it’s also like the Ganges in its upper, middle and lower courses—including its delta—of course.’

Hard not to see this as a description of Seth’s own novel.

Bajpai had caught hold of Maan’s right hand and was examining it carefully. ‘One wife. Some wealth,’ he said. ‘As for the line of wisdom. . . .’ ‘. . . it seems not to exist.’ Maan finished the sentence for him and smiled.

‘Everyone has tragedy,’ he said. ‘But Krishna had joy. The secret of life is to accept. Accept happiness, accept sorrow; accept success, accept failure; accept fame, accept disgrace; accept doubt, even accept the impression of certainty.

Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.

He had come to a decision about the next step in his life. This decision was irrevocable unless he changed his mind.

‘1952: how new it seems. As if each digit were polished.’

The meeting has dispersed; the moths Bid farewell to the candle-light. Departure’s hour is on the sky. Only a few stars mark the night. What has remained will not remain: They too will quickly disappear. This is the world’s way, although we, Lost to the world, lie sleeping here.

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